We're in Acts 19. You know what? I'm not going to deal with this little contraption just yet. Okay. Acts 19. I have a minister friend that's preaching through the Book of Acts right now as well in the evening service and he said to me Friday that he was not enjoying it because it's so redundant. It is fairly redundant. It's essentially the carrying out of the Gospel Commission, Matthew 28, 18 through 20, Acts 1 through 18. And you just see the growth of the kingdom of Jesus Christ from Judea, Samaria, the ends of the earth. But I find that in each book, section, the Holy Spirit will record something else there for us as we're looking at the advance of the Lord Jesus Christ. And what we're going to focus in on in this morning's passage is something of spiritual warfare, spiritual warfare, which is why I thought it would be helpful to read the larger catechism. When we pray, thy kingdom come, I was raised a Roman Catholic, and we prayed the Lord's Prayer, which we called Our Father, every week. And so it's kind of ingrained in my head. We are praying, thy kingdom come, for the kingdom of grace to be advanced, and the kingdom of the devil to be necessarily destroyed, and then the kingdom of glory, or as the catechism puts it, the kingdom of power to come. Thy kingdom come, and he'll reign forever and ever. All right. Acts 19, we'll read 11 through 20 together. Hear the holy word of our holy and perfect God. God was performing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul so that the handkerchiefs or aprons were even carried from his body to the sick and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out. But also some of the Jewish exorcists who went from place to place attempting to name over those who had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus Christ saying, I adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preaches. Seven sons of one Siva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. And the evil spirit answered and said to them, I recognize Jesus, and I know about Paul, but who are you? And the man in whom the evil spirit leapt upon them and subdued all of them and overpowered them, that they fled out of the house naked and wounded. This became known to all, both Jews and Greeks who lived in Ephesus, and fear fell upon them all. And the name of the Lord Jesus was being magnified. Many also of those who had believed kept coming, confessing and disclosing their practices. Many of those who practice magic brought their books together and began burning them in the sight of everyone. And they counted up the price of them and found it 50,000 pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord was growing mightily and prevailing. Amen. God's word may bless it to his glory and the extension of his church and our edification. Let's pray. Our father, you are a holy father, the father of lights, the father of mercies. You're so loving and you're kind. And you're loving and you're kind to wicked and evil people like us. You send your son to die for our sins, that you would restore us, that you'd reconcile us back from the slave market of sin. You break the bonds and change the devil over us. And you'd give us light instead of darkness and life instead of death. It calls us to read these words, Lord God, and not tremble at the sight of the devil, but rather fly to you, Jesus Christ, who are the consummate strong man. We pray this in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. This is one of those passages I'll just say at the outset if I am a series preacher, exegetical book series preacher. In other words, I pick a book and start at verse one and just plow through it. That's my general method rather than topical. I'm not against topicals. They have their right place. But if I were a topical preacher, I would not preach this passage. I'd preach on something I don't know, how to be happy and healthy. I wouldn't look at this. What we're looking, as I say, is at the business of spiritual warfare. And what we have, and the way that I kind of come at a passage, you know if you've been with me more than a week, is I like to look at the big view, the macro view. and then kind of descend down and look at the micro, look at the particulars. So we're going to skim over this, we're going to fly over this passage and see what's going on. It's generally a good method when you study your Bible, try to get a big picture idea. So when you come here, you ask of the passage, well, again, this is not a Bible study, but if I was studying the Bible, I would pray first. God, Holy Spirit, show me. We have the indwelling counselor. This is 1 John 2. Presbyterians believe in the Holy Spirit. We're Trinitarian monotheists. So you ask the Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit, help me understand this word that you inspired. and look for those themes or those doctrines that the Holy Spirit is teaching. Clearly the business of spiritual warfare. And then you have the business of the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. I put it in the bullet, usually I give the title away. The kingdom of Christ triumphs over the kingdom of Satan. I'm not really gonna deal with my own eschatological position, which is amillennialism, whether it's pessimistic or optimistic or those kind of things, or whether you're, Technically, post-millennial