Our king is still on the throne. for bringing us here. And I pray, Lord, that you would make us just a united family, to where our love for you would just overwhelm all the little idiosyncrasies that I have and that others have, so that we could just love one another with the love of the Lord. We pray, Lord, that they would get the heat fixed so we could be back in the gymnasium. And we pray, Lord, if there's a better place that you have for us to meet, that you would also you know, make that become known to us as well. But we love you, Lord, and I just thank you that people are here to hear the preaching of your word. They understand the importance of biblical teaching, and they love you, they love your word, and so I pray, Lord, that I would not disappoint them today by bringing up the faulty wisdom of man. I pray that you would anoint me with your spirit to proclaim your truth, that you would cancel the man so that your truth would be proclaimed. I pray you'd open hearts and minds, including my own, to receive truth from your word and that your spirit would empower us. to apply these truths to our lives so that we can be pleasing in your sight through the power of the Holy Spirit. In Jesus' precious name we pray, amen. Now, Acts chapters 18 and 19, I see three main themes running running through this, these two chapters. You know, Paul is basically, he's finishing up his, or he's on his second missionary journey and then he just switches real quick, not real quick, but in the passage, just from one verse to the next, all of a sudden he's starting his third missionary journey. And, but what really sticks out is the importance of God's presence the importance of God's presence, the importance of biblical teaching, and the importance of having teammates. You know, I was watching a football game yesterday and one team, Oregon, was leading 31 to nothing at halftime. against TCU and TCU had a backup quarterback in and he was just trying to figure out what to do the first half and didn't do a good job at it. But before the second half, the quarterback and the center of the other team, Oregon, got injured. And so you had one of the greatest comebacks in NFL, I mean, in college football history. But there you see the importance of team play. Now, you lose your quarterback, you're hurting. But you lose your center, too. I remember one Monday night football game, the Raiders long snapper. They only pay the guy to do one thing, long snap. For punts and field goal attempts, the long snapper got injured. Now you figure with these multi-million dollar organizations, they would train a backup long snapper. But the NFL doesn't do that. And so for the Reds, it was against the Chargers, so I'm sure We got a Charger fan here, was it? Yeah, Angel. And Angel is a Charger fan, but this guy was rolling the ball back. The Raiders stopped going for, stopped punting in that game because the ball would bounce. Once the ball hits the ground, you can hit the punter, you can slam him. But I'm telling you, the Raiders got slaughtered in that game because they didn't have their long snapper in there. teammates are real important. Often the least... people that we think are the least important tend out to be much more important than others. And Paul points this out in 1 Corinthians 12, 13, and 14, that we're a body of believers. And even the parts of the body that we don't think are important turn out to be very, very important. So we're going to see the importance of God's presence, the importance of biblical teaching. Look, where there is no biblical teaching, there's no church. Okay? I hear more and more about churches that don't even have a pastor. Now sometimes they got godly guys who can stand in and take turns preaching, but if you don't have biblical teaching, you don't have a church, certainly you need more than biblical teaching, but not less than biblical teaching, and then the importance of teammates. co-laborers. We think of Paul and his ministry. Paul wouldn't have been able to accomplish hardly anything if he didn't have a Timothy, a Silas, an Aquila and Priscilla, a Sosthenes. How many of us, you know, think of him or Crispus? These are guys that are mentioned here and that are important enough to also be mentioned in 1 Corinthians. And so look at the first five verses here of chapter 18, we find that Paul leaves Athens and goes to Corinth. So let's look at verses 1 to 5 of chapter 18. After these things, Paul departed from Athens. Remember, he was on Mars Hill, Areopagus, and he preached to the Stoic and the Epicurean philosophers and spoke about the unknown God. He made known to them the unknown God who has revealed himself to us through Jesus. After these things, Paul departed from Athens and went to Corinth, okay? Which is also in the general vicinity of ancient Greece, okay? And so they were all caught up in philosophers as well. You'll see that in 1 Corinthians chapters 1 and 2. And he found a certain Jew named Aquila. born in Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife, Priscilla, because Claudius, Emperor Claudius, had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome, and he came to them. 49 A.D. I can't remember if it's Tacitus who records this, but in 49 A.D. the emperor expelled from Rome a lot of the Jews because they were Christians and it was causing riots with the other Jews and so Aquila and Priscilla were believers who got kicked out of Rome and then verse 3, so because he was of the same trade He stayed with them and worked, for by occupation they were tent makers. So whenever Paul would come to a new area, if he didn't have Timothy and Silas to work for him, to do the work, to put some food on the table, he would have to work, and he'd have to preach in his free time. Verse 4, and he reasoned in the synagogues every Sabbath and persuaded both Jews and Greeks. That was his mode of operation. He would first preach the gospel to the Jews in the synagogues and argue from the scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah. Then once the Jews rejected it as the apostle to the Gentiles, then he would go into the marketplace. Okay? Which is kind of weird because we, probably the last people on earth we witnessed to are Jews. And with Paul it was like, look, even though I'm the apostle to the Gentiles, the gospel came first to the Jews. Jesus, our Savior, the Jewish Messiah was Jewish. The apostles were Jewish, the prophets were Jewish, the Bible is Jewish. We owe it to the Jews to bring the gospel to them first. So Paul did not, even as the apostle to the Gentiles, he did not think he had the green light to go into the marketplace and preach to the Gentiles until the Jews rejected his message. And Paul was the kind of guy, he could take a hint. You know, usually when you pick up rocks and you start trying to bounce them off his head, he'd