So last week was about the conversion of Lydia and she insisted on them going back to her place for some, you know, tea and biscuits and so on, and so they were on the way. It says, as we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune telling She followed Paul and us, crying out, These men are servants of the Most High God who proclaim to you the way of salvation. And this she kept to for many days. Paul, having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the Spirit, I command you But when her owners saw that their hope of gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers. And when they had brought them to the magistrates, they said, these men are Jews and they are disturbing our city. They advocate customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to accept or practice. The crowd joined in attacking them and the magistrates tore the garments off them and gave orders to beat them with rods And when they had inflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely. Having received this order, he put them in the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks. Amen. Well, it would seem that the enemy, our enemy, can speak truth. and anyone who serves him can also speak accurate biblical truth. So we need to beware. So what was going on in this story? They encountered this slave girl. Now it had previously been discovered that this slave girl had an alien spirit within a spirit of what's called divination. So she was essentially a medium, as we would call them today. Now, if you were to look into the background of the language of this passage, you would see that when it says spirit of divination, And so then that would maybe direct you to go and do some research and you would find that Python was indeed, as it sounds, a very large creature, like some kind of serpent, perhaps something like a dragon. And Python was a guardian. It was in Delphi, Delphi. And so the Temple of Apollo there had this woman, an oracle, and they would go and ask her things and maybe sacrifice a sheep, and she would tell them things. And so this was, you've all heard of oracles before, so this was one at the Temple of Apollo. The ruins of this Temple of Apollo are still there, not much left. others, the remains. So this is all tied in with Greek mythology, which is all rubbish, as interesting as it might be. But anyway, the oracle at Delphi, she was said to have this spirit of python, spirit of divination. And other people also have this. very commonly when people were like a medium, in this sense, they would be said to have the spirits of Python. So, I suppose the next thing to wonder is, what was going on inside this girl's soul? Was she, as so many are today, was she simply a cheat? A manipulator? Don't say all, most of them are cheats. They use psychological tricks to make you believe that they've spoken to your uncle Alfred on the other side and so on. But I would say from the evidence in this passage that this is a genuine demon involved here. Because, well for a number of reasons, but here's one. Why were the people angry that they'd now lost their source of income? If she was just a cheat, and she pretended to predict the future, what difference does Paul Withers' magic words make? She will continue to go and tell people stuff about the future, whether it's true or not. And so they wouldn't lose any money, they wouldn't be bothered by Paul's actions, but they were. Because they saw this spirit leaver, they saw that there was a change in this woman. And they knew that whatever it was that she had, had now fled. This ancient demon had fled from here to go and harass someone else. So she definitely had this ability. So what do we say about mediums? Well, we suggest to you that the spirits of divination and so on that the mediums have, these are certainly demons. And you have to remember that a demon has many, many other demons alongside them. So the Bible doesn't tell us how many angels rebelled, and were classed as devils from that point on. But for all we know, it could be tens or hundreds of millions, we don't know. But certainly, there are many, and they are all around the world, and they've been collecting intelligence on every individual from the dawn of time. That is the amount of information that they have at their disposal. So it's very, very easy for them Now, mediums today, again, a mixture of the fake, the counterfeit, and also people, probably people with genuine familiar spirits or demons. Now, we don't know much about this slave girl, but, well, there's no indication that she wasn't, you know, polite and kind and helpful. And when I think about some of the mediums around today, I find that they are quite, normally quite pleasant people. They're helpful. If you are grieving, they'll come and sit with you and show sympathy and they will maybe give you a message from your dead parent and say, she's telling me she's at peace now. She's looking down, she saw you the other day crying, you know, she loves you and all this. And what a, I mean, what a thing to be able to tell someone who's in grief It goes much further than what the Christian can tell them. It gives them something they want to hear. And what we say isn't always what