Open your Bibles, if you would,
to Acts chapter 19. The name of the message is Evil
Spirits Know Christ. Evil Spirits Know Christ. Acts
chapter 19, we'll continue our study in this wonderful book
called the Acts of the Apostles. Let's stand up and read our text
today. which is verses 11 to 20 in Acts
chapter 19. Acts chapter 19, verses 11 to
20. And God wrought special miracles
by the hands of Paul, so that from his body were brought unto
the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the disease departed from
them, and the evil spirits went out of them. Then certain of
the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them,
which had evil spirits, the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We
adjure you by Jesus, whom Paul preacheth. And there were seven
sons of Scevia, a Jew and a chief of the priests, which did so. And the evil spirit answered
and said, Jesus, I know, and Paul, I know, but who are ye? And the man in whom the evil
spirits was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed
against them, so that they fled out of the house naked and wounded.
And this was known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling
at Ephesus. And fear fell on them all, and
the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. And many that believed
came and confessed and showed their deeds. And many of them
also, which used curious arts, bought their books together and
burned them before all men. And they counted the price of
them and found it 50,000 pieces of silver. So mighty grew the
word of the Lord, or the word of God, and prevailed. My, my,
oh, my. Let's get right into this, beloved.
We see in verses 11 and 12, it says, God wrought special miracles
by the hands of Paul, so that from his body were bought unto
the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from
them, and the evil spirits went out of them. Now, as we've looked
at in our previous studies, beloved, and it was bought forth that
the Days of apostolic gifts have ceased. They're no longer needed. They were signed gifts to unbelieving
Jews. And now that we have the whole
Bible, we don't need them. Now, does God still do miracles?
Absolutely. Every time he saves a sinner.
That's a miracle, isn't it? That's a miracle of grace. God
can do whatever he pleases. Right? He can heal someone who's
sick, or he can leave them in the sickness they're in. It's
all in his hands. Our life, we realize, as God's
people, that our lives are totally in the Lord's hands. A hundred
percent. Like for Zane, they told me,
we don't know the date. And Zane and I were talking yesterday,
and I said, well, the Lord knows, doesn't he? He goes, yep, the
Lord knows the date that I'm supposed to go. And that won't change,
no matter what no doctor says. My, oh, my. It's amazing. So those miracles that are recorded
in verses 11 and 12, they really did happen. They really did happen. The miracles recorded in the
Gospels really did happen. They were true events that occurred. And many were healed, we see,
from different kinds of sickness. And evil spirits went out of
many by being touched by some of Paul's clothing and his handkerchiefs
and aprons, et cetera. Now, it wasn't Paul's garments
that produced those miracles, was it? You ever see these guys on TV,
oh, they're selling a prayer handkerchief. God will answer
all your prayers if you buy this handkerchief for 9.99. It wasn't the items that healed. It was God and his power. It's the Lord Jesus Christ, by
His power, who cast out those demons. And remember, we even
have a picture of that with the man at the gathering demoniac,
remember? Who is said to have a legion
of demons in him. And you know, I was reading that
again as I was preparing for this through the week, and they
begged Christ not to send them into the deep. You know what that is in the
Greek? The abyss. Don't send us to the pit. They know their doom. And they
begged him not to do it. Because they know he has all
power. And he said, suffered, and he
suffered them to go into the pigs, didn't he? And what did
the pigs do? They all ran off a cliff. All
died. My oh my, what power our King
has, what might our King has. So all these things that Paul
was doing was by the power and might of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul would even tell us that. If he was here today, he'd say,
I didn't have anything, that was all the Lord doing all that. And these gifts ceased when the
apostles died. Now, can someone have the gift
of tongues? Yeah, if God can. Tongues is
a language. In the Greek, it's knowing language.
David's learning the language over there in the jungles. God's
given him the gift of tongues. Right? But it's not the gibberish
that people say nowadays. It's a language. Because remember
they said, do we not all hear in our own speech? in her own
tongue. Oh, it's magnificent. So it wasn't
the garments, it was the power of God that all these miracles
occurred. And it was all for the glory
of God, for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. It drew attention to Christ,
not to Paul, to Christ. And he'd be the first one to
say, look to Christ. As a matter of fact, he did that in our Sunday
school lesson, didn't he? Stand fast. Be stationary. Don't
move forward. Don't step back. Don't be swayed
to the side by false teachers. Stand fast. Be stationary in
the gospel. Be stationary in the truths that
we've learned in the gospel. The doctrines of Christ. That
salvation's all of him. By his shed blood. My, it's wonderful. So let us remember that under
the preaching of his gospel, our Lord Jesus Christ performs
the miracle of the new birth. The Holy Spirit regenerates us. And his gospel is the power of
God unto salvation. And God's preachers are just
ordained instruments. They're like a doctor using a
scalpel. That's all. I can't brag about anything.