say, you know what, I think I'm not wanted here, you know, and so he would move on. Now verse 5, when Silas and Timothy had come from Macedonia, Paul was compelled by the Spirit and testified to the Jews that Jesus is the Christ. Now, I like the way the New American Standard version of the Bible reads there, because it basically says, and I'm paraphrasing, when Silas and Timothy had come from Macedonia, Paul was enabled to basically preach the Word full-time. and testified to the Jews that Jesus is the Christ. And so you have to understand this about Paul. He was a tent maker by trade. Jewish rabbis always had something they could fall back on. By the way, I'm thinking about this myself. Now, I'm already bi-vocational. I teach Bible and weightlifting here at this school, and I pastor this church. But the day may come, I started thinking, the day might come when both my jobs are going to be illegal in this country. And my only background is like law enforcement, security. I could probably do corrections, but it's like, you know, I'm not as young as I used to be. But the Jewish rabbis were very practical. They had a day job or at least were trained so that if need be, if there were not enough people to support them in the synagogues, they would have a job to fall back on. For Paul, it was tent making, and that was the same as Aquila and Priscilla, so it was real easy. Whenever they were together on their missionary journeys, if Paul wasn't free to preach full-time, he would work for Aquila and Priscilla. And so here, again, we see the importance of teammates Paul leaves Athens, goes to Corinth, he meets Aquila and Priscilla, they're tent makers like him, they're from Rome. He preaches the gospel in Corinth, in the synagogue to the Jews and the Greeks that attend to it, because you could be a Greek who acknowledges the God of Israel. is the true God and you're allowed to go to the synagogues. Now you're not allowed to go to the court of the Jews in the temple, the one temple in Jerusalem, unless you get circumcised and convert to Judaism. But Paul preaches the gospel in Corinth synagogues to Jews and Greeks. Then Silas and Timothy arrive in Corinth. They relieve Paul of secular work so he could devote his time to preaching. He argued that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. Now what happens in the verses that follows through verse 17. The Jews rejected Paul's message, and so Paul had to go to the Gentiles. Now, some of the Jews did accept his message. In fact, at least two rulers of the synagogue, Crispus and Sosthenes, also. And when you go to 1 Corinthians, well, just hold this page and look at 1 Corinthians You know, we're talking about 50 A.D., 51 A.D., when Paul plants the church in Corinth. Then he writes 1 Corinthians about 54 or 55 A.D., just a few years later. And now, verse 17 of Acts 18, the Greeks took Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue, and beat him. So, whatever happened to that guy? Well, in 1 Corinthians 1, verse 1, Paul called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God and Sosthenes, our brother, to the church of God, which is at Corinth. He ended up going with Paul. being one of Paul's teammates, one of Paul's colleagues. He may even have been Paul's scribe at times. But whatever the case, at the time he's writing this letter, he's out of Corinth. He's obviously healed up, but he's one of Paul's colleagues. And then you look down A little further, verse 14, I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius. Well, Crispus is also mentioned in this passage as the ruler of the synagogue in verse 8 of Acts chapter 18. You know, that's one of the reasons why New Testament scholars who are not even believers except so much of the New Testament as being biblical and historically reliable, because, you know, Luke will just be writing about Paul and Corinth and guys he bumps into, and then all of a sudden their names start appearing in his letter to the Corinthians and in other letters and things of that sort, and you get this verification that there's no reason for those names to show up in Paul's letters unless He had met them somewhere, and they did become his colleagues, and lo and behold, you cross-reference it with the Book of Acts, and it fits together like a hand in a glove. And so you have the importance of teammates. You were also told here that Paul stayed in Corinth and taught for a year and a half. And so, a year, can you imagine that? Paul devoting a year and a half of teaching to Corinth. Now, I've been pastor in this church now for, almost in March, it'll be 28 years. But we've had people who've been hungry for God's Word. So for me, the 28 years went by like one year. When you read 1st and 2nd Corinthians, that must have been a tough year and a half for Paul. okay and it's a society that is steeped in immorality and uh... but he actually spent a year and a half uh... teaching uh... the corinthians and uh... and uh... and built that foundation planted that church and uh... and then we learned about more about the corinthians in first and second corinthians now in verses nine and ten It says, Now the Lord spoke to Paul in the night by a vision. Do not be afraid, but speak, and do not keep silent. Boy, if there's a message that the American church needs to hear, don't be afraid and don't shut up. Just keep preaching Jesus. Now, I'm not asking you to be so obnoxious and so arrogant that you push people further away from Jesus. But what I'm saying is speak the truth in love, okay? But the Lord appeared to Paul in the night by a vision. Do not be afraid, but speak and do not keep silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to hurt you, for I have many people in this city. And then verse 11, and he continued there a year and six months, teaching the Word of God among them. So he really, he not only planted the church in Corinth, he was pretty much their first pastor, and he built that strong foundation. But God encourages Paul in a vision. So we see the importance of teammates, the importance of God's presence, God encouraging Paul, and the importance of teaching. And we're going to see these themes throughout these two chapters, Acts chapters 18 and 19. So Paul stays and preaches in Corinth for a year and a half. The unsaved Jews arrest Paul, but the Roman governor Gallio refuses to try him. He says, look, this has got nothing to do—you guys are arguing religious stuff. Yeah, I'm not going to sit and judge your theology. You know, at the same time, when one of the rulers of the synagogue is getting beat up, Galileo doesn't come to his... he's kind of like, well, go ahead, you beat him up, it's none of my business. You know, so number one... Rome, at this point, most of the persecution against the Jews at this point, against the Christians, are coming from the Jews who refuse