You're listening to the teaching ministry of Harvest Fellowship Church in Boyertown, Pennsylvania. You can find out more about us on the web at www.harvestfellowshipchurch.org. We pray that through our teaching, we may present everyone mature in Christ. Father in heaven, we bow before you on this Wednesday night. We thank you, Lord, even for something as great as air conditioning on a hot day. And Lord, we pray that as many of us, perhaps not all of us, but many of us may have already eaten food, that now we would devour spiritual food and that it might be fruitful to our hearts, to our lives. And we pray, Lord, for your blessing upon our study of your word. We ask for your spirit to guide the children in their study as well. And we ask all things in the name of Jesus. Amen. All right. I was thinking about this today. For a recap of last week, why don't one or more of you just tell me something that you learned from last week? It could be simple, it could be profound, or anywhere in between. And this was Acts chapter 19, verses 11 through 20. Yes, Janet? It certainly could have been, and Luke didn't really give us as much information as we would have liked to have known about the money. We just know it was a significant amount. Annette, did you have something? Yeah, that was kind of interesting. I don't think I knew that before. It made sense, but I just had never put that into my mind before. Yes, Bob. I remember. I said, I said that was according to, I forget who it was, origin maybe or something like that. But. Yeah, that was an extraordinary thing. Grace. I thought you were pointing out that they were taking the Lord's name and being there. But I've never thought about that before in this passage. OK. Walking around. Did I see a hand over here? Yes, Matt. I was just saying, depending on the connection with the Jewish exorcists, going back and relating that to this alliance between Moses and the Jews back then, Yeah, that was new to me as well, at least thinking about that aspect. OK, I'm not going to give you a recap. If you missed it and you want to listen to it, it's on Sermon Audio. Or you can ask Ron. Ron will give you a Cliff Notes afterward. He'll tell you what I got wrong. Why don't we look then, since we do have many verses for tonight, we're going to pick up now right after this foundational verse, in verse 20, so the word of the Lord continue to increase and prevail mightily. And we're going to pick up in verse 21. We're going to go all the way to the end of the chapter. So let's read that now. Here now, the word of the Lord. Now, after these events, Paul resolved in the spirit to pass through Macedonia and Achaia and go to Jerusalem, saying, After I have been there, I must also see Rome. And having sent into Macedonia two of his helpers, Timothy and Erastus, he himself stayed in Asia for a while. About that time there rose no little disturbance concerning the way. For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the craftsmen. These he gathered together with the workmen in similar trades, and said, You know that from this business we have our wealth. And you see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people, saying that gods made with hands are not gods. And there is danger not only that this trait 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." When they heard this, they were enraged and were crying out, great is Artemis of the Ephesians. So the city was filled with the confusion. and they rushed together into the theater, dragging with them Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians who were Paul's companions and travel. But when Paul wished to go in among the crowd, the disciples would not let him. And even some of the Asiarchs, who were friends of his, sent to him and were urging him not to venture into the theater. Now some cried out one thing, some another, for the assembly was in confusion, and most of them did not know why they had come together. Some of the crowd prompted Alexander, whom the Jews had put forward. And Alexander, motioning with his hand, wanted to make a defense to the crowd. But when they recognized that he was a Jew, for about two hours they all cried out with one voice, "'Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!' And when the town clerk had quieted the crowd, he said, Men of Ephesus, who is there who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is temple keeper of the great Artemis and of the sacred stone that fell from the sky? Seeing then that these things cannot be denied, you ought to be quiet and do nothing rash, for you have brought these men here who are neither sacrilegious nor blasphemers of our goddess. If therefore Demetrius and the craftsmen with him have a complaint against anyone, The courts are open and there are proconsuls. Let them bring charges against one another. But if you seek anything further, it shall be settled in the regular assembly. For we really are in danger of being charged with rioting today, since there is no cause that we can give to justify this commotion." And when he had said these things, he dismissed the assembly. And may the Lord write the eternal truths of his word to our heart on this Wednesday night. If you want a title for this, this is more of the longer vision title, but I called it, To the Ends of the Earth, The Long Road to Rome, because this really is the whole rest of the book, The Long Road to Rome by Paul, and it starts here. So now you get to participate again. What questions? There's a lot of verses, so hopefully we have more than three questions that may have sprang into your mind. What questions? Yes, Matt. Yeah, that's what I put. Who slash what are the Asiarchs? Bob? Well, from the very first verse, why was Paul so bent on getting Jerome? Why was he so? OK, yeah, why