So let's just go through these
verses and see if the Lord might be our teacher. One of the things
that happens when the gospel comes, the gospel exposes people. So here we have In the presence
of the Gospel we have exposed Demetrius and all those people.
In Ephesus we have their God, their so-called God, exposed. We have Aristarchus and Gaius
exposed before a crowd, and we have the providence and the provision
of God in their protection, and we have Alexander exposed. Most
of all, we want to see the hand of our God. Paul had been sent
there under the clear direction of the Blessed Holy Spirit he
was given as the apostle to the Gentiles, and so he was anxious
to go wherever he could meet Gentiles, and he spent his ministry
centred on major, major cities, regional hubs like Ephesus and
Corinth, and then later in Rome, where he could reach out as much
as he possibly could. wherever the gospel comes, there
is a stir, wherever the gospel comes, there is a division. And
we keep thinking the Lord Jesus came to bring peace on the earth.
And he said, no, I didn't. He said, I didn't come to bring
peace. He came to bring a sort of division. But also, he brings,
in that sort of division, he exposes, he exposes people. And God's people like to be exposed,
is what they are. Both in their flesh, but most
of all in who the Lord Jesus Christ is for them and in them. So verse 23, and there arose
at the same time, there arose no small stir about that way,
There is always going to be a stir about that way. Men can choose
all their other ways, but there is always going to be a particular
stir about that way. And this is the stir. For a certain man named Demetrius
the silversmith, which made silver shrines for Diana, brought no
small gain unto the craft, from whom he called together with
the workmen of like occupation, and said, Sirs, you know that
by this craft we have our wealth. So that was the first consideration
of Demetrius, wasn't it? He was concerned about his money.
He was concerned about his money. Moreover, You see in here that
not alone in Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul
has persuaded and turned away much people saying, they be no
gods which are made with hands. They be no gods that are made
with hands. Now that not just applies to
This worship of Diana or Artemis in Ephesus, it applies to all
gods, aren't they? That's the problem, isn't it?
Man-made gods don't exist. Man-made gods. There be no gods. that are made with hands. There'd
be no gods that are made with hands, whether it's in the wickedness
of what goes on in Ephesus or the wickedness of what goes on
in Corinth. There'd be no gods that are made
with hands. There'd be no gods in Reformed religion that are
made with hands. If your religion begins with
man, is centred on man's activities
and man's experiences, then your gods are made with hands. And
when the true and living God reveals himself in the heart
of those who make their living and make their life from these
other gods. They are exposed, aren't they?
Listen to what it says in verse 27. He says, this is Demetrius
saying, so not only this, our craft is in danger to be set
at naught. So these are his priorities,
aren't they? That our craft, our trade, our money is going
to be set at naught, but also the temple of the great goddess
Diana should be despised. and her magnificence should be
destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worship." Notice the
priorities of this man. He's more concerned about his
money, isn't he? He's more concerned about his
money than he is about the Goddess. The Goddess was just a means
for him to make his money, to make his living. There is There is a stark contrast
between the God of Scripture, the true and living God, and
the worshippers of idols. And I hasten to add that the
idols of this world, if the people of Ephesus came back today, and
they came out of that temple and transported them here to
Australia in 2020, do you know what they'd say? You people are worshipping Diana.
Diana, Artemis, is a god of forests and a god of fertility. Every time someone uses the term
Mother Nature, they will be saying, well, that's our god. She was
the god of all the forests and all the animals. She is most particularly and
clearly represented in the religion of today in that statement, Mother
Mary. Mary is nothing other than a
modern camouflage representation of Diana. The whole movement
we have in this world of worshipping the creature rather than the
creator, and the idolatry that goes with it, and the darkness
that goes with it, and the confusion that goes with it is nothing
other than what was going on in all those days. Our God doesn't
need man's hands. There are five stark contrasts
I want you to think about. The Lord our God makes his worshippers. He makes them, they are a new
creation. You're created in righteousness
and true holiness if you're a child of God. He makes His people,
He makes them willing on the day of His power. They don't
need to be persuaded, they don't need to be cajoled, they don't
need to be yelled at. Our God is not death. Our God
is not persuaded by all that noise. People think that because
they make more noise in religion, God is going to hear them. Our
God is not death. The worshippers of idols make
their own gods. Our God makes his worshippers,
but the worshippers of idols make their gods. The true and
living God is known only by self-revelation. He reveals himself in grace and
truth, and he reveals himself through the preaching of the
Gospel. He reveals himself personally and particularly to people. When
God, when it pleased God, says Paul, when it pleased God, who
chose me from my mother's womb, he was an idolater all of those
30-odd years. He chose me from my mother's
womb, you can read it in Galatians, was pleased to reveal his son,
where? In me. In me. He reveals himself. He exposes
himself, as it were. He reveals himself. All the idols
of this world are dependent upon human teachers. They're always
dependent, aren't they? Our craft, says Demetrius, our
craft is in danger of being set at naught. And the temple of
Diana is despised and her magnificence should be destroyed. The true
and living God is known only by self-revelation. The true
and living God prompts and directs the work of all of his servants. He inspired Paul to go there.