Everything I have and everything I say is coming from my king. He's given me the knowledge of
him. He's revealed himself to me. He's made me the preacher
I am. You talk to any of us preachers
and we feel so inadequate. You know, you guys say, well,
I love the message, but we still feel really inadequate. But that's
just how it is. God keeps us low. Donny Bell
told me, God keeps us low so we don't get puffed up. My, oh, my. So all the miracle
of the new birth occurs by God, the Holy Spirit, taking the Word
of God and regenerating the believer. Oh, my. It's wonderful. And we see here in that text
that Paul was even used by God to cast out Satan and evil spirits,
the evil forces of darkness. They're real. They're real. I know, Baptists, we don't like
to talk about that stuff a whole lot. They're real. We don't wrestle against flesh
and blood, but against princes and principalities and spiritual
wickedness in high places. And we don't wrestle against
the enemy, we call on the King. Kevin and Barb had something
occur when they were younger, and you just pleaded the blood
of Christ. I grew up, my mom had a familiar
spirit. She talked to it all the time. I started having premonitions
and different things when I was about 18 or 19. She said, oh, it's just a gift,
Wayne. And it ain't no gift. It ain't no gift. They're real. We wrestle not against flesh
and blood. And I'm telling you from experience, stay away from
this stuff. Don't even mess with it. Because we're going to see what
happens with some fellas that thought, well, we can do what
Paul does. Nope. They're nothing but religious
charlatans. My, oh, my. And this miracle of the new birth
overwhelms the born-again, blood-washed child of God with eternal gratitude. Now, we have eternal gratitude
now, don't we, that the Lord saved our souls? that we being
delivered from the prison house of sin and translated from the
kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God's dear son, all by God's
almighty power. And the same power that was operating
under Paul's ministry is the same power that regenerated us.
The same power that goes forth and takes the words from my mouth
to yours and blesses you with the message and blesses me when
I'm listening to someone else. Same power, isn't that wonderful?
Same power at work, God the Holy Spirit. And we don't need outward
signs now. We have a whole Bible. We don't
need signs and wonders. Have you ever noticed how the
world loves signs? If I can't see it, I don't believe
it. Right, you ever hear that? We believe, having never seen
Christ. That's faith, isn't it? That's
God-given faith. And it's wonderful. We have a
complete Bible, not only to assure us of God's promises, but God
the Holy Spirit guides us into all truth through it. The saints
at Thessalonica, our Lord's gospel came to them in power. and in the Holy Ghost, and in
much assurance. So it came to them in the power
of God, the Holy Spirit. Paul preached the gospel of the
perfect finished work of salvation in and through Christ, and God,
the Holy Spirit, by his power, made it effectual. And that's
what he's done for every one of us who are born again. That's
amazing. And we have nothing to say but
God be the glory, don't we? Praise his mighty name. Praise
his name. My. And like all the saints who've
gone on before us, Jesus Christ and his glorious gospel is precious. Do you know we're saved by the
precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ? In the Greek, that's
valuable. And do you know where precious
is in his sight? In the Hebrew, that's valuable. We who are valuable to God are
saved by his valuable precious blood. Oh my, God became a man,
hey brother Brian, and delivered us and saved us from all our
sins. Praise his mighty name. Now let's look at verse 13 of
Acts chapter 19. Then certain of the vagabond
Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them, which had
evil spirits, the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We adjure
you by Jesus, whom Paul preaches. So these vagabond Jews, I looked
it up in the study bibles. They're like Jewish gypsies. They travel from city to city.
I didn't realize this, but when it says vagabonds, it's like
they're travelers. So what they do is they go from
city to city. doing fortunes, predicting future
events. What are they really doing? Taking
money out of people's pockets, right? That's all they're doing. They're charlatans. So here they
are, they're exorcists. These guys are exorcists. They
supposedly cast out demons. Oh my. Wait till you see what
this demon says to them and what it means in the Greek. It blew my mind away. My oh my. Do not toy, beloved,
with spirits, evil spirits. Do not toy with them. So these
Jewish gypsies, they went from city to city practicing witchcraft,
and they claimed to have power to cast spells upon people, good
or bad spells, they didn't care. They also claimed to have the
power to predict future events, capturing the attention of foolish
men and women who wanted to know what might be in store for them.
