Acts 19, and we'll also be in 1 Corinthians 2, so you can hold your finger there while we work through this. Apologies about a bit of a late start this morning. Trying to get everything settled in before I go on vacation for a couple weeks. And vacation for me means dissertation writing. That's not much of one, but... Need to be able to focus. All right, so after we finished 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians only has a singular reference and it's a pretty typical one to the Holy Spirit, so we are just returning straight back to the book of Acts. That is Acts chapter 19. And after Acts 19 and Acts 20, the books of 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, and Romans are all written. and so we're going to do this chronologically as I said so we're back in Acts just for this interlude and then we will be in 1st 2nd Corinthians and Romans for several weeks because there are simply so many references to the Holy Spirit throughout those books and some of the largest and most expansive references to the Holy Spirit and his work in the church occurs in the book of 1st Corinthians. So we'll actually be in 1st Corinthians quite a bit. But I will say this, as I am on vacation the next two weeks, we will not be having Sunday school class next Sunday or the one after that. So it won't be until July 30th that we're back in here for Sunday school. So I'll announce that again in the morning service, but I'll just remind you guys here of that. So, um, but yeah, so for a lot of August, we're going to be sitting in first Corinthians because there's simply so many references to all of these gifts that the Holy Spirit is now working into the church and all of these exceptional things that are going on. And I think that's one of the, one of the key words, uh, exceptional. Very, very unique stuff is being done by the Holy Spirit in Acts 19 and in 1 Corinthians. And there's a lot of people who try to make these things normative, but the reality is it's not even normative for the time of the apostles, let alone should it be normative for us today. We should not be expecting the things that are described in Acts 19 to be the way church works and you'll see what I mean when we get into here. If it is how you expect church to work, you're going to have to fake it or you're going to be very disappointed. So let's kind of dig into it and you'll see what I'm saying here when we work through this. Paul After writing to the church in Thessalonica, continues on to the city of Ephesus, a city that, Lord willing, before I die, I want to visit. It's in the top five list for me, because it is such a remarkable story of the church that was there, and the Temple of Diana, which Artemis, as it's also called here, is one of the wonders of the ancient world, and for good reason. The columns itself were so imposing, and there's still many of them that still exist. And we actually found an early Christian church basically right down the street from the temple of diana and it really helps illustrate the book of ephesians uh as to what paul is encouraging them for because they sit under the shadow of the temple of diana whose columns themselves are a bigger footprint than the entire church each column so to feel small and insignificant, yet to possess all the heavenly graces, to be in the midst of a world where we say Christ has actually defeated all the powers and the principalities, and yet, in the physical, we look out and we see, but our culture seems so powerful. Compared to us that is exactly what the church in Ephesus was dealing with and boy does it change the way you read the book of Ephesians Just a side note. We're gonna be in the book of Ephesians this morning in the morning service mature Christians Because there he gives them goals that have absolutely nothing to do with what is normally considered mature Side notes, so Paul is walking into Ephesus and Let's pick up with him there, Acts 19 verse 1. And it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus. There he found some disciples. And he said to them, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? And they said, no, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit. And he said, well, then into what were you baptized? And they said, well, into John's baptism, that is John the Baptist. And Paul said, John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is Jesus. On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying. There were about 12 men in all. Now that's where we get introduced to the world of Ephesus. Paul comes across, by the way, this is the last time we see somebody receiving the Holy Spirit after salvation. Everyone else is at salvation, but here, they had still been following the Lord in accordance with the Old Covenant. They were still following the Lord as after the ministry of John the Baptist, who was one of the final prophets. And so, as they believed what John the Baptist had said, they were still looking forward to the Messiah. They had not even heard of Jesus' death, burial, resurrection, or the coming of the Holy Spirit. So again, Ephesus is nowhere near Jerusalem. So we are talking about this experience of the church that there were those out in the world who were saved people that had not yet gotten the Holy Spirit. That is not our experience in the church today. That is first generation struggles and figuring out how this works. Because the gospel actually went ahead of the Holy Spirit. And so, yes ma'am. because there was overlap between the Old and the New Covenant. So, for instance, how were Old Testament saints saved? Before Jesus, how were they saved? Well, before John. Baptism wasn't a part of the Old Testament. They trusted that the Lord would provide a lamb. whoever the Savior was going to be, we were going to defer to God's wisdom and plan in the future. And we don't know exactly how it's going to work out, but we know our deliverer is coming. We know he's coming. We don't know who he is. We're looking for him. And so they just trusted that the Lord would do this. A lot of them did not recognize Jesus because of distance. These people who were probably living in Ephesus, either as Jews or as Greeks, we're not entirely sure. The last time they had been to Jerusalem was decades ago. John the Baptist has been dead for 20, 25 years at this point. Which means their baptism of John was like a whole generation ago. And it was just like this last enclave of Old Testament saints that hadn't even heard about the Holy Spirit yet. And hadn't heard about the death, burial and resurrection. And even the identity of Jesus. Which means this would have been early on in John the Baptist's ministry. So we're talking a long time ago, probably even 30 years. And so we're trying to piece together, and the book of Acts, Luke is showing us that yes, there were people who were saved, but without the Holy Spirit yet. Now, that should not be the expectation of the church today. Because with the preaching of Christ, burial and resurrection, and salvation in his name, the Holy Spirit comes at salvation period. But in this first