He gave him a commission and he directed his path as we've
seen. Paul's path was directed by a sovereign hand of God to
everywhere he went and to everyone he spoke to. So that was Paul's first question
when he met the Lord Jesus Christ on the Damascus Road. Who are
you? Because I don't know who you are. I don't know who God
is. I've done all this religion and I haven't got a clue who
God is. And then his next question was, Lord, what will you have
me to do? You are in sovereign control
of all things. Our God inspires worship by the
magnificence of his very being and his character. Our God is
not troubled by men despising him. He says, doesn't he, that
wonderful verse in Psalm 76 verse 10, he says, the wrath of man
shall praise him. the wrath of man. When man is
wrathful against God it will rebound to praise to our God
and the remainder he restrains. What a remarkable word, what
a remarkable statement that our God right now is restraining
the wrath of men against him. Demetrius was concerned that
the temple of Diana would be despised. The temple of God is
His people, isn't it? He reigns in the hearts of His
people and He reigns sovereignly and our God sits on the throne
in heaven. And the magnificence of our God
cannot be touched by the activities of men. The magnificence of our
God is there. in the glorious person and work
of his dear and precious son." And it's a finished work, and
it's a glorious work. And as we've seen through the
Book of Acts, and as we see throughout history, it's a work that just
goes on. The same Lord Jesus Christ that
was raised from the dead that day, that same Lord Jesus Christ
that spread out his arms over those disciples, is the same
Lord Jesus Christ that's coming back in the same way, but at
the moment he's ruling in exactly the same way as he always did.
and he's ruling all things for the good of his people and the
care of his people. And it doesn't matter what men say or think. Idols are prompted by their worshipper
and our God prompts and directs the work of all of his servants.
He sends his gospel messages and he sends his gospel message
into the hearts of people by a new creation. Our God commands
his position by the might of his power and grace. He commands his position by who
he is. Idols are manipulated by the
hands of men. So this idol needed to be supported
and prompted, didn't it? It needed. It needed all sorts
of men. The idols in India, it was remarkable
the things they did in India with their idols. They'd have
this little tiny golden idol and they'd build this enormous
chariot. Some of the chariots that I saw had wheels on them
which were higher than the ceiling in this place and they must have
weighed 50, 60 tonnes or more. They were huge, huge wooden structures. Then they'd get thousands of
men, thousands of men with long ropes and they'd pull those chariots
with this god perched up in them with all these flowers around
and they'd pull him around Our God doesn't need any of those
things, brothers and sisters. The very silliness of idolatry
ought to make us cringe at what we are by nature. The idols are
manipulated by the hands of men. You hear them there, don't you,
in verse 34. For two hours they cried out,
Great is Diana, great is Artemis of the Ephesians, as if somehow
she was asleep. You might remember what Elijah
did on Mount Carmel when they gathered all those gods of Baal
together. and put the sacrifice there on
the altar. They call out to him. Elijah mocks them and teases
them and they beat themselves and they yelled and they screamed
and they cut themselves and blood flowed all over the place. And
Elijah said, he might be asleep, you'd have to wake him up. One
of the translations says that he might be on the toilet, he
might be indisposed at the moment. And the true and living God The
true and living God just revealed himself in the glory of him consuming
that sacrifice. He commands his position, our
God, by the might of his own power and grace, and he's not
manipulated by men. is not manipulated by men. God,
finally, God performs his own mighty deeds and he commands
his worshippers to be still. In all of this riot and in all
of the remarkable things that happened when the seven sons
of Sceva caused their great fear to fall, Paul is recorded as
being absent. And even in this riot, when Paul
wants to go in there and do something, he's not allowed. God sovereignly
stays his hand. He says, be still and know that
I am God. You stand still. You stand still
in faith and you will see the salvation of our Lord. Paul wasn't
needed to be there to protect Gaius and Artemis, because someone
much bigger than Paul was there protecting his people. The idols
of men, busy, The idols of men are still, aren't
they? It's the exact opposite. God
causes his worshippers to be at peace and at rest and to be
still, and idols are still, unmoving, as while men busy themselves
in their religious commotion. There are no gods, there be no
gods that are made with hands. Our God chooses to use the weak
and the frail and the despised things of this world to get glory,
not the magnificence of the activities of men. So we have a picture here of
the Lord Jesus Christ ruling over his church compared to this
dark world of ignorance and unbelief. There is There is, in the proclamation
of the Gospel and in the proclamation of the Lord's work in the lives
of His people, there is a testimony laid before this world. These
people in Ephesus had seen the most remarkable things. They'd
seen people healed by getting a handkerchief from Paul. They'd
seen seen that man. They'd seen all of this activity.