I know this. You know, I know my future, do
you? I'm going to die and God's going to take me home. Right? Brother Tom, we're going to die.
We're going to leave this world and we're going to be in glory
forever. See, these folks went around
telling all kinds of things. They claim to be able to speak
to the dead and all this. They're just like the modern
charlatans today. We have them still today with
us. They claim to have power to get a message from the dead.
or give a message from the dead. My, claim they could read their
fortunes by astrological signs, but they were just hypocrites. They were just hypocrites. They got no power. No power at
all. You ever notice sometimes The
thing about them fortune tellers and all them things, they'll
ask you a bunch of questions. They'll ask you a bunch of questions
and then, based upon the answer to those questions, they generally
can figure out some things going on in your lives. It's just trickery, beloved. It's just trickery. So these
hypocrites, they were Jews. If they were Gentiles, they'd
be hypocrite Gentiles. They claim to be servants of
God. But we see they only serve self,
because they had one thing, they had one thing. They figured if
they could go out and cast that demon out of that guy in Ephesus,
because this guy's probably no one in the whole city, that they
could make a ton of money. They could make a ton of money.
They could go around claiming we cast that evil spirit out.
You ever notice these faith healers? Do you ever notice the one place
that they never are at? Children's hospitals? Cancer wards? They say, oh, we
can't do it in that situation. They're nothing but charlatans.
They're nothing but liars. They can't even heal their own
toothache. You know what? They go to the dentist when they
have a toothache, don't they? I often want to ask people I
know that are Pentecostals, and they claim that, oh, God won't
heal you if you don't have enough faith. I say, well, you told
me a month ago you went to the dentist. You must have no faith. Oh, no, no, no, no. It doesn't
mean that. Let's see. My, oh my. I can't heal a toothache,
can you? I gotta go to the dentist, get
him to pull my tooth or fill it. My, I can't fix your teeth either.
He wouldn't want me fixing your teeth. My, oh my. We still have these folks with
us today. As we often say to each other, there's nothing new
under the sun. There's nothing. It just shows us these charlatans
were around. Where did we drive by and that
first person had that box truck? That's on the way to Lapeer,
isn't it? Oh, no. Where was that? Home from Lapeer. Yeah, that's right. We went the
back way. to go up through Metamora. And there's this truck. I used
to be a sign painter. You know how you can get a nice
sign on the side of a truck? This person, they just look like
they took a little brush and they wrote, healing center. This way. And I said, there ain't
no healing center. They can't heal no one. And I
said, you think they'd at least get a sign painter in there to
actually do the truck, make it look good? No, they're just charlatans. Ain't that wild? But they're
saying right there what they are. They're just charlatans. My, nothing new under the sun.
And I'm not just referring here with there's nothing new under
the sun to just those who practice witchcraft or all this other
stuff, but also to false self-righteous religionists. Joe Holstein. Self-righteous. They're not preaching
the gospel, is he? Who's that guy, the Pentecostal
guy, John Hagee, not preaching the gospel? They're a bunch of
charlatans. All they want is people's money.
Remember who was it, that Oral Roberts fellows? Give me $7 million
or God's gonna kill me. Remember that? Back in the, that
was not in the 70s or something, or 80s? I remember that. My dad
looked at, my dad wasn't a saved man. He looked at that and said,
look at that religious fool. Well, he was right. He's a hypocrite. My, oh my. You know what these
fellas do? Just like these guys, they make
merchandise of people's souls. That's what they're doing. They
look at their hearers as dollar signs. I'm more concerned about
your soul than anything else. And so is every gospel preacher.
We're concerned about your soul. We preachers pray for growth
within the body. We pray the Holy Spirit will
take the message and apply it. I love what the guys always pray.