is a positive form of amillennialism, but that's another side story. I'm not going to look at that. We're going to look at the business of spiritual warfare. the way that the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ advances through the foolishness of preaching. We're gonna look at when men use the name of Jesus Christ, but they don't possess Jesus Christ, they have no faith, that they're powerless. So nominal Christians, so if I were to make application, a nominal Christian has no power. They name the name of Jesus, but they don't possess Christ. These are the dry branches that Christ speaks about in John 15, one through 10. So, but when we talk about the triumph of Christ over Satan, even though I am three quarters Irish and I struggle with melancholy, which is a sin, I'm exceedingly optimistic about what Christ can do. Now, if you come to me and you're a flaming post-millennial reconstructionist and you know what that means, you and I are going to differ how the victory wins, but we win. Christ wins. We are not losers for being in Jesus Christ. Christ is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. It may look different if you hold a different position, but he wins and we win in him. So we have a clash of these two kingdoms. That's what's going on. The gospel is going forth. The gospelers, the Apostle Paul and his co-laborers, are preaching Jesus. That's what the Bible says. They're going around preaching Christ, preaching the cross, which is a metonym, a figure of the gospel. And every place they go, they're going to preach Jesus to the Jews. They're going to preach the unbelieving Jews. And they're going to preach Jesus to, necessarily, these unbelieving Gentiles. And so these people who are worshipers of Artemis in the Greek and Diana in the Latin, these worshipers of a false god, they represent the other kingdom that's fighting against Christ, and we're fighting against them. So you have the kingdom of Christ triumphing over the kingdom of Satan. Satan. I've framed the sermon somewhat, I understand, in military or martial language. None of the sermon. I know what politically correct means. This will be This sermon is the opposite of anything politically correct. This is why five people in a house cat will listen to me. This is everything I'm about to tell you, the modern society in which we live, it is going to rub them the wrong way. We have one religion, which is the triumphant religion, the religion of Christ, and he triumphs by the cross. We have the whole notion of the devil and everyone else not in Christ, they're being under the power of the devil. None of it's politically correct. And then to frame the Christian faith with military language, again, none of it's politically correct. I would be told I'm utterly wrong. So I want us to come here. Who is the one inspiring this word and framing this whole experience that we have as a spiritual battle? God is. There is a movement nowadays, it's called deconstruction. Have you heard this? Deconstruction. What deconstruction is is a fancy term for unbelief under the guise of reason. This is 1 Corinthians 1. So the wisdom of man, how does God triumph over the wisdom of man? Through the foolishness of the preached gospel, through the foolishness of the cross. It's part of the warfare. So the Bible itself will frame our life as, and I suppose this will show my eschatological position. The Bible calls this age a present what age? Present what? Evil, evil. There are two words in Greek usually translated evil. One is evil, evil, kakos, bad, as opposed to kalos, good, or unclean. So we live in a present evil age. And Paul says, imitate me as I'm imitating Jesus Christ and fight the good what? Fight. So again, flying over this passage, it's a spiritual warfare passage. And there are two sides, and only two sides, doing combat with one another, and that is the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of the devil. And I do realize some well-meaning Christians may say, well, I have a scruple against presenting Jesus who is the Prince of Peace. He is the Prince of Peace. but he is the king of kings and the Lord of lords with a sword on his thigh and he has written on it the word of God. I do realize that sometimes Christians have a scruple against some of the harder things of the Bible. I realize that. However, we should not have a scruple where God is clear. So when the Bible is clear on something and we're more scrupulous than God, what does that mean? We're wrong. And we need to jettison our scruple and confess our sins and hold God's view on the matter. And so that's also part of the spiritual warfare. And what I mean by that, sometimes Christians have a scruple against this, the Christian life being framed as a war, but then there are Christians who say, well, I don't like the whole business of, you know, a wife submitting to her husband. I have a scruple against that. Well, the Bible's clear on that. So we sometimes use our own fallen flesh as the judge against the Word of God. That's also an aspect of the spiritual warfare. Let's be on guard against that. In this particular battle of the spiritual war, we see the Kingdom of Christ combating Again, this would get me in hot water too, if anyone ever listened to my sermon. The false religion of the Ephesians. The false religion of