generation of the church, we have this overlap of the covenants. Where we had the old covenant, which was trust in the Lord with all your heart, don't believe on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge him and you will direct your paths. That is salvation. It's the exact same as salvation in the new covenant. Faith in God. But the faith in God in the Old Covenant was less specific. And it did not come with the Holy Spirit. The preaching of the Old Covenant and trusting in the Lord did not come with the Holy Spirit because what do we see in the Old Testament? Old Testament saints did not have the Holy Spirit in the same way that we do. They just didn't. We've seen that all through the scriptures. The Holy Spirit was doing very specific things, but the Holy Spirit is devoted to the new covenant. Yes, ma'am. It would have been, if they were Greeks, they would have been proselytized Greek Old Testament saints. Correct. Yep. Yep. Now, they become New Testament saints. Like, same day Paul shows up. Yes, ma'am. That's a good question. We don't, really know, because by the time Jesus was, as Luke says, about 30 years old, John the Baptist had already been working for several years, so it would have been in his 20s. I don't know that we have any specificity past that, but John the Baptist's entire life was supposed to be about that, so it could have been as early as his teenage years, but it certainly was in his mid-20s at least. So John the Baptist was only a few months older than Jesus. Jesus was killed about three years after John the Baptist. Two years, something like this. Again, we don't have exact dates on much of that. We do have the exact date of Jesus' death, but we don't have John the Baptist's exact date. We know like between which feasts it happened and in which year, but we don't have like it was September 15th. We don't have that. So we know approximately about two years before Jesus died, John the Baptist was beheaded by Herod and his horribly named daughter Herodias. Just don't name your daughters Herodias, please. So when, for those who were just walking in, Acts chapter 19. So Paul's focus here is not saying to them that they have need of salvation. They have need of the Holy Spirit. They are saved. Old Testament saints were saved the same as we are. It is through faith. If you have any doubt about that, go read Hebrews 11, which is written to Hebrew saints about Old Testament saints being saved in the exact same way we are. It is impossible to please God without faith. Impossible. Nobody has ever done it. And he gives examples all the way from Abel all the way through. Noah, Abram, everyone. That's how the Lord has always saved his people. It was not by law. It was not any other way. And so when it comes down to it, Paul is not looking at this group of Old Testament saints and saying, you have need of salvation. He says, you have need of being baptized into Christ. We're in a new covenant now. Brand new set up, brand new relationship. And guess what? The Holy Spirit actually lives within you. And they're just like, wait a second. We haven't even heard that there is a Holy Spirit. Now that's significant. This is one of the reasons why I suspect they are most likely, at least the majority of them, Greeks. Because if you are Jewish, you are very much aware of the Spirit of God from the Old Testament Scriptures, as you and I have walked through pretty significantly. But as far as for the Holy Spirit of God dwelling in his people, that's something that the Old Testament knew nothing of. Outside of David, the Holy Spirit came on people for this instance or that instance or this section of time and then left. But with David, he was the only one that experienced from the day of his anointing to the day of his death, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And so if you were an Old Testament saint, you could be somewhat forgiven for missing the fact that the Spirit of God had a completely new purpose in the New Covenant. Not just instances here as he travels around or interacts with this prophet or grabs Ezekiel by his hair and drags him around the earth or any of these other things that were going on in the Old Testament. Now we have the New Covenant, New Testament, The Holy Spirit is interacting with everyone very differently. He's even interacting differently than he did in the Gospels. Because as far as the Holy Spirit is concerned, the church hadn't begun yet. As far as the church age, that doesn't happen until Acts 2. And that's why the Holy Spirit came that day. So, as we've been reading the book of Acts, we've been watching, and I don't have another good term for this. I call it the rollout of the Holy Spirit. I don't know another way to describe it because in our language, that's about the most accurate way to say this. It's like when you do a soft rollout of a new product, right? Same thing here. Starts in Jerusalem, goes to Judea, and Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. Now, throughout the Book of Acts, if you're ever studying the Book of Acts, that is the pattern. That's the pattern for the apostles' travel, that's the pattern for the gospel, and that is the pattern for the Holy Spirit. Here we have the last instance where the Holy Spirit is to the uttermost parts of the earth. We're on the other side of Asia Minor, Ephesus is all the way over by Greece, this is nothing like Jerusalem, or Judea, or Samaria, or even Antioch. This is way past. Now the Holy Spirit comes there, and we don't have any further instances of where there's an Old Testament saint that becomes a follower of Christ upon hearing it. Now, this is fascinating, too, because this really ties into how the apostles are teaching about Old Testament saints when they hear about Christ. If they are truly Old Testament saints, and they are truly saved under the Old Covenant, when they hear about Christ, 100% of them follow Christ. Because they recognize his voice is the same voice of scripture. This is where Simeon and Anna and all these other Old Testament saints followed Christ instantaneously. Why? Because this is the fulfillment of everything. Their familiarity with God in the Old Covenant would naturally lead them to Christ. And if they were already saved under the Old Covenant, they would immediately be ushered into the New Covenant. And this is why there's no exception here. They were all baptized after the baptism and repentance of John. They were following the old covenant. They were following the way, repenting of their sins, following the Lord, trusting the Lord with all their heart, leaning not onto their own understanding. And all of a sudden, an apostle, they've never heard of apostles, shows up preaching Christ, who they've never heard of, his death, burial, and resurrection, whom they never knew anything about, his ascension, the coming of the Holy Spirit, and the miraculous things that were continuing on. Now I want you to see how powerful the salvation of the church in Ephesus is. So let's continue reading on because it's the most exceptional story in the New Testament about the