Open up our ears and our eyes as we're hearing the message. Open our hearts up to receive
the message. That's wonderful. But these folks
have no concern for people's souls. They see people as dollar
signs. What can I get from them? These
vagabond Jews fleeced people by making money off them. Now,
God's word tells us that we're to have no dealing with wicked
so-called astrologers, with witchcraft, or those who claim to have the
power to read your fortune. Listen to this in Deuteronomy
18, if you want to write this down. It's Deuteronomy 18, verses
10 to 12. It says this, There shall not
be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter
to pass through the fire, or that uses divination, or an observer
of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter
with familiar spirits, that's what my mom was, my, or a wizard,
or a necromancer. For all that do these things
are an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations,
the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee. So all
this stuff was being practiced in the lands that that the Israelites
were to take over. No wonder God said, don't mix
with them. They're religious stray. Do not toy with these, these
that are called evil spirits. Do not toy with them. Have no dealings with them. Now
these vagabond Jews, they were eyewitnesses of the power of
God. They had seen what Paul had done. They were eyewitnesses
to God's power. It was demonstrated by Paul using
those chosen instruments, and they were ready to apply anything
they could to their evil practice. This is another new way. We could
make even more money. And they even used the name of
Jesus, who they did not know. In their sinful attempt to practice
their witchcraft, they attempted to cast out the evil spirits
by saying, look at this, we adjure you, which is we charge you.
So they're speaking, they're trying to speak with authority.
See, remember when our Lord, those demons were begging our
Lord not to cast them into the deep, they knew He had the power
and they knew He had the authority to do whatever He could and would
with them. Because you know why? They know
Him. And they know Him intimately. The same way Christ knows us,
they know Him. Because remember, they were with
him. And they fell. They're at his beck and command. So they said, we charge you by
Jesus, whom Paul preaches. Notice they didn't say whom we
preach. They don't preach Christ. They say, we charge you, come
out of them, by the Jesus that Paul preaches. Just like many false preachers,
these seven brothers had no concern for God's glory, no concern for
God's glory at all. They didn't have any concern
for the eternal souls of those who were around them. The men
and women that were around them, their main concern was their
wallets. And how much they could fleece
from people. Now let's read verse 14. We see the seven sons identified.
And there were seven sons of Sceva, a Jew and chief of the
priests which did so. So now we see them identified.
This identifies, these vagabond Jews are now identified to us.
There's seven of them. Seven brothers. Seven brothers. They were sons of a certain Jew
by the name of Sceva, who was chief of the priests, that had influence, power. And these seven men were all
guilty of trying to cast out this evil spirit in the name
of Jesus. Now, let's read verses 15 and
16 together. Oh my. the evil spirit answered spoke
through this man Notice what he said Jesus I know You know
what that word is Jesus I can know Scott Remember when the
Lord says I never knew you he says up to those folks in Matthew
7 he said I never can know sketchy He can know skus us he knows
us intimate This demon's saying, I can gnoska Christ. I know him. And Paul I know, different Greek
word, means to be acquainted with.
They knew Christ. They were acquainted with Paul. They knew who the master was. They were acquainted with Paul. They knew he was a servant of
God. My, look at this. And Paul, I
know, but who are ye? Who are you? Oh, my. And then look what happens. And
the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them and overcame
him. He tore them to shreds. He beat them. Look at this. And prevailed them so that they
fled out of the house naked and wounded. He ripped everything
they had off, and he just beat them. One man against seven brothers. One demon, I'm sorry, one demon,
not one man. Well, one man who's possessed with the demon. Look
at that. Now again, there's something
very interesting in verse 15. The words know in verse 15. The
evil spirit said it knows Christ. And Paul. Again, these two underlying
Greek... See, we would read that in English
and think, oh, it's the same word. But it's not the same word
underlying. The evil spirit says it knows
Jesus. And that Greek word is one which,
again, we heard before, ginoska. Christ speaks of his people as
I ginoska them. He knows us intimately. This
evil spirit knows who Christ is. It knows. He was with them before, wasn't
he? Before he fell. Oh my. Remember one angel wiped
out 100,000 men? This one demon tore apart seven
men. Don't mess with him. Call on
our elder brother, who has all power and might, the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's already defeated them, hasn't
he? But this was done. There was
a reason this happened. God's gonna take this situation,
and there's gonna be a turning of a great multitude to Christ. Because they're going to see
what Paul's preaching. And this got around. What this demon said
got around. Because it's, well, it's number
one, it's preserved for us here in the scriptures, isn't it?
The evil spirit says it knows Jesus. It knows him. Do you know the fallen angels
have more sense than fallen man? Turn, if you would, to Mark chapter
1. Mark chapter 1. I'll read you what it says in
James. It says, Thou believest that there is one God? Thou doest
well. The devils also believe and tremble.
