Alright, we'll be in Acts chapter
16. We'll begin in verse 16, but
as Scott just read there in Luke chapter 10, we're going to see here that
the Apostle Paul had the power to cast out devils. But as the
Lord told the disciples in Luke chapter 10, power that we have
to cast out devils. And truly, we as believers, as
witnesses of Christ, have that power through the preaching of
the name of Christ Jesus the Lord. And through that name,
through the gospel of Christ, Christ, through the Spirit, casts
out. He delivers the sinner who is
in bondage, who is depraved and in sin, and dead in trespasses
and sins, and subject to the prince of the power of the air.
He delivers that one through the Gospel, through the Spirit,
through the Gospel of His name. He delivers that one from that
power. And as they went forth and they
saw that in His name, as they said, They return with joy saying
Lord even the devils are subject unto us through thy name He said
to them. I saw Satan fall from heaven
as lightning from the sky That's no big thing. It's not it's not
the it's not the fact that through this gospel Christ actually delivers
us, and frees us from the power of Satan. That's glorious in
itself, as they came back rejoicing in it, but the glory of it is,
is it's done because the Father chose of people unto salvation. He gave them to Christ, and everything
that He gave to Christ, Christ gives to His people. And that's
what the Lord said, all things are delivered to Me of My Father,
and no man knoweth who the Son is but the Father, and who the
Father is but the Son, and He to whom the Son will reveal Him.
And He said, rejoice in that. Because if you rejoice in the
fact that you know Christ, it's because your name is written
in the Lamb's Book of Life. And that's more rejoicing than
even beholding the power that this thing has. Now, in Acts
chapter 16, the title of the message tonight is, Grace with
Stands. Grace with Stands. And we'll begin here in Acts
16, 16. Now first, Satan used a very
unnoticeable method which he often uses, he came as if to
be in agreement with the message of the gospel and its messengers.
Verse 16, And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain
damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought
her masters much gain by soothsaying. The same followed Paul and us,
and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the Most
High God, which show unto us the way of salvation. Now, the
grace of God that was alive and well in Paul through the Holy
Spirit wouldn't allow Paul to do anything other than set forth
the name of Jesus Christ. That's what God's true messengers
do when they preach the gospel. The casting out of devils by
the apostles was just a manifest token of what God does through
the Spirit, through the Gospel of Christ. It was an amplified
illustration of what He does through the Gospel. And so we
read here, verse 18, And this did she many days, but Paul being
grieved, turned and said to the Spirit, I command thee in the
name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. Now he had the power
to do that. In our day, I don't have the
power and you don't have the power to do that. But what we
do have the power to do by the Spirit of grace is to preach
the gospel of Christ. And it's the same as when you
preach the gospel. As if you were saying, I command
thee in the name of Jesus Christ, come out of her. And if the Spirit's
pleased, if God is pleased, If he's given it to Christ to give
to you, our sinner, through the Holy Spirit, Christ will give
it to that sinner and that prince of the power of the air will
come out of them. They will be dispossessed of that spirit that
has control over them and he will create in them anew the
life of spirit and grace where they'll know Christ. This is
what's pictured here by this. And it shows here, and he came
out the same hour. He came out the same hour. Now,
when that first mode of operation, which Satan used, didn't succeed,
being crafty and subtle and agreeing with God's messenger and sending
forth this one, he was overruling to say, these are the prophets
of the Most High God that's come to declare in us the way of salvation.