to accept Jesus. The Romans say, look, this is none of our business, okay? Just do what you want to do, you know, we'll look the other way. So, the good part of that is that the government was not coming down, the Roman government was not coming down on the Christians. The bad part was that if the Jews did, the government didn't really intervene. Okay? They just kind of looked the other way. And our situation in America is getting similar but we're moving towards when Rome just declared war. on Christianity because of the way Christians are being treated at this point. So Crispus, the synagogue leader, Sosthenes, the synagogue leader, many others in Corinth are saved, they come to Christ, and so Paul is able to pastor them, plant the church and pastor for a year and a half. Then in Sancreia, not far from Corinth, Paul takes a Nazirite vow, and then he moves on to Ephesus in 19 to 21. So look at verses 18 through 21. So Paul still remained a good while, then he took leave of the brethren and sailed for Syria. So he's going to Syria. His home church is Antioch of Syria, okay? And Syria's in the news right now as we speak. It's probably the oldest church on the planet in Syria. It started in Jerusalem, but Jerusalem was just devastated by the Romans in 70 A.D., whereas some of the Syria can trace its roots all the way back to that first Gentile church, sailed for Syria and Priscilla and Aquila were with him. He had his hair cut off at Sancria for he had taken a vow. More than likely this was the Nazirite vow where you shave your head And you don't get any more haircuts. You shave your head, then you don't get any more haircuts after that until your vow of dedication to God is done. You don't drink strong liquor, and you don't touch dead animals. And it was a way of devoting yourself to the Lord. You have to remember this about Paul. Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles, but he was still Jewish. You know, he could say, I'm a Hebrew of Hebrews. He could read the Bible in Hebrew and he could also read it in Greek, the Greek translation, the Greek Septuagint. But there's good evidence that Greek was Paul's second language. Hebrew was probably his first. But whatever the case, he takes the Nazarite vow there, verse 19, and he came to Ephesus and left them there. So he left Aquila and Priscilla there. Now it's not like, hey, just hang out. He's basically leaving people in charge while he's gone, people that he trusts. But he himself entered the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews. When they asked him to stay a longer time with them, he did not consent, but took leave of them, saying, I must by all means keep the coming feast in Jerusalem, but I will return again to you, God willing. And he sailed from Ephesus. So now he leaves Ephesus, he's going to, his plan is to return to Antiochus Syria in hopes of returning to Jerusalem for a feast day. In fact, if I understand correctly the sequence, he actually goes to Caesarea first, and then goes to Jerusalem for the feast, which isn't mentioned, and then goes back up to Antioch of Syria. So more than likely he went to Jerusalem first and then to Antioch of Syria. And he would, you know, celebrate several feasts whenever he had the opportunity. He would celebrate several different Jewish feast days, more than likely Passover, Pentecost, possibly Feast of Tabernacles. And verse 22, Paul completes his missionary journey. And when he had landed at Caesarea and had gone up and greeted the church, he went down to Antioch. Now if you look on a map, Antioch is to the north, so we would say he went up to Antioch. Not so with them. When they say they're going down, that means you're going downhill. So he's going from higher ground to lower ground. And so in between there is when he probably celebrated a feast day in Jerusalem. And then in verse 23 he begins his third missionary journey. After he had spent some time there, he departed and went over the region of Galatia and Phrygia in that order, strengthening all the disciples. And so he's beginning his third missionary journey. And now we have a little bit of a parenthesis, if you will, talking about this guy named Apollos. Okay, and so we're going to learn a little bit about Apollos. Apollos may have been, I actually think Martin Luther got it right, I think Apollos wrote the book of Hebrews. Okay, I was just reading a book yesterday where the author said that that Paul wrote Hebrews. Well, if Paul wrote Hebrews, the early church didn't know that. And also, the author doesn't identify himself as Paul. All of Paul's letters, Paul identifies himself as the author. Also, Paul claims he got his apostleship from face-to-face encounters with Jesus, not just on the road to Damascus, but other encounters. Hebrews chapter 2, 3, and 4, the author said, basically is telling us, the gospel was preached to me by people people who knew the Lord and the Holy Spirit confirmed it with signs and wonders. So basically, the author of Hebrews was taught about Jesus by the apostles, wasn't really an apostle himself. The Greek of the book of Hebrews is actually a much higher level of Greek than Paul's writings. So the author of Hebrews argues like a Greek philosopher, not like a Jewish rabbi, because he brings each argument to its conclusion and then starts a whole new argument. Paul, in the middle of a sentence, will go on a three chapter divinely inspired tangent, like any good rabbi will, and then eventually he'll come back to that point, but it's more of a, there's not, that's what you've got to understand, With the Jewish rabbis and the Greek philosophers, the Jewish rabbis were not less intellectual, they were not any less intellectual, but certainly they were much more emotional, much more passionate, I would argue they're more human. We humans are not just thinking machines, like some philosophers like Rene Descartes would imply. We're also emotional beings, we have passions, and the Jews would use as much passion as they would reason to argue that the God of the Bible is the one true God. And so let's find out a little bit about Apollos here. verses 24 to the end of the chapter. Now, a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, that's Alexandria, Egypt, that was the new Athens. When Paul was preaching to the Greek philosophers in Athens, they had lost the battle, the Greek philosophers, to the idolaters. And so now the intellectual headquarters of the world was now Alexandria, Egypt, which had the world's largest library. And one of the most famous Greek philosophers ever, Philo, taught there in the mid-first century A.D., and Apollos may have been one of his pupils. And there seems to be hints of that in some of his arguments in the book of Hebrews, if he is the author of Hebrews. Now, a certain Jew named Apollos, born in Alexandria, an eloquent