Would you please turn in your Bibles to Acts 19? Acts chapter 19, and we're going to cover verses 21 to 41 this morning. While you're turning there to Acts 19, I'll get there with you in just a moment, I'm going to read you some verses from the end of 1 Corinthians. Paul was talking about these travel plans that we cover here at the beginning of our passage today. when he wrote to the church at Corinth. And here's what he said, 1 Corinthians 16, 5-9, Now I will come to you when I pass through Macedonia, for I am passing through Macedonia. And it may be that I will remain, or even spend the winter with you, that you may send me on my journey wherever I go. For I do not wish to see you now on the way, but I hope to stay a while with you, if the Lord permits. But I will tarry in Ephesus until Pentecost, for a great and effective door has opened to me And there are many adversaries. Last week, as we finished up our passage, there was prosperity in the sense of the Gospel was growing. The Word of God, the name of the Lord were advancing. That's what we saw in response to the demon-possessed man and the seven sons of Sceva. That's what we talked about last week. And where we left off, the Word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed. That's verse 20. So things were going well. And just as we would expect from everything else we've read in Acts so far, when things are going well and the gospel is advancing, something's about to happen. That's usually the way it went. And that's what we're gonna see today. The gospel was experiencing remarkable success. Paul had been there for two years teaching. And as the gospel spread throughout all of Asia, the Christian community was strengthened. You may also remember from last week that believers, and that blows our mind a little bit, but believers who had these books of magic brought them out, confessed their sins, and burned those scrolls, and they were worth a lot of money. What do we see going on here? Revival among God's people, that they are confessing their sins, admitting that they have been living as hypocrites, seeing where their lives are not in accordance with God's standards. And they're forsaking that, they're repenting of it. And what happened after that, as we'll see today, as the Christians got right with God and turned their back on the sin that they had been participating in, it began to affect the culture. And now all of a sudden, those who were making idols of Diana were losing money. And because they were losing money, they were mad, and now all of a sudden persecution comes back in the direction of Paul and his helpers. That's what we're going to see going on today. That the revival that was taking place in the church in Ephesus was significant enough that it was influencing those around so that there was not so much of an interest in the temple of Diana or in the idols, the souvenirs that were being sold there. Let's look at our passage. You follow along, please, as I read verses 21 to the end of the chapter. When these things were accomplished, Paul purposed in the spirit when he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia to go to Jerusalem, saying, after I have been there, I must also see Rome. So he sent into Macedonia two of those who ministered to him, Timothy and Erastus, but he himself stayed in Asia for a time. And about that time, there arose a great commotion about the way. For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Diana, brought no small profit to the craftsman. He called them together with the workers of similar occupation and said, Men, you know that we have our prosperity by this trade. Moreover, you see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but throughout almost all Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away many people, saying that they are not gods which are made with hands. So not only is this trade of ours in danger of falling into disrepute, but also the temple of the great goddess Diana may be despised and her magnificence destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worship. And when they heard this, they were full of wrath and cried out saying, great is Diana of the Ephesians. So the whole city was filled with confusion and rushed into the theater with one accord, having seized Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians, Paul's travel companions. And when Paul wanted to go into the people, the disciples would not allow him. Then some of the officials of Asia, who were his friends, sent to him pleading that he would not venture into the theater. Some therefore cried one thing and some another, for the assembly was confused and most of them did not know why they had come together. And they drew Alexander out of the multitude, the Jews putting him forward. And Alexander motioned with his hand and wanted to make his defense to the people. But when they found out that he was a Jew, all with one voice cried out for about two hours, great is Diana of the Ephesians. And when the city clerk had quieted the crowd, he said, men of Ephesus, What man is there who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is temple guardian of the great goddess Diana and of the image which fell down from Zeus? Therefore, since these things cannot be denied, you ought to be quiet and do nothing rashly. For you have brought these men here who are neither robbers of your temples nor blasphemers of your goddess. Therefore, If Demetrius and his fellow craftsmen have a case against anyone, the courts are open and there are procouncils. Let them bring charges against one another. But if you have any other inquiry to make, it shall be determined in the lawful assembly, for we are in danger of being called in question for today's uproar. There being no reason