does why does Paul feel led to go to Rome, Dina? Well, I was wondering about the sacred stone that fell from the sky and like there may be like a historical reference to that. I do have on here. What did he mean about the sacred stone falling from the sky? Yes. He said about. Yes, Susan. I have that on here. Why did the disciples prevent Paul from entering the theater? Yes. OK. Why the theater? Some basic other questions. Why did Paul want to pass through these places of Macedonia and Achaia? Here's a name we're not really too familiar with. Who was Erastus? What was one of these silver shrines? And who was Artemis? What was at the root of Demetrius's actions here? Why did the craftsmen respond the way they did? Why did these two men, Gaius and Aristarchus, get dragged into the theater? Why did the Jews put Alexander forward and what kind of defense was he attempting here? Why did the mob respond to Alexander with such vitriolic anger? Or how about what was the level of importance of a town clerk? What was a regular assembly? And what would happen if they were charged with rioting, like he says? And finally, the same question that I asked at the end of last week is what is the main theme of this passage? So beyond interesting facts, what is the main theme that Luke is trying to drive home to Theophilus and all the other people who would read his book? But I want you to think about sort of what we've been presented here, because this is quite an extended narrative in Ephesus. You notice some of the other places where Paul was, he was in and out in just a few verses. And here, you know, he's been here for a while now. We've taught on it, I think, three or four times. What happens when the gospel takes root in a town, in a city. What happens in that town? And I mean by really take root like we see it happening here. And we would have to inferentially think, even without Luke telling us, that when that happens, that pagan businesses and business practices are going to suffer. When that happens, how are those business proprietors going to respond? especially towards the people that they perceive to be the source of this gospel transformation. What kind of trouble do you think they would instigate? Will God leave his gospel to flounder and to fizzle out in the places where it's taken root in the fertile soil that he prepared for it to be preached in? And then more personally, we could ask, and continue to ask ourselves, how can we strive for gospel transformation where we live, in our city, in our town? And so as we approach the beginning of the narrative in verse 21, It's kind of an interesting thing, even though he's mentioned several times, is that Paul really isn't the focal point of this chaos here. He's not the focal point of Luke's account, and it's good in a sense for us to remember something, and that's that even though we've talked about him for a long time, the Acts is not about the journeys and the adventures of Paul. But really, it's about the progress of the Christian movement, and as we've really been noticing the last few weeks, and maybe longer, it's the unstoppable Word of God. So keep those things in your mind as we weave our way through these 20 plus verses. So back to verse 21. Now after these events, Paul resolved in the spirit to pass through Macedonia and Achaia and go to Jerusalem, saying, After I have been there, I must also see Rome. And having sent into Macedonia two of his helpers, Timothy and Erastus, he himself stayed in Asia for a while. Well, we might ask the question, what are these events or things that occurred? And I think really Luke is just getting at to the most recent things. The sons of Sceva getting beaten to a pulp, you know, by this possessed man, all the books that are burned. You have these massive amounts of books that are piled up and burned, and the grace of God just emanating here in Ephesus. So after these things, Paul resolves to do something. And this resolve comes from, according to Luke, it comes through the influence of the Holy Spirit. And so he resolves that he's going to do a few things. One, he's going to pass through Macedonia and Achaia, but ultimately he wants to go to Jerusalem. So, he's going to take that route, he wants to go through those districts, or regions we could say, and this was actually opposite of what his original plan was. And you can read through what he told the people in Corinth in 1 Corinthians 16 and 2 Corinthians chapter 1, but he would talk about how this is what I want to do. This is what I desire to do. If I'm able to do this, this is what I'm going to do. So he had plans, but he wanted to go through these districts because this is where he had planted churches with Silas. So Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Corinth, maybe Athens. So this is not to go plant more churches. They're not going to uncharted territory on this trip. This is going to be to visit the churches. But His mission is under the direction, the guidance of the Holy Spirit. And when we get to chapter 20, and you can look at verses 22 and 23, it's a little bit more evident there of how He feels this direction of the Holy Spirit. But it says here that he resolved, and resolved carries that connotation of a very fixed position. He's determined to do this. This is, in a sense, you could say it's a mimicking of what Jesus did. If you were to read Luke 9.51, it talks about Jesus setting His face to go to Jerusalem. Now, Paul's not going to Jerusalem for the same reason that Jesus did. Jesus was going for His passion. and to die, but Paul's resolved to go there. And he says, this is his purpose, after I've been there, I must also see Rome. Rome is my ultimate destination. Jerusalem is my primary initial destination, but Rome is my ultimate destination. So that's