Acts 19 verse 21, we read, After
these things were ended, 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 them that ministered unto him, Timotheus
and Erastus. But he himself stayed in Asia
for a season. We saw last time how that the
Lord Jesus Christ, God our Savior, gave Paul a desire to go to these
places. And he did so by giving Paul
a love for his Redeemer and a love for his brethren. And we covered
this before. With the death of the former
Caesar, Paul saw an open door to go to Rome. The brethren in
Macedonia and Achaia had let Paul know that they had taken
up an offering to give to the poor saints in Jerusalem. And
Paul wanted to take that to them. And then Paul was also concerned
by a letter he had received from the house of Chloe at Corinth
about division at Corinth and about these false prophets who
had come in and were impressing the weak brethren there with
their vain show of religion. And it says here in verse 23,
and the same time, this same time that Paul purposed to go
to these places, there arose no small stir about that way. Now we're going to just take
a little bit of this tonight, but before Paul leaves to go
to those places, there are several things that the Lord God would
have Paul to remember. And in much the same way that
you and I would sit down one of our children who are about
to take a long journey and remind them of some important things
that they need to know before they take that journey. The Lord
God of heaven and earth sits Paul down and he teaches him
some things just like we would our children. But he does it
using evil wicked men and a great heresy in Ephesus We read here
verse 23 and the same time there arose no small stir about that
way For a certain man named Demetrius a silversmith which made silver
shrines for Diana brought no small gain unto the craftsman
and There was a shrine there. There was a statue, an image
there that they called Diana. He made these little silver shrines
that folks would take. They would buy these things and
they would take them to the temple where Diana was and they would
lay them there at the temple. This was part of the worship
service. And he made these things, and he made no small gain, brought
no small gain unto the craftsmen that were engaged in this occupation.
And he called those craftsmen together with the workmen of
like occupation, verse 25, and he said, Sirs, you know that
by this craft we have our wealth. Moreover, you see and hear that
not alone at Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul
has persuaded and turned away much people, saying that they
be no gods which are made with hands. so that not only this
our craft is in danger to be set at naught, but also that
the temple of the great goddess Diana should be despised and
her magnificence should be destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worshipeth. And when they heard these things,
they were full of wrath and cried out, saying, Great is Diana of
the Ephesians. Now the first thing the Lord
reminds Paul is that every man that he'll face on his journey
is an idolater by nature. If you take away all the veneer
in this text, in this passage I just read to you, take away
the image, take away the zeal that Demetrius and the others
had for their God and for the work that they did in the worship
of her, their covetousness over their gain and that they made
from this their religion, their anger at the gospel of Christ
the way. Take it all, take all that out
of the way and you're left with the real
idol, the fountainhead of the problem, man, man. The problem is The Lord said
in Ecclesiastes 7.29, This only have I found. This is what Solomon
said through the Spirit of God. God has made man upright, but
they have sought out many inventions. God made Adam upright. And what a difference we see
here in these men that we just read about in our text between
how God made Adam and how these men are. We lost knowledge. We lost righteousness. We lost
holiness. We lost a godly nature, a moral
freedom of will toward that which is good. We lost all power to
perform any will of what is good. We lost the presence of God.
We lost communion with God. And we lost it all by one transgression. Just one. Just one. And from
that one transgression forward, from then on, Adam's posterity,
all Adam's posterity, us included, have been inventors of evil things. In our sinful flesh we invent
ways to sin against God. Inventions for our own satisfaction. Inventions to get riches. Inventions
to get honor. Inventions for privileges and
pleasures. Inventions to increase our fleshly
wisdom and knowledge. Inventions of new ways to somehow
call our evil inventions righteousness. And the reason we have so many
laws in our land, in this world, the reason we have so many laws
and have to come out with new laws every single day is because
we continue to invent new ways to sin against God and one another. It might be that our images are
our degrees. It might be that our images are
our books. It might be that our idols are
our gold, or our religious images, or our homes, or our sons and
our daughters. It might be that our idol is
a confidence in the fact that we've put away all religious
images, and we don't have any crosses, and we don't have any
idols, and any plaques, and any pictures, and all those things.
That might be our idol. The great three-in-one is God
the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. But the
great three-in-one of man is me, myself, and I. That's all we're about by nature.