which we may give to account for this disorderly gathering." And when he had said these things, He dismissed the assembly. Would you pray with me, please? Father, we thank you for the example of your protection and your sovereignty in this story today. Father, as we look into it, so many of their customs and their culture and their religion are unfamiliar to us. And yet I pray that by your Holy Spirit's help that you would give us understanding, that we would have a greater understanding of what this meant for them and what it means for us today. May we be able to see what this passage says and understand what it means and understand how it applies to us. Would you please speak to us? May we see any areas that you want to cast down from our lives today. In Jesus' name, amen. I have two points for you today, one of which is familiar. Gospel growth brings opposition. What is opposition? When forces, your enemies, are against you. Your enemies are against you. They bring opposition, someone who's competing against you, fighting against you. And when the gospel is growing and advancing, who's gonna fight against it? Satan, demons, forces of evil, forces of darkness. So gospel growth brings opposition, and we see it yet again here in Ephesus. And then number two, false gods will always fall before the true and living God. Mark it down. False gods, sooner or later, will fall before the true and living God. And we see that in this passage as well. Go back with me please to verse 21. There it says, when these things were accomplished, what things? Everything we talked about last week. The demon-possessed man. the demon knowing who Jesus is and having heard of Paul but not knowing who they are, and the embarrassment of those seven Jewish itinerant exorcists. After these things were accomplished, after the Word of God was advancing, after all of Asia was hearing about the gospel because of the teaching Paul was doing in Ephesus and his disciples who were going around and evangelizing and teaching and making disciples throughout that part of Asia, when these things were accomplished, Paul purposed in the Spirit, when he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia, to go to Jerusalem, saying, After I have been there, I must also see Rome." Who's he going to go see in Macedonia and Achaia? Those probably still aren't names that roll off our tongue. That would be Philippi and Thessalonica and Berea and Corinth. The churches that he planted over in what we would call Greece. If you look at a map, you would see he's going away from Jerusalem. He's going west in order to go back to Greece. He's going the wrong way, sort of. He's gonna revisit those churches to make sure that everything's going well, that the believers are grounded and growing, and there are elders who are leading those congregations, those churches. But he's also, we know from other places, in Romans and in 1 Corinthians and even 2 Corinthians, that he is in the process of collecting an offering for poor saints in Jerusalem. That's the main reason he's going back to Jerusalem. The Christians, the believers in Jerusalem are very poor, and they are receiving an offering from those churches in Greece to take there. He also says, I must see Rome. He'd never been to Rome. There was already a church in Rome. If you remember from several weeks ago, Aquila and Priscilla had come from the church that was in Rome. But Rome was the capital of the empire. It was very influential and he wanted to go there and do what he could to encourage the church there and build up believers. He wanted to see Rome. That does not mean that this was a sightseeing venture. G. Campbell Morgan said this was not the must of the tourist, it was the must of the missionary. He needed to go to Rome because he wanted to evangelize there as well. And really it was going to be a jumping off point because we know from writings in other places that Paul wanted to go to Spain. That seems to be his ultimate destination, where he wanted to spread missions, where he wanted to share the gospel. Interestingly, this verse gives us an outline for everything else that's gonna happen in Acts. Because when we get to chapter 20, we will see Paul going back through Macedonia and Achaia. He gets to Jerusalem in chapter 21, and it takes us all the way to chapter 28 for him to get to Rome. And as some people have pointed out, he didn't get there by getting on a plane and going first class. What was the condition Paul was in when he finally got to Rome? He was in handcuffs, he was in chains, he was a prisoner. And we'll see how all that plays out in the coming weeks and months. Verse 22, so he sent into Macedonia, that's Paul, two of those who ministered to him, Timothy and Erastus, but he himself stayed in Asia for a time. So notice that he still has helpers traveling with him. He'll send them off to help a church and then he'll come back. He's going to send them. With the first letter to the Corinthians. And Timothy were familiar with Erastus. There are other places in Scripture will see that name, and it's not certain which Erastus this is. But I'll leave that to you to search out if you want to. The other places you can find Erastus or Romans 1623. in 2 Timothy 4.20. But this is the approximate time frame when Paul wrote the first epistle to the Corinthians. He wrote 1 Corinthians and he sent it with these two. And the other reason they were going, remember, was to begin raising funds, collecting funds that they are going to take to Jerusalem to help the poor saints there. That sets the stage for us and brings us to our first point that gospel growth brings opposition 1st 23 and about that time as those things are taking place there arose a great commotion about the way For a certain man