they want to hear. And so we have them there today. And I don't know, has anyone here been to a meeting in their old lives? No? Karen has. Karen has, and Hilary has. Well, we can talk about your experience later, Hilary. But yeah, before Karen was a Christian, she and her mum went to a medium and it was very interesting because the medium was able to tell them things about Karen's grandmother that really this medium could not know. A very unusual mannerism that she had. And obviously it makes you think, this is genuineness. My own experience, I haven't been to a medium, but my family in Liverpool have. and they've come and told me that my dad, who's now passed away, that he said this and he said that, and it's all great, it's all lovely and warm and fascinating, but I don't believe for a second that Karen's grandmother or my father were communicating with mediums. These are demons. In fact, if I remember rightly, when Karen became born again, So dangerous, dangerous people, but very nice people, outwardly, very nice people. Do they know what they're doing? Do they know that they are in touch with demons? I'd say, if you don't, I think they believe that they are a channel from the spirit world. If they were all fake, why would God Why would God bother saying this on several occasions? Leviticus 19 and verse 31. The Lord says, do not turn to mediums or necromancers. Do not seek them out and so make yourself unclean by them. I am the Lord your God. So the Lord's putting his foot down there. I am the Lord, remember that. And I'm telling you, avoid these people. Why would the Lord be so bothered about talking to some charlatan who's telling them lies? The danger in this is that the Lord knows that there is, at least sometimes, there is the involvement of a demonic spirit. So the Lord warns them. So, Our passage obviously linked him to the previous one. As we were going to the place of prayer, it says they were on their way. And then they got this sort of interruption. And what a digression this was. They ended up having this interaction with this strange young girl. And then they ended up in prison. and then they followed a miraculous deliverance, they followed the conversion of the very jailer who took them in there, and then finally they got to go to Lydia's and say, hi, sorry we're late, we've been a bit distracted. Most notable in all this is not talk of mediums and so on as such, it's how, remarkably, how this deep very accurately. And so this is what I want to, in the short time we have, I want to just look at the elements within this statement, from this scale. And it starts by an exalted God's person, first of all. I say it. It was the woman speaking, but it was really behind that was the demon speaking, you see. So is it it? a he or a she, there are no such things in the angelic world, but I've called it It. And so It exalted God's person, it says, servant of the Most High God, the Most High God. It is in the, you may have heard this in the Old Testament, in Hebrew you may have heard this, you've heard it The Lord's our banner, the Lord's our help, the Lord's our healer, and one of them is the Lord's most high, Jehovah Elyon. And if you hear that anywhere, it means the Lord most high. It's describing the real God, not like the Greek gods or the Roman gods. or the false gods. So he is the Lord Most High and this demon recognised this. What was the purpose of the demon doing this? I mean it became an annoyance to Paul eventually. So was it mischief? Was the demon compelled? Compelled to say these things? Was the demon sent by God to witness to the truth? to affirm that God is high and these are his servants and so on, was it sent by God so that Paul would get fed up, perform an exorcism, and then God be glorified in that way? I don't know. There's another similar example when Jesus, when he walked the earth, he approached an individual, and this individual had a spirit, a demonic spirit within them. And as soon as Jesus came close to them, it says this in Luke 28, it says, when he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice, what have you to do with me, Jesus, son of the most high God, I beg you, do not torment me. Elsewhere, a demon exalts God. A demon says, have you come to torment us early? Because they know that that's coming. They know it's in the future. Have you come to torment us early? Panicking, you see. Well, we need to watch out, friends. We need to watch out because I don't know whether I was speaking in Lens or was it here, I was speaking to people about these horror films and it fascinates me how these films, some of you don't like them, but it interests me how they portray Satan and the demons and so on. It's interesting how each of them has a different angle on it, but universally, of demons, Satan himself does not come to frighten you. What is the point of going around scaring people like on the films? It's got nothing to do with that. Satan comes as an angel of light, an angel of light, a friend with a smile. And so if he came, if he was allowed to come in bodily form today, and he came into our meeting on a Sunday morning, I expect to see him in pants and a shirt, with a smile, and he'd hold out his hand and he'd say, hello. He