Holy Spirit's actions. Verse eight. Now that was just about 12 men in all. That's one cadre inside Ephesus. There are Christians in Ephesus, but this is going to be part of the church, right? Verse eight, he entered the synagogue and for three months, he spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading with them about the kingdom of God. But when some became stubborn and continued in unbelief, that is revealing that they weren't even saved under the old covenant while attending synagogue. That's an important distinction. Speaking evil of the way before the congregation, he withdrew from them and took the disciples with him, reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus. This continued for two years, so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks. Now, buckle up. Verse 11, God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them. Is that your experience of the Christian walk or church? Just brushed past him and the handkerchief is carried away. What is happening? Have we ever seen anything like this? Old covenant or new covenant? Have we seen it in Jerusalem, Judea or Samaria? Have we seen anything like this at all? The most extraordinary thing that we have seen is Jesus casting out demons by instructing them. Nobody had ever done that before. And everyone was astounded that he had this speaking with authority. He's not quoting anyone else. He just speaks with the same authority of Scripture. Yes, same God. And people are trying to wrap their heads around this. This is brand new. This has never happened before. The idea of casting out demons without using spells, incantations, or herbs, or any other thing, even in Ephesus, is unheard of. Why is the Holy Spirit doing this here? Because the only thing that's changed is the location. Why Ephesus? So were they in Jerusalem? What's distinct about Ephesus? Anyone know? Let's read it. Verse 13. Then some of the traveling Jewish exorcists, what? Who are those? Those are Jewish traveling magicians who were able to expel demons out of people every once in a while. You say, what? Where have I heard about that in Sunday school? Probably never. But if you read the Gospels, you realize that Jesus talked about them. He addressed them as the sons of the Pharisees. when they accused him of casting out demons by instructing them and saying, well, then he's obviously the prince of the demons because he's in charge of them. And he says, well, that's fascinating. I'm going to do Tim's paraphrase. That's fascinating theory. If by being the prince of the demons, I cast them out, then how do your sons cast them out? Because the reality is the Pharisees had a huge ministry, so-called, of casting out demons. And Jesus referenced it directly. And Jesus says, if I'm the prince of the demons, then how do you guys cast them out? Now, the reality, and we know this from history, is that the Pharisees were not always successful in this. There was not 100% success rate, like it was for Jesus. By the way, it was not 100% success rate for the disciples. That happens too. We learn that they go out and Jesus sends them out to go cast out demons. What happens? Well, everything's great. Everything's great. Oh man, the demons submit to us, but We came across one that just wouldn't. And Jesus is like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's a different one. That needs prayer and fasting. And they're like, what? Like, first of all, there's layers of demons. There's hierarchy of things. Jesus is like, oh yeah. And he says, oh, by the way, don't rejoice just because the demons are listening to you because my name rejoiced that your names are recorded in heaven. Let that be your joy. Don't, don't. Nothing about anything that the Holy Spirit is doing should be the center of your joy. Your center of joy should be that you belong to the Lord. and he knows you from the foundation of the world. That's how Jesus connects it to this. But all of this to say, the reality of demon possession happening in the world is something that our modern minds usually don't like to wrestle with. Because as we look at it, if you listen to preachers who don't know what they're talking about, they go, oh, well, this is just mental illness and they're all trying to interact with that. No, they knew what mental illness was too. Believe it or not, the ancient people were not dumb. But they also knew what demon possession was. You say, well, is demon possession happening today? Not on the whole. Not in any amount like this. You want to know something crazy? Wasn't happening during the Old Testament either. Do you see any instance of this ever in the Old Testament? No. No prophets were ever casting out demons. They wrestled with them directly through magicians and necromancers and all sorts of things. Like you see in Egypt, where you got the magicians who are trying to There's always this, Ben, so this is going to be a quick lesson on how demons interact with the world. They were always trying to imitate what God was doing with the plagues in Egypt. They were trying to imitate what God was doing with regards to on Mount Carmel. You don't have 40 prophets of Baal calling for fire from heaven if they've never seen it before. I promise you they had seen it before. Demons could do things in the ancient world that you and I would be very surprised at. We have it in scripture in multiple places. It would not be surprising to have someone even be able to interpret dreams. We see Nebuchadnezzar reacting to this and he says, there's limits to what they can interpret. And then Daniel's ability just shoots them out of the water. Same with Moses' staff eating the snakes. God always comes back and one-ups everything. Demon possession before and during and slowly thereafter pittering out around the ministry of Jesus Christ had a whole lot to do with the fact that the forces of darkness knew that God was coming as a man. And the closest thing that they could do to appear like that was to possess people. And so we see a huge influx of this in about 100 to 150 years before the birth of Jesus in preparation for his coming, trying to muddy the waters, trying to make it appear that this kind of possession is a normal thing, that a supernatural creature infesting a person becomes a normal thing. And what did the Pharisees do? We don't have anything in scripture to deal with this. And so they went to magicians and astrologers and things like this and tried to come up with all sorts of ways they write about it. Herbs, incantations, potions, anything that they could do. And sometimes it was successful. Other times it wasn't. In fact, the majority of times it wasn't. But they tried. And they were trying to fix this problem. And this is why when Jesus comes and just speaks to a demon and he leaves, the Pharisees knew exactly who they were dealing with and they did not want to follow him. They knew that only the Lord could pull off something like that. And then to turn around with that full knowledge and say, basically, you're Beelzebub. You are Satan. You are the prince of death, the prince of flies, which is actually what Beelzebub means. You are the one that is in charge of all the demons on the wrong side. You are not God. You're the exact opposite. And what Jesus is saying there with the unpardonable sin is that right there, ultimate unbelief. You know who I am and you refuse to follow me. Now, the Pharisees had done all of this, but Jesus comes and one-ups them. And instead of realizing the pattern, which is God is the only one who can one-up all the demons, which has happened all throughout the Old Testament, they go, we will not submit to one who one-ups us. And Jesus says, well, you're just speaking lies because you are of your father, the devil. Turns around the whole thing on them. And so Jesus, in his ministry, deals with demon possessions by command, by command, by command, and never fails. 