his next goal, was to travel there. And that kind of should make us think of, with the context of Rome, the ends of the earth. The ends of the earth. So remember, when Jesus gives that, that to them is in the context of what they know the ends of the earth to be. They don't even know North America exists. But this is where he wants to go. And he also talks somewhere else. Well, I'll read it in just a second. But he believes that his going to Rome is a divine necessity that's going to come out as he speaks in the rest of Acts. But think of some of the things that he told the Romans the book of Romans. And where did he write the book of Romans from? Anybody know? What was that? Nope. Corinth. He was in Corinth. Which is funny because he's writing to the Corinthians from Ephesus, but he writes to the Romans from Corinth. In Romans 1, verse 13, he says, I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you, but thus far have been prevented. In order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles, I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. And then you get to the end of the book, chapter 15, verse 23. He says, but now, since I no longer have any room for work in these regions, and since I have longed for many years to come to you, I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain. and to be helped on my journey there by you, once I have enjoyed your company for a while." At present, however, notice what he says here, I'm going to Jerusalem. But notice what he says next. He says, bringing aid to the saints. For Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make some contribution for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem. We don't know if that was his only purpose in going, but it certainly is part of the reason that he's going to Jerusalem is to take financial aid to Jerusalem. And it's coming from these two places he purposes to go, Macedonia and Achaia. And so in verse 22, he sends along ahead of him into Macedonia two of his helpers, or we could say two servers, two co-laborers who would go on ahead of him in the sense of perhaps being an envoy, or even you could say a collector of the financial aid. The word that's used there is the same that we use for deacon, but it's just carrying the sense of an assistant. Now the first guy we're very familiar with, Timothy, his beloved and faithful child in the Lord. And in 1 Corinthians 4.17, and we don't know if this is the same time that Timothy goes, but he tells them there, he says, this is why I sent you Timothy. But then Erastus, another companion, one that we're less familiar with. In 2 Timothy 4.20, we see Erastus mentioned, Erastus remained at Corinth. And then Romans 16.23 mentions an Erastus that probably is the same guy, but we're not fully sure of that. But he sends these two guys, and then it says, he himself stayed or remained in Asia for a while. And if you were to read 1 Corinthians 16, the very end, In verses 8 and 9 he says, But I will stay in Ephesus until Pentecost, for a wide door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries. Now you put that into the context of tonight's passage, sound familiar? Or even last week's teaching? A wide door of effectiveness and adversaries. And so what do we draw just from that and his plans is this simple truth is that Paul allowed circumstances, needs, and opportunities to modify his plans. His plans were not ironclad. And so we should ask ourselves the same question. Do we live in a world where we think that our plants can be ironclad? Are we adaptable and sensitive to things that could suddenly take a greater priority? And this really wasn't even in my mind this week, but several weeks ago I had come across, it was a YouTube video of a fairly large church and the guy was preaching. And right at the beginning, somebody had brought a visitor with them. And actually, they were somebody from the street. And the person just cursed really loudly, like right in the middle of the service. And certainly, it caught everybody off guard. But what happened then was the pastor completely deviated from his plan, and he used the whole circumstances and scenario there to try to minister the gospel to this person. I mean, they could have maybe thrown the guy out or something like that, but it was an example in my mind of that's not what the pastor intended for that morning. You plan to preach, everything is going to go according to plan, something changes, and he could have just I'm like, you shut up and we'll keep going. But he was adaptive. And here, so is Paul. Paul wants to go do things, but then he sees, I have this great opportunity. We need to stay and preach the gospel here. So he stays. And while he's staying here, still in Ephesus, in verse 23, we see, "...about that time there arose no little disturbance concerning the way." So Paul's still in Ephesus. This is probably the spring of A.D. 55. And there's a major commotion that takes place, and it has to do with Christianity in Ephesus. For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the craftsmen. So we've got Mr. Instigator here now introduced to the narrative. And I don't believe this is the same Demetrius that John mentions in 3 John 12, in case you were wondering. But he's a silversmith, so he made silver shrines. And it seems from everything that I read that these were not just images of her, but they were a little mini temple. So it was a little mini silver temple of the temple to Artemis, and she would be enthroned in this little shrine that you could buy. And so they would be set up in houses. Sometimes they were small enough to be worn as charms. Or they would even be brought back to the temple and offered to her as a sacrifice. Some people would even buy them just as a tourist attraction type of thing. But