That's all that is in you and I as believers in our flesh. That's all we are about. When Paul gets this letter from
Corinth and he hears and begins to read about the false prophets
in Corinth, about their fair speeches, and about how they're
robbing the saints, and about how the saints are being tossed
to and fro by this show of religion, by having their ears tickled
by these false prophets feeding that idol of the flesh. Paul
can remember Demetrius and how his fair speech tickled the ears
of his fellow craftsmen. He can remember how that the
fair speech of Demetrius saying, great is the goddess of Diana,
is no different when a man says, great is God Almighty, and is
yet still worshiping his own flesh. It's still an idol. No matter what man calls it,
it's an idol. It's self-worship. And no small
gain that men get is not only monetary, it's the soothing of
the conscience. It's a soothing of the conscience
to make ourselves feel as though we've done something all right
by all our fame show. And Paul can remember, as he's
dealing with the brethren, that he too, he too, was just like
Demetrius in his religion, and still like Demetrius in his flesh,
and that the only thing that made him to differ was God came
to him in power and made him to know that all his righteousness,
all his holiness, all his separation is in Christ Jesus, the Lord
our God. That'll grow him in patience.
That'll grow you in patience. That'll grow me in patience to
see the idolatry that we are in our flesh, the idolatry that
this world's religion is, the idolatry all around us. Covetousness. Covetousness is a desire to do
what only God can do. It's a desire to save ourselves. It's a desire to be self-sufficient,
to provide for ourselves. Paul told the Colossians in chapter
3, it's idolatry. It's idolatry. But the fountainhead
of it is the fleshly heart. It's the fleshly nature that's
in a man. That's the fountainhead. Well,
secondly, the Lord reminds Paul that only the Gospel of Christ
in him crucified makes sinners of one mind. Everything else is going to result
in confusion. Watch here now in verse 29. It
says, by this speech, by this working of the people, they're
all crying out, great is Diana of the Ephesians. Verse 29 says,
and the whole city was filled with confusion. Look down at
verse 32. Some therefore cried one thing
and some another, for the assembly was confused. They had gathered
into this big amphitheater. And they were all there, and
everybody's chanting one thing, and some are chanting another
thing, and some are speculating about what this is about, others
are speculating about what it's about, and everybody there is
confused. They're just totally confused. And the more part, the most of
them that were there knew not wherefore they were come together.
They had no idea why they were even there. Throughout Acts, we've seen that
the message and the working of the folks who opposed the gospel
of Christ has always resulted, it stems from confusion and it
results in more confusion. James said, for where envying
and strife is, there's confusion in every evil work. Confusion is the effect of sin. I want you to turn with me over
to Genesis. I want to show you something
Genesis Chapter 2 The Lord had made Adam
and Eve in verse 25 of Genesis chapter 2 says they were both
naked Nothing changed when they sinned. They were naked before
they sinned. They were naked after they sinned. The sin didn't
have anything to do with the nakedness. They were naked. That's
how God made them. The man and his wife and were
not ashamed. The word there is they weren't
confused. They weren't confounded. There
was no evil. to hide. There was nothing that
was sinful about. They saw nothing sinful about
themselves. They saw nothing confused. There was no confusion. They
were in their right mind. There was no confusion. Look
over now at chapter 3. It says in verse 10, after Adam
sinned, you know how that he, look at verse 7, the eyes of
them both were opened and they knew that they were naked. And
now something's wrong. Now something's wrong. Now they
look at this nakedness and they see something bad about it. They
see something wrong with it. They were ashamed of it. They
were confused. And it says, they sewed fig leaves
together and they made themselves aprons. Now look down at verse
10. The Lord comes to and they hid
in the trees of the garden and the Lord comes and he speaks
to him and he says, where art thou? He's going to make Adam
confess where he is. God's going to have to make you
and me confess where we are before this confusion is going to be
done away with. And look at what Adam said. He
said, I heard thy voice in the garden and I was afraid because
I was naked and I hid myself. Now, he was confused, he was
ashamed, but not in any way could he do anything
about it. He was afraid, but this confusion
made him think he could actually do something about it. That he
could actually cover up this nakedness, hide this nakedness,
But you see, the problem wasn't in his nakedness. He was naked
before God made him that way. The problem was in his heart,
in his understanding, in what had taken place when he disobeyed
God in that one transgression. And confusion entered in. Sin
entered in. Now look at 1 Corinthians and
look at chapter 2. 1 Corinthians chapter 2. Paul,
when he came to Corinth, he said over in chapter 1 in verse 17,
he said, I preach the gospel not with wisdom of words, of
speech, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.