100% of the time, one-upping them every time. And instead of humbling themselves, they instead see who he is and reject him all the same. We would rather our power. We would rather our influence. When the Holy Spirit goes to Ephesus with Paul, we have him one-upping everybody. Watch this. God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them. He's not even present. Now, Jesus never even did that. Ever. He healed from a distance. That happened many different times. He saw people from a distance. That happened with Nathanael. And immediately he recognized that he was God. There's no way you could have seen me under the fig tree. Nobody saw me there. The implication is that Nathanael was actually praying under that fig tree and Jesus answered his prayer the second he met him. And he was like, nobody even heard my prayer. How in the world? And the reality is, not in the world. We're dealing with somebody completely different. some of the itinerant, that means traveling, Jewish exorcist, undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus. You see that? Fine. We got a new incantation in town. His name is Jesus. We're going to use him to bolster our business. We'll use the name of the Lord Jesus to cast out demons. Sounds great. They undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims. In other words, I'm going to make really clear what Jesus said is, I don't know him, but I know you know him, and I'm going to use that incantation on you to overcome this spirit. I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims. Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. Now, this should show you how far up into the Jewish ranks of religion this went. One of the high priests, one of the Pharisees, their seven sons were all doing this, being traveling exorcists. This should show you how far into the Jewish religion this kind of teaching went. If we come across a new incantation, I don't even care who it is. As long as it gives me the ability to cast out demons, great. Even if it's the Lord Jesus whom Paul proclaims. Verse 15 is an astonishing verse. But the evil spirit answered them. Jesus, I know. And Paul, I recognize. Who are you? And the man in whom the evil spirit was leapt on them, overcame all seven of them, overpowered them, so that they fled out of the house naked and wounded. What's happening? Well, let's put it this way. This is not only God one-upping everything, this is God letting these men face evil spirits directly and experiencing what is hilariously called in theology a reverse exorcism. Which is, instead of the Holy Spirit being commanded to go out and leave and be banished, the evil spirit comes in and overpowers them and casts them out of the house and banishes them and, oh by the way, steals all their clothes. They fled out of the house naked and wounded. This became known to all the residents of Ephesus. Notice, all of this is happening in Ephesus. Both Jews and Greeks, and fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled. That was the effect. It's always the effect of the Spirit's work is that the Lord Jesus' name is extolled higher. Watch what the church's reaction to this is. One of the most significant events here. Verse 18, also many of those who are now believers came, confessing and divulging all their magical practices. And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of them all, and they counted the value of them, and found it came to 50,000 pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily. Anyone have any idea how much value that is? It was related to approximately a day's labor, one piece of silver. 50,000 days wages. Many, many, many lifetimes of wages. We're not talking about a small amount of things. And if you're looking at this, you're wondering what in the world did Christians have so many books for? Because they lived in Ephesus. Ephesus we know from secular history was the center of magic of the ancient world. new incantations, new herbs, new practices. That's why the itinerant Jewish exorcists were there. Ephesus was the place where we are trying to figure all this stuff out. That is why there were so many idol makers there. That is why the Temple of Diana was there. All of this was going on in Ephesus. And so we have the Holy Spirit doing extraordinarily unique things only in Ephesus. Because that's the thing that makes the difference between this story and say Jerusalem or Antioch. This kind of stuff didn't happen anywhere else. God was one-upping all of the unbelievable things that were happening in Ephesus. There were unbelievable things happening in Ephesus. And so the Holy Spirit says, fine, you want unbelievable? I'll give you unbelievable. Look at this handkerchief right here. You think that your spells and incantations can work? Watch, I'll just brush this handkerchief across somebody's face and the demon goes. It is him one-upping. everything that the pagan magicians were capable of doing. Now you look at that and you go like, what? Why isn't this the way the world works anymore? Right? Doesn't that come to your mind? You just go like, I mean, this is pretty nutty stuff. I mean, the reality is the entire ancient world was aware of this stuff and they didn't think it unusual. We're not aware of it and we think it unusual. Something changed. What changed? Jesus came, was dead, buried, resurrected, and ascended, and sent the Holy Spirit. Jesus himself said the same thing. His intention in doing all of this was not only to save his people from their sins, but to bind the strong man. He said the same thing about his ministry. What is he here to do? One of the things he was here to do was to end the reign of Satan. Remember what happens at the very beginning of Matthew? where Satan takes him up to the pinnacle of the temple, shows him all of the nations, all the kingdoms of the world. Bow down to me and I'll give you all of it. A legitimate offer, by the way, because all of the nations were ruled by him. What happens by the end of the book of Matthew? Remember the Great Commission? How does the Great Commission start? All authority. in heaven and on earth is now mine. It's been given to me. This is after the resurrection, this is right before the ascension. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, now he can command them. As you're going out into the world, which is actually how that Greek construction works, as you're traveling out into the world, I have the authority to delegate to you the right to preach, command, and baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. He has the right to invade every single kingdom of the world because now he has bound the strong man. Now, it took a generation or two for this to work out the same way as the Holy Spirit. So, as we continue through the Scriptures, we should not be surprised that we don't have instructions in the church for exorcisms and things like this. Right? Do we have anything like that? No. By the time we come to the generation right after this, actually, not even that, just a little bit later in this generation, not even 10 years later, we have Paul writing about the interaction with the world as You're just discerning which spirit it is. Right? Many antichrists have come into the world. You see John writing the same thing. He writes back and says, one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is to discern the source of a message. Because again, no New Testament yet. They're still very young in this. And so, the church had to understand the reality of how God is working in the world and how it is that we can perceive these things. But as far as for exorcisms and all these things, notice in the New Testament, we don't have any instructions for how we are to carry that out. The Catholic Church has made up their own rules as to how they can do that. But the reality is they're not interacting with evil spirits most of the time. And if that happens, it's not the norm. Same with speaking in tongues. If it happens, it's not the norm. None of these things are. They weren't supposed to be the norm. They weren't even the norm here. It only happened in Ephesus during the Apostolic Age. This wasn't happening in Jerusalem. It wasn't happening in Antioch. It wasn't happening in Corinth. It wasn't happening in Colossae right down the street. Just Ephesus. Because God was meeting them where they are at and defeating all the powers that they have. When you read the book of Ephesus, or the book two of the Ephesians, read it with this in mind. I promise you that book will just flower in front of you. Because what Paul says in there is, we have been united to Christ in such a way that no power, no principality, nothing in all the world can do anything because he's defeated them all. Keep this story in mind when you read that kind of stuff, because Paul is writing this church and saying, don't worry that you sit in the shadow of the temple of Diana, which was still standing right down the street. Don't worry that you look so small. Don't worry that the footprint that you leave in the world is smaller than one of her columns. You possess the God of the universe. That means more to us than anything that the eye sees. It is a powerful statement for how it is God is working in the world. Now, does the church sometime in history, we want to almost like return back to this and make it normative? Yeah, there's a lot of churches that say, we just need to get back to this. How can we make Acts the way that we interact with the world? We can't. We are not in control of what the Holy Spirit does. We have seen through church history that this is exceptional. We've seen in the book of Acts, this is exceptional. This is unique. Yes, sir. What I find fascinating is that even though these gentlemen were really using the Lord's name in vain, trying to bring out demons, is that God allowed this demon to demonstrate who God really is. Exactly. I mean, he, he allowed this demon that not only allowed, but I mean, he kicked the snot out of them. Yep. You know, beat them up pretty bad. And, and, and, and it said that everybody knew of this story of what happened. Yep. And the demon knowing who God is, who Jesus and Paul are, and what they're about, I find it fascinating that God allows that to happen to show his true power. You're exactly right, and I love that the demon's response was, Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize. That is a tacit acknowledgement that I know Jesus in the spiritual world. This man who was possessed by the demon is not the one speaking here. This is the demon speaking. Yeah, I know Jesus. I mean, we all know him. I mean, even during Jesus's ministry, they were learning that he was going to be destroying them. that he was going to be binding them, right? Remember when he crosses the lake over to the Gadarenes, and the two men that were bound with chains broke them like they were nothing, come up to him. One of them had bound with chains and just melted off of his hands, right? So things that are just unbelievable to a modern ear. And they come up to Jesus and they say, what have you to do with us? It's before our time. Don't send us to the abyss. Let us go into the pigs, please. Something else, anything else. Because going into pigs and having them die leads to a different outcome for demons than going to the abyss. What is it? We don't know. Jesus doesn't tell us and they don't tell us. We just know that if they're able to kill a pig that they're currently infesting. By the way, demons could indwell animals. We just learned that from that story. Things like this that we just don't know elsewhere from scripture and Jesus interacts with it like it's everyday stuff. He's like, sure. OK. It's not your time yet. It will be soon. Go ahead. Yeah. Yep. Right. else would be able to answer and interact with this reality. These are the sons of the high priest. This is everything left in Judaism. Everything that they have is like the last breath of strength. And it ended up being weak. Because this side of Judaism had completely left their Messiah. Had completely rejected him and wanted to just use him as a magical incantation. And the Holy Spirit just was like, Good luck with that. Fine, I'll just make sure this one doesn't work. Then I'll just let the demon do what he does without any of the common grace that is normative. The common grace that's normative is that the evil spirits were not allowed to fully destroy people, right? Even with throwing them into the fire and things like this, they're not allowed to kill them on some level. At least that's what it appears to be all throughout the Gospels, is that when somebody was possessed by a demon, it causes a great deal of suffering, not only to that person, but to their family and to their friends, but can't really kill them. But then nobody else can either. We see the men that I just mentioned on the shore of the Gadarenes there. People had tried. These guys were living amongst all the tombs and dead bodies. They tried to bind them up, they couldn't bind them up, but they wouldn't die. This is like this ongoing life, but it's unnatural. It's like stolen life. You can't interact with life in the way that you artificially keep it alive. And so you don't see the demons in those two guys going, you know what, just leave us alone long enough so we can go jump off the cliff and kill this guy. No. They said, um, we got to