man, and mighty in the Scriptures, came to have emphasis. Let me tell you, When it says he's an eloquent man, that means he's a well-spoken man, very articulate. But it also implies that he's, this word implies that he's trained in public speaking. He probably knows how to, he's trained in debate. Okay? Very precise in what he says. Okay? So he's basically trained in ancient Greek rhetoric. Okay? However, He's also mighty in the scriptures. So I think with Paul and Apollos, what you have is Paul is a Hebrew of Hebrews. He's a rabbi with a capital R who also has studied Greek philosophy and Tarsus. But he's probably, you know, 85% rabbi, 15% philosopher, so he can communicate to them and dialogue with them. Apollos, on the other hand, is probably like 50-50. Okay? There's a, you know, he may or he may not have known Hebrew. but he knew he was eloquent so he could speak and write in Greek and debate. So this guy has got even more training in philosophy yet he's not inadequate in his Hebrew training, at the same time, if you're looking for, if you're, let me tell you, if Saul of Tarsus never came to Christ, I think he would have gone down in history as the greatest Jewish rabbi in the estimation of the Jews. That's why it always puzzles me when Jews don't accept Jesus as their Savior. Because it's like, man, you're two greatest, we got two of your greatest Jewish rabbis, the two greatest Jewish rabbis who ever lived. Second best was Saul of Tarsus. And first best, may he be praised forever, Jesus of Nazareth. And you say, well, Saul was trained by Gamaliel in, I believe, the school of Hillel. recognized rabbinical schools but Jesus wasn't. Well, when you happen to be God, you don't really... Jesus had to identify. He said, I'm not going to go to the school of Hillel. I'm not going to go to the rabbinical school of Shammai. Definitely not going to go to the Sadducees who don't even believe in life after death. If I got to identify myself with a ministry and say, this ministry is from God, which ministry did he choose? John the Baptist. He said, I'll get baptized in this guy's ministry because he really was sent by God to prepare the way for me. Apollos, eloquent man, that means he's mighty in Greek philosophy, eloquent man, trained in Greek philosophy and mighty in scriptures, he's also trained in the scriptures, he came to Ephesus. So now Paul has left Ephesus and now Apollos, a new guy in town, his name is Apollos. This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord. And being very fervent in spirit, so man, he was a powerful speaker, okay? He spoke and taught accurately the things of the Lord, though he knew only the baptism of John. So he was never baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The way Jesus said, you know, baptized in my name and my authority, baptized in the name of the triune God. He was never even under that baptism, he was only baptized by John the Baptist. So he began to speak boldly in the synagogue, and when Aquila and Priscilla heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. Now that's interesting. There's two responses that most people would have had if they were Aquila and Priscilla. to uh... apollo's one is well this dude is a way better speaker than paul By the way, that's the way the Corinthians responded. That's why Paul, they always say, well, his letters are powerful, but when he shows up in person, he's not even that impressive. Well, they kept comparing him to Greek philosophers, you know, who basically could sell you a bridge in Brooklyn because they're really sharp with their words, but there's no substance there. But they were also comparing Paul to Apollos. And Paul says, look, I'm not as powerful of a speaker as a guy like Apollos. So they could have just said, hey, who cares? This guy doesn't get the whole picture. He's a great speaker. We can get a lot of use out of this guy. Let's just overlook his inadequacies and let's just make a celebrity out of him. That's one thing that we like to do. We say, well, you know, that one preacher, he's got a few areas where he's almost heretical or at least missing stuff, but that's okay. He's such a powerful speaker. I'm just glad he's on our side. Let's just promote his ministry. Another approach they could have taken was they could have acted like, look, we're trained by the Apostle Paul. And oh yeah, you're a really eloquent man, you're a really powerful speaker, but we were trained by the greatest Christian intellectual walking the planet. Knows the scriptures better than anybody. Let's put this guy in his place in public. Okay? So, they could have disrupted him defending Jesus Okay, now keep in mind, let's just suppose that most of the people in this audience do not yet know Jesus. And I'm Apollos and I'm trying to convince them that Jesus is Messiah and Savior. And let's say John is sitting there and he's thinking, well, he doesn't have the whole picture. He's not saying anything false, but he doesn't have the whole picture. If he starts arguing with me, guess what? A lot of things might be accomplished that day, but the salvation of souls, don't count on it. Because now you're just showing, it's almost like the church airing its dirty laundry before others. He took, Aquila and Priscilla took him aside. That's very, very important. How many times do we do that? We got Christian brothers on the internet, Christian leaders that are attacking the character of other guys in public, and sometimes the Muslims are applauding. or the atheists are applauding. And so they understood the importance of this. It's like, we're not going to make a celebrity out of the dude. At the same time, we're not going to correct him or educate him in public. So they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. And so all this guy's going on is John the Baptist said he prepared the way for Jesus. He baptized me so that, or one of his disciples baptized me so I would repent of my sins and be ready for Messiah when he came. I have heard some things about this Jesus where it's pretty obvious Jesus is the Messiah. In fact, John the Baptist pointed to him and said, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. John the Baptist said I'm not even worthy to untie his sandals. I'm going to prove from the scriptures to the Jews that Jesus fulfilled the prophecies and Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. Well, that's a whole lot, but he didn't know that Jesus, before he ascended to heaven, said, baptize all disciples in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And so, and by the way, those who didn't know Christian baptism, let's see in the very next passage, if they just had the ministry of John, because they didn't, weren't getting baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, most of them never even heard about the Holy Spirit. Okay? So