Because this offense of the cross has got a healing effect, and
it cannot be taken out of the cross. And so in chapter 2, verse
1, he said, I didn't use excellency of speech or wisdom declaring
unto you the testimony of God. I just read to you 2 Corinthians
5. God gave to Paul the ministry
of reconciliation. He was put in charge to go forth,
given this charge by the King of Glory to declare what the
King sent him to declare as an ambassador for the King. And
so Paul says, I don't dare change the message that He sent me forth
to declare. I have to come forth and declare
this message. And he says, For I determined
not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And my speech wasn't with enticing
words of man's wisdom. I didn't try to take the offense
out of the cross. But I spoke as one who had been
taken over by the Holy Spirit of God, who was under the power
and dominion of Christ, who used great plainness of speech to
declare to you what Christ has accomplished. Because I'm the
king's ambassador, he said. I've been put in charge with
the ministry of reconciliation. And I beseech you on behalf of
God, in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. And he says,
and I did this, that your faith should not stand in the wisdom
of men, but in the power of God. Howbeit we speak wisdom among
them that are perfect, them that have been called by the grace
of God, them that have had this confusion removed, Yet not the
wisdom of this world, not the way the world would preach it,
nor of the princes of this world that come to nothing, but we
speak the wisdom of God in a mystery. It's hidden. Remember in Matthew
chapter 5 and 6 we've been in Matthew 6 the Lord said how often
there and when he's talking about almsgiving and prayer and Fasting
he says he's talking about you doing it in secret And he says
God is secret and God who seeth in secret You know what he's
talking about? He's talking about this hidden
wisdom. It's hidden where? It's hidden
in God and it's hidden in the hidden man of the heart. It's
the Spirit. God is Spirit and He manifests
this in the Spirit He's given by His grace. That's how we understand
the mystery of what it is that is declared in the Gospel. And
he says, none of the princes knew this, if they had, if they
wouldn't have crucified the Lord. But now look at verse 9 here.
He said, But as it is written, I hath not seen nor ear heard,
neither have entered into the heart of man the things which
God hath prepared for them that love him. He's declaring the
Old Testament Scripture that says, because of that confusion
that entered in when Adam sinned, because of the many inventions
that we seek out to try to cover our sin, We can't hear, we don't
know, we don't understand a thing in the world about what Christ
has accomplished at Calvary. But men misquote this so often.
They end right there. They stop right there. They don't
go any further than right there. But look at the next verse. But
God hath revealed them unto us. He has revealed them unto us.
How? By His Spirit. For the Spirit
searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. And he goes
on down to verse 16 and he says, he ends it there with that last
phrase and he says, we have the mind of Christ. We know what
Christ would have us to know. The deep things of God that He's
accomplished, we know them now because of His Spirit revealing
them, bearing witness with our spirit. We know them. We know
the intercession of our Lord Jesus Christ on behalf of His
people is seen in Psalm 69, 6. Let me read this to you. He says,
Let not them that wait on Thee, O Lord God of hosts, be ashamed
for My sake. Don't let them be confused. Don't
let them be confounded for My sake. Why on earth would they
be? Let not those that seek Thee be confounded for My sake, O
God of Israel, because for Thy sake I have borne reproach. Shame hath covered My face."
What was it that made Adam become confused? What was it he was
not before he sinned? He wasn't ashamed. He wasn't
confused. He wasn't confounded. He wasn't
sinned. But afterwards, what made him
afraid? What made him hide himself? He was sinned. That's what made
it happen. And the Lord says, don't let
my people be confused when they behold me being made shame, confusion,
sin for them. Having the mind of Christ has
to do with being made to see how desperately wicked we are. and how holy and just and merciful
and loving and long-suffering and gracious our God is in Christ
Jesus. That's what having the mind of
Christ is. Now, this is what our Lord said. Our Lord said in Proverbs 17,
26 through Solomon, He says, to punish the just is not good. nor to strike princes for equity. Shall not the God of all the
earth do right? Shall not the God of all the
earth do right? Our God is so just that he would
never exercise eternal justice on Christ Jesus until he who
knew no sin was made sin fitly deserving of God's justice. The very reason that Christ was
lifted up in place of His people, bearing the shame of what we
are, in His body on the tree, is because God's just. He will
in no wise clear the guilty. That's why He was put on the
cross. God hates inequity. He hates that which is not equal. He fitly makes His people righteous
by fitly making His Son to be what His people are. That the
payment of justice that God ministered to Christ is ministered to Him
in complete justice. In other words, when Christ was
made sin by God, God was just to pour out His
wrath on Christ. He was just to do it. He was
made to be what I am. And God was just to pour out
His wrath on His Son. It had to be. It had to be. Now, I can't enter into this,
but I'll take Christ's Word. This one who was not conceived
of sinful seed, this one who never had any sinful thought,
who did only that which pleased the Father, was made what I am,
so much so that He called my sin His sin. He said, and not
only did he call it his sin in Psalm 69, 6, but in Psalm 40,
12, he said, my iniquities have taken hold upon me. That's what Christ Jesus said.