who was Artemis? And you could read a lot about Artemis. And I did not include a lot of details because we could have spent two pages just on that. But she was the Ephesian goddess of fertility. And her grand temple was what? One of the seven wonders of the world. It was a massive, massive place. One of the seven world wonders. Now, according to the Ephesians, Artemis possessed fertility and reproductive power that caused the earth to blossom with life of all kinds. She was the goddess of childbirth, and a nourishing mother to all. Animals and wildlife were also part of her domain and under her control. This part was very kind of jarring to me. The worshipers of Artemis regarded her as supreme among all the gods and goddesses. They honored her as first among thrones, as savior, as lord, as queen of the world and the heavenly goddess. They viewed her as their protector from evil, able to break the bonds of fate. Remember, fate was a very important idea then. But just hearing all that, what a blasphemous affront to the one, holy, true God. But this is the type of stranglehold that these people lived in, in this very idolatrous culture. But it really kind of shows you this massive confrontation that's coming, because this is what they believe. And so you see this man here, Demetrius, who was probably the head of what was called a trade guild. So he was probably the head of the silversmith trade guild. lots of other silversmiths as part of it, and so he would have led it. And because of his influence and work, and perhaps even contributions, that this brought a lot of business to all the men who did this type of work. And prior to Pentecost, remember Paul said, I want to stay here until Pentecost. Before Pentecost would have been the grand festival of Artemis, which was held in May. This happened every year. And of course, that's a great time to sell shrines. Let's sell some more silver shrines. So in verse 25, these he gathered together with the workmen in similar trades and said, men, you know that from this business we have our wealth. And you see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people, saying that 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." So he gathers these silversmiths together, and he also brings together men who work in other similar traits. We could call them shriners of other materials, and he's going to give them a dress. And his argument here is an escalating type of argument that's going to reach this dramatic, heightened magnitude. But first he gives them a Captain Obvious type of thing. He says, you know, men, this is how we earn our living. And of course, he didn't have to tell them that, but he's establishing some rapport with these men. And now he talks about how here in Ephesus and almost all of Asia, he's talking about a very large region, not just Ephesus. He says, this, you could say fellow, this fellow Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people. He said, Paul's our problem. Paul's the one who's convinced and misled all these people. And we know it was many people because we saw the activity from last week. There's lots of people burning books, lots of people coming to faith. But he's very upset about something that Paul was preaching. This isn't new to Ephesus. Remember, this was the exact topic of Athens on Mars Hill. That gods or deities that are handmade, they're not gods. How dare he? They're not gods. Now, of course, Paul is not saying anything that was not supported by God's Word. Exodus 24, Isaiah 44, verses 9 through 20, and even Deuteronomy 29, 17 kind of give us that sense. But I kind of chuckled to myself, because the one guy who brought this out, he said, in a sense, here Demetrius is preaching Paul's message for him. And Paul said, thank you. But it's quite a revelatory statement as well, because it really reveals here from the unsaved person the Gospel success that is taking place in Ephesus. That there's people turning to God from idols. So they're turning to God from idols, or you could say it like this, they're being fashioned by God from idolatry into the image of Christ. Well, that's not his only argument. He says, and there is danger or there's risk. Not only that this trade of ours could come into disrepute, if more and more people keep turning to Christianity, our whole line of business is going to be discredited by society. What's that going to do? It's going to be less money in our pockets. We're not going to have as much money. Do you guys want to be poor? But then he gives the final emotional argument here at the end, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be counted or regarded as nothing. This will be the worst thing of all, is that people are now going to despise Artemis. Enter the temple and they're going to say, she's nothing. It's nothing. They might even tear it down. You can think of him as saying, what a great loss to the world. Ephesus' fame will be no more. They prided themselves in this fame. And he says, and that she may even be deposed from, or you could say, or suffer the loss of her magnificence. Artemis herself could be toppled down, pulled down from her position of grandeur and majesty. And everyone worships her all throughout this Mediterranean world. So he felt threatened and he should have felt threatened because any false religion should feel threatened by the infiltration of Christianity where Jesus is proclaimed as Lord. But basically, he presented three risks to them here. He says, here's the three things, business disrepute, goddess disregard, and goddess diminishment. But what do you think was probably his chief motivating factor here? Money. The love of money seems to go hand in hand with idolatry in every story that we read. Even if you go back to Judges, if you remember that whole story at