there is a lot to teach Apollos. And then it just says, And when he decided to cross to Achaia, the brethren wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive him. And when he arrived, he greatly helped those who had believed through grace. You know what this is telling us? This brilliant guy who could have told Aquila and Priscilla Um, you guys don't know all the Greek philosophy I know. You're not as eloquent as me. You're not as powerful a speaker as me. Why should I even listen to you? Instead, he said, no, they're right. He listened to what they had to say. He understood they were right. And so they and other Christians sent him with a letter. This dude is the real thing. He's the real deal. He's one of us. He's a powerful defender of the Christian faith. And so he greatly helped those who had believed through grace, for he vigorously refuted the Jews publicly showing from the scriptures that Jesus is the Christ, that Jesus is the Messiah. So he went through the scriptures. Messiah's got to be born of a virgin, born in Bethlehem. He's going to be a descendant of David, okay? He's going to perform miracles, teach in parables. He's going to be betrayed for 70 pieces of silver. He's going to be crucified. There's going to be lots cast for his garments. He's going to rise from the dead. All these things and many more prophecies Apollos was able to prove to many Jews that Jesus is the Christ. Now we go right into... So again, the importance of teaching and the importance of teammates. Iron sharpens iron. By the way, before we move on from Apollos, look at 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verses 10 to 15. Paul planted the church in Corinth, taught there for a year and a half, then moves on and within a few years there's already divisions in the church. Okay? And And Paul says this in verses 10 to 15 of 1 Corinthians chapter 1, Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. For it has been declared to me concerning you, my brethren, by those of Chloe's household, that there are contentions among you. Now I say this, that each of you says, I am of Paul. So some would say, I'm a disciple of Paul. Or, I am of Apollos. Yeah, because we're going to see that in Acts chapter 19, that Apollos goes to Corinth. while Paul is at Ephesus. And a lot of these people are like, man, I thought Paul was the real deal. This Apollos is great. So some were saying, well, no, no, I'm of Paul. Others were saying, I'm of Apollos. Others would say, I am of Cephas. That's Peter. Now, those people might have been people from Corinth or from the general area that accepted Christ when Peter preached his message, or maybe somewhere else. And then others would say, well, I'm of Christ. But Paul's even slamming this group. We all want to say we're of Christ, but apparently there were some saying, I'm a follower of Christ, I don't listen to any I won't listen to Paul, I only listen to Jesus. And Paul's point, he says, is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, lest anyone should say that I had baptized in my own name. And so what he's basically saying, a lot of these people would align themselves with whoever baptized them. Paul later on says in 1 Corinthians, I planted, Apollos watered, but only God caused the growth. Okay? Paul goes out of his way throughout 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians to say, look, Apollos and I, Apollos and me and Peter, we're all on the same team, we're all preaching Jesus. Don't divide over us, we're not divided. Okay? But he became, Apollos became a great leader in the early church, such a great leader that some of the Corinthians followed Apollos and considered him their mentor and not Paul, even though Paul planted the church, and some were very unimpressed with Paul's preaching. You gotta read 1 and 2 Corinthians closely. By the way, Paul was not a lousy preacher. You just got to understand, Paul, the Corinthians were comparing Paul with the philosophers of their day, who by the way weren't, this was not a really good time to be a philosopher, they weren't the most brilliant people on earth, but they could sell you, like I said, they could sell you anything they wanted to sell you. Okay? So they were con artists. Um, but then they also heard the powerful preaching of Apollos, and when they compared Paul with that, you know, there's an awful lot of preachers today that will act like, because of some of the things Paul says in 1st and 2nd Corinthians, they'll act like, you know, Paul wasn't that hot of a preacher. Let me tell you, Paul was probably a much better preacher than I am, and he was probably a much better preacher than those guys. I'm just glad nobody's comparing me to Apollos. Okay? And so you got to put it in its proper context. Okay, back in Acts chapter 19. Acts 19, so Paul continues his third missionary journey. Look at the first seven verses, and it happened while Apollos was at Corinth, so now Apollos is going to Corinth and he's wowing them with his preaching, that Paul, having passed through the upper regions came to Ephesus and finding some disciples, so now Paul is at Ephesus, and he's going to eventually spend two years in Ephesus, two years and three months. He said to them, he found some disciples, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? So they said to him, we have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit. And he said to them, into what then were you baptized? So they said, into John's baptism. So they, like Apollos, these guys are spread all over the ancient world, guys who have been baptized by John the Baptist, Many of whom were following Jesus. Some just knew, well, the Messiah is going to come. They didn't know he came already. But they hadn't heard of Jesus' baptism in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So they haven't even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit. Then Paul said, John indeed baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on Him who would come after Him, that is, on Christ Jesus, Jesus the Messiah. When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. By the way, Jesus commanded the apostles to baptize people in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That means baptize people in the authority of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I believe, I agree with most Christians throughout history, that's the formula we're supposed to use. In the book of Acts, it keeps saying they baptized people in the name of the Lord Jesus. I tend to think all that means there is that they're saying they baptized people in the authority of Jesus. They did a Christian baptism, which meant they had to baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But keep in mind, you get people in this transitional period. This was such a crazy time. You had true believers who