the Ephesians. Again, worshiping this false goddess Artemis. This is what's going on. The gospel of Jesus, the gospel of the cross, is triumphing over all of these various expressions of false religion. That's what's going on. And so I guess there is a common saying, you've heard it, all roads lead to what? You ever heard this? All roads lead to what? Heaven, heaven. Do all roads lead to heaven? No, no. No, all roads don't lead to heaven. Are there many, many gods? And it doesn't really matter what you believe, because if you believe in your God sincerely enough, your God will take you to heaven. Is that true? No, again, just looking at this passage in a macro sense, we see that all roads won't lead to heaven. All gods will not take you to heaven. This passage says, There's only one true and living God, the God of the Bible. This is what will get you in a gym. If you're a Bible-believing, Christ-loving Christian, and you tell people that, they will understand necessarily, well, then you're saying that my gods are no gods. Right. And you're saying that your God is the only God that is right. You're saying that my false prophet is a false prophet and won't take me to heaven. You're saying that Jesus is the way, the truth, the life. No man sees the Father, but through him. That's what you're saying. Is that correct, beloved? That's exactly what we're saying. That's the warfare. That is the warfare. There are no other gods. There's only one God. The Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter five, he's replete in the Bible. The Bible will say, and I hate to say this, but I'm gonna tell you the truth because I'm required to by God. All of those other gods, Artemis, great is Artemis. What is Artemis? Is Artemis a real god? Artemis is a what? A demon. The Bible will say both in the Old Testament and the New Testament. And I was quoting from 1 Corinthians chapter 10. So it's not like the God of the Old Testament is mean and vitriolic and pugnacious, and the God of the New Testament is kind and benevolent. There's one God. That view of harsh God in Old Testament, benevolent God in New Testament is a heresy. It's Marcion, who was a flaming heretic. There's one God, the same yesterday, today, and forever. So when we come here and we look at this. One God who denounces all of the other gods, God calls them, in the passage, evil spirits, or demons, or false gods, or idols. He'll say, your God is a lie in your hand. Again, this is an either or proposition. You're either fighting under the banner of King Christ, or you're fighting against Christ. You either worship the true God, or you worship a demon. Does that make sense? This is not stuff I wake up in the morning and say, boy, I just want to go tell people that your false god is a false god and it's really a demon. Many Christians would rebuke me for saying what I just said, but they're not reading the Bible. It is my view, and I can't quantify it. Many, many, many Christians are not born again. Many Christians are not born again. They're not regenerate. They do not read the Bible. They wouldn't know Jesus from a hole in the wall. And so when they hear these things, they think, Pastor John, what am I, in a Puritan time warp? He's wrong. Look at the passage. The kingdom of Christ is combating the kingdom of the devil. The ones with the clean spirit, the Holy Spirit, are driving out the ones with the evil spirits. That's what's going on. The church needs to recapture the Bible. We need to fear God more than we fear man and serve Christ more than we serve the devil. So that's what's happening. And obviously when we talk about the final victory, to make it really politically correct, why don't I just do this? I'll quote from Psalm 19. All of the other religions of the world, they're false. They are the broad path. This is Matthew chapter 7. This is the Antichrist demonic, satanic, false path. And someday, the God of the Bible, who alone is the true and the living God, says this, the wicked shall be turned into what? All the nations who forget God, the true God, the wicked shall be turned into what? Sheol or hell. That's what's going on. Someday, triumphal Christ will take all of those who have worshiped false gods and the false gods. This is the, Where are the passages in the book of Revelation on the winepress of Christ's wrath? It's Revelation 14, Revelation 19. J.C. Ryle, our brother, is teaching through on Sunday school. J.C. Ryle has a series on the wrath of the Lamb of God, Revelation chapter 6. King Christ wins. So that's what's going on. So macro view. spiritual warfare, but the kingdom of Christ is triumphant against the kingdom of Satan, and that's what's going on. When did the spiritual warfare begin? When did it begin for human beings? When did it begin? It began many, many, many thousands of years ago. I'm a young earth guy. That's another story altogether. But it began thousands and thousands of years ago. So the warfare that we're actually considering, which The business in Ephesus is just one battle of this war is an ancient war. And I would argue it is the most ancient of all wars. And I would argue as well that it is the mother of all wars. I've often said that until Christ comes back, I will have a job and all military and cops will have a job because of the nature of the spiritual warfare. And when we