He knew who Jesus was. And he trembled. He's acquainted
with Paul, preacher of God's righteousness in Christ and him
alone. He's acquainted with him. He's heard of him. But he knows
Christ. Look at this, Mark 1, verses
23 to 27. And there was in the synagogue
a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, saying, Let
us alone. What have we to do with thee,
thou Jesus of Nazareth? He identified him. Then look what he says, Art thou
come to destroy us? They know their doom. And then
look at this. Oh, look at this. Look at this
title of our king. And this demon knows he has all
power. I know thee who thou art, the
Holy One of God. My. The devils believe in trouble. Look what he says. What have
we to do with thee? They know and tremble. They know
there's one true God and they tremble, beloved. He identified
him, Jesus of Nazareth. And then he identifies him as
who he is, the Holy One of God. Oh my. Look at this. And Jesus
rebuked him. Hold thy peace. He just muzzled
it. By a command, he just muzzled
that demon. Hold thy peace and come out of
him. And when the unclean spirit had
torn him and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him. He
had to obey the Son of God. He had to obey the Holy One of
God. He knew who he was. He knew he
had no power and no authority when it came to Christ. And they were amazed in so much
that they questioned among themselves, saying, What thing is this? What
new doctrine is this? For with authority commandeth
he even the unclean spirits, and they do obey him. They were
in awe. Let's go back to Acts chapter
19 verse 15. Listen to this verse in the in
the Greek literal Bible. But the evil spirit answering
said to them, Jesus, I know, and Paul, I'm acquainted with,
but who are you? Who are you? Jesus has authority, and this
demon knows that. Paul has authority from God.
This demon knows that. But he says, who are you? He knows that demon knows those
men had no authority over him. This evil spirit knew Jesus to
be the Son of God. He knew him to be the Messiah.
Scripture says they believe and tremble. They know that there's
only one true God. They know. They know that. And they tremble. Tell people
in the world that there's one true God and they laugh at you. Demons are smarter than fallen
men. My. He asked these seven brothers,
who are you? Evil spirit knew that Paul had
been doing all those miracles by the power of God. He knew Christ is the Holy One
of God. And he knew these seven brothers
were not what they claimed to be. He said, who are you? Who
are you? He knew that they were not the
disciples of Jesus or the servants of God. And he
knew they were the children of the devil. He knew that they had no power
over him. And he knew that they were subject
to Satan because they were dead in trespasses and sins. And remember this, God will not
be mocked, will he? God won't be mocked, beloved.
These wicked charlatans were mocking God. They were mocking the Christ
of God. They were mocking the ordained preacher of God. And God will not let those who
mock him go unpunished. He will expose them either in
this life or when they all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, which is at the very end, the
great white judgment throne. Now, in this case, our Lord dealt
with them in time and space, didn't he? He exposed them. as mockers in
such a way that it was made known to all the city of Ephesus. This
occurred in a very public way, beloved. So much so that the
city of Ephesus heard about it. The evil spirit that was in that
man said, I know Jesus and I'm acquainted with Paul, but who
are you? Again, we see these evil spirits,
they know Christ. They know who He is. They know
He's the Son of God. We saw that over there in Mark,
didn't we? They called Him the Holy One of God. They know who
He is. But also, let us rest in this
comforting thought that Satan and fallen angels cannot do anything
unless God allows, unless God allows. Battery just died. Unless God
allows. And this is just a confirmation
that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to all
who believe. And the truth that's set before
us is that those who are under the ministry of false preachers
are still held captive by the evil one. Let's read verse 16 now. And
the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped upon them and overcame
them and prevailed against them so that they fled out of the
house naked and wounded. May God help us not to underestimate
the enemy's power. And we dare not attempt to do
battle with the enemy and evil forces of darkness. The arm of the flesh we see in
this text is no match for them. That's what that's showing us. We rest on, we rest on and we
rest in the prevailing victor. the Lord Jesus Christ, who has
all power. Do you remember? Remember that
Satan came to Job? Satan came to God about Job. Satan couldn't do anything unless
God allowed him. God said, you can't take his
life, but you can do other things. And he did, didn't he? His kids all died. All his money
was dried up, his cattle and everything all died. His wife said, curse God and
die. And he shaved his head and he
said, blessed be the name of the Lord. The Lord giveth and
the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. That's grace. God gave him grace,
didn't he? Oh yeah. Oh, they're no match. These evil
spirits are no match for the Lord Jesus Christ, our great
conquering king. My, oh my. So that one man leaped
on those seven brothers and brutally beat them, single-handedly. And he got through with them.