would be an angel of light, someone who you could trust and befriend. That is the point, that is his approach, if you like. And sometimes, sometimes these, these, these spirits will cause people to go very far in terms of truth. So you might find that they come like this lady. I mean, this statement, it's so high. Servants of the most high God of the gospel. It is such great language that this demon uses. So they'll go very far in telling truth to achieve their ends. It's only because that this girl said one thing One thing is recorded. Did she say the same thing over and over again, and that's what annoyed Paul? Or was it just her shouting all over the place? The point is, we don't know what else she said. She could have, over that time that she was there, the spirits through her may have said more specific things about the gospel and about Christ and exalted Christ and the cross and all kinds of things. We don't know, maybe she testified in other ways. So this spirit, it exalted the Most High God, it also endorsed God's messengers. This spirit gave an endorsement to God's messengers, Paul and the others. Call them servants, call them doulos of this Most High God. By saying that these men were servants of the Most High God, the demon was promoting them and encouraging the people to listen to them. Go to them and listen to them. This is really, this is a case for the demon of self-harm, damaging Satan's kingdom for a greater end in their eyes. Actually promoting the gospel. And so they were called messengers, and this was broadcast by this girl all over the place. And it's a high turn to use messengers. I spotted one of Spurgeon's daily readings, he said, he's speaking to the people, he says, if a change of messengers will win you, Much as I love the task of speaking in my master's name, I would gladly die now, that some other preacher might occupy this platform, if thereby you might be saved. And that should be the attitude of every preacher, if there is someone who can do the job. carry the gospel and are meant to take it to people. So we're all to pick up where others left off. So when Paul and Silas were dead, Christians existed then. God had saved people in order to carry on where they left off. And that process is carrying on. And so we get to today where we are carrying on where others have left off. And the day will come, friends, when we are taken from this world But I can guarantee that the Lord will have his people in this place, in this land, and they will carry on where we leave off. So let's do what we can. The angels, you know, are called messengers. The holy angels are called messengers as well. And so you're in good company as a fellow messenger. You're in good company. So what was the problem with this girl? Well, she kept going on and on and on. She was persistent, but she was annoying. Paul obviously knew all along that, you know, who they were being followed by, that they were being followed by a malevolent spirit. Paul knew that, but he left it. He left it alone. I wonder why. I wonder, did he think at first, did he think maybe, you know, remember that principle from, that principle, you know, that I believe that, you know, even if people are not sincere, the gospel is still preached. Did he maybe think, well, I know this is a demonic spirit, but as long as they are preaching this message and telling people to come and listen to us, then great. Then we'll leave it. Maybe it was that. Maybe that was it. But eventually, of course, he got a carbon, as we say in England, a carbon, and he obviously got rid of this spirit. Well, another thing we see within what she said here as recorded is this, that you've got exaltation She, I say she, you know, the woman, the words are ascribed to her as well. And yeah, it says, proclaim to you, these men proclaim to you the way of salvation, the way of salvation. So this is a pagan culture with their many gods and this woman is saying, Now I don't know if, seeing as Paul and Silas had not long been in that place in Macedonia, I sort of doubt that this woman had ever heard the Gospel. It's possible she'd never heard the Gospel before. It's possible that knew who they were, what they were up to, and who the God was, they said. And so, yeah, of course the demon had heard the gospel from Paul. The demon had been around all through Paul's life, right up to that moment, and a long, long time before that. But there's this great statement that Jesus is the way of salvation. Jesus is the way of salvation. None of these pagan gods, and it's through this great atonement where someone had to die, someone had to die. And the message of the gospel is that it doesn't have to be you. Jesus paid for sins for those who repent. I wonder if this girl is saying such, this demon is preaching such great words, why Paul would maybe not leave her alone And I've suggested maybe Paul got impatient or whatever, but I think a big factor in this, which made Paul eventually go to that extreme of rebuking his spirit, is that if people associated those truth statements, associated them with this girl, it could discredit the gospel. People could associate divination. So maybe Paul thought it would discredit the gospel, you know, to