When that didn't work, Then his second mode of operation went
into place and that's blatant opposition. Blatant opposition. Verse 19. And when her masters
saw that the hope of their gains was gone, they caught Paul and
Silas, and drew them into the marketplace unto the rulers,
and brought them to the magistrates, saying, These men, being Jews,
do exceedingly trouble our city, and teach customs which are not
lawful for us to receive, neither to observe, being Romans. The
first point I want to discuss tonight is this. All sinners
outside of grace operate from the same principle. All sinners outside of grace
operate from the same principle. The principle from which depraved
men operate acknowledges only self-accomplished gain. You got that? The principle from
which depraved men operate acknowledges only self-accomplished gain. Verse 19 says, And when her masters
saw that the hope of their gains, their gains, when the hope of
their gains was gone, that's what caused them to be outraged. When her masters saw that the
hope of their gains was gone. Unregenerate man insists upon
glorifying self. And you and I who have been born
of God have that old nature within us that insists upon glorifying
self. The natural blindness of sin
that exists within the believer, in the old man, and in the unregenerate
man, combined with that enmity of the old nature, will not allow
the old man, the sinful man, the unregenerate man, to submit
to Christ. It won't allow him to do it.
And it won't allow him to confess that it is his power alone that
does good in this earth. Do you understand what I'm saying?
The old sinful nature in us does not want to submit to the fact
that only Christ and the power of Christ through the Holy Spirit
does good in this world. The only thing. And an unregenerate
man, we see that in ourselves, warring against our new man,
but in that man who's not been born of God, all that exists
is that enmity and that hatred that says, I'll not confess that
the only good that's done in this world is by Christ and Him
alone. Because He desires that He Himself will be glorified
for doing good. These fellows were angry because
their gains were gone. It was great gain to the damsel
whom this spirit had been cast out of, and it was great gain
to the people who dwelled where she dwelled, the citizens of
Philippi. It was great gain to them that
this spirit had been cast out of her. And only those who insist
on going in their own way, looking for their own gain, would say
otherwise. And so these fellas, because
that's all they were concerned about was personal gain, they
said, we don't like that. She was bettered because Christ,
through the Holy Spirit, used Paul to declare Christ's name. He declared the gospel to her. As he said this to her, it was
illustrated of what we do when we declare the gospel. And being
under the power of the Prince of the air, just like everyone
who is born of the Spirit of God is, that Spirit is, they're
freed from that Spirit. You remember, turn to Ephesians
2. I want you to see that again.
Ephesians 2, 2. I want to refresh you with this,
but this is what Paul said when he said, in the name of Jesus
Christ, come out of her. This is what happened to her. It says Ephesians 2, 2, wherein
in time past, verse 1 says, you who were dead in trespasses and
in sin. He's talking to believers. You
were dead. You were dead in trespasses and
in sins, verse 2, wherein in time past you walked according
to the course of this world. All you knew was the path, the
way of the world, the course of the world. According to the
prince of the power of the air. That's what That's the way, that's
the course that Satan teaches and his messengers teach is the
way of man. The way, the course of this world. And that's what he's saying here. You walk that way. The spirit
that now worketh in the children of disobedience. You see folks
who don't believe the gospel? This is why they don't believe
the gospel. This is why you didn't believe the gospel. Just like
that damsel was possessed with a spirit. that had her in possession,
that she couldn't free herself from. You who were born of the
Spirit, you once were the possession of a spirit you couldn't free
yourself from. And the Prince of the Power there
taught you every wrong way. He taught you the course of this
world. He taught you the way of this
world. It may have come through A sound that sounded like the
gospel, that sounded religious, that sounded like religion, that
sounded like the scriptures. Just as he used this woman to
come forth and say, these are the prophets of the Most High
God that have come to declare unto us the way of salvation.
