Seven Churches-Seven Spirits

John,
To the seven churches in the province of Asia:
Grace and peace to you from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before his throne,
Revelation 1:4

John was in exile writing from a small island called Patmos about 36 miles off the western coast of the province of Asia Minor. He received a revelation of Jesus and from Jesus while there. He wrote it down and sent it to seven major churches of Asia Minor: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea.

These seven cities were each located about 50 miles apart in a clockwise circuit starting in Ephesus. John’s letter would have likely been delivered from church to church in this circuit. If you can imagine an oval shaped clock where 9 and 3 are closer than 12 and 6. The circuit would have been as follows starting with Ephesus on the western coast of Asia Minor: Ephesus (at 9 o’clock), Smyrna (at 10 o’clock), Pergamum (at 11 o’clock), Thyatira (at 12 o’clock), Sardis (at 1 o’clock), Philadelphia (at 2 o’clock) and Laodicea (at 3 o’clock).

The number seven is a significant biblical number. Seven is a number of perfection and completion. Jesus intended that this revelation be sent not only to the seven churches of Asia Minor but also to the Church as a whole.

This is also the first of several reverences to the seven spirits or the seven Spirits of God (sometimes translated as the sevenfold Spirit).

“To the angel of the church in Sardis write: These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God…
Revelation 3:1

From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder. In front of the throne, seven lamps were blazing. These are the seven spirits of God.
Revelation 4:5

This doesn’t mean that the Holy Spirit is seven spirits. This is more of a reference to the Holy Spirit’s presence in each of the seven churches. Each believer has the Holy Spirit in them but that doesn’t mean there are 2 billion Holy Spirits. Again, the number seven points to the perfection or holiness of the Spirit of God. It’s also an allusion to the sevenfold characteristics of the Spirit of God mentioned in Isaiah 11:

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
    from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
The (1)Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
    the (2)Spirit of wisdom and of (3)understanding,
    the (4)Spirit of counsel and of (5)might,
    the (6)Spirit of the knowledge and (7)fear of the Lord—
Isaiah 11:1-2

The Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of your Father, the Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of holiness, the Spirit of Truth, the sevenfold Spirit, the seven Spirits of God are all different references in the New Testament to the one and only Holy Spirit. They are just different names–different ways of describing who the Spirit is and what characteristics He has.

Praying in the Spirit

But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.
Jude 1:20-21

One way to build ourselves up and keep ourselves in God’s love is to pray in the Spirit. Paul mentions to the Ephesians that praying in the Spirit is one of our spiritual weapons as we put on the full armor of God (Ephesians 6:18).

What does it mean to pray in the Spirit?

I believe praying in the Spirit means that we are submitting to the guidance of the Holy Spirit as we pray. It is going beyond a list of petitions and into a kind of praying that hears from and connects to the Holy Spirit. This includes praying in tongues and normal intercession. Both can be forms of praying in the Spirit.

When teaching the Corinthian church about tongues, Paul writes:

For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to God. Indeed, no one understands them; they utter mysteries by the Spirit… Anyone who speaks in a tongue edifies themselves…
1 Corinthians 14:2, 4

So we know that there is a self-edification, a building up, that happens when a person is praying to God in tongues. It has a way of supernaturally strengthening the spirit of the one praying. I have experienced this firsthand.

Do you know that feeling of connection and intimacy that you have with the Lord after a great worship service, a great sermon, a long prayer walk in the woods, or time in solitude with the Lord on the beach? Most of the time it takes time for our minds to calm and our spirits to begin to connect with the Lord. But after a while, there is a intimacy we feel with Jesus. We begin to feel the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Now imagine it took about half an hour to go from “normal life” to that sense of real intimacy with the Lord. What happens with tongues is that it takes you to that place of intimacy in 30 seconds rather than 30 minutes. This is why it is listed as one of the gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12:10. It’s a great tool to have.

Tongues quickly draws you into the supernatural Presence of God, which is why it is so edifying for the person who is praying in tongues. It’s also really useful when you need to pray for someone, and you need to connect with the Lord to hear from Him, but you don’t have an hour to soak in His Presence.

But this isn’t the only way to pray in the Spirit. Paul encourages the Corinthian Christians to pray in tongues and to pray with their mind.