It's a Messianic Psalm. And he said, my iniquities have
taken hold upon me. I'm trying to tell you how this
confusion of sin that we are by nature is taken away. This
is how it's done. He was made sin for his people. So much so, he said, mine iniquities
have taken hold upon me. Now you think of that. Our sins
really don't take hold upon us because sin's all we've ever
known. That's all you and I have ever
known is sin. We've never known sinless perfection
so that we can truly know the horror of our sin. But this one who knew no sin
says something that's infinitely incomprehensible to you and I
when he says, mine iniquities have taken hold upon me. And here's the amazing thing
about this. As He hung upon the tree, as
He hung upon the cross, as He was made sin for us, this One
who knew no sin, as He hangs there and God in perfect justice
pours out His wrath upon the guilty, this One who's been made
to be sin for us, pours out His wrath in perfect justice, in
holy justice upon Him, the intercessory prayer of Christ Jesus is, do
not let my people be confused when they see that I've been
made shame, that shame has covered my face. Don't let them be confused
by this. Don't let them be confounded
by it. When the Spirit of grace makes us to behold that God made
Him sin who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him, He makes us to behold the unparalleled holy
character of God. He makes us to behold the unparalleled
mercy of God. He makes us to behold the unparalleled
faithfulness of God. The unparalleled obedience love
of Christ Jesus toward God and His brethren, and disobedience
even unto death. The author and finisher of our
faith, for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross,
despising the..." What? the sin, the confusion of face
that He was made to be for His people. And in the utter shame
and confusion that He was made to be, when He makes us to see
what He's made to be, He makes us to behold that we are the
utter shame and confusion. We put Him there. My sin put
Him there. He was suffering what I am. under the wrath of God, what
I deserve under the wrath of God. And by this work of grace,
by purging our conscience, by creating us anew, instead of
making us ashamed of Christ on the cross, God makes us ashamed
of what we are by nature. Instead of making us ashamed
of Christ on the cross, He makes us rejoice in Christ Jesus and
put no confidence in our own flesh. And before He does this
work, everything was confusion. It was just the opposite. We
considered His blood, we considered what He did on the cross to be
a shameful thing. It was embarrassing to us to
say we're trusting in somebody who suffered such an ignominious,
shameful death on the cross. And all the while what we were
doing was putting confidence in our own flesh and making our
own boast that we just really weren't all that bad. And what
God does by grace through the intercession and advocacy of
Christ, through His blood and His righteousness, through what
He did in being made the shame that we are, He reverses that
whole thing. And He makes us to look at the
cross. And in the cross now we see great rejoicing. We see the
holy character of our God. We see the attributes of our
God at Calvary's Cross in Christ who knew no sin, who was made
sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God
in Him. And at the same time, we see ourselves as completely
shameful, undone, nothing to put any confidence in whatsoever.
And the Lord says this, the Lord says, Behold, I lay in Zion a
chief cornerstone, elect, precious. He that believeth on him shall
not be confounded. He shall not be ashamed. He just
won't be. Look over at Isaiah 41.11. Isaiah
41.11. Let's start in verse 10. Fear thou not, for I am with
thee. Be not dismayed, for I am thy
God. I'll strengthen thee. Yea, I'll
help thee. Yea, I'll uphold thee with the
right hand of my righteousness. Behold, all they that were incensed
against thee shall be ashamed and confounded. They shall be
as nothing. They that strive with thee shall
perish. Look at verse 14. But fear not,
thou worm, Jacob, ye men of Israel. I'll help thee, saith the Lord,
thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. Look over at Isaiah 45.