They'd seen all of this witnessing of God. They'd seen the fact
that this gospel had spread throughout all Asia. They'd seen people
turn from that idolatry, turn to the true and living God from
idolatry. They'd seen the power of God. They'd seen the churches
gathered out. They'd seen the miracles. They'd
seen the fear falling on the idolaters. They'd seen the bonfire. And the response of men to the
evident work of God is confusion. We saw that word before, don't
we? It's in verse 23 and verse 29.
The assembly was confused, verse 32. In verse 40, it's an uproar
and it's a concourse. There's a confusion. The response
is confusion. The response to the true and
living God from those not moved in their hearts by Him is to
have a revelation of the fact that, like Demetrius, they are
just covetous. They are just covetous. And there
are lots of things we can be covetous for. We can be covetous
for money. We can be covetous for the esteem
of men. We can be covetous in all sorts
of ways. There is just so much potential
for idolatry in our hearts. We can be covetous for what we
can do in terms of gathering things for ourselves and our
family. We can be covetous of all things. That covetousness once again
is exposed by the Gospel. So the Gospel of God exposes
the hearts of men, and God's people love it that way. When there is opposition to the
Gospel, there is confusion. Men descend into confusion. Verse 32 is remarkable, isn't
it? Therefore some cried one thing and some another, for the
assembly was confused, and for the more part they knew not wherefore
they'd come together. It's very easy, isn't it, to
gather a crowd of people together. It's very easy to have a crowd
gathered together that's noisy. It's very easy to follow a crowd. But most people that are in a
crowd don't know what they're there for. There is confusion. There is confusion. You see, this religious world
is confused today, isn't it? It's enormously confused. It
says God loves everyone. God loves everyone. But what
does that love mean? It doesn't mean the salvation
of all of those people, it just means that God loves them and
Jesus died for them. What does it mean? If you have,
like me, spent some time in religion and then rescued from it and
then trying to witness to people in religion, you will find that
confusion reigns, doesn't it? Confusion reigns and you have
a simple gospel to declare and you say, well, this is who God
is. God is holy and God is just. It's impossible for God to punish
his son for the sins of people and then punish them again in
hell. God can't do that. It's impossible. Then you get
told, well that's hidden, as I was told last year, that's
hidden in the mystery of the character of God that's not revealed
in the scriptures. It's confusion. It's confusion. God is absolutely sovereign,
they say. And then they have a little but,
isn't it? But that he's given man free will. The confusion
in Ephesus is the confusion that exists in our world today. Here
we are 2,000 years on with all of our intelligence and all of
our scientific advancement and things, and what do we have in
this world in response to everything? It's confusion. It's confusion. What should you expect it to
be, given what Ephesians 2 says, that people are taken captive
and they walk according to the power of this air? So the only
answer to confusion is the gospel of God's free and sovereign grace.
The only answer to confusion is faith. I love what Psalm 71
verse 1 says, In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust. Let me never
be put to confusion. In thee, O Lord, do I put my
trust. Let me never be put to confusion.
Let me never bear shame. There will be no shame for those
who are in Christ Jesus. There will be no shame for those
who simply trust the Lord Jesus Christ. There is a stumbling, as we see
in verse 32, in that darkness. See, when people turn from the
light of the Gospel, all they have to do is turn in every direction,
and they turn into darkness, and they turn into ignorance.