All the seven were severely wounded. They'd been stripped of their
clothes. They'd been stripped of their
clothes. They ran out of there, took right off, wounded. Now
all this was God's doing. God allowed this to happen, didn't
he? Oh, I better not move. God allowed it to happen, didn't
he? He allowed it to happen. Remember the cross? Evil men
took Christ and nailed him to a cross, and God used it for
good, the salvation of all his people. Remember Joseph thrown
into the pit, sold into slavery by his brothers, gone off into
captivity, God raises him up to second in command of all of
Egypt, and his family is saved because he's able to bring them
over to Goshen and give them food through the famine. Oh,
it's amazing. So God takes evil things and
uses them for good. We're going to see that here.
God's in sovereign control over all things and at all times.
Never forget that. Now these men did this according
to their will. They went and did this. But it
didn't catch God by surprise, did it? Not at all. Not at all. Look at verse 17. And this was known to all the
Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus. So this spread like
wildfire. fell on them all. The fear of
the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, right? The beginning
of wisdom is the fear of the Lord, right? We fear the Lord. And that's not a slavish fear,
that's a being in awe of Him. Fear of the Lord is the beginning
of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. Godly
fear fell upon these people. Look at this. And the name of
the Lord was magnified. Oh my, it started to spread across
the city, beloved. The gospel started spreading
across the city. Think of this, an event such
as this one, even if it had nothing to do with Christ and his gospel,
would have spread like wildfire. It would have. But this event
and the whole account of it was purposed by our sovereign God. to magnify the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Isn't that wonderful? That's
what we see here. We see that it got the attention
of those dwelling at Ephesus, the Jews and the Greeks, the
Jews and the Gentiles. The gospel Paul had been preaching
for over two years. And God the Holy Spirit used
this man who was possessed by an evil spirit to magnify, to
magnify the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh my, what power, what power,
what might our Lord has. Let's read verses 18 to 20. And
many that believed came, look at that, they believed and confessed
and showed their deeds. Many of them also would use curious
arts. So they were into witchcraft. They were into fortune telling.
They were into all these different things. Making potions and stuff. Look at this. This is amazing. Bought their books together and
burned them before all men. And they counted the price of
them and found that 50,000 pieces of silver. So mightily grew the
word of the God and prevailed. So we see a gospel church coming to life all by God's sovereign will and
purpose. He had some lost sheep there
at Ephesus, didn't he? Oh, yeah. He still got lost sheep
in the world, doesn't he? The gospel goes out from here
into the world to us first and then out into the world. And
God uses it for his glory and his honor and his praise. That's
amazing. God's not changed either, remember
that. He still only uses his gospel
by the power of God the Holy Spirit to save his people from
their sins through Christ Jesus and him alone. Because God gives
us, God the Holy Spirit gives us faith to believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. And he still uses ordained instruments,
doesn't he? 12 years ago, I didn't know any
of you. Now I feel like I've known you
for years and we're knit together and we're a family. And God's purpose was to have
me here to preach the gospel, and here I am. My, it's amazing. And here you
are, bought here by God's providence. Isn't that amazing too? by his almighty power and mercy
and grace, all according to his sovereign will. So all this situation
we see, all happened according to God's sovereign will and purpose. And for his glory. Because Christ
was magnified through the preaching of the gospel. And note here too, it says, they
took all their books of witchcraft and curious arts and burned them.
And we see in verse 19 that they found that they were worth 50,000
pieces of silver. I did a little bit of math and
I did it lightly. I took today's silver spot price
and I multiplied it by 50,000. I think it came out to 3 million.
So I dropped it down to like 1.5 million for us. It's probably more because silver
was used very much for higher priced coins because it was harder
to mine. It's not like nowadays where
they can mine it really easy. Back then it was hard to mine.
So it was valuable, very valuable. Gold was used for, there was a few gold pieces,
but silver was prominent. for the higher end coins and
then they used other metals as well for coins. So imagine that,
1.5 million dollars worth of these things, burned up, burned
up. It's no wonder we're going to
see a silversmith next week gets real mad, he's an idol maker. He lives in Ephesus. He gets
really mad. Well, no wonder. People burning
these books up. They're not taking stuff to him
anymore. They don't want statues anymore.