For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my understanding; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my understanding.
1 Corinthians 14:14-15

So when we pray in the Spirit by praying in tongues, it is as if our spirit partners with the Holy Spirit and takes the lead. We don’t understand what we are praying, but there is a building up happening in our soul and spirit. When we pray in the Spirit by praying with our mind, it is as if our mind partners with the Holy Spirit and our thoughts are led by the Spirit.

Jude advises us that if we want to keep our faith strong and keep ourselves in God’s love, then we need to regularly be praying in the Spirit.

Contending For The Faith

Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people. For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord…
In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.
In the very same way, on the strength of their dreams these ungodly people pollute their own bodies…
Jude 1:3-4, 7-8

Jude wanted to write to the church a message about the salvation that we share in Christ. Instead, because he saw an insidious kind of corruption and theology seeping into the church, he encouraged the believers to contend for the faith that had been handed down to them.

He saw a teaching slipping into the church community through people who were perverting God’s grace into a license for immorality. They were also rejecting Jesus alone as Christ and Lord. Sound familiar? It seems as though the same false teachings just get repackaged and reused in future generations. The enemy isn’t creative.

Jude mentions that the perversion of homosexuality and the sexual immorality of promiscuity and rape that made Sodom and Gomorrah infamous were the kinds of things that these false teachers were getting into. This is how they were abusing grace to be a license for immorality. They were spreading the lie that grace allowed them to participate in such things. Jude makes clear, however, that this sexual license was polluting their bodies.

Jude has a lot of colorful metaphors to describe these false teachers:

shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted—twice dead. They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.
Jude 1:12-13

Unfortunately, today we are much more accepting of these sorts of teachings in the church. We don’t have such colorful metaphors describing this sort of teaching and people who promote these ideas. We simply call it liberal protestant theology.

The truth is that grace empowers us to be set free from sin; it doesn’t keep us trapped in sin with a bonus get-out-of-jail-free card. The truth is that Jesus alone is Lord! He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. This is the Christian faith that was once and for all entrusted to us by the earliest believers. This is the faith we hold to despite the cultural milieu of our day.

Soul Health

Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.
3 John 1:2

We get a more literal translation from the New American Standard Bible which says, “Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers.” This is John’s prayer for his good friend Gaius.

The Bible is not advocating the prosperity gospel here, nor am I. The prosperity gospel falsely declares that if you live in faith all will go well with your life. This is a shallow and deceptive teaching that needs to be eradicated from the Church. But too often, in our attempts to hunt down the heresy of the prosperity gospel, we throw out the good with the bad.

It is clear from this passage of scripture that God wants us praying for good health, financial provision, and emotional health (“soul prosperity”). These are things we should be praying for in our own lives and in the lives of others. These are things God wants for us, as any good father would for his children, he just doesn’t want these things to replace Him as the primary focus of our lives. “But seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness, and all things things will be given to you as well“(Matthew 6:33).

I find it interesting that emotional health here is tied so strongly to financial health and physical health. This passage seems to reveal one of the truths of the Kingdom of God; if our soul is healthy (our emotional health) then there is a better chance the rest of our life will be healthy. People who earn lots of money but don’t have emotional health end up being selfish and reckless with their finances. People who allow stress, worry, anger and fear to rule their hearts and minds will often find physical ailments that follow.

So much of a healthy life flows from a healthy heart and mind.

God Is In Charge

We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true by being in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.
1 John 5:19-20

Passages in the Bible like this one are why I tend to say, “God is in charge” and not “God is in control.” I do believe in the sovereignty of God and that, ultimately, He is in charge. But saying that God is in “control” of everything starts to attribute all the evil in the world to God. John makes clear here in 1 John 5 that “the whole world is under the control of the evil one.” The enemy has his evil tentacles in everything.

This truth is why I don’t understand when people equate “born this way” with “it must be God’s will.” If sin has infected all of creation (Romans 8:20-21) and if the enemy has his evil tentacles in everything, why would we assume that things can’t go wrong in the womb?

Lots of things go wrong in the womb, and we shouldn’t attribute them to God. Miscarriages happen, still births happen, kids are born with cancer and other life-threatening diseases. None of this is God. This is result of the fallenness of creation and the work of the evil one who loves to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10).

We have to separate, “I was born this way,” from, “God intended this for my life.” We were born into a war against an enemy that doesn’t fight fair (Ephesians 6:10-18). And the womb is not some kind of safe “home base” that is precluded from warfare. Am I saying that things happen in this world that God doesn’t want to happen? Absolutely!