named Demetrius a silversmith who made silver shrines of Diana brought no small profit to the craftsman It was at this point that Satan Brings his next attack And as Warren Weersbe pointed out he's not coming this time as a deceiver. He's coming as a destroyer He's coming as a murderer It would have greatly advanced his kingdom, his agenda, if he had been able to stir up this crowd in Ephesus to get Paul imprisoned or even get him killed. So he's orchestrating this, stirring up the crowds. Here's what Warren Wisbee said, wherever the gospel is preached in power, it will be opposed by people who make money from superstition and sin. What we'll see is that Paul did not arouse the opposition of the silversmiths by picketing the temple of Diana or staging anti-idolatry rallies. All he did was teach the truth daily and send out his converts to witness to the lost people in the city. And as more and more people got converted, fewer and fewer customers were available. Now, what does Demetrius say is the problem? Go back to the beginning of verse 23. And about that time, there arose a great commotion about the way. Most of your Bibles will have way capitalized, the W. Because at that point, yes, The disciples were first called Christians at Antioch. We covered that a few months back. But it wasn't called Christianity or the church in the sense that we think of it today. The most common way it was referred to is exactly that, the way. Where does that come from? Probably from Jesus' own words in John 14, I am the way, the truth, and the life. So when it says the way, there is only one way to God, and it is through Jesus Christ. I cannot depend on my works. I cannot depend on going to the right church often enough, or doing more good than bad, or praying just the right words, or offering penance. There's nothing I can do to save myself. Jesus said the only way to the Father was through him. But beyond that, we speak, we have a phrase, way of life. And the way following Jesus changed the life, especially for these Gentiles, because they are in what we would call pagan lands. They are coming out of idolatry as the Thessalonians did. They are coming out of a culture that was every bit as bad as what we see around us today. And the evil was probably better accepted at that point. And God was saving them through Jesus, through the gospel that Paul and others were preaching. And there was a change of life. So that describes them as well. The way is a different way of life, a different manner of life, a different lifestyle. Demetrius, some have called him head of the silversmith guild or union. He gets up, he says, we make silver shrines of Diana, and this is bringing us money. This is where we get our income. That's where he begins speaking. So it would help us if we know what these are. We know what silver is. Silver shrines, many people believe, were replicas of the Temple of Artemis. If you go visit Washington D.C. or New York City, you might get a souvenir. For us, that might be a t-shirt or a hat. And that was what many people throughout the world were coming. Because as we'll talk about, this temple of Diana was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was a tourist trap. It was a big part of their industry. It was tourism. And people came and this group of silversmiths were making these shrines. Some have suggested they might have been medals that you could hang around your neck. But people were coming and buying these. And as the culture was shifting slightly because of the spread of the gospel, all of a sudden there are fewer customers. And they're feeling it because sales year over year have dropped off. And our sales projections for this year are even worse. and we have to do something about this or we're gonna be out of business permanently. We're gonna go bankrupt. Who is Diana? If you've seen artwork, you may have an idea of Diana. There was a Greek version of Diana that came a little later and that made her a beautiful goddess. That's not what they were worshiping here. Historians, I came across this several different ways. I'm gonna share with you the words of Kent Hughes. The epicenter, that means the focal point of Artemis worship. And I'll stop there. Artemis is, we have one Greek name, one Roman name. So we have the Greek name Artemis, the Roman name Diana. The epicenter of Artemis worship was a black meteorite that either resembled or had been fashioned into a grotesque image of a woman. I heard somebody describe it as a troll looking thing. The bottom half was like a mummy. And then the top was, and I saw different numbers, but an idol covered with breasts because this was supposed to be a fertility goddess. And the whole thing was just ugly. It was black because it was a meteorite. They believed it had come down from Zeus, as we'll see later in the passage. It had come down from heaven, and of course a meteorite would. So either it was shaped that way in their mindset, or perhaps somebody had carved on this meteorite to make it look like what they were now worshiping as a grotesque goddess. Something else I learned this week about this temple. It was magnificent. It was beautiful. There were jasper columns. And it also served as a major treasury and bank. Merchants, kings, and even cities made deposits there. And their money, they thought, could be safe because it's protected by a deity. It's protected by a god. This place was huge. We talked about the Parthenon. This is four times the size of a Parthenon. Some of you young men will appreciate this. You could have put a football field inside this temple. It was that big. It wouldn't have been a good place to play football or any other sport because of all these columns that were in the way. But it was a roof, mammoth roof, held up by