He may have used someone standing in a pulpit saying those things. But, look at verse 4, but God,
there's the difference. But God, there's the difference. But God, who is rich in mercy
for His great love, wherewith He loved us, even when we were
dead in sins, hath quickened us. That means He made us alive
together with Christ. Now make sure you understand
what that says, brethren. Even when we were dead in sins,
He quickened us together with Christ. And the parenthesis tells
us here, what that means is, by grace you're saved. Because
you were dead. You know what that means? It
means, look at verse 6, "...and hath raised us up together, and
made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." That
means before you were born, And then when you were born, when
as yet you were still dead in trespasses and sins, back there
when Christ was raised from the dead, you were made alive as
God sees it then. You were made alike, quickened
together when Christ was quickened and raised out of the grave in
newness of life. You were raised out of the grave
in newness of life then. That's why He says, by grace
are you saved. You see, this states to us that
Truly, it wasn't my decision. It wasn't something I did. It
wasn't something I confessed. It wasn't something a man persuaded
me to do. It wasn't through a lie. It wasn't
anything of that nature that I came to know Christ. I was
made alive then. Then. Verse 7, that in the ages
to come, that is, in the season of His love, when He would come
to me through the gospel, through the messenger He had sent, and
through the Holy Spirit that quickened me now in my experience
of grace and made me to behold Him in the ages to come, He might
show the exceeding riches of His grace. That is, He showed
me that this was done before I was born. This was done while
as yet I was dead in trespasses and sin. God said, I loved you. I put you in Christ. Christ redeemed
you. He paid your sin debt. He made you righteous and sanctified.
And when I raised Him from the dead, you were raised alive with
me right then in Christ. Now I'm showing it to you so
that you can see the riches of my grace is I did it all. And you didn't have a thing in
the world to do with it. And then he says, "...in His kindness
towards us through Christ Jesus." That's what was illustrated when
Paul said, in the name of Jesus Christ, come out of her. That's
what the Gospel does. You know why the Lord Jesus Christ,
why God allowed so many people to be possessed by devils in
His day when He walked this earth? You know why He did that? So
he cast them out before men to manifest what he does through
the gospel that he sends forth That's what he does. That's I
made the statement when I preached on the message on the gathering
gathering man the demoniac from gathering and I said that this
is the story of every believer that we're possessed of the devil
and somebody asked me are do you believe everybody's possessed
of the devil and Maybe not in the sense that the Gadarene was
where the devil had taken up residence in him and was actually
throwing him down on the ground and doing those things to that
magnitude, but you are everybody born in this world until Christ
frees them. They are the possession. of the
devil. They are in the possession of
Him. He's taken them captive. And that's what Christ has to
free us from and make us see that He did that by taking away
the sin that we are. And He has every right to us. Now, let's move on. And He did this when He walked
this earth, and He did it to illustrate this. Now, Her masters
were concerned about their gain only. You see, this is why they
were angry. When Christ in power frees a
sinner from the possession of Satan and his masters, of his
messengers, those that are her masters, whether it be the bartender
or a false prophet, whether it be a prostitute or the whoremonger
standing in a pulpit, whether it be the the one who is laying
in a gutter in sin and depravity and causing them to want to lay
in the gutter of sin and depravity, or it's one who is laying in
a pew in sin and depravity and wanting them to be in a pew in
self-righteous sin and depravity. It doesn't matter. But when God
frees the sinner in truth from them, what happens is they no
longer become useful. in the cause of Satan and his
messengers because they can't influence them anymore. They
can have no more persuasion upon them. Their power was sin and
it's gone now. And they have no more power over
that person anymore because the person who's been born of God
realizes there is now, therefore, no condemnation to them that
are born of the Spirit of Christ. I've been freed from the law
of sin and death. And no matter how I fall, no
matter how I stumble, it is God's grace to teach me that I am free
in Him and yet point me from myself to Him. And their mode
and their operation is to point you from Christ to yourself and
make you think it is you that has to do something to warrant
and to earn and to gain salvation. And so when he takes that person
out from that and delivers them from that and frees them from
that, they're of no more use to that evil message of man anymore. They're no more use. And so that makes those who are
in favor of that message that's contrary to Christ hate that
person, hate that gospel that saved them, and hate that person
who preached that gospel that saved them. And these men manifest
that. What they saw was not a woman
freed from the power of this evil spirit, not a city freed,
made better by one more person freed from the spirit of evil,
but what they saw was they didn't have any more power over her
to make her do what they wanted her to do, and they said, it
goes against our gain. And they hated Paul and the Gospel
and Christ for that. Those around you who are angered
that the power of your Lord has saved you are angry for the same
reason these men in our text were angry. The hope of their
gains is gone. the hope of their gains is gone.