There is a stumbling in the dark. Some cried one thing, and some
cried another. and they didn't even know what
they were there for. When man's man-made gods are
exposed there's always confusion and there's always a stumbling
in the dark. And there is, as I said earlier,
there is only a revelation, there is only an exposure of the false
when the true is revealed. Until Paul had come along, those
people in Ephesus had lived quietly there, hadn't they? And they'd
gathered all their money and people had flocked from all over
the world to see this remarkable building and the Jews had been
there and they'd had their religion and they were righteous and they
would have stood They're in condemnation of all those people, those idolaters.
They would have said, we're not idolaters like them. We're not
idolaters like them. Here we are. We go back to Jerusalem.
Alexander goes back and stirs up Jerusalem after he's finished
here and causes ructions for Paul down there. They would have
stood there as righteous. And when the Gospel comes along,
Alexander is exposed to be no different to those idolaters.
He had the idolatry of covetousness. He had the idolatry and the confusion. See, look what happens to him.
Verse 33, and they drew Alexander out of the multitude. They drew
Alexander out of the multitude. How did he get to be out of the
multitude? The Jews put him forward. What were the Jews putting him
forward for? the really simple reason saying, we stand with
you pagan idolaters against Paul. We stand opposed to the gospel
of God's free and sovereign grace. They had been there for two years,
they had seen the witnesses, they had Paul preaching in their
synagogue for three months when he first arrived there. They
had and they had turned from darkness,
and it doesn't matter what sort of darkness you're in. You can
be in the darkness of reformed religion like Alexander, or you
can be in the darkness of pagan ideology like Demetrius and his
others, and there is absolutely no difference. Darkness is darkness. See, the self-righteous hate
Christ's righteousness. The self-righteous think they
can go up on steps to God. The self-righteous are exposed
only in their self-righteousness when the Gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ comes along. And God says to them, as He says
to us, all of your righteousnesses are filthy rags. And the people
of God say, Amen, truth, Lord. So it's only in His light, it's
only when He is revealed in His true character, is man exposed
for the idolater that he is. The self-righteous go up on steps. The self-righteous are building
a tower to heaven. You might remember the Tower
of Babel. What did man do? Those people
who had the remarkable privilege, when billions died in the flood,
they had the remarkable privilege of being the descendants of those
particular eight people who were saved by a clear and evident
and proclaimed sovereign hand of God, didn't they? They were
remarkable, and they saw, they knew, that billions had died
around them, and the whole earth had been covered with that flood
of God's wrath upon sin. And they knew that that ark was
a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. They'd been told Noah had preached
to them. He preached before the ark, but
he preached after the time of the ark. And what's their response?
They get there on the Tower of Babel, number of generations
on, with all of that history, with all of that knowledge, and
what do they do? Let's build for ourselves, let's build for
ourselves a tower unto heaven. Let's build, let's build us a
city and a tower unto heaven. So they got to work, didn't they?
They got to work to build them a city and build them a tower
up to heaven. I suspect, in a way, they thought
if they built something high enough, they could all get up
on top of it, if God ever sent a flood again. He promised not
to send a flood, so why are you building a tower? And they built it the way man
builds his religious activities today. They said, let's make
brick and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone
and slime they had for water. These were religious people.
So what we're doing is we're building with the hands of man,
let's build the bricks, and we'll hold the bricks together, that
word slime is the same word that's used for the covering of the
ark, it means propitiation. So let's mix man's works and
God's covering. Let's mix them together and we'll
build a tower. God in mercy. came down and he
confused them. And so we have the beginning
of all sorts of idolatry at the Tower of Babel. And it continues
to this day, isn't it, that I can actually do my little bit. I
can do my little bit with my hands and I'll add a veneer,
a glue of something of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ to it.
May God expose the religion of man before us. the idolatry of
the religion of man. There is an exposing of them,
and there's an exposing in all of those things of the glorious
character of our God. The idolaters are exposed. The
pathetic nature of the goddess is exposed. If the goddess can't
protect her magnificence, and she can't protect her reputation,
and she can't protect her temple, what sort of a goddess is she?
