and blesses my heart when I hear
you pray for your pastor. When Doug said bless our pastor,
the first thing that jumped into my mind was the letters in Revelation
written to the seven churches. You know who they're addressed
to? The pastors. Now the members You know, the
pastor took to the members and the situation and preached and
taught. But the letter wasn't written
to the individuals in the church. It was written to the pastor
of that church. The pastor of that church is to take it to
the people and feed the people and instruct and correct whatever
is necessary. That's what the pastor is to
do. Boy, that just jumped out at me when he said that. I thought
those letters are written to the pastor. What a responsibility. What a responsibility. A man,
to be a pastor, he's either called of God or he's a stupid fool.
He's one or the other. There is no in between. He's
either a stupid fool or God's called him and put him in the
ministry. And I would say to every young
man that may hear this or every young man, Wait till God puts
you in the ministry. You know, when God puts you in
the ministry, there's no doubt about it. There really is no
doubt about it. But boy, when you go seeking it, there's a
whole lot of doubt. Now, we'll pick up in verse 8
here. Paul, remember, had met 12 disciples of John the Baptist,
and he questioned them about the Holy Ghost. And they said
they had not heard They had not heard that he had come. That's
what they were saying when they said we'd not heard that there'd
be any Holy Ghost. We haven't heard that he's come. Because
John told them, he said, when there'll be one coming after
me who's shoelaced and I'm not worthy to unloose, he will baptize
you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. So they knew that he was
to come. So Paul instructed them on no
doubt of the Holy Spirit and the work of the Holy Spirit.
And he laid hands on them and they received the gifts of the
Holy Spirit for the good of the church. That's why we have any gifts
given to us. Whether it's a gift to preach,
to teach, to pray, to give. You know, giving is a gift. To
whatever it is God's given you, it's a gift from Him. It came
from Him. He doesn't take our natural talents.
A.D. Mews says, God has to kill our
natural talents in order to use us. He's got to kill, because
that natural, what we call natural talent, that just lifts up with
pride. But God, God gave them gifts
here to use for the good of his church. And in verse eight here,
Paul goes into the synagogue and preaches to the Jews there.
And he does so for three months. For three months, he goes there
and it says that he disputing and persuading the things concerning
the kingdom of God. That's what he spoke to them
about. His subject was the kingdom of God, the kingdom of grace,
the kingdom of light, kingdom of righteousness. You know, they
look for a kingdom, but they were looking for a physical kingdom.
They were looking for someone like David to come from the lineage
of David Just a man most of now those who now listen those who
understood the gospel. They looked for the Lord the
true King they knew Joseph Joseph said I know my Redeemer liveth. I know he lives And he'll stand
upon this earth in the last day You know those who believe the
gospel believe the same gospel you and I believe Same God we
believe same Christ. We believe now. We know his name
is Jesus Christ and But we both, them and us, know His name is
what? The Lord. The Lord is King. We sing that
song, The Lord is King. The Lord Jesus Christ is King.
The Lord Jehovah, capital L-O-R-D. Jehovah, Jehovah the Father,
Jehovah the Son, Jehovah the Holy Spirit. But the Lord God
is our King, and they knew Him as such. But most of these Jews
look for a man to come out of the lineage of David and set
up this physical kingdom and restore them to world prominence.
And they would be on top instead of the bottom, deliver them from
the Roman government. The Roman government would basically
be under their authority and them not under Roman authority. What they missed is the kingdom
of God is a spiritual kingdom. It's a spiritual kingdom. We
are in that kingdom right now who believe. This church right
here is in the kingdom of God right now. Every believer here
lives in two kingdoms. We live in two kingdoms. We live
in the kingdom of men, this earthly kingdom that's made up of men
and women, and we live in the kingdom of God. made up of those
redeemed, made up of those whom the Lord has saved. We live in
that kingdom. And I think as we grow older,
especially as we grow in grace and the knowledge of Christ,
we live in that kingdom more than we live in this one. I think
I can say to you who are older in faith that your heart and
your mind is set on things above more now than ever was before.
I say they are. Mine is, I know that, and I'm
taking from my experience, and I know if you're born of God,
you're in the same kingdom, you're taught by the same spirit, we
have the same interest, and where that interest is and where it's
real, our minds are continually, as
time goes by, set more and more on the kingdom of God, things
that are above, the Lord Jesus Christ. Seek ye first the kingdom
of God and his righteousness. I told a man, I told my youngest
son last week, we were talking about the scriptures and the
gospel. And I said, let me give you one, one thing for success. We were talking about the gospel.
Then he got talking about his business. I said, let me give
you one, we'll give you one scripture for success. And it never, never
fails. I don't care what the economy
is. I don't care how bad it is. Here's one scripture that I'm
gonna give you that will give you success throughout your life.
Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and
all these things will be added to you. That's it. I said, that's it. I can't give
you any more than that. That's it. That's a promise.
God keeps his promise. That is a promise from God almighty. You seek his kingdom and you
can't do that without seeking the king of the kingdom because
there is no kingdom without a king. I said, you do that. And God
promises, I'll add everything you need along the way. Everything
you need. But you take your eyes off of
that. That's when we get in trouble. That's when Peter started to
sink. When he took his eyes off the Lord, he started to sink
in that water. So they looked for a kingdom,
an earthly kingdom, not a spiritual kingdom. The kingdom our Lord's
speaking of is a spiritual kingdom made up of spiritual men and
women, those who are born of God. And