Isaiah 45, verse 16. They shall be ashamed and also
confounded, all of them. They shall go to confusion together
that are makers of idols. Don't flatter yourself. Let me
not flatter myself by thinking. because we're good sound in our
reform doctrine that we don't have any images, anything like
those old horrible sinful Catholics have. Therefore, it's not talking
about us. It's talking about anybody who
puts any confidence anywhere other than in Christ Jesus, our
Lord, for all, for everything. They're makers of idols, inventors
of evil things. But Israel shall be saved in
the Lord with an everlasting salvation. Where is that? It's
in Christ our Savior, who offered Himself through the eternal Spirit
to God, who has attained eternal redemption for us. It's eternal
salvation. And ye shall not be ashamed nor
confounded, world without end. This is how God takes away the
confusion that we are by sin, that entered in when we made
that one transgression in the garden in Adam, when we were
conceived by His sinful seed, corrupt seed, when we came forth
from our mother's womb speaking lies, and all our days have been
trying to invent ways to hide ourselves from God. He comes
and He reveals what Christ has done. where Christ is now, and
He makes us all that confusion to be gone. and the glory of
this can't come about. It cannot happen. He won't give
this glory to somebody who stands up and tells people about what
they ought to do or ought not to do. He won't give this glory
to us because we've just learned a system of doctrine and now
we think we've got it. This comes only through the spirit
of God's grace, through the gospel that declares the offense of
the cross, the blood, the blood, the blood. Men don't like to
talk about the blood. Without the shedding of blood,
there's no remission of sin. Christ Jesus laid down His life
under the justice of God, suffered in a way that we can't even enter
into, and He's made His people perfectly righteous in Him. And the glory of this, this work's
designed by God to be accomplished through this Gospel. That's why
Paul was so so adamant about not taking the offense out of
the cross, by not preaching anything but Jesus Christ and Him crucified,
by not using wisdom of words to try to use the wisdom of men
to try to bring, that would be just more confusion. And it would
result in what we saw with Demetrius and all these craftsmen. Confusion. To where everybody that's there
has no idea why they're even there. It's just confusion. But Christ has the glory of being
the beginning. He has the glory of being the
Creator. He has the glory of being the
firstborn from the dead. He has the glory of being the
firstborn of every creature. He has the glory of being the
head of the church. He has the glory of being the
everlasting Father, the second Adam, the one who births His
children through the incorruptible Word. who births His children
by taking up residence in the heart, by His presence within. And He has the glory of doing
this because the entire generation of His children, the new generation,
the supernatural regeneration, the new creation are birthed
through His blood, through His work, through the Gospel that
declares what He did. And that's how men are made anew
in the heart by Him. He's going to have the glory
in this. And everything, everything about the new man, the eyes that
see by faith, the ears that hear by faith, the desire and delight
of God in the inner man, the delight of His Word, of His Gospel,
of His Law, the delight that we have in Christ is because
He creates His children in righteousness and true holiness after the image
of Him that created Him. Renewed in knowledge after the
image of Him that created Him. Who created Him? Who created
that new man? Who created that new nature?
The beginning. Christ Jesus. And we're created
in the new man after His image. that He might have all the glory.
Because it pleased God He'd have all the preeminence, that all
the fullness would dwell in Him. And we have received of His fullness,
John said. And He receives the glory of
resurrecting a new body, just like He's created life within
the sinner. When the body, that product of
Adam, goes to the dust and returns to the dust, the best thing this
body will ever do, the best thing that you and I can ever say that
this body of flesh will ever accomplish is feeding worms. Maybe pushing up a pretty flower.
That'd be the best thing this body of flesh ever does. But
he will receive the glory for resurrecting a glorious body. He'll have the glory of creating
a new heavens and a new earth. so that everything that resides
in His presence in Heaven's glory will be the creation of Christ
Jesus, our King and our Savior, and all preeminence will be His,
and everything that will be there will be perfect righteousness,
the righteousness of Christ. And every other word that claims
to be righteousness and to teach righteousness and to be trying
to produce holiness is idolatry. It's covetousness for that which
only God can do. That which only Christ can do.
That which only the Holy Spirit can do. That which will only
be done through the gospel of Christ Jesus the Lord. Everything
else is idolatry. It's confusion. That confusion
we're born into the first time. That's what it is. But this gospel,
Paul's being reminded of two things here. We'll see the rest
of this next time. But the first two things the
Lord reminds him is this. Number one, Paul, Be patient
when you get to where you're going. Be patient when you deal
with your brethren. Because every man by nature is
an idolatry. He loves himself by nature. And
it's still with us. And number two, know this, the
only way they're going to be saved from confusion of idolatry
is through the gospel that declares Christ was made confusion, He
was made sin, He was made shame, and now by His glorious work
they've been made the righteousness of God in Him. It's the only
message that's going to take away that confusion and bring
them to the feet of Christ. Alright, we'll look at the rest
of that next time.