get out of here right now. Put us in the pig so we can go kill them. There seems to be a limit as to what they can kill, which is kind of remarkable. But they can cause a great deal of suffering, as the sons of Sceva here in Acts 19 just found out. You have something else there, Ralph? Absolutely overtaken. So many, and it kind of tells how many, right? But so it really shows how, um, how, how God uses a really wicked place. But it's good. Oh yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And that's kind of the reality of all of this is that a lot of those who practice these magical arts that are well attested to both in history and in scripture. So the fact that we don't talk about them in church is kind of bizarre and a testament against what we're open to the reality of history. But also, the reality is, these people gave up these books and they came to church because they recognized a power that completely overwhelmed anything in the magical world. Just in the Holy Spirit. If that was norm? How many times have I said we've gotten so used to the grace of God and so used to the presence of the Holy Spirit that we don't think there's power in either and we think we're owed both? You just wait until there are evil spirits into the world, and how many people claiming to be Christians would sooner follow that because they can see it with their own eyes, rather than the long, patient growth of a Christian and the fellowship that works in us, a power far greater than anything the magical world and arts could do. Well, not only a good message, it's actually one of the teachings in the book of Revelation. Yes. Regardless of your opinion on the millennium, the reality is that at the end of it, whenever the binding happens, we can all disagree on when that happened. I think I have history on my side, but hey, whatever. We do know that after a period of history, there will come a time where that one who is bound is loosed and allowed to wreak havoc. What's that mean now? Nope, it gets much worse than now. And what you're going to see if you lived at that time, however that works, is a great falling away of those who claim to be Christians and a following of something they know to be different simply because of the power it gives them. Now, that's the way that sin always is, but it's going to be in front of everyone's eyes and obvious, whatever that is. Yes, sir. were the Jewish son of the high priest, who were obviously have a lot of power, a lot of respect, whatever, they get eaten, split, and chased out of the house. Right. Right. Correct. And the reality is, is this is not, this is not only the issue at the end of the day. I heard you, Vic. You're happy and I can live in those days. Christians, Christians always live in these days. That's what the Book of Revelation is actually about. Suffering is a Christian in a world that is bent away from God. That's why he constantly calls, even to the historic churches that it's written to, endure to the end and you will be saved. Endure, endure, endure. That's our response to suffering. Don't try to trick it. Don't try to compromise. Don't try to do anything. That will never save you. It will never make your suffering go away. It'll make it greater. Believe on Christ. Stay faithful to the end. I have it emblazoned in our boardroom. Ralph, you can see it right there. You want to read that verse that I have above the safe over there? Don't try to escape death. Don't try to escape suffering. Don't try to escape the world. You're in it. You're not of it. Endure to the end and you will be saved. So what if that means more suffering? Fill up what's lacking in the sufferings of Christ. What if that means my death? Endure to the end. What if that means that I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and my life gets worse and worse and worse and I lose people, I lose friends, I lose family members, I lose all of these things. It is worth it for the sake of Christ. And if you don't think it is, then you do not know who Christ is. That is what the apostles were preaching. There is coming a day in which the world will be judged, but that day is not today. We have temporal judgments. We do. Romans 1 talks about them, where God turns entire cultures over to judgment and the results of their own choices. And it says it three times over, God gave them up, God gave them up, God gave them up. Fine. You get the outcome of your choices. Good luck. Same with sons of Sceva. You want to try to use the Lord Jesus' name as an incantation to exercise demons? Good luck. you will run out of the house bruised, naked, and shamed. Sons of the high priest with no power whatsoever. Now, after these events, I love how Luke just, he's like, yeah, you see that normal stuff? No, I mean, he introduced it by saying this was extraordinary stuff that God was doing. Very unique, very out of the hat. Verse 21, now after these events, Paul resolved in the spirit to pass through Macedonia and Achaia and go to Jerusalem saying, after I've been there, I must also see Rome. Understand, bro. And having sent into Macedonia two of his helpers, Timothy and Erastus, he stayed himself in Asia for a while. All of these things continue on. There's a lot of things that happen with regards to the reputation of the apostles. You can see at the end of verse 26, there were people who made shrines to Artemis. We'll just read it. Okay, here. Verse 23, about that time, there arose no little disturbance concerning the way. By the way, that is the terminology for the group of Christians, followers of the way. For a man named Demetrius, who was a silversmith, this is still in Ephesus, who made silver shrines to Artemis. That's Diana, the huge thing in Ephesus, right? Brought no little business to the craftsmen. These he gathered together with the workmen in similar trades, basically unionized, and said, men, you know that from this business we have our wealth. In other words, we know what side our bread is buttered on. And you see and hear, and not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia. That's Asia Minor, by the way. This Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people, saying that the gods made with hands are not gods. And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be counted as nothing, and that she may even be deposed from her magnificence, she whom all Asia and the world worship." Look what Ephesus thinks of themselves. Let me ask you modern Christians, is the goddess Diana, also known as Artemis, real? I would encourage you, if you're curious about this, to go read some of the historical accounts of things that happened in the Temple of Diana, and then make your assessment. There were extraordinary things happening there that the Holy Spirit one-upped. Extraordinary things that are not physical, or not merely physical, shall we say. Just as real as exorcisms are, so was Diana, Artemis. Now, a god? No. A demon masquerading as a goddess? Absolutely. So I'll give away the ending. Yes, she was real. Yes, she did magnificent things. Yes, entire cultures were defined by the things that she