think of the ancient war being the mother of all wars, I would argue this. The war that's going on in Ukraine, with Russia and Ukraine and really the UN fighting Russia, the source of that is from the ancient war. I would argue the culture war that's going on in our country, we are having a culture war. The culture war in our country has also been birthed by that mother war that began thousands of years ago in a beautiful garden. and you know the narrative. This is a Genesis 3, one through eight. On some undisclosed day in time, Satan came disguised as a serpent and he spoke to our first mother. Again, if we're just gonna look at the business of spiritual warfare, why did he talk to the woman and not directly to the guy? Why? The Bible says that the woman is the what? I didn't write the Bible. She's the what? She's the weaker vessel. He wants to, he shoots at Eve because who does he want to get? Adam. He shoots the wife to get the husband because he's the leader, he's the head. And in his case, he's a federal representative, a federal head. This is a Romans chapter five, 1 Corinthians chapter 15. He shoots Eve to get at the first Adam, so he can cause all those who descended from Adam to fall. In Adam's fall, we sinned all. But he comes disguised, and you know the whole narrative. that he comes in, and this is a methodology of what's going on here in our passage. And this is helpful for us. If you think, well, I'm not in a spiritual warfare. Oh, yes, you are. Yes, you are. I'm 59. If you could change, if I could go back, if you asked me, if you asked me 20 years ago, certainly when I was a kid, would I see in America the stuff I see out there? Never in a million years. I grew up in New England. When I was a kid, they didn't have stores open on Sunday. It was a nod to the Fourth Commandment. Forget stores being open on Sunday. Look at our country. It's spiritual warfare. So we're in the culture war. We're in a war. And so it would be helpful for us to understand, again, just in that macro sense, how does this war work? So the devil comes to our first mother, he's disguised in surprise, surprise. The devil doesn't come to us wearing a pitchfork. He doesn't come wearing a red suit. He comes and says, you know what? I'm here to help you. You just don't understand the word of God. He enters into a religious discussion on the Bible, on the word of God. Not everyone that wants to talk religion is on the good team. They're on the other team. And the methodology of the devil is to come disguised, not as your enemy, but as your what? I'm your friend. I'm just here to help. And you just don't understand the Bible. You want to talk about the Bible? As soon as someone comes and says, you want to talk about God's word, and they're gunning at the word of God not being the word of God, you know what I do? Clang. The iron curtain comes down. Clang. When they go, did God really say? Yes, God did really say. I got to go to work. See you later. Bye. That's very unenlightened of me. No, it's not unenlightened of me. It's knowing I'm in a war. And when they say, put down the Bible, let's talk without the Bible. What entity would tell you to put down your weapon? If the devil comes and says, put down your sword, don't put down your sword. So he comes. Now, we know that Adam and Eve are the first casualties in this ancient war, but there was a war before that. There was a war before that, and we're not told a lot about that spiritual war. This is Isaiah 14. Was Satan created as Satan? No. He was created perfect but mutable, like Adam and Eve. That's another sermon. But he was created perfect, and he first was called what? Lucifer. And it means what? Lightbearer. And also another name given to Satan before he fell was Morningstar. Who else is called Morningstar in the Bible? Christ is called Morningstar. It is an amazing thing. So there was a war before we see the warfare against Adam and Eve and against the children of Adam and Eve, us, but it was in the heavenlies. And this is Isaiah 14. So what was found within Satan, Lucifer, such that got him kicked out of heaven? What was found in him? Go ahead, someone say it. Pride. Pride. I know people think sexual sin is the worst sin. Sexual sin is not a good sin. It's a bad sin. It's not as bad as pride. Hookers go to heaven. The word hooker in Greek is porneia. Hookers go to heaven before what kind of folk? Proud folk. Why? Because they're like the devil. Matthew 5 20, your righteousness must be surpassed that of the Pharisees who are proud. And I'm not for being a hooker, immoral, or any of that. But you understand the idea. We like to classify. I am better than you, you lousy porneia. You're a Pharisee. You're Satan-like. You're proud. And Satan had pride in his own heart. He wanted to be above God. He wanted to kill God. He wanted to be God. And that's what got him to be cast out of heaven. He convinced. How he convinced, I don't know. This is the book of Revelation. What percentage of angels did he take with him? One third. Those are the evil spirits in our passage. Those are the unclean spirits in our passage. How the devil got holy, perfect angels to defect from their state of integrity, I do not know. But I know it flows ultimately from pride. I want to be God, I want to be worshipped, and I want to kill God, the real God. And he lost his