these large, ornate pillars. Lots of artwork. So it was 425 feet long, 220 feet wide. And he says, this trade is bringing us no small profit. That's Luke's description. Obviously, they are making big bucks on the tourists and on the people who are practicing the worship of Diana here. So the opposition begins. We're going to see it continue. But I also want to remind you, false gods always will fall before the true and living God. And that's what we begin to see here. Prophets are falling off because God is in the process of allowing the gospel to penetrate this area that has been so infatuated with the worship of Artemis, the worship of Diana. Look at verse 25. He called them together, who? The other people in the same trade, with the workers of similar occupation and said, men, you know that we have our prosperity by this trade. The New American Standard says our prosperity depends upon this business, verse 26. Moreover, you see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but throughout almost all Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away many people saying that they are not gods which are made with hands. So not only is this trade of ours in danger of falling into disrepute, but also the temple of the great goddess Diana may be despised or dethroned and her magnificence destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worship." Someone wrote that because of the power of the gospel, their business had gone bad. That's what's going on here. You also may have noticed there is certainly truth in what he's saying. Paul is teaching that idols made with hands are not gods. They'd gotten that much right. That's what they'd heard. Only they're looking at it at their bottom line. It's hurting their wallets, so they're angry. But he's a very smooth and intelligent man, because how is he couching his arguments? He starts off, he lays it on the line, because these are people in his profession. And as he speaks to them, he first says, guys, we're losing money here. We've got to change this. This has to stop. But he doesn't stop there. He transitions the argument because do people who are not silversmiths care about silversmiths' income? Not so much. But they do care about the pride, the civic pride of their city. And many of them cared about their goddess Diana. What's ironic to me is that they feel that they have to fight for their goddess. If she's a goddess, then what can Paul possibly do by teaching in the school of Tyrannus? What difference is it going to make? He's just a man and she's a goddess. Maybe they had a little bit of doubt and fear in them as well. This Paul has persuaded and turned away many people. In a way, that's a compliment to what the Lord was doing through Paul, that the gospel was spreading. I found this illustration in one of my commentaries. During the Welsh revival of 1901 under the anointed ministry of Robert Murray McShane, so great was the revival that every tavern and pub in Wales went broke. They went out of business. How many anti-alcohol sermons did McShane deliver? Want to guess? None. How many tirades against taverns? Zero. People simply lost all interest in alcohol when they got touched by the Lord and filled with the Holy Spirit. And the same thing happened in Ephesus. When people got saved, the idol business dried up. The culture was shifting. Here comes Paul, one man, and a mission team with him. And God is saving people, and a church is established at Ephesus, and all of a sudden, you remember how it was described elsewhere? Those who have turned the world upside down, that's what's happening at Ephesus. The world is being turned upside down. James Montgomery Voice said, Let me suggest that if our Christianity is not affecting the economy of our world, we do not have much Christianity. Let that sink in for a second. If we're not making any difference, including economic difference, in our world, do we have a real Christianity? Is it influencing our culture at all? He went on, I know we do not like to hear that because we tend to think our economy is the product of our Christianity. We think of the Western world as being Christian and therefore capitalistic. And there is some truth to that. At the same time, when Christians live as Christians, it will affect how they use their money. There will be an impact on the economy negatively for some, and inevitably there will be hostility toward Christians as there was here. I am not getting up in front of you today saying, we're going to start boycotting this company and this company and this company. That's not my point at the moment. My point is that as we live in this world, in this culture that is increasingly hostile to Christians, where we choose to spend our money, where we choose to spend our time, the hobbies that we pursue, there should be a change, a difference between us and the world around us. Because if there's not, then do we have a real Christianity? Another statement Demetrius made, whom all Asia and the world worship, it's peer pressure. He's making an emotional as well as rational appeal here, saying everybody worships Artemis. Everybody's doing it, it can't possibly be wrong. Now obviously not everybody did, or Paul wouldn't have been causing problems for them. But even if everybody did, someone said, that alone did not make Artemis a true goddess, nor her worshipers, right. Someone else said, one lie multiplied by 10,000 voices never becomes a truth. And we see what the culture at large around us is promoting, drugs and alcohol and sex and money and all the things that are going to bring us happiness, bring us success, bring us satisfaction. As often as those lies are repeated, that doesn't make them true and we shouldn't fall for them. Boyce said, the world is never changed by