was doing. Whoever this demon was that was masquerading as the goddess Diana, absolutely. You can read about it in history. And Ephesus was the place it was happening. And so when Paul came to Ephesus, the things that the Holy Spirit did to one up the things that she could do was simply astounding because this is not just King of kings, this is Lord of lords, God of gods. This is something that the Jewish exorcist should have recognized immediately. The ability that the Holy Spirit had to one-up everybody else was unparalleled. And it's why we read about this. And here's the thing, we're reading about just a couple of instances. Paul spent two years in Ephesus. and turned most of Asia Minor to following Christ because what he had to offer in salvation and the gift of the Holy Spirit was stronger than anything that Artemis could do. That should give you a great deal of comfort. Because I think usually when modern people hear about the realities of the ancient world, one, our first thing is skepticism because we don't see it, therefore they didn't see it. That's not true. But two, Our way of interacting with it typically is, that's not necessarily out of the ordinary. We could argue it this way. Maybe it's this volcanic vent or this gas that caused people hallucinations. There's all sorts of modernist ways of explaining these things. But at the end of the day, everything that was happening in Ephesus, as we see here, was given over to the power of the evil spirits. Everything. Magical arts, incantations, herbs, spells, potions, everything. You look at the world and you go, well, we don't really live in a world that we define as magical. No, we live in the time where the strong man is bound. Let me ask you a quick question. How many Christians or so-called Christians do you think if magical arts came back to this world, would immediately leave church, because they don't see that there's any strength in church, and instead we can purchase this potion, or this incantation, and we can cure our sicknesses, make our sufferings go away. How many of us would do that? How many of us, if it required full knowledge of rejection of the gospel, to do this, but it could alleviate our temporal sufferings? Might even be able to bring someone back from the dead. Yes, I know. This is one of the, this is one of the issues that I think is most dangerous, is if we take our culture's view of this, where we just view it with rank skepticism, we will not prepare ourselves for it. Or the next generation, or say it's a hundred generations from now. We need to continue passing down the reality of what was interacting with in the Holy Spirit's world at this point, because someday it will come back. So there will be a great fall away. There will be. It's talked about in 2 Thessalonians, the year before Paul is in Ephesus, he writes about a great falling away of people because of this exact thing. Sure. Were they Christians and they stopped being Christians? No. Christians are kept and preserved by their Savior, which means the great falling away just shows how small the church actually is. Correct. Correct. Correct. Because it will be, it will be one of those things, it will be one of those things that God uses to separate, as Jesus himself talked about, the wheat from the chaff. It will be part of the wind that drives it away. And it's why the book of Revelation is not primarily about the future. It's about enduring to the end, no matter what section of history you live in. Because as you guys well know, you live long enough, suffering comes your way. There's all sorts of options to compromise. There's all sorts of options to leave things in the dust, to say, you know, it's just not worth it anymore. Honestly, sometimes following Christ, the cost is insanely high. And this is why Jesus says, figure out what it's going to take before you follow me. That's Luke 14 and 18. Both of those sections talk about it. Consider the cost. Nobody starts a building without sitting down and figuring out whether he has enough money to finish it. If you do it, you go halfway, you run out of money and everyone laughs at you. Figure out what it costs to follow Christ before you follow him. What if, this is, I think, one of the things that leads to so many false conversions is trying to make salvation so simple and so easy that people do not know what they're signing up for. Every time I have led someone to Christ, I have warned them. This is not something, one, that you get to take back, and two, it's not something easy. This is probably gonna make your life harder. You have to figure out if it's worth it. Because if you're, say, 20 or 30 or 50, you've got decades. And I can say this, while God walks through the suffering with you, it will probably be more instances of suffering. Because you will not be able to join the culture as it dies. You won't be able to do that. It will bifurcate your mind, it will bifurcate your heart, and you can't do it. It will just end in ruin. And the reality is, following Christ becomes, for the Christian, non-optional. You say, well, what if I really just make up my mind to go sin all I want and to do whatever I want? I have warned people of this as well. Christian, if you truly are a Christian, you're trying to test the Lord and to see how far this will go, you're gonna find where the leash snaps you back and it's gonna hurt very bad. I have watched it happen many, many times. I've experienced it in my own life. I don't recommend it. Zero out of 10 stars. Endure to the end, you'll be saved. You say, oh, so I'm saved by my endurance? No, that is an encouraging statement. Kind of like when Jesus appears or one of the angels appears and says, don't fear, do not fear. It's not this big command, don't be afraid. No, it's, don't be afraid. I bring you good tidings of great joy. It'll be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a savior, who is Christ the Lord. You will find him wrapped in swaddling clothes, just a baby, harmless little bouncy baby boy. What's gonna happen? He is going to save his people from their sins. This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. I think we don't think high enough about Christ because we don't think of our sin as that big of a problem. And everything in the Gospels and the book of Acts and the rest of the epistles show us our sin is not only such a massive problem as to require God himself to come and die on our behalf, but it's not just our failures. It's not just this sin or that sin. It's all the sinfulness. It's all the way that we think. It's everything, even to the intentions of our hearts, that is bent away from God and would rather do the easy thing than the hard thing. It is rather, I would focus on myself than somebody else. It's why you will know, the world will know you're my disciples because of your love for one another. Why does he say this? We set aside our own desires for each other. Do I always want to be in church on Sunday morning? Nope. Most of the time, yes. You ever experienced a Sunday where you just go like, don't want to do it this week. You ever experienced