integrity. So he went from being the light bearer, the morning star, to being the evil one, or the dark one, or the unclean one. And so when we come into our passage and we see these evil spirits, those are demons. Those are the evil ones, the unclean ones. So the Bible will say this age is evil age. It will say that the devil is the evil one. It will call his demons evil spirits, and it will call men who are unregenerate, what? Evil. Unregenerate, unborn-again, non-true Christians, the Bible says, are evil. Jesus says it, like a demon, unclean, found in our sin. Evil one, evil age, evil spirit, evil men. and he had pride, he wanted to kill God and beat God. That's the business behind Artemis, who's just a species of that. All of the false gods are the temptation that the evil one gives to evil people and says, you don't have to have real God, you can kill the real God and have your God. Don't believe in Christ, believe in Artemis, is a form of spiritual hatred of God. The punishment for the devil and for demons is they were cast where? Where was the devil cast? Some of the demons are in hell already, but the Bible will say he was cast to earth. That's where Genesis 3, 1 through 8 occurs. So people think, like right now, through enough stuff we could have utopia. Heaven is not gonna be, Earth is never gonna be heaven on Earth until Christ returns. I don't care what your eschatological position is. It is not gonna be heaven on Earth until Jesus returns. It started off heaven on Earth, Genesis 1, Genesis 2, and by the time you hit Genesis 3, it wasn't heaven on Earth anymore. What is it? Look around. What is Earth right now? Even as beautiful as this is, we cannot, If I gave you a first class ticket to pick the richest place you could go, the most beautiful place you can go, the most pristine place you could go, pick it in your head, I don't know, Switzerland. For me it's Cape Cod, the land of my birth. I get to go to Cape Cod. I'm back on Cape Cod, my father and my grandfather are running around, they're back alive, and I'm back in Cape Cod. Spiritual warfare there? The devil not go to Switzerland? He can't go to Switzerland? He's only in Haiti? He can't go to these other places? It's universal. The Bible says that the devil is the god of this age, the ruler of this world. It's everywhere. You can't go on vacation and there's no spiritual warfare. It's universal. And what's going on is when we go to Ephesus, Paul's fighting the spiritual warfare. When he's in Corinth, he's fighting the spiritual warfare. When he's Athens, he's fighting the spiritual warfare. So it's everywhere. And what you see is this spiritual warfare that's going on everywhere. The kingdom of Jesus Christ goes everywhere. This is a Revelations 5.9, which I love. Every tribe, every tongue, every people, every nation. The kingdom of Jesus, we crush all of these Mickey Mouse, we have like, oh, I'm a Republican, I'm a this, I'm a that, I'm white, I'm black, I'm blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The kingdom of Jesus goes everywhere. We are preaching Jesus Christ and Christ-saving sinners everywhere. It just crushes all those external divisions that we make, and it's taking captive those who have been taken captive by Jesus Christ. When Satan began the war, why did he hate the people so much? Why did he hate people so much? Because he hates God. So the spiritual warfare that we're engaged in is that Satan is against us directly because we are what? Image bearers of God. And it's against God indirectly. Because we are the apple of God's eye, human beings, and then human beings restored in Jesus Christ, the object of the devil's attack is human beings. And I would argue even more specifically, Christian human beings. Look around, I mentioned it earlier. The reason that you see, I don't know, if we were to take the spiritual temperature of our country, well, what, 10 years ago, you didn't even have like someone saying transgender, like a guy turning himself into a girl. By the way, a guy cannot turn himself into a girl. You can castrate yourself and you can be a castrated guy, but you can't make yourself a girl and vice versa. You can cut your breasts off, but you can't make yourself a guy. That's ridiculous. So again, I know that this is nonsense to like our nonsensical world, but the reason we see so much pornography, even in the church, it'd choke a mule. It would choke a mule. There's not a guy here that doesn't know what I'm telling you. There's so much pornography, even in the church, it would choke a mule. Why is there so much pornography in the church? Because of the satanic war. Why is there so much homosexuality? When I was a young guy, I did not know one gay person until I was in my 20s. Now everybody and their brother is gay. There's no one straight anymore. Why? Why? I'm not even being silly. Why? Because of the spiritual warfare. Why the transgenderism? Why the perversion of sexuality? Why the bastardization or the corruption of marriage? Why? Why? because it's the devil attacking the image-bearer. He wants us to degrade ourselves. He wants to degrade you because he hates God. That's what's going on. That's the larger war. And you think, well, pastor, this is terrifying. It is terrifying. It is terrifying. The magnitude of man's problem is so much bigger than people think. It's