We display what these men displayed by nature. When we think that
our doings are gained with God. Our doings aren't gained with
God. Those fellows that came to Job, they said this in Job
22.3. They probably didn't know what they were saying. They probably
didn't know what they were saying, but this is what they said, and
this is true. Is it any pleasure to the Almighty that thou art
righteous? Does it increase God Almighty
if you are righteous? If you act in righteousness,
does that bring any satisfaction to Him or make Him increase at
all? Or is it gain to Him that thou makest thy ways perfect? He teaches. Patty, we were talking
about this. I want to email. And I'm going
to try to bring a message on this. But when Peter said, add
to your faith virtue, and to virtue temperance, and to temperance
brotherly kindness, to brotherly kindness, charity, and those
things, What he's saying is to add to those things, to add to
faith those things, you know what you're going to have to
do? You're going to have to learn what virtue is. And you know
how you learn what virtue is? By finding out who the virtuous
one is and learning about Him. You know how you learn what long-suffering
is? By learning about who the long-suffering
one is. That's Christ Jesus the Lord.
You know how he dealt with those who opposed him and how he dealt
with his own brethren who were so weak in the faith and how
he dealt with them. You don't know how you're going
to learn long-suffering by learning more of him. You know how you're
going to learn brotherly kindness? By learning of the elder brother.
You know how you're going to learn charity? By learning about
him who is love. And so it's not those things. When Peter said, and by doing
these things you shall never fall, it's not those things per
se. of the fact that I've added virtue
now to my faith or that I've added long-suffering to my faith.
It's not those things that will make you never fall. It is the
one in whom you had to seek to find out about those things that
will make you never fall. Do you understand that? Do you
see that? By seeing Christ, you can't seek those things without
seeking Christ in whom those things are. And so therefore,
Christ is the one who makes you to never fall. He said it makes
you neither barren, you're not lazy, because the more you learn
of Christ, the more you want to know of Christ. And it makes
you neither unfruitful. In what? In the knowledge of
Christ Jesus the Lord. Not in your own personal virtue
and longsuffering and those fruits of the Spirit. It makes you understand
who Christ is. And so what we see here is when
you do those things, they're not adding anything to God. It's not your personal gain and
it's not gain to God that you seek Him. It is well-pleasing
to God because you find yourself resting completely in Christ
the Lord. These men here are an example
of one who, they're seeking gain. Just as a man who doesn't know
Christ seeks gain by those things such as what he thinks is virtue,
what he thinks is loving kind or long-suffering, what he thinks
is brotherly love, but what he's doing is he's learning about
those things by looking at your virtue. He goes, Now let me see,
let me think, who do I know who's virtuous? And he thinks about
who's virtuous that he knows. And when he thinks he sees his
virtue in that person, he goes, now I'll be better than that
person. And then he thinks, who do I
know that's long-suffering? I'll be better than that person
in long-suffering. That's personal gain. That's trying to compare ourselves
with ourselves and making ourselves sinful mankind, the standard
of virtue and the standard of long-suffering and loving kindness
and long-suffering brother charity and those things. When we do
that, We haven't done anything. We've only sought our personal
gain. The gospel comes to us and says,
that's not gain. If you could be better than the
next person, or better than the best person, or even if you was
righteous altogether, that's not gain to God. What God considers
to be satisfying to Him is, is that you behold all to be in
Christ, in whom He was pleased that all fullness should dwell. And when you come to rest in
Him to see Ah, all my virtues in Him. All the graces come from
Him and have their glory from Him and back to Him. And these
things aren't meant to point me to myself, but to point me
to Christ. And when you behold that, you
realize by the Spirit of Christ, I have nothing to gain myself,
but the person who doesn't know that. And when you're freed from