the very end of Judges with that priest, there's money involved. He steals the money and his mother says to him, bless it be thou of the Lord. But this guy is not going down without a fight. And so this is pretty similar, if you can remember back to Philippi. Remember when the demoniac girl has the demon cast out? And they lost their money. They weren't happy. They're not going down without a fight here. And so when they heard this, all these arguments, and they were pretty convincing here by Demetrius, they were enraged and were crying out, great is Artemis of the Ephesians. So his speech of what we could call false piety enrages them, and they rapidly mobilize. And they're mobilizing at least under the pretense of defending the integrity and honor of Artemis and her temple. Of course, if they happen to safeguard their prosperity on the side, that's just a side effect they're willing to live with. And so here's their cry of worship, or their battle cry. Great is Artemis of the Ephesians. Now, how come they weren't yelling out, our business is in danger, over and over? Because that really was their primary concern. But notice here what they do cry out. And they don't just cry out, Great is Artemis. They cry out, Great is Artemis of the Ephesians, which is a possessive statement. This is our goddess. This is who's special to us. And it also would distinguish from any other goddesses of the same name. And you might say, well, how many were there? I think from what I read, there was over 60 other goddesses named Artemis. So we can't just yell out, great is Artemis, because everybody will say, which one? So we'll tell them ahead of time. Great is Artemis of the Ephesians. No matter how loud they yelled, they wouldn't be able to drown out the reality that Jesus' name was becoming great here in Ephesus. So their efforts here are just as futile as those false prophets on Mount Carmel who are crying out to Baal, hear us, listen to us. they're mocked by Elijah. And that's in 1 Kings 18. Verse 29, So the city was filled with the confusion, and they rushed together into the theater, dragging with them Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians who were Paul's companions in travel. There's a tumult, there's an uproar in Ephesus, and everyone is joining in. But this is the way of the world, is it not? It's confusion. It's a stark contrast to the unity that we have in Christ. And so this mob of people, they rush together. They probably are going down what was called the Arcadian Way. They rush together. Think of this image of pouring together like a flood of water. This is the same word that Luke used to describe after Stephen gave his great speech, sermon, and they rushed at him to kill him and drag him out of the city. Same word here. But they go into the theater, or you could call it the amphitheater. which was a place for public assemblies. And this place could seat nearly 25,000 people in Ephesus. So whatever the great mass of people that were incited here by Demetrius could be held in this area. And this was a place to see spectacles, presentations, festivals, plays, men fighting wild beasts, beasts fighting wild beasts. 1 Corinthians 4 and 9, Paul said, But he's not the one who gets dragged here. Gaius and Aristarchus They're not politely asked to come along. Hey, would you like to come with us? They're dragged in. I'm sure they were trying to find and capture Paul, but for whatever reason they weren't able to do that. So they grab these two guys, Gaius and Aristarchus. Is Gaius the one who's mentioned in the very next chapter, 20 verse 4 of Derbe? Is he the Gaius of Romans 16, 23, 1 Corinthians 1, 14, and 3 John 1? I'll let you be the judge of that. Aristarchus we see mentioned again in 20 verse 4. And also in chapter 27 verse 2 he's sailing with Paul and we see that he is from Thessalonica. He's also mentioned in Colossians 4.10 and Philemon 1 verse 24. But these men, these two men here, they're about to be put on trial or perhaps be given over to something far more sinister. Paul is somewhere in the vicinity here, because in verse 30 it says, when Paul wished to go in among the crowd, the disciples would not let him. And even some of the Asiarchs, who were friends of his, sent to him and were urging him not to venture into the theater. What does Paul want to do? He wants to go into the theater. He sees the chaos. Now, this is just speculation. But it is possible that at this time that Paul may have been desperately sick or ill. In 2 Corinthians 1 verses 8 and 9, he talks about being utterly burdened beyond strength. Have you ever felt like that when you had the flu? That you were burdened beyond strength? He says it felt as if we had received the sentence of death. Now that's just speculation, but maybe he had going on. But no matter how he was feeling, whether he was sick or not, he wants to be in there. He wants to be with his friends. Maybe he even wants to take their place. And he certainly wants to proclaim the gospel. But the local disciples there in Ephesus prudentially, we could say, restrain him. They want to ensure his safety and his life. And it seems from the way that Luke is telling this story that if Paul goes in there, Paul probably dies. The disciples were not the only ones to restrain him, but there was these Asiarchs who were some type of political leaders in Asia. We could call them provincial authorities, and they had come in some way to become friends with Paul. It doesn't mean that they were believers, but they had a friendship with Paul. And these were rich people. They were from the wealthiest, most influential families of the province, so we could call them the aristocrats. But somehow they dispatch a message to Paul and say, you really shouldn't go into the theater. You really should stay