It's the same with all the idolatry, the idols in our land today. They can't do anything. What
good can Buddha do anyone? All those stone statues we see
all over the place, they're everywhere. In churches and throughout our
land. But our God exposes himself,
doesn't he, in his sovereign hand. Look at verse 30. The whole
city was full, with verse 29, the whole city was filled with
confusion. They caught Gaius and Aristarchus, the men of Macedonia,
Paul's companion in travel, and they rushed with one accord into
the theater. I have lived in India and I've
seen crowds of people in that part of the world rushing. I've seen crowds of people where
people were killed by the rushing. And that's a sight to behold. And our God, look what he does. And when Paul would have entered
in under the people, the disciples suffered him not. As I said earlier, Paul is no
coward, he reveals again and again that he will not run from
imminent danger, in fact he runs toward it. And certain of the
chief of Asia, now this is a remarkable statement about Paul isn't it,
which were his friends, sent unto him desiring him that he
would not adventure himself into the theatre. Paul had preached the gospel
there for that two and a half years, and the people of that
city, and there's no declaration that they are the leaders, the
rulers of that city, and there's no declaration that they were
saved people, they still held him in high esteem. They held him in high esteem,
and God used these men. God used these men. It says in
verse 35, and this town clerk, when he appeased the people,
he then speaks to them rationally, and he dismissed the assembly,
and he released Gaius and Aristarchus. You can see that their companions
are all in travel in the next chapter of Acts. He comes and he speaks, this
pagan Roman, and God brought peace where there was chaos,
and God protected his servant. He exposed Alexander, he exposed
the idolaters, and he rescued his people. See, Paul had a simple
task, isn't it? He just He simply came there
to declare the Gospel and to live with integrity before them. He didn't come to do anything
other than seek an opportunity to declare who the Lord Jesus
Christ is. Paul is now off to Corinth. And
God says to Paul, where you can go to Corinth, there is fleshly
confusion in that church. When you go to Jerusalem, you're
going to meet with fleshly legalism and all of that idolatry. And
he says, in the midst of all of this chaos that surrounds
you, in the midst of the chaos of this world, I'll be your peace. I'll be your calm. He says, I
am God. He says, I'll build my church,
Paul, and you can leave. And that church is in my hands,
and I'll look after it, and every single one of them will be fine
and safe. All things spiritually good for them will be worked
by me. And he says, I'm going to get
glory, and I'm going to get the glory of my grace, because I'll
do the work in the hearts of these people. He says to Paul,
you don't need to be there, you just proclaim me and leave the
resulting chaos for me to arrange for my glory and your good. There was another time, just
briefly in closing, there was another time of confusion and
chaos and the exposing of men. And that was in that last days
of our Lord Jesus Christ time on this earth. They sang out
to him, didn't they, as they came into Jerusalem, that crowd.
And they said, Hosanna. Blessed is he that comes in the
name of the Lord. Hosanna means to save, to rescue. This is our savior. And a week
later, there's a crowd gathered again. And they're saying, crucify
him. Crucify him. The thing that's
remarkable in the midst of all that, we don't ever see the Lord
Jesus Christ hurrying once. We don't see the Lord Jesus Christ
as anything other than in calm control of all things. The Pilate was weak and law-breaking. The Sanhedrin, the Jews, were
dishonest and deceitful and law-breaking. The people were like these people
here, all gathered together, screaming out, crucify him, crucify
him. And the disciples were fearful
and fretful and betraying and weak, just like us, brothers
and sisters. And our Saviour, our Saviour
bore all of that with calm determination that He was going to trust His
God. What remarkable faith in the
face of such noise and chaos. And He lives in His people, brothers
and sisters, and He dwells with His people. And He makes the
gatherings of His people the habitation of Him by Spirit.
And in that habitation, He exposes Himself and reveals Himself as
a great God and a great Savior in the midst of a world of chaos. Let's pray. Now, Heavenly Father,
we do pray that Your dear and precious Son might cause us to
live by the faith that's in Him, that we might come with boldness
and with confidence as we're asked into your presence, that
we might come to a throne of grace in our time of need. Father, we are needy. Make us
needy. We want to be independent. Make
us dependent, Heavenly Father. Make us by your Spirit's work
in our lives to see your Son hanging on that cross and bearing
our sins in his own body and that shed blood and that water
that flowed washes us and cleanses us from all sin and we are perfectly
fit by his work and his alone to be in your presence and to
call you our father to have Him as our Husband and our Saviour. Make His worth and His work and
His magnificence, our joy and our delight and our comfort,
and may His shed blood and His broken body bring us peace, Heavenly
Father, as we look upon Him whom we have pierced. Cause your Saviour,
your Son, our Saviour Heavenly Father, to be glorious in our
midst, and to cause us to be at rest and at peace in his sovereign
hand over all things. For we pray in his name and for
his glory. Amen.