that, that person says, Now you're going against all the things
I thought was my gain, that I thought was my personal gain, and therefore
that person will say, I hate that gospel, and I hate that
person who believes that gospel, and I hate that person who preaches
that gospel. He may call you a brother and
a sister, because after all, That seems to be what virtue
is, is to be compassionate to everyone, whether they believe
or not. Where does that stop? Tell me where that stops. Would
you? Would you tell me where that stops? In 1550 to 1650,
somewhere along in there, one of the old reformed writers,
one of the old reforming historians made this point that somewhere
along in there, the The emphasis changed from the
first fathers of the Reformation, from Calvin and Luther and Knox
and men of that, it changed from how can a man be just before
God? The emphasis changed from that
to how can I be assured that I'm just with God? And the reason
that emphasis came about was because of Arminianism, and socianism
and basically humanism, which began to make the emphasis man. And when that happened, this
writer pointed out that the men in that generation changed the
shift of how can man be just with God and changed the question
to how do I know I'm just with God? That's important to understand
because although people don't see it that way, what happened
was the shift changed from the emphasis being on God convincing
us to us convincing ourselves is what the shift changed from.
It changed from God convincing us by the Spirit. And Lord willing,
we'll have a message on this, maybe Sunday, but soon. But when
Christ comes, when the Spirit comes, the Lord said, He will
convince us of sin because you believe not on Me. He will reprove you. The word
means convict you and convince you. Now, if he does that, that
means I'm going to be convicted that I don't believe on Christ,
and I'm going to be convinced that my sin is I don't believe
on Christ. But he said, not only is he going
to leave it there, but he's going to also convict and convince
of righteousness, that I don't have any, and all righteousness
is in Christ. And he's also not going to leave
it there, but he's going to also convict and convince that judgment
of judgment because the prince of this world is judged. In other
words, my judgment happened at Calvary. Now, if the Spirit convicts
and convinces a sinner of that, you know what that means is?
That's the Holy Spirit. Christ was saying that when the
Holy Spirit comes, He's going to guide you into all truth so
that you fully, you may not know all the doctrine. You may not
know all of the the precise workings out that men have divided and
dissected things into like you would dissect the biology of
a flower. But you're going to know what
the flower smells like. You're going to know from the beginning
the fragrance of the rose. You're going to know by what
He does is that this is fully, completely, freely accomplished
in Christ the Lord. And you're going to know that
by the Spirit of grace. And when that happens, brethren,
it takes away All-man's gang takes away all his power of gang
and it makes it to be all Christ and natural man hates it now
Let me show you here number two I tell you what let's let's leave
it right there. I don't think that uh I'm gonna
get into these next that's my first point and I think that
that's that's a sufficient for you to just think on those things,
but I This is what I want you to understand, brethren. Everybody
who thinks that gain is righteous deeds doesn't understand that gain
is Christ alone. everything that God has to say
is Christ. And everything that God accepts
us, every way that God accepts us is Christ, His Son. Every aspect. And so, when you
go to these Scriptures and you look at these Scriptures to say,
okay, what is this Scripture saying to me? What is this Scripture
teaching me? You can rest assured that the
scripture is teaching you that as it appears to be something
that tells you that this is your sanctification, this is your
holiness, it's teaching you Christ. I'll give you an example. What
was the scripture, Eric, you read the other day out of Thessalonians? He said, even this is your sanctification,
2 Thessalonians. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. Listen to this. Furthermore then we beseech you
brethren and exhort you by the Lord Jesus that as you have received
of us how you ought to walk Now, how did Paul say y'all to walk?