out. This is for your own well-being. Now, we can only surmise all the reasons. Maybe they only cared about his personal safety. Maybe they know he's a Roman citizen, and if a Roman citizen gets murdered by a mob, that's going to be really bad for Ephesus. But whatever their reasoning was, Paul listens. Now maybe he listened with people's arms wrapped around him saying, you're not going in there. Maybe that was how he listened. But notice now from the rest of the story that he's shifted out of the story. He's not the center of this story. But also consider what we first read. He had purposed by the Spirit to go to Rome, and he's being preserved even in this moment by God for that Spirit-led journey. Now, some cried out one thing, some another, for the assembly was in confusion, and most of them did not know why they had come together. Some of the crowd prompted Alexander, whom the Jews had put forward, and Alexander, motioning with his hand, wanted to make a defense to the crowd. But when they recognized that he was a Jew, for about two hours they all cried out with one voice, Great is Artemis of the Ephesians! And so now we're back to the scene in the theater. Chaotic bedlam, you could say. It was just craziness. And most of the people there, they don't know why they're there. I just know a lot of people were yelling, and they said, let's go this way, and here we are, and let's shout. People get excited by things that are going on. We've seen that in our own time as well, that people participate in things, and you ask them, what are you doing here? And they're like, I don't even know what we're rioting about. So while this is going on, while all this confusion is going on, we see that some of the people in the crowd, they prompt, or you could use the word instruct, Alexander, whom the Jews had put forward. And so it seems that within this crowd, we've got some Ephesian Jews here, and they're probably pretty nervous about what's taking place. And so they push to the front their eloquent speaker, Alexander, He's going to get an address, and so he gets up onto probably a stage, and he gives a motion. So he's signaling with his hand, which means he would love for everybody else to be quiet. It's the same thing, if you remember, all the way back to when Peter gets out of prison. He had to motion with his hand to tell them, be quiet so I can tell you how I got out of prison. So here Alexander's trying to, he's signaling with his hand. ask for silence, and it says he wanted to make a defense to the crowd. And the first time I read that I thought, what kind of defense? Does he want to defend Paul? Does he want to defend Judaism? Does he want to defend himself? And so this defense, and there is some debate over this, but I think what is most likely here is that he's looking to make a public apologetic defense on behalf of his fellow Jews, and he says, We are not with those Christians. We're not of the way. That's what he's going to try to do. I think that's his intent here, to distance the Jews from Paul and the Christians, and even, if he can, to tell them, just so you know, he's our enemy too. But he doesn't even get a chance to speak, because they can see, probably by the way he's dressed, that he's a Jew. And so this further incites them. And if you wonder who them is, it seems that this would be all the Gentiles in the crowd, all the Ephesian Gentiles who are there. And remember, some of them still don't even know what's going on. And so for two hours, when they recognize he's a Jew, for about two hours, they all cry out with one voice, this unified voice, Great is Artemis of the Ephesians. Now, keep in mind, and this was new to me, is it was pretty common for them after they did hold assemblies when they made decisions to chant things out loud afterwards, sort of informing everybody what decision they had made. Now, this wasn't something that was planned. This was chaotic. This was filled with energy. But in my mind, I was thinking about Alexander, you know, trying to speak. They all yell. They start to subside a little, he goes to speak, and that just would cause them to keep going more and more. Great is Artemis of the Ephesians. You just can imagine this kind of just, and surely there was people there who were inciting the other people to be more involved. You always have that in a crowd. But these people, they don't have a good view of the Jews either. So they know that Alexander may not be of the way, but they know what the Jews believe. The Jews also are monotheistic, do not believe in idol worship. At least they shouldn't. And so they would have looked at them and said, we don't even care if you're of the way, because we're going to associate you with them anyway, because you abhor idol worship. We love idol worship. You're also our enemy. And so these Ephesians here, they're proud of Artemis. They're willing to defend her grandeur. And they have contempt for anybody who's going to refuse to acknowledge her majesty. It doesn't matter whether you're a Christian or a Jew who hates Christ. They're going to let you have it. And I thought about a completely different scenario. But imagine if we were to go outside of an abortion clinic And imagine if Jehovah's Witnesses were there with us, protesting the same thing that we were. Now, these people who love to murder babies, do you think they're going to say, oh, you guys are Jehovah's Witnesses and you are Christians? No, they're going to direct their anger and hatred toward all of us. And that doesn't mean we're part of the same group or believe the same things. And it didn't have to be here true either. But as one commentator wrote, the only thing that heathenism can do against Paul is to shout itself hoarse. And eventually, I'm sure these people ran out of lungs. They didn't