How can I say that?

1 Timothy 2:4 says that God our Savior, “wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” This is what God wants. This is His will. And yet, many people don’t come to a knowledge of the truth. Many people aren’t saved. What God wants to happen doesn’t happen. Our sin and the schemes of the enemy resist God’s will. God’s word is sent out but the enemy and the condition of our hearts affect whether that word gets planted and bears fruit. Jesus taught us this through the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:1-23).

Because of the freedom that God has given humanity, He allowed us not to be robots. We have the ability, because of that freedom, to enter into an authentic love relationship with God. But that also means it is possible to resist what God wants. We have misused this good gift of freedom, and it has led to all manner of evil.

All of creation was given this kind of freedom. The natural world has a similar freedom that we were created to have. And because we who were supposed to rule over creation (Genesis 1:28) gave away our authority to the enemy (Genesis 3), the freedom that was given to the natural world has also run amuck (Genesis 3:17-18).

Christians have become way too passive because of a poor understanding of God’s sovereignty in the world. We’ve accepted far too much as “God’s will,” and as a result have both blamed God for evil and embraced that which was not God’s intention as “God’s design.”

This sort of passive spiritual shrug-of-the-shoulders combined with statements full of resignation (like “It is what it is”) reveal how subdued and domesticated the Church has become. This milieu of resignation has left the Church even more vulnerable to attack from our enemy. The more we embrace the enemy’s work as if it is the Lord’s work, the more weak we become.

Overcoming Shame

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
Genesis 3:7-12

Have you ever noticed that humanity swings from shame and guilt about sin to pride and blame about the same sin? We see it start all the way back in the Garden of Eden, and it is still happening today.

Here’s the pattern:

We sin.
We feel guilt about sin. Instead of surrendering to conviction and repentance, shame begins to tell us we are our sin. Shame makes us want to hide.
Then we reach a breaking point with shame and we realize we can’t hide anymore.
Instead of repenting, we pridefully embrace our sin (essentially agreeing with shame that we are our sin) Instead of hiding, we are proud of it. We stop calling it sin. We call it our identity.
We blame others for making us feel ashamed in the first place.

This is the pattern we see with Adam in the Garden. As a pastor I have seen this pattern play out over and over again in every possible sin you can image. Can you see it? Let me give an example. Promiscuity:

We sleep around.
We feel guilt about our sin. But instead of surrendering to conviction and repentance, shame begins to tell us we are our sin. We begin to believe we are promiscuous. That is who we are. Shame makes us want to hide.
Then we reach a breaking point with shame and we realize we can’t hide anymore.
Instead of repenting, we pridefully embrace our sin (essentially agreeing with shame that we are our sin) Instead of hiding, we are proud of it. We stop calling it sin. We call it our identity but with a new name. We call it sexual freedom.
We blame others for making us feel ashamed in the first place. We attack the purity culture and anyone that would disagree with a lifestyle of multiple sexual partners. We call them oppressive and repressive.

We see this same pattern in the LGBTQ community. We see this same pattern with those who battle addiction. I’ve seen men do this when they get caught in infidelity. Over and over again, humanity seems to do the same thing in response to shame.

But the problem is that changing the definition of sin in order to identify with it doesn’t get rid of shame; it partners with shame. Pridefully embracing our sin so as to not feel ashamed anymore is like putting a hard cast over an infected wound. We think we are throwing off the shackles of shame, but really we are just burying it under a thick layer of pride.

You see, shame and pride are both saying the same thing. They are saying, “You are your sin.” Shame calls sin what it really is whereas pride gives sin a new, friendly name. But both declare the same thing, “You are this thing and you will never be anything else.”

This is not how we throw off the shackles of shame! We were never meant to live in shame. We are not our sin! That is not who we are, it is something we’ve done. It is no longer our identity.

To truly get free from shame, we need to repent of our sin and embrace who God says that we are in Christ. We need to hear His words of love and affirmation for us even while we embrace His words of conviction about our sin. When we call sin what it really is, when we name it and reject it as a part of our identity, and when we receive our true identity in Christ, shame has no place to plant its evil roots in our life.