weren't trusting in Jesus yet. How could you be a true believer and not trust in Jesus? Well, these are people who believed the Old Testament that Messiah was coming, so they were trusting in Messiah to save them. However, they hadn't been told about Jesus yet. So once these true believers were told about Jesus, then it was like, okay, well, I've been trusting in Messiah to save me. Now I know he's come and his name is Jesus. But it was a very, very transitional period. And so they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, verse 6, and when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied. Now the men were about twelve in all. And again, whenever some new group gets baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, God would emphasize that, hey, they are part of the same body by giving evidence. They would speak in tongues, evidence of the baptism with the Holy Spirit. It was like, okay, the same Holy Spirit has baptized them, they're part of the same body, we're all part of the same church. While Apollos is at Corinth, Paul goes to Ephesus. He finds 12 disciples there. They never heard of the Holy Spirit. They only knew John's baptism. Paul told them about Jesus and baptized them, and then they spoke in tongues and prophesied. Now, verse 8, And he went into the synagogue and spoke boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading concerning the things of the kingdom of God. So he spends the first three months in Ephesus preaching in the synagogues. But then he moves for the next two years, the final two years there, verses 9 and 10. But when some were hardened and did not believe, but spoke evil of the way of Christianity before the multitude, he departed from them and withdrew the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus." It was probably a Greek philosophical school. And this continued for two years so that all who dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. So there were people not just in Ephesus, people traveling from all throughout the region, ancient Asia, and they would come to the School of Tyrannus and hear the teaching of this brilliant thinker, a Jewish rabbi who's now trusting in Jesus for salvation. And so many people found out. Again, the importance of teaching. Three months in Ephesus, he preaches in the synagogues. When they reject it, he speaks for two years in the School of Tyrannus in Ephesus. And, you know, we can never underestimate the importance of teaching. One of the greatest preachers of the 20th century, D. Martin Lloyd-Jones, wrote a book entitled The Primacy of Preaching. He defined preaching as logic on fire. When I'm teaching, it's my intellect teaching your intellect. If I try to instill a little bit of passion, then the teaching can get better, but then it started, that's, you're getting close to it being called preaching. And so D. Martin Lloyd-Jones defined preaching as logic on fire. It's proclaiming the truth with passion. Okay? Now, there's some preachers that they don't have a whole lot of passion. There's some preachers who've got too much passion and there's no content. It's kind of like A whole lot of heat, but no light. Okay? Then you get some preachers that are not real emotional. I have no problem with a preacher who's not real emotional, not real passionate when he worships God or when he preaches, if when he watches his favorite football team he doesn't get passionate. Okay? But if you get passionate and you start screaming at your television set when you're watching a Seahawks game, if you preach the gospel and you show no emotion at all, it makes me kind of wonder, where are your priorities? Okay? We better be more passionate about our God than about our favorite football team. But the preaching of the word is vitally important. And we've got a lot of churches that are substituting things for the preaching of God's Word on Sundays. In fact, I'll be totally honest with you. If you come to Trinity Bible Fellowship and you hear the preaching of the Word on Sunday mornings, that's just the beginning. You ought to be going to at least one Bible study during the course of the week, and maybe even a prayer meeting if you can spare it, and then you ought to be studying the Bible on your own. If you can't make it to a prayer meeting, praise God for technology. You can go online, download our sermons. You can turn on the radio and listen to many of the great preachers that are preaching out there. Now, if you turn on your television set, be very careful. Cause you gotta, general rule is three heretics to every true preacher of God's word, so, okay? Anytime a guy's, anytime a preacher's telling you how to get rich, um, let me tell you, um, you know, Jesus promised us persecution. He promised us mansions in the hereafter. But, you know, he promised us crowns and thrones eventually, when he comes back. But until then, he promised us nothing but a cross. Okay? So any preachers trying to make you feel comfortable? I don't know who he's preaching, but he's not preaching Jesus. Our God calls us to deny ourselves, pick up a cross, whatever God's mission for you is, God didn't say it's going to be easy, and then follow Jesus in the path of obedience. But two years and three months of teaching in Ephesus, after a year and a half teaching in Corinth, teaching is important. The Holy Spirit was working in such a powerful way through Paul in verses 11 and 12. Paul's like, well, you know, hey, guys would come up and say, hey, my brother is dying. He needs to be healed. Could you come and heal him? And Paul's like, man, I'm too busy over here teaching. And they say, well, give us a cloak, a piece of your clothing. They take that back, pray over the guy, and the guy gets healed. Okay? Now, that doesn't mean that some guy On the Christian station, who's telling you God wants you to be healthy and wealthy and prosperous, I would not donate $100 to get a handkerchief from the guy with an outline of his handprint and think, well then, ow, if I pray with this, God's gonna give me a hundredfold what I gave to him. No, you just bought him another private jet. He didn't do anything to build the kingdom of God. But, you know, hey, I'll be honest with you. Sometimes God does stuff in his word that just plain weirds me out. Okay? And so, I mean, You look at those verses in 11 and 12, chapter 19. Now God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul. What did he say? Unusual. So don't think everybody and their mother's brother can do this kind of stuff. Verse 12, "...so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them, and the evil spirits went out of him." God chose that. You know, I'm going to do some really weird stuff through Paul, and I'm going to heal a lot of people, you know. But I'll tell you, anytime God's Word You think it's a little bit strange? Okay. All that's