have cough drops, right, Judith? Verse 35, And when the town clerk had quieted the crowd, he said, Men of Ephesus, who is there who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is temple-keeper of the great Artemis, and of the sacred stone that fell from the sky? Seeing then that these things cannot be denied, you ought to be quiet, and do nothing rash. For you have brought these men here who are neither sacrilegious nor blasphemers of our goddess." Now, it's taken several verses, but we finally have reached the first sensible person in this whole narrative. But who is this town clerk? And you can almost imagine, once you kind of know who he is, that just even as he appears on stage, that would have probably started to calm people down. He would have been the chief executive magistrate of Ephesus, their highest ranking official. He served as the liaison to Roman authorities. He was not appointed by Rome. He was installed by the Ephesians themselves. But clearly, he held a lot of power. And so he, their highest ranking official, he finally reestablishes order. He calms down this frenzied assembly. So what began with a speech with Demetrius, now we see the narrative ending with a speech by this town clerk. He seeks to diffuse their anger, to end the riot, and to maintain order in the city. He says, men of Ephesus, who, or even quite literally you could say, what man is there that doesn't know that our town, that our city is the temple keeper, the temple guardian of the great Artemis? The whole world knows this. Everybody knows, but you just shouted out for two hours. Ephesus is the center of Artemis worship. We have that special role. Everybody knows about this sacred stone that fell from the sky. And according to them, there was this stone that had fallen down. And maybe it was part of a fragment of a meteorite. We don't know. But they believed it had fallen from the realm of the gods. And most of them would have attributed it to Jupiter. And they had taken that and they had now said that this was Artemis. But it's interesting to think about the language that is used there, falling from the sky, and perhaps Luke even intentionally uses that language so that the reader knows that there's an association of Artemis with Satan. Remember Jesus says in Luke chapter 10, 18, I saw Satan fall like lightning from the sky. And what a contrast between Artemis then with Jesus, because Jesus comes down from heaven and triumphantly returns to heaven. But his argument here reminded the Ephesians, or he's trying to set them at ease. He said, hey, you don't have to worry about people attacking the gods made by hands, because Artemis wasn't like that. She had heavenly origins, so you really shouldn't even be this upset. And he says, since these things can't be denied, since these are indisputable facts, everybody knows this is true beyond doubt. What you've done is as dumb as if you all chanted 2 plus 2 equals 4 for two hours. Everybody knows that. I was going to call this 2 plus 2 equals 4, but I didn't want to make you wait that long to know why. But I was chanting that in my mind, two plus two equals four. And in a sense, he's saying, this is so dumb. You might as well have done that. And so he says then, you, and this is an emphatic you, almost like you people, ought to be quiet. You need to calm down. You need to avoid doing anything worse than what you've already done. Be quiet. And in a sense, it asks a question that he doesn't articulate, but who really has disturbed the city here? The people of the way or these people of the guild? And then he gives them a reason. He says, you brought these men here, Gaius and Aristarchus, and he says, they're not men who are sacrilegious or blasphemers of our goddess. Now, the word sacrilegious there can also mean a temple robber. He's saying, when did they come in and steal shrines out of our temple? When did they openly defame Artemis? He said, they haven't done that. And that's kind of a revelation to us. And again, we're inferentially drawing this out, but that Paul and the people that he ministered with, they were using tact and discretion. Now, Paul was preaching against these things, but maybe he was preaching a little bit more generically about gods and instead of talking specifically about Artemis. And so according to this man, they had not broken any of Ephesus's laws. I think there's a lesson to be learned for us that we ought to be exercising wisdom and discretion in our evangelism. We could go out and be intentionally inflammatory or we could exercise wisdom and discretion. Verse 38, if therefore Demetrius and the craftsmen with him have a complaint against anyone, the courts are open and there are pro-consuls. Let them bring charges against one another. But if you seek anything further, it shall be settled in the regular assembly, for we really are in danger of being charged with rioting today, since there is no cause that we can give to justify this commotion. So he gives them these two contrasting thoughts here. So he says, on the one hand, if Demetrius, and notice he names Demetrius here, Demetrius, I'm looking at you, Demetrius, and the craftsmen with him have a complaint against anyone, and in a sense, what he's saying here implicitly is, you're culpable, Demetrius, if things escalate and get worse, just so you know. I'm looking at you. You're going to be in big trouble. So he says, if you men have legal accusations against anybody, hey, do you see that over there? The courts. They're right there. They're in session. We have pro consuls. We have a legal system in place. And you are free to pursue this to your heart's content. In fact, this is the path you should have pursued. Now, do you think they knew that? They knew that. they knew that if they pursued that they probably