leave it, to have anything to do with it. And so you might say the same way that a preacher, and that Satan's brought down some well-known preachers, he's brought down some heavyweight preachers, Satan has in time caused them. One just recently, highly regarded, a warm-hearted pastoral man, who loved Christ, loved evangelism, wrote books, went to conferences, and then one day fell for a woman in a congregation, and off he went, the pair of them. And that was the end of him. That was the end of his entire ministry. Brought shame on the church, on him, on his family, damaged the ministry, which is that one thing. Satan can take down some heavyweight, if you like, preachers. And so, well, we just need to be careful, don't we, really, that we remember that if someone is engaged in an open sin, if I was, you need to get rid of me or make me sit at the back for the rest of my life, you know? So the point is with Paul, It doesn't matter. If they are not walking with God, then they need to step down. But in this case, it wasn't just a way with Christian, this was a demonic spirit. And so he says, in the name of Jesus Christ, in the very name of the one that this demon had been exalting, or his gospel he'd been exalting, in that very name of Christ, leave. And God gave to Paul this privilege And so, well, I don't think I had the same power. So if I was confronted by this, I wouldn't know what to do. I wouldn't know what to do really. But certainly, I don't have that certainty that Paul had, that absolute certainty that God was with him on this. And so he gave the command, the demon fled to do damage elsewhere. The crowd here were probably worse than the girl. The girl wasn't innocent, inhabited by some evil spirit. She wasn't innocent, she was still a sinner. But are the people not worse? Are the people not worse? They come up with these false allegations. You have these sinful motives based on the fact that they made an awful lot of money. People would pay good money to hear the future. And that girl, I can guarantee that girl got a very small amount of that income. And these other people were creaming off all the money that came in. People would pay very good money. So the people were worse, really, because they took advantage of this girl. For a start, she's a slave girl. And then they take advantage of her. The point is here that really the people are wicked as well, and the demon is wicked, and dare I say it, the young slave girl herself is wicked. And the fact remains for all those people involved in the story that unless they repent, they had it. Unless they repent towards God and put faith in God, I thought I'd note to you that, bring to your attention that in the account it says she said these things. She said this, she said that. Hang on, wasn't it a spirit saying it? Why are they attributing this to the girl? Well, it would seem that we can say both. The girl was saying it and the demon was saying it as well. It shows us really that By attributing these words to the gale as well, it shows us really that whatever spirit is within us, this becomes part of who we are. Whatever spirit is in us determines our identity. And so we need to consider what spirit that she threw herself at the feet of God and claimed the merit of Christ and got saved. So we may bump into her one day in the future, who knows? The demon who was in there left, went somewhere else, we don't know where. I can tell you this though for sure, they don't die, that same demon is around today. could be working, having a go at us now, trying to distract you from the message, from the Word, trying to make you fall asleep, trying to make you think about more interesting things in your life. He's certainly around today, distracting us from the Word, just trying to get us not to proceed in the Christian faith in our walk. This demon, And all the others who are still around today, they know very well that you guys are messengers of the Most High God, and they want to hinder you above all else. They want to hinder you through cowardice, through pride, through a number of things. They will try to hinder you from being that messenger that you are. So, I would just say to him in closing to be watchful. Be watchful, beware of false teachers. Rasmus has preachers on the internet. Beware, don't idolise them because they may not last as long as you think. They may fall and it's a great height to fall from. Instead, we serve the most high God. We keep our eyes fixed on Him and then we will have our perspectives. Be a messenger like Paul in whatever way possible. Some of you don't meet many people throughout the week to speak to. God knows that. But wherever you can, use your imagination to try and find that person, someone. I think Karen said this morning, why don't we invite so-and-so to the quiz? I've wasted that. So I've invited someone there today, actually, and maybe they will come, but there's a very non-confrontational, easy way for people to meet the church and see that we're just flesh and blood like them. So be a messenger. Share that way of salvation. The purpose being that those people being saved will be inhabited by the Holy Spirit. the Holy Spirit, and then that becomes their new identity. Amen.