Paul explains it like this:

Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
1 Corinthians 6:9-11

Embracing your sin as your identity will not get rid of shame. It simply covers it with pride. Just as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that,” the same is true of shame. Pride cannot drive out shame; only finding your identity in Christ can do that. Repentance opens us up to receive the perfect love of the Father and hear Him speak to us about who we really are in His eyes.

This Is Love For God

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.
1 John 5:1-5

There is a way to carry out the commands of God that is legalistic, self-righteous, and that comes from a place of performance. This is what we see in the Pharisees. Yet, there is a way to carry out the commands of God that comes from a place of love for God. The opposite of legalism for the Christian is not a life filled with sin and rebellion. The cure for legalism is not licentiousness. We don’t avoid becoming the older son by becoming the prodigal son. The goal is to become like the father (Luke 15:11-32).

John teaches us here in 1 John 5 that love for God looks like following His commands. But unlike the Pharisees, when we live from a place of love the commands of God do not become burdensome. Love for God causes us to want to surrender our whole life to Him and obey everything He tells us to do. Jesus confirms this when he says:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Matthew 11:28-30

When we are living from a place of fear, however, obedience feels like performing in order to avoid punishment. It feels like flexing a muscle and seeing how long we can hold it. But John reminds us:

This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us.
1 John 4:17-19

Living and obeying from a place of loving God starts with receiving His love for us. When we bask in His love for us, we then return love to Him by joyfully obeying Him. We end up wanting to live how He has commanded us to live in the scriptures. We want to do what He has commanded us to do personally. We don’t obey out of fear. We are compelled to obey out of love.

Obedience from a place of fear and performance is worried about what God will do to us if we don’t obey. Obedience from a place of love understands that He is a gracious God, and that it is not Him but instead our disobedience that harms our love relationship with Him. Obedience from a place of love understands that whatever He’s asked of us is the best for His Kingdom. And His Kingdom is what we are seeking first above our own comfort and life-plans (Matthew 6:33). It’s not about us in the end, but about Him.

This mindset is where we find the victory. This is where we overcome the world. The world cannot kill something that’s already been put to death. The world cannot steal something that has already been surrendered into the hands of the Lord. We can trust Him to be faithful as He guides and directs our life.

God is Love

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love.
1 John 4:7-12, 15-16

Here John teaches us about love. This is what we learn:

God is love.
Love comes from God.
Loving others is a sign that we know God.
God showed His love for us by sending His Son Jesus, that we might live through Him.
Our love for God is a response to His love for us. He loved us first.
Out of response to God’s love for us, we should love one another.
God’s definition of love is this: Jesus came and died for us.
The fullness of love is displayed in Jesus’s death and resurrection. Without this at the center, love becomes defined by our own preferences and selfishness.
It is our acknowledgment that Jesus is the Son of God that allows God to come and live in us and allows us to live in God’s love.
Our identity is rooted in God’s love for us (not our performance for Him).

What is clear from this passage is that there is no separation between God’s love and Jesus. We can’t somehow abstractly talk about the fact that “God is love” without also mentioning that “Jesus is Lord” and that Jesus is the “Son of God.” All of this is intricately woven together. Any attempts to separate talk of God’s love from talk of Jesus immediately depart from the biblical definition of love.

There is also this tendency, especially in progressive circles, to remove “God is love” from the context of this whole passage. Likewise, there is a tendency to remove “God is love” from the other New Testament descriptions of God. For example:

God is love (1 John 4:8, 16)
God is holy (1 Peter 1:16; Psalm 99:5,9; Rev 4:8)
God is light (1 John 1:15; John 1:4-5)
God is good (Mark 10:18; Psalm 34:8)
God is faithful (1 Cor 10:13; 2 Thess 3:3)
God is just (1 John 1:9; Hebrews 6:10; Isaiah 61:8)

This list could continue but I think we get the point. In God, these attributes never conflict. Does God bring love to the unloved? Yes. He also brings holiness to the impure parts of our lives. He brings light to the darkness of our lives. He brings goodness to the evil parts of our lives. He is faithful when we are unfaithful (2 Timothy 2:13). He brings justice to the injustices of our lives.

If we want God to love us but we don’t want His holiness, goodness, and light to purify us, then we want some of God but not all of God. It is partial surrender. It is half-hearted faith. He absolutely loves us. God is love. And He loves us enough to want us to get free from our sinful lifestyles that damage our soul. God is holy. God is light. God is just. God is love.

