who in the past generations suffered all the nations to go in their own ways,
Paul and Barnabas are at Lystra. A crippled man has just been healed, and the crowd is sure that gods have come down in human form. The apostles tear their clothes and rush in to stop the sacrifice. Their answer to that crowd holds a startling summary of world history: for long ages God let the nations go their own way. Was He indifferent to them? And what has changed now?
These words look back a long way. Commentators point to the call of Abraham as the moment the split began.
The call of Abram marks a solemn turning point in the history of the world... God turned away from a world that had abandoned Him and chose one man to become the father of a people. The nations around them served empty lies. This people's own glory was to know and worship the true and only God. Meanwhile He left the other nations to their own dishonoured way. (Acts 14:16)
Paul pays no compliment to the religion he found at Lystra. Look at the gods the crowd wanted to honour.
How different this is from the vileness of a Jupiter or a Mercury — one god given to corruption and self-will, the other given to stealing! Was this the best religion and morality the pagans had, making gods just like themselves? Such a being is certainly not the true God. Who can deny that it was all empty, even in the minds of the most civilized and refined of the Gentiles?
God let the nations go, but He did not abandon them. One writer sets what God gave then beside what He sends now.
Who could deny that in the generations gone by He allowed the nations to go on in their own ways? Yet He had shown active goodness to every land and every age. His generous gifts from heaven cover the otherwise barren earth with every good thing for man's life and heart. So when He now sends the gospel about His Son, is that not fully in keeping with the same goodness?
God's witness leaves people answerable for what they received. One writer turns the usual question about the heathen back on the person asking it.
The Christian world is used to debating what divine justice holds for the poor heathen. God will certainly judge them by the witness they received, the witness through which they could have known Him (Acts 14:15-17). But we never hear the Christian world asking about the fate awaiting itself.
The whole force of the verse lies in its past tense. Those generations ended, and God's dealing with the nations changed.
Here the apostle keeps to one point. God did not bring judgment on those times of terrible and inexcusable ignorance. In His goodness He overlooked the past, and now He calls people to repentance... The rejected Christ has now died as propitiation and has been raised. He Himself marks the change that has come: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations"; "Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation."
Paul did not use one fixed speech. He matched his opening to the people in front of him.
So at Lystra, among ignorant pagans, we find him speaking of the goodness of the living God in giving men fruitful seasons, filling their hearts with food and gladness (Acts 14:15-17). At Athens, among learned pagans, we hear him insisting on the oneness and supremacy of the Creator... With pagans he felt he had to begin at the very lowest rung of the ladder of truth.
- Left — at the call of Abraham, God chose one family to keep the knowledge of Himself. He let the other nations follow their own dishonoured way.
- Witnessed — leaving was not abandoning. Rain and fruitful seasons carried His witness through every land and age.
- Accountable — God judges people by the light they were given. The harder question is not about the heathen, but about those who have the gospel and neglect it.
- Called — those past generations are over. The risen Christ has sent the message to all nations, and what God once overlooked He now meets with a call to repentance.
- Reached — with ignorant pagans Paul began on the lowest rung of the ladder: creation and daily bread. He fitted his starting point to his hearers.
though indeed he did not leave himself without witness, doing good, and giving to you from heaven rain and fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with food and gladness.
A crowd at Lystra had just mistaken Paul and Barnabas for gods, and the two men answered by pointing to rain, harvests and full tables. How far does daily provision count as a message from God, and what does it leave people answerable for?
Paul had no fixed sermon he repeated everywhere. He shaped what he said to the people in front of him.
What is notable, especially for all those engaged in the work of the Lord, is the variety in the character of the apostolic addresses. There was no such stiffness as we often find in preaching today. What monotony! What sameness of routine, no matter who is listening! In Scripture we find people dealt with as they were, with the appeal to conscience that suited their state. The discourse in the synagogue was founded on the Jewish Scriptures. Here, to these men of Lycaonia, there is no reference to the Old Testament at all. He points plainly to what everyone sees and knows: the heavens above them, the seasons that God has assigned from of old, and the constant supply of good things He provides in nature. Even the hardest heart can hardly miss it.
What Paul told them about God was new, though the evidence had arrived every year of their lives.
They owed the God he preached their rain from heaven, and the fruitful seasons which had so often gladdened their hearts. A God they did not know, and had never served, was thinking of them year after year, caring for them and providing for them. No religion in the heathen world would have taught them that.
That God fills hearts with gladness overturns the whole picture of the gods the Lystrans worshipped.
That the gods are envious of human gladness was the lie and curse of paganism. Not such is He who made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that is in them. Who could deny that in past generations He let the nations go their own way? He had shown active goodness to all lands and all times. His generous gifts from heaven cover the otherwise barren earth with every good thing for man's life and heart. So when He sent the gospel concerning His Son, was that not fully in keeping with such goodness?
The witness is not one event but a rhythm.
As Creator and Governor of the universe, God delights to lavish His gifts on people, despite their unworthiness and ingratitude. "The LORD is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made" (Ps. 145:9)... The seasons come and go with a regularity that stands as lasting evidence of God's gracious interest in His creatures.
One writer sets this open care beside a hidden way God works.
We may consider the providence of God in two ways. In the first, people have the public spectacle before their eyes every day. This providence is on unmistakable display, as the apostle says here. The second providence is hidden in its ways and purpose. People can only recognise it by its final result.
The gifts had a purpose beyond the enjoyment they brought.
Still His goodness was meant, if it might be so, to lead them to repentance. And it is this goodness of His that the apostle refers to as God's perpetual witness in all times and lands.
When people did not answer that kindness, the fault lay in the human heart, not in a silent God.
He does not tell us that any poor heathen ever felt after God like a blind man groping in the dark. But He does let us know why. If it did not happen, the only cause was the deep-rooted hostility of the human heart towards God. By the abundant expression of His goodness He was drawing him to seek Him. By nature people think God is hard, severe and demanding. Even by His providence He convicts everyone of how wicked and wilful those thoughts are. He is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.
The verse still tests us, down to the meal table.
Has anyone acknowledged His hand? How many homes in this so-called Christian England gave thanks at the meal table today? The old-fashioned "grace" is dying out, in keeping with the growing unbelief of our time. If people fail to own God in His lesser gifts, what is their attitude towards the immense gift of His Son?
- Witness — God has never gone silent. Rain, harvests and full hearts are His testimony in every land and age.
- Goodness — the witness is not power on display but active kindness. It contradicts the idea of gods who resent human happiness.
- Reach — this testimony is public and daily, open to anyone. God's other work stays hidden until its final result.
- Aim — the kindness was meant to lead people to repentance. Where it failed, the fault lay in a heart hostile to God, not in a lack of evidence.
- Response — if we will not thank God for rain and food, His smaller gifts, we are unlikely to value His greatest one, His Son.