the majority, the world is changed by a minority who listen to the Holy Spirit. Do you remember what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 7? It says, enter by the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. So Demetrius is making the case this is affecting our wallet, it's affecting our commerce, it's affecting our tourism, it's bad for business, we need to get rid of Paul and these Christians. Because everybody worships Diana. Everybody should worship Diana. Verse 28, here's the response of the people he's talking to. Now when they heard this, the craftsmen were full of wrath and cried out, saying, great is Diana of the Ephesians. So the whole city was filled with confusion and rushed into the theater with one of Chord, having seized Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians, Paul's travel companions." The whole city's in an uproar. It's filled with confusion. He's gotten his message out, in part by these guys who run out now for the meeting, yelling, Greatest Night in Ephesians! And everybody starts running. Why are they yelling? Everybody comes together. What's going on? And they end up all going to the theater, the amphitheater. I saw different estimates, but most of them were around 25,000. But if this thing was filled to capacity, this is a huge crowd, a huge mob. 25,000. So a mob is forming, and they can't find Paul. So because they can't find Paul, they grab two of his companions, his traveling companions, Gaius and Aristarchus. And they are going to see what they can do to make an example of them. And they're not mentioned again in the passage, but they are mentioned again later. So whatever happened or didn't happen, they lived through it. Aristarchus appears later in the book of accident in Colossians and Philemon. Verse 30, and when Paul wanted to go into the people, the disciples would not allow him. Then some of the officials of Asia, who were his friends, sent to him pleading that he would not venture into the theater. Paul's looking at it as a great opportunity. When was the last time I got to preach to 25,000 people at one time? And they're saying, nothing doing, we are not letting you go in there, they will kill you. Do you not remember being stoned and left for dead outside the city before? So his believing friends, the disciples, verse 30, and then some of your Bibles may say Asiarchs, the officials of Asia, the Roman officials, those who have been set up there by Rome to promote Roman interests. It's interesting as well that Paul has friends who are the upper crust of that society, politically, and they tell him, don't go in there. Verse 32, some therefore cried one thing and some another for the assembly was confused and most of them did not know why they had come together. There's a little bit of humor there in Luke's writing. He's saying most of the people who showed up for this thing didn't even know why they were there. I was talking with Rochelle yesterday that this is basically a flash mob of ethicists. All these people come together. They'd been using social media, Twitter and Facebook and all that so that they all knew what was going on. They're texting their friends so that they would all come to the theater at the same time. Y'all are looking at me like I'm crazy. I am joking. They didn't have that back then, okay? So they all came together in the theater and they're crying out. Somebody's yelling, we're here because of this. No, we're here about Diana. They don't know what they're there for. The closest thing I can think of that we've seen, if you saw the political conventions on TV and you have this group yelling this and this group yelling that and then they all are screaming and yelling and it takes two hours to get through a ten minute speech, that's kind of what's going on here. And they drew Alexander out of the multitude, the Jews putting him forward, and Alexander motioned with his hand and wanted to make his defense to the people. But when they found out that he was a Jew, all with one voice cried out for about two hours, Great is Diana of the Ephesians! They bring in Alexander. Who puts him forth? The Jews. Why? We're not sure, but most people believe they're putting him out there because they want him to make a speech and distance the Jews. Hey, Paul and the Christians, they're not part of us. They want to keep their distance because they don't want this to become a massacre of Jews. But they weren't even here. Once they find out he's a Jew, get him out of here. We don't want him. They shouted him down. And instead, how long does it say? For two hours. Can you imagine? For two hours. You would think they would have gotten hoarse before that. They are screaming and yelling, Great is Diana of the Ephesians! Great is Diana of the Ephesians! Great is Diana of the Ephesians! Two hours long. And maybe it was starting to die down on this side of the stadium, and this side started it up again. Two hours. What do you think that looks like to us today? What would people be yelling is so great, because we don't worship Artemis. I doubt very many, if any of you, had ever heard of Artemis before you walked in today. One commentator gave these suggestions of what this would look like today. By words, by actions, by time, by dollars spent, what do we yell? Great is my sports team. Great is my political party. Great is our economy, Wall Street. Great is internet pornography. Great is material wealth. Great is getting drunk or getting high. By words, by actions, by time and money. That's what our culture is yelling. And possibly what some of us would be yelling. Just think, though, if somebody said, Great is the Lord Jesus Christ! Oh, that would be weird. That would be unacceptable. That would be politically incorrect. Verse 35, And