The One In You Is Greater

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world…
You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.
1 John 4:1, 4-6

False prophets and false teachers speak from the viewpoint of the world. It’s easy to gain popularity by ignoring what scripture says and instead teach what the world likes to hear. It’s the quickest way to gain a following on social media. The spirit of falsehood loves a good following.

The good news is that the Holy Spirit in us is greater than the enemy–the one who is in the world. The reason scripture calls Satan the “prince of this world” (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11) and “the ruler of the kingdom of the air” (Ephesians 2:2) is because he has a tremendous influence on cultural norms and society’s views. He exerts an enormous influence on the world through his control of the demonic, which is also why he’s named the “prince of demons” (Mark 3:22; Matthew 9:34; 12:24; Luke 11:15).

While the enemy does have some power, the only authority he has is the authority people give him by believing his lies (Jesus nicknamed Satan the “father of lies” in John 8:44). Originally, humanity was given authority to rule the world (Genesis 1:28-30). Satan tried to steal that authority through deception, and humanity gave it away through sin. It’s why the devil could show Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and say, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to” (Luke 4:6).

Who gave Satan the authority to influence and shape the kingdoms of the world? God? Nope. We did!

And while humanity handed over our authority to the enemy, Jesus got it back through His death and resurrection. It’s why before Jesus ascended He could say, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me”(Matthew 28:18). He became the second Adam (Romans 5:15-17; 1 Corinthians 15:21-22, 45-49) correcting the mistake the first Adam made in giving away our authority. Now, if we have a covenant relationship with Jesus, we receive His delegated authority through the Holy Spirit. The One in us is greater than the one in the world!

We’re now on a mission to take back all that was stolen, restore all that was broken, usher in the Kingdom of God, and counter all the lies with the Spirit of Truth!

Religions of the World

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.
1 John 4:1-3

Do all roads lead to God? Do all religions lead to salvation?

John answers this question clearly and emphatically in 1 John 4. Not every spirit out in the world is from God. Some spirits are from the evil one and are meant to deceive. Some spirits are influencing false teachers and false prophets as a way to lead people astray from the Spirit of God.

So the answer is, “No. All religions don’t lead to salvation. All roads don’t lead to God.” There are not many pathways to God. There is one way to the Father and His name is Jesus (John 14:6).

So how do we know which spirit is which?

John gives us a clear test of discernment. If the spirit acknowledges that Jesus is who He said He is, that Jesus came as God in the flesh, then that spirit is from God. If the spirit does not acknowledge Jesus then it is not from God. When religions of the world reject Jesus for who He really is, they are being influenced and deceived by the spirit of the antichrist (a.k.a. the demonic kingdom of darkness).

That doesn’t mean there isn’t some truth found in the religions of the world that reject Jesus. General revelation is the theological term for how God has revealed Himself through the natural world, through the everyday things of life. Many religions pick up on these sorts of truths. But what makes deception powerful is when it is truth mixed with error. And that is what we see in the religions of the world.

The apostle Paul did not look kindly on the religions of the Roman world in his own day. As he looked at the pagan worship of false gods and false idols, he could see the demonic forces behind it. He said:

Do I mean then that food sacrificed to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons.
1 Corinthians 10:19-21

Paul was clear. The Roman worship of Jupiter was not just their form of worshiping God the Father. The Roman worship of Mars was not a replacement for Jesus or the worship of Juno the substitute Holy Spirit. No, their sacrifices to their false gods and false idols were offerings made to demonic powers. While the stone, wooden or golden statues that they called idols were nothing but decoration, Paul understood that there was a demonic power that stood behind each one.

Paul did not go to Athens and say, “I see that some of you grew up worshipping pagan gods. That’s okay. All faiths lead to God.” Here is what he did say. First, he called out their ignorance.

People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.
Acts 17:22-23

Then he implored them to turn away from their religion, which was false, and to Jesus, who is the Truth.

we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.
Acts 17:29-31

In Paul’s mind, proof has been given to “everyone” that Jesus is the way to the Father by His resurrection from the dead. The only proper response is to repent. Repentance is a “command” to “all people everywhere.” The fact that many of Paul’s listeners then scoffed at him did not change his mind about Jesus’s resurrection being the ultimate “proof” of the truth of the gospel.