not, we just need a little medicine. We just need a little dough. We need a little education. We are at a spiritual warfare. We don't need a little anything. We need a massive Christ who can defeat the power of the devil. But what I'm telling you is a fact. When we see all of that growing and growing and growing, the ultimate is the devil wants to degrade you. because he hates you because he hates God. That's what's going on. And so for the recourse for the Christian is we're not running to the counselor, we're running to Christ. We're not running to the pharmacy, we're running to Christ. Does that make sense? That's what's happening here. And now the micro views of what we see is the particular battle is going on in Ephesus. It is as I've said. The battle wages in Ephesus, the battle wages in Corinth, the battle wages in Athens. And for that matter, for that matter, where was Christ crucified? In a Gentile land or a Jewish land? The Jewish land. Jerusalem is called the city of what? Jeru city, Salem peace. The city of peace. It was in the city of peace that the New Testament, the book of Revelation, what does the book of Revelation call Jerusalem? Where Christ was crucified. Sodom. Sodom in Egypt. Sodom in Egypt. And it was children of the devil, even in the visible church. that attacked and killed Christ and gave him over to the Romans to do their dirty work. So beloved, being in the church is not the same thing as being in Christ. So you have the spiritual warfare going on in Ephesus, that's what's behind this great as Artemis business and the riots that are ensuing. But what we're seeing, rather than making us afraid, it should make us prayerful. God was performing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that handkerchiefs or aprons were carried from his body to the sick, diseases left them, and the evil spirits were sent out. That's the triumph of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. That's the triumph of Jesus Christ. So, extraordinary miracles. In Greek, there are two words that are often translated miracle. One is semion, and the other is dunamis. Simeon is what John uses in John's gospel. It means sign. And so what is a miracle? I'll use the language of our, yeah, should I use this? I think I will, okay. This comes from chapter 5 in our secondary standard, which is a summary of what we think our primary standard the Bible teaches. This is on ordinary providence. God in his ordinary providence makes use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them at his pleasure. That's what I understand a miracle is. I understand a miracle to be not God's ordinary providence, but his extraordinary providence, where he doesn't use either secondary means or he works against the properties of them. What do I mean? Do virgins give birth to children? Not ordinarily, but they can miraculously. I think Elizabeth was beyond childbearing age. Can women who have hit menopause give birth to children? Not ordinarily. Can God have a virgin conceive the God-man Christ Jesus? Yes, he can. That's a miracle. What we're looking at when we're looking at the success of the kingdom of Jesus, this is not dependent upon man. This is why I have some brothers who have a different kind of eschatological view, and they think what we've got to do is we've got to convert all the politicians, convert the academy, and then we can really move this kingdom. No, no, no, no, no. That's not how the kingdom of God works. Read the Bible. Read the Bible. How does God advance the kingdom of the Bible? He takes a bunch of fishermen, now one rock star, Paul, which is true, but then he takes a bunch of fishermen, this is 1 Corinthians 1, 27 through 31, a bunch of lowborn nothings, and what does he do? Watch this. Watch this. Miracles. God takes these creatures who outwardly, what are we? Outwardly, what are we? We're nothing. If our temperature goes up three or four degrees, what happens to us? We go to heaven. So even the toughest, strongest guy here, we are so weak. One of my brothers in the Lord, an OPC minister, died of a massive heart attack recently. And I just met my minister Friday at the Tallahassee church and we were talking. I said, hey, what do you think about Brother so-and-so? And he looked at me and said, you've got to be ready. You've got to be ready. because we go at a moment's notice. And I knew he was thinking of his first wife who died at 42. You've got to be ready because we are not powerful. Who is powerful? Our Christ is powerful. Our God is powerful. And so what we're seeing is the power of God is putting down the power of the devil and the kingdom of Christ is doing these things. So I do want you to think of that. Man's problem is so much larger. This is why when we preach the gospel, sometimes people misunderstand. We think we're arguing people into the kingdom. You gotta be really like a smart aleck and give everybody a smart aleck response, and then you're gonna smart aleck them into the kingdom of God. Oh, and this is an AA. This is not 12 steps. I'm not against 12 steps. It's better being sober than drunk and so on. But this is not the problem. The problem is that we were under the bondage of the devil. How are you going to break the bondage of the devil? Send him to AA? 12 steps? Psychiatrists? Counseling? Meds? Will that break the power of the