that? Come on, I'm a pastor. I experienced it every once in a while, right? Why do I still come? And before you think, because it's my job, you don't know anything about me. Why do I still come? I've missed maybe six Sundays my whole life before I was a pastor. Because you know that man doesn't live by bread alone. That is correct. And the place where God's bread is dealt is with his people. And if I only focus on myself, and the only thing that's important to me is what I want, I won't look for the bread of God. Unless he just wants to give it to me without any responsibility to it. It's the same in John 6. They follow him around to the other side of the thing. Oh, there's bread. Great, we'll make you king. More bread, free bread. Bread, bread, bread. And Jesus says, the only reason you're trying to follow me is because I gave you free bread. You had your stomachs filled. What do you, you're back here the next day. Yeah, we'll make you king. No. And now I won't even give you bread. You say, well, what happened to nice Jesus from the day before that everyone pays attention to? See, he just wants to feed all the hungry people. Not the next day he didn't. because the message of the gospel is not just about physical things getting easier. It was a picture. Who is the bread from heaven? They say, oh, bread from heaven, manna. Yes, God did that, so you should do that. Moses did that. You're not better than Moses, are you? Even if you are better than Moses, fine, we'll call you better than Moses. Give us free bread. And Jesus is like, not only was yesterday's meal about me, so was the manna. You don't even know who you're talking to. I am the bread of heaven. And if you only want bread, and you don't want me, or you only want manna, and you don't want me, or you only want the Old Testament, but you don't want Christ, or you want the Old Covenant, but not the New Covenant, or you want the power of God and the name of God, but you don't want the indwelling power of the Spirit of God, and you don't want repentance of your own sin, walk away. 20,000 people left him. 20,000 people. All that was left was the 12 disciples, and Jesus turns to them. You too? Free to go. And Peter's like, well, that didn't work out very well. You have the words of eternal life. I think it was a legitimate question. To whom else would we go? He's just kind of looking out into the world and seeing a wasteland of hopelessness. as frustrating as this is because we had a good thing going here. We had a huge following. We could have taken over the world. And you just preached them away. And then Peter's just like, but you're the only one with words that lead to eternal life. Who else could we possibly go to? And Jesus is like, exactly. You're the only ones who want it right now. Yes, ma'am. There were theories, but none that high. Most of the theories said that it would be a prophet like Moses, because that's exactly what Moses had said. There's one coming who's a prophet like me. They assumed a prophet. They had all sorts of theories, just like we have about the second coming of Jesus, and we're all wrong about. They were all wrong about the first coming of Jesus, because we're only told bits and pieces and shadows. You ever read the book of Revelation and go like, what? Yeah, it's on purpose. Same with reading the Old Testament and trying to figure out the ministry of Jesus. You'll never be able to do it. It's not possible. Everyone's wrong about it. That's my eschatology. Everyone's wrong. Because prophecy is not meant to be clear before it happens. It's meant to call you to repentance and faith. So my long answer is this. That was kind of my long answer. Short answer is this. They knew someone was coming. They had no idea what to expect. And so most of them said, well, what we really want is a political messiah to free us from Rome. Because ever since all of these prophetic things have been said, we have been controlled by Assyria, then we're controlled by Babylon, then Persia, then Greece, and then Rome, and we have no freedoms. We just want a king like David. We don't want a prophet like Moses. Interesting. Interesting. So most of them were looking for a political messiah. And here's the thing, many political messiahs had come. They would, absolutely. You think politicians are bad today. Boy, howdy. When they rose up in Jewish ranks, they'd just go like, not only do I want to lead a group of rebels away from the Romans, but sure, I'm your messiah. Why not? I'm your savior. In fact, some of them were named Jesus. Why? Because it just literally means savior. I'm the one here, I mean, seriously, if politicians could come up with their own names and name themselves, how many of them would be named the hope of all mankind? Or, I mean, seriously, that's what people would do. Here, the expression was that they were looking for this to happen. Even Peter and some of the disciples were looking for this. It's why Peter is cutting off the ear of the servant of the high priest in the Garden of Gethsemane. I will defend you with a sword. And Jesus is like, you want to pick up swords and try to defend yourself? That's how you're going to die. You pick up a sword, the other guy picks up a sword and you're getting stabbed. You live by the sword, you'll die by the sword. Don't. You live by Christ, you'll die by Christ. What if that means great suffering? What if that means, Peter, that you're also going to have to be crucified at the end of your life? Guess what? That's exactly how Peter died. He didn't want to die the same way as his Lord, so he has to be crucified upside down. You think being crucified sucks? Try to be crucified upside down. While the blood from your feet runs across your face, and you slowly suffocate in reverse. Following Christ is not easy, but it's worth it. That's what the message of the Holy Spirit continually gives to all of us here. When we come back in three weeks, we will start perhaps one of the most, no, it's a tug of war for first place between 1 Corinthians and the book of Revelation as the most misinterpreted book of the New Testament. 1 Corinthians might actually take the cake because we're so wrong on the Holy Spirit, and it is a book that presumes that you know involvement with the Holy Spirit on a very personal level. Both of them are very highly misinterpreted. But 1 Corinthians, we will be in for several weeks when I come back. That will not be this next week or the week after that, but it will be July 30th. We'll come back with this and we'll have that with some fervor. And that should be a rewarding study because 1 Corinthians is one of the greatest books, and unfortunately, it is only usually studied for what it can do for me, which is the exact opposite of the purpose of the Book of First Corinthians. The question is not, what can it do for you? What can you do for one another? So, we'll be starting with that, First Corinthians 2, in three weeks from now. So, thank you guys for your attention. Appreciate it. I know it was a very unusual lesson today, but it's one of those that needs to happen. So, it was blessings.