would have never won their case. So this is the reason why they chose the rabble-rousing direction. But he goes on and he says, so on the one hand you have this, but he says, on the other hand, if you seek anything further, What other things? Well, maybe something like if you want to get the city council together and get them to pass a resolution that says if you are a visitor or if you are a resident alien here in Ephesus, then you have to abide by these very specific rules. If you want that, he says, it shall be settled or resolved in the regular assembly. Now, I thought this was fascinating. Sometimes translations don't help us because I would have rather he had just, if they had just translated it, lawful assembly instead of regular. Because right away that tells you, if you know that regular means lawful, it means what they've been doing is unlawful. He says you could have been lawful, you've been unlawful. And that's why he says we're really in danger or we run the risk of being charged with rioting. or you could say insurrection or rebellion. Is that legal? No. That's illegal and something that the Roman Caesar would act against. And so his fear is many, but one and probably the greatest fear is that their right to self-govern as a city could be taken away by Rome. Local officials could be punished. The guilds could be disbanded. A lot of problems. And he says, and if this comes up, we don't have any way to justify what we just did. We have no plausible justification and we would not be able to explain this uproar. Final verse, and when he had said these things, probably even more convincing than the argument that came at the beginning, he dismissed the assembly. So when he said all these things in a very rebuking way, he released, he released them. He disperses these sufficiently chastened rioters. And so Gaius and Aristarchus are released. Paul comes through this whole episode unscathed. But just think about this town clerk. Whatever his motivations were, what he does here is exemplary of an excellent civic official. This is what he was supposed to do. He was supposed to maintain the peace, and he does a great job of it. But the point of Luke's narrative here is not so that we can see, wow, what a great town clerk. Thank you, Lord. No, the readers can see far more than that. They can see that everything that's going on, including these town clerks' actions, are superintended by God for His purposes, His purposes of preserving His Word, His purposes of preserving His people here in Ephesus, and for this continuation of the spread of the gospel to the ends of the earth. Now, coming back to this lawfulness, this is just how I want to end this. As we, the church, as we go about the mission of God, we talked about that in church a few weeks ago, the mission of God, we ought to do that or we should try to do that in a lawful way. Sometimes people can get carried away with unlawfulness. You know, like, let's just go set fire to something because that's fine. God will understand. We shouldn't be endeavoring to do that. We should endeavor, just as Paul does here in this passage, to do things in a lawful way, not intentionally provoking our adversaries for the sake of provocation. Some people do things just to provoke or to be unlawfully defiant. Now, I'm not saying that there's not times for us to obey God rather than men. That's clear. They said that in Acts 5.29. They said, don't preach Jesus ever again. And they said, no, we'll obey God. But we should, as often as we can, we should strive to operate within our legal means. Paul says in Romans 12.18, if possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. That should be our objective. And so we can, what can we do? We can unashamedly proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. And we should. We should proclaim him as the way, the life, and the truth. And so if we do face violent reactions from unbelievers, what should be the cause of that? The offense of the gospel. Paul says that. Let the offense of the gospel be the reason that people respond in anger and hatred. Not because we ourselves have been offensive or hostile to the unbelievers. Paul would go on in chapter 13 verse 5 to say, therefore one must be in subjection not only to avoid God's wrath, he's talking about subjection to the magistrate, but also for the sake of conscience. So coming back to that very last question that I asked at the intro, how can we strive for gospel transformation right here, where we worship, where we live? I think those are great things to think about. God could do it in a day. But we shouldn't assume that that would be the case. And so we should ask ourselves, are we willing to invest decades of our blood, sweat and tears and gospel proclamation to see gospel transformation happen in this area. Let us labor in such a way, encouraging one another. Father, we bow before you. And every time we read your word, we are reminded of your greatness. of your power. No one can compare to you. No evil spirit. Certainly not the father of lies. They are all creatures. And they are governed by you. As we go our way tonight, we pray, Lord, that we would think about the harvest field that you told your disciples about, that the harvest fields are ripe, they're ready. Pray therefore to the Lord of the harvest that he might send laborers into the harvest. And Lord, we pray to that end tonight. We pray that you would make us willing laborers in the most blessed harvesting there could be, the harvesting of souls for the sake of your kingdom. Give us strength, give us wisdom, give us courage, O Lord, to proclaim your gospel. Now we ask that you'll grant to us safety and also even a time of blessed fellowship before we go our way. And we pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.