when the city clerk had quieted the crowd, he said, Men of Ephesus, what man is there who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is temple guardian of the great goddess Diana, and of the image which fell down from Zeus? There you go, meteorite. Therefore, since these things cannot be denied, you ought to be quiet. and do nothing rashly. For you have brought these men here who are neither robbers of temples nor blasphemers of your goddess." Here it calls him the city clerk. Probably he was the mayor. That would be our modern equivalent. And he is responsible to the Roman authorities and particularly responsible to Roman authorities for this crowd that has now gotten out of hand. So he quiets the crowd. And if you examine and compare the speech that he makes to what Demetrius had been saying, it's actually quite similar. He's playing on their civic pride and their worship of Diana. Verse 38, Therefore, if Demetrius and his fellow craftsmen have a case against anyone, the courts are open and there are procouncils, governors, civil magistrates, we've talked about them before. Let them bring charges against one another. But if you have any other inquiry to make, it shall be determined in the lawful assembly. For we are in danger of being called in question for today's uproar, there being no reason which we may give to account for this disorderly gathering, this commotion. And when he had said these things, he dismissed the assembly. One commentator said that the town clerk now turned a cold eye on Demetrius and reminded him and the now sobered assembly that there was a rule of law in Ephesus, and it was not Gaius and Aristarchus, Paul, or anyone else who had broken the law, but Demetrius who had called together this unlawful assembly trying to manipulate the crowd and therefore the city. So the city clerk blamed the crowd for the riot. and said, there are courts. There is a process for this. This is not the process. The fact is that in that stadium, that's where they had their town meetings. And people could come. It was very much of a democratic process. But they had set times, somewhere I read three times per month they could come and have a town meeting. This wasn't one of the appointed times. And now they're in danger of Rome finding out, and Rome really had one main way of dealing with things, and that was military force. They were going to get in big trouble, and he very well could lose his job of mayor if this gets out of hand. So he's saying, quiet down. Nobody's arguing. Everybody knows. Here again. Everybody's doing it. Everybody knows Diana is great and that we are the city that has her temple. Nobody's arguing about that. which is true. No one around the world would have been arguing about that. But for the sake of his job and not losing civic freedoms that Rome had granted them, he's saying, pipe down, be quiet, and go home. This riot is Paul's cue that he is now going to move on. I read you from the end of 1 Corinthians that he was planning to stay until Pentecost. He didn't stay that long. The Lord changed his plans and probably used this riot to do it. But this is another triumph, if you will, for Paul and legal protection for the Christians. Because the mayor upheld their right to be there. and basically said, what they're doing is not illegal. They're not blaspheming our goddess and they're not stealing from our temple or defacing it. They're not in there doing graffiti on the pillars. They're not doing anything wrong. So if you have a case against them, bring it to court. If not, go home. I pointed this out last week, but we see this opposition to the gospel and it very well may be why Paul wrote so much in the letter to the Ephesians. about principalities and powers and powers of darkness that are present in this world and why he told us to put on the full armor of God that we would be able to withstand against the wiles of the devil, to stand firmly in spiritual warfare. That's what he wrote to the Ephesians. Gospel growth brings opposition, and false gods will always fall before the one true living God. So my first question to you as we wrap this up, do you know the true and living God? Is He, Jesus, your Savior? Do you have a relationship with God through Christ? If not, you can begin that relationship today. I'd be more than happy to talk through any questions you have about that. But here's my question for those of us who are here who are believers in Jesus. Which God or gods should be toppled from your life today? Is there something you could relate to in that list of questions I read earlier? What could we be shouting? Because our gods today are more subtle than going and worshiping a stone, a rock, a meteorite. It's the entertainment. It's the lifestyle. It's the pursuit of the almighty dollar. Is there a false god in your life that God is in the process of toppling? Would you bow your heads and close your eyes? If God has spoken to you today in a specific way, you know that it's the Holy Spirit speaking to you, and you'd like me to remember you in prayer as we close. Whatever that need may be, I would be glad to pray for you. Would you make eye contact with me and then look back down? And I will be glad to pray for you. Our Father, would you continue to speak your truth into our hearts? If we are guilty of idolatry in any of its forms, would you please, by your grace, convict us and change us and help us to forsake those things? May we live for you. You have said that we are salt and we are light. May we make a difference around us. May people see and hear a difference in us. May our relationship with you be real and may that show itself in a real and vibrant and living Christianity before the world around us. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.