showing you is you got issues. Okay? Let God be God. Now I'm convinced God did this stuff through Paul. I'm not convinced God's doing this stuff through a lot of the, you know, bogus televangelists who are leading people astray with their false teachings. Okay, verses 13 to 17. Now we're going to see again the importance of God's presence. This is very important when it comes to spiritual warfare. verses 13 to 17, then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists, so you had traveling Jewish exorcists who would travel around casting demons out of people, okay? Some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists took it upon themselves to call the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, we exorcise you, so they're commanding demons to leave, by the Jesus whom Paul preaches. See, what we're going to find is at the end of this chapter, People burn probably hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars worth of occultic books with occultic magical spells in them. Even the Jews living in Ephesus, some of them, even a guy who called himself a high priest, the father of the sons of Sceva, Sceva himself, they were looking for formulas. And you say, wow, that would never happen to the church. Oh, yeah? We got Christians who think that praying in the name of Jesus is a magic formula that will give you whatever you want. We've turned God into a Coke machine. Put in a dollar, hit Coke, and boom, out comes a Coke. Anything I ask in Jesus' name, I got to receive. You got even one heretic saying that we can command God in Jesus' name, and God has to obey us. Let me tell you, the secret of prayer is not dragging God off the throne to do our will. The secret of prayer is us submitting our will to the will of God and beginning to desire for our lives what He desires for our lives. But even many of the Jews in this area were into these magic potions and these secret formulas, you know, abracadabra and the door opens and things of that sort, open sesame. So here in verse 13, so they were trying to cast out demons by the Jesus whom Paul preaches. You know what they're saying? We don't know this Jesus whom this guy Paul preaches, okay? Also, there were seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest who did so. You know, now either Either Sceva was a good chief priest, which then meant he would have spent most of his time in Jerusalem, and his sons were messed up, or he was a guy calling himself a chief priest, was in the line of Levi, but was actually, had blended so much occultism with his Jewish faith. And so the sons of Sceva did this, they try to cast out, we're going to cast you out by the Jesus whom Paul preaches. Then the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, overpowered them, and prevailed against them. Oh no, verse 15, and the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you? Then the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them and overpowered them, prevailed against them, so they fled out of that house naked and wounded." Okay? This became known both to all Jews and Greeks dwelling in Ephesus, and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. Let me tell you, again, the importance of God's presence. If you don't know Him, If you don't personally know Jesus and you don't go in his authority, okay, don't mess with the demonic realm. I remember when I was going to investigate a case in Port Orchard, a demonic activity, when about 12, 13 guys from Trinity Bible Fellowship were ready to go. And I said, by the way, guys, in my research, we had fasted for 24 hours, we were all ready to go. not just carpool, but you know, follow each other and just caravan out there. And I said, by the way guys, from my study of exorcism cases, if we do encounter a demon, they do often throw at people some of their secret sins. and throw them in their face. So I just want to let you know before we go. But everybody's still on board, and about nine out of twelve guys said that they'll pray for us, and three of us left. Don't be messing with the demons unless you have the full armor of God on. And one part of the full armor of God is the helmet of salvation? If you're not saved, you've got no business messing with demons. Your only offensive weapon is the sword of the Spirit. That's the Word of God. If you're not grounded in God's Word, you got no business messing with the demonic realm, okay? And so, the sons of Sceva are severely beaten by a demon-possessed man. By the way, this passage really freaked me out once, because the demon said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you? And I remember when I had a buddy, Sean Bumpus, we used to witness in the Bremerton jail. There used to be a jail in Bremerton on Sundays, and we would go. Now we had no right to be there, but a local church, two of their guys were supposed to go each Sunday, but they hadn't gone in years. So we kind of went, and we never said that we were from that church, they just assumed that we were. Well after going for a few years, one guy from that church showed up. And he's trying to get in, and me and Sean are behind him, looking at each other like, uh-oh, I think we're in trouble. And the guy looked at this guy and said, I don't know if we should let you in. He said, but I'm with such and such a church. I don't want to mention the name of the church. I'm with such and such a church. The guy shook his head and said, He said, Sean I know, and Phil I know, but who are you? And I looked at Sean, because he knew this passage too. But he had a big argument, and he decided, OK, I'll let you go, but you've got to stay with Phil and Sean. And then there were slaves before I planted the church. And so the guy was like, who are you guys? Where are you from? Oh, we're from Roman and Bible Church or whatever. But whatever the case, I'm telling you, God's presence, is so important. You know, we see bumper stickers, you know, don't leave Earth, Jesus, don't leave Earth without him, okay? Yeah, you'll end up in hell if you leave Earth without Jesus. But the fact of the matter is, you need to bring Jesus with you everywhere you go. Okay, you can't go in your own authority. You're gonna end up like the sons of Sceva if you go in your own authority You know John the Baptist when Jesus's disciples were baptizing more than him They told him they try to cause a division John the Baptist said he must increase, but I must decrease okay, and So verses 18 to 20, Paul leads many occultists to Christ, and they burn their books. And many who had believed came confessing and telling their deeds. Also many of those who had practiced magic brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all, and they counted up the value of them, and it totaled 50,000 pieces of silver. which you're talking tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars. So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed. And so you have this great impact where many of the leading occultists burn their books. There are occultists today, Satanists and other occultists, that are bummed out because of this event. Because there's a whole lot of occultic demonic secrets that could open the door to powers that these people want, and those books are gone for good. But I'm telling you, wherever Jesus is preached, and wherever people come to Christ, the gates of hell get knocked backward. Okay? And that's what was going on there. Now, Paul promises to visit Rome in verses 21 and 22. Look at verses 23 and 24. And about that time there arose a great commotion about the way, about Christianity, for a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Diana, also called Artemis, okay, a Greek goddess, brought no small profit to the craftsmen. Okay? And now you gotta understand, you got worshippers of the goddess Artemis, they're led by this Demetrius, a shrine maker, and they nearly cause a riot. Okay? You have not only false religion that will always combat Christianity, but you also have the lovers of money that will combat Christianity. This goes hand-in-hand. I mean, we don't sacrifice our babies to the false Canaanite god Molech anymore, but we do sacrifice our unborn babies on the altar to a false god called convenience. You say, no, this baby would be inconvenient in my life, let's just have an abortion. And I tell you, guess what's happening? Even if some of these people deep down inside thought, you know what, we're killing babies and that needs to stop, a lot of them would not be able to stop because of all the money they're making killing babies. It's gotten to the point where in this country Planned Parenthood will sell body parts. of aborted babies to the highest bidder. Okay? And so, you know, yeah, a lot of times when Christians, when you're getting persecuted for your faith, it's because of false religion. But sometimes it's because of finances. Sometimes you and I are going to get slammed for preaching Jesus because, you know, when revival comes to town, some of the bars start closing down. They start losing business. Okay? Christianity is bad for quite a few businesses, and it's certainly bad if you make your living making statues to this false goddess. By the way, they even talk about, in this passage, In Ephesus they had this, it was like one of the seven wonders of the world, this great temple to Diana, to Artemis. And they believed that this goddess had actually come from the heavens to earth. And they had this thing that came from heaven to earth. And most believe it was like a meteorite and it looked like a woman's body. Very vague, but it looked like, so they would make statues of it and all, but these guys were setting their ways, and it's just like, look, you come to Ephesus, you come to worship our goddess Diana. You don't come here to preach Jesus. Now you might say, well wait a minute, I can't, you know, That sounds kind of strange. Hey, you could sometimes have that same kind of attitude on the good side. There's a lot of Christian people who say, we don't want Muslims coming here and trying to change our culture and the way we do things and implementing Sharia law. Now granted, Sharia law contradicts freedom and the Constitution, the law of the land. Nobody should be coming here unless they were willing to submit to the law of the land. But what I'm talking about is how uncomfortable we feel. when people from other cultures tried to change the Christian heritage that we have here. It's that same discomfort that these pagan worshippers felt when Christianity was being preached. Now, so they start a big riot, and then the city official disperses the crowd, telling them to handle the situation through the courts. So we'll pick it up there. in chapter 20 next week, but the three things I want to stress, the importance of God's presence. Okay? When you're witnessing to people, if God is not present, what you're doing is powerless. When you're confronting the demonic realm, if you go in your own strength, you're without power. The importance of God's presence. If you trust in Jesus for salvation, He indwells you, the Father indwells you, the Holy Spirit indwells you. But then you gotta also be filled with the Spirit. You know, again, we're all indwelt by the Holy Spirit. It's like we're driving a car and the Holy Spirit's in the passenger side seat. When you're filled with the Spirit, He... you don't get more of him, he gets more of you. When you're filled with the Holy Spirit, you're controlled by him, he's driving and now you're in the passenger side seat. You need that presence of God, you need to be filled with the Spirit to do the work that God has called you to do. The importance of God's presence, the importance of biblical teaching. It is so important, you better get more biblical teaching than just what you're getting here this morning. Tim called me yesterday because the Bible studies going through, they finished the Gospel of John, now they want to move on to another book. And he didn't like the particular study book, study guide, because it talked too much about what's going on in your life. He wanted something that will take them through a book and cross-reference it with other passages from the scriptures. That's what we need. You know, I teach some young guys on Tuesday nights going through Romans. John teaches people. Pat teaches on Sunday evenings. Willis leads Bible studies. We need more biblical teaching, not less, and then we need teammates. We need teammates. God never calls us to be a lone ranger, and even the lone ranger at Tonto. But I'm telling you, for every Paul, you're usually going to need a Barnabas. For Elijah, you're going to need a Elisha. For Peter, you're going to need a John or a John Mark. You're going to need a Timothy and a Silas and a Quilla and a Priscilla. Sometimes you need an Apollos. But the idea that it's just me and I'm going to do, no, I'm telling you, you know, Number one, God doesn't even need you. Number two, talk about God's presence. Jesus said, apart from me you can do nothing. I kind of wish he said, apart from me, Fernandez, you can do a little bit. But that's not what Jesus said. Jesus said, apart from me, you can do nothing. Anything good that can be said about me, those are the changes Jesus made in my life, the changes Jesus made in your life. But God set us up. He wants us to be a body. There's times when we may have to minister all alone. But if at all possible, you know, Jesus sent us out two by two, look for those teammates and minister with others by your side. The importance of God's presence, the importance of biblical teaching, and the importance of teammates. Let's close with a word of prayer, Father. Our king is still on the throne.