He said walk in newness of life walk in the spirit and you won't
fulfill the lust of the flesh. That's what he always preached
And he said, as you received of us how you ought to walk and
to please God, so ye would abound more and more, for ye know what
commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus. For this is the will
of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication,
that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel
in sanctification and honor, not in the lust of concubines,
even as the Gentiles which know not God. That word there, this
is the will of God, even your sanctification, Many, and I'm
just giving you an example here, many who look at personal gain,
who look at coming to God by their own personal gain, by their
own personal strength and power and grace, would say that what
the Spirit is teaching us there is our sanctification, how we're
sanctified, how we're made holy and perfected is we abstain from
fornication. If that's so, let me ask you
a question. If you never committed the act
of fornication ever and died without Christ, faith in Christ,
would you be sanctified? You wouldn't, would you? So that
can't mean that our sanctification is Christ plus us doing something. It's not our sanctification without
Christ, and it's not our sanctification with Christ plus us doing this.
What he's saying is, throughout scripture, the great whore, the
great harlot of falsehood is described as a harlot. It's described
as one who lures you in and causes you to come in sweet perfumes
and adornments and trinkets hanging from her ears and her nails painted
just so and wearing just the right dress and all these things
to lure you into her. And that's the description God
gives because we can relate to that, can't we? You can relate
to that. And so he says, this is what
false religion is like. It adorns everything to try to
get you in. But your sanctification is that
Christ came and he wouldn't be persuaded by those things. He
wouldn't be turned aside from the truth of the gospel. And
he went all his days in truth Under the law of God and he went
to the cross and not only Fulfilled all of the law in not turning
to those things but truly staying on Christ alone even when tempted
of Satan with all of those vanities that he tempted Christ with He
stayed on God the Father and he went to the cross and laid
down his life and fulfilled the law in the greatest essence of
the law, which is love God and love your brethren. To declare
God just and justifier in a holy love for God, he laid down his
life for God. And to declare his brethren justified
per some other sins in a holy love for his brethren, he laid
down his life for them. And so he sanctified us, separated
us, perfected us, and saved us wholly from that harlot that
is falsehood. And so what he's saying here
in this text is not by doing this you're going to be sanctified
but This is the greatest illustration of what sanctification in Christ
is, brethren. This is the motivation we have
not to join ourselves with the harlot physically, or to do those
things physically that dishonor his name, is the fact that Christ
did this very thing for us and separated us from the harlot
of falsehood. So now, let's don't turn around
then, he said, and join ourselves with the harlot. If we do, we
have an advocate with the Father. If any man sin, we have an advocate
with the Father. But our motivation is not the
law. It's not legalism. It's not,
if I do this, I'm going to be made holy and perfect. That's
man's game. That's what man sees as game.
But he says, this truly is our sanctification illustrated in
this very physical thing of abstaining from this, that this is what
Christ did for us. That's what He did for us. Now,
when John said, if you sin, if you fall into this, no, you have
an advocate with the Father. He's our sanctification. But
right here, Paul's saying, this is our sanctification. This is
what He did. He separated us from that falsehood. So don't you go do it. That's
what Paul says in another place when he says, we're not constrained
by the law. We're not constrained by men
And their motive of gain were constrained by the love of Christ. He separated us. He made us holy.
He perfected us. And that's what makes us then
want to walk forward in truth and holiness, knowing that our
gain is the godliness that Christ is. It's not our godliness. It's the godliness Christ is.
We want to walk in godliness. We want to not bring dishonor
to this name. We don't want, and we don't want
to do it because we don't ourselves want to be turned from Christ,
and we don't want to turn our brethren from Christ, or one
who might be coming to Christ by His grace. We don't want to
turn them. So we don't want to be a hindrance. But our sanctification,
our gain, It's Christ who's seated at God's right hand. Do you see
that? These men, all they saw was by this gospel, by this messenger
of the gospel, by Christ himself, he has taken away our power from
this damsel. He's taken away our gain and
we hate him for it. And we'll lash out and we'll
rebel against him. We'll kill him for it. And we'll
look at that, we'll pick up that there next time and look at it
more. I hope that's a blessing to you.