devil? No. What will break the power of the devil? In the name of Jesus Christ. In the name of Christ. Christ is casting out the devil. It's a miracle. There's always a guy, when I go to, people become a minister in the OPC, and there's a guy who doesn't believe in miracles. He's dead now, he knows better, he's in heaven. He knows there really are miracles. He doesn't believe in miracles. And you always say, are there miracles? And there's a fancy argument why people, B.B. Warfield held this argument. And as smart as B.B. Warfield is, I'm thinking, of course there are miracles. You're looking at a whole room full of miracles. We were dead in our sins and trespasses, and what do we know? We're alive. What do you call being raised from the dead to being alive? That's a miracle. What do you call when you have the devil cast out of you? That's a miracle. What do you call when the bondage of the devil, you've been freed from that? Colossians 1.13, miracle. Beloved, you could be poor as a church mouse. If you're a Christian, you are a walking, talking, breathing miracle. God's power has done it. God caused you to be born again. God is shaping you into the image of Jesus. This is the power of God. So yes, I get melancholy. Yes, I get depressed about this poor, crazy country that looks like it's going to shield, but it's not, it's not. The kingdom of Jesus Christ is advancing. Jesus is gathering all of his sheep into himself. He's conforming us into the image of Jesus Christ. And when Christ comes back, and the kingdom of God will have no end. and the kingdoms of men will become the kingdom of our Christ. There's going to be no Artemis. There's going to be no false gods. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, One. I want you to see something. With the victory, how is the victory affected? We've talked about it. It's the Spirit of Christ through the preaching of Jesus. Do I want this country to be like normal? Would I like normal laws? Yes, but you could change all the laws tomorrow. Everyone could be the most conservative person you've ever seen in your entire life. Law does not convert. Laws don't convert. Gospel converts. Gospel saves. You think, well, I don't believe that. No, you don't believe that, but Paul believed it. It's the message of the cross. I'm for those others. Do the other. But they're not changing anything. They're not changing anything because you're not going to change the critter. Race doesn't change. Money doesn't change. Culture doesn't change. What changes us? Christ changes us. And the church simply does not believe it. That's why we do Coco the Clown, wrestling matches, coffee shops. We don't believe that the gospel has power. But it does. And I'm gonna say something about the other. These guys, seven sons of Siva, Siva means seven in Hebrew, there's a play on words. They're using the name of Jesus like a talisman, like a good luck charm. Was it effective against the devil? The devil laughed in their face. You could say in Jesus' name all day long, and if you're not attached to Jesus, the devil knows it and he laughs in your face. To be formally attached to Jesus is not to be vitally attached to Jesus. Unless you are born again, Christ is not in you, you have no power. And you could do all these incantations all day long and nothing happens to the devil's kingdom. But when Christ moves, When the spirit of God moves, the kingdom of the devil is destroyed. And I'm gonna close this, because I'll get myself too crazy. These people go from worshipers of a false god to worshipers of the true God by believing in Jesus Christ, and they show it. They show that they have true faith. How can you show you have true faith? How can you show you have true faith in Jesus? You live a changed life. The changed life is not faith, but the faithfulness shows the truth of the faith. What do I mean by that? Let's just say I was a drunk, and I came to you and said, I'm a drunk, but I'm a repentant drunk. I'm a changed drunk, and I was glugging down my fifth of Bacardi rum that I loved in Boston. Would you say that I really was a reformed drunk? No. You'd say what? You're a liar. You're not. Many Christians say, oh, don't get me wrong. I love Jesus. Let me watch a little bit more porn. Let me cheat on my wife. Let me cheat on my taxes. Let me live like a pig. But I'm a Christian. Beloved, the devil is going to laugh in your face. We show our truthfulness when we are willing to say these things that I used to say were gods, they're nothing. These magic books that I thought was the power of God, they're nothing. They're trash. I'm gonna burn them all because Christ is everything to me. Beloved, that's what John the Baptist was talking about. Produce fruits keeping with righteousness. So we say, Christ has set me free. Then prove it. Has Christ set you free? Take your former gods and throw them in the trash. Take your former idol and throw them in the trash. The false gods in Ephesus were called Artemis. The false gods in my wife's country of her birth, India, they're called what? Legion. What are the false gods in America? What are they? They're called pleasure. They're called pleasure. Will we as Christians own King Christ and his cross and burn that false god? Pleasure and money and hedonism and sexual perversion because we live for the glorious one, Christ Jesus. Amen.