Hit his pocketbook, didn't it? Oh, yeah. So think of that, $1.5 million,
if it was that. And these men, they weren't running
out of the house naked. And everyone in Ephesus heard
about it. Heard about what that demon had done. And remember this, that demon
had been forced to confess that he knew Jesus. Ever think of that? Those demons
we read about in Mark, that was all according to God's will and
purpose. Because remember those demons
in Mark, they spoke, and then he said, hold your peace. He
muzzled them. This demon only said this because
God allowed it to happen. He said, Jesus, I know. I know
him intimately. I can know him. Paul, I'm acquainted
with. But who are you? You have no
authority. He's saying Jesus has all authority.
Paul, I know, has some authority given to him by God. But who
are you? Who are you to me? My, oh my. Even the devils know
him in Tremble. That's our Savior. That's our
Lord, beloved. The Holy One of God. has saved
us from our sins. The Holy One of God became a
man. The Word of God, the captain
of the Lord's host became a man and died for our sins. Became
a man and shed his blood and the life of the flesh is in the
blood. He gave his life for us, beloved, to save us from all
our sins. And all these evil spirits were
no match for them, but they're no match for Him. As Sister Diane
said one time, Satan's just a created being. God is God, has no beginning
and no end. He created all things visible
and invisible, and they're all under His, us our Savior. My, no creature in heaven or earth
can, or hell, can wiggle a finger without Christ's decree, without His permission, and without
His direction, as He is the Most High who rules heaven and earth. This is our Savior, beloved God. This is our Redeemer, the Word
of God, the Son of God, who became a man to save his people from
their sins by the shedding of his precious, precious blood. All our sins are washed away,
beloved, under the blood, the blood of Christ. And we saw what
happened to those seven sons. The curiosity now of many was
aroused all of a sudden to what Paul was saying. They came to hear Paul preach
the gospel of salvation in and through Christ alone. And when
they heard the gospel, God the Holy Spirit made effectual. And
they were born again and given faith to believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ by the same power that we're born again. And they
had the same faith that we have. Isn't that wonderful? Oh my. Here are three marks of true
repentance. which are displayed in these people in our text. Number one, they believed on
the Lord Jesus Christ for the saving of their soul. They trusted
his righteousness. They trusted his redemption.
They trusted his rule. They trusted Christ alone for
all their salvation. Number two, they publicly confessed
faith in Christ. They publicly confessed faith
in Christ. This is not a confession of sin in Paul's ear, as though
he were a Catholic priest or something. No, it's nothing like
that. They publicly confess their sin. And thirdly, they publicly
denounce their former religion. Yep. Oh my. They denounce their former
religion of works, their superstitious ways, their will worship. Because
now they're saved by the grace of God in Christ. And they publicly
denounced all those wicked works, whether it be religion or whether
it be the other crafts they were in. They denounced them all. They said, none but Christ. None
but Christ. And remember, too, they're set
free now, aren't they? All those things had them in
bondage. The Jews were in bondage to the law. Christ hath redeemed us out from
under the law, hasn't he? With his precious blood. And
how did they manifest it? They made a bonfire. They burned the books of false
religion. They burned the books of witchcraft.
Why did they go to such extreme measures? Why, one might ask.
Well, to show their indignation and contempt with their former
ways. Number two, to show their determination never to return
to it. Burn them. I don't want to ever see them
again. And number three, to put as great a distance as they could
between themselves and those who continued in the ways of
darkness. They've separated, haven't they? We're in the world, beloved,
but we're separated from the world. This world is not our
home. We're just a passing through.
We're like pilgrims. We're like pilgrims. And our
pilgrimage is to heaven, isn't it, where our king dwells. And number four, the fourth reason,
the last reason why they burn those things, is to prevent others
from getting a hold of them. To prevent others from getting
a hold of them. To prevent others from being led astray by them. You know what I did with all
my books on dispensationalism before I moved here? I threw
them all in the garbage. I threw them all in the garbage.
I could have taken them to Goodwill. I could have sold them on eBay.
I didn't want anybody else getting it. I threw them all away. Thousands of dollars of books.
I don't want no one else getting a hold of them. It's just useless
information. Just useless. And by doing these things, you
know what they showed? They showed their complete alliance
to the Lord Jesus Christ. They showed their alliance to
the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Blessed be the name
of the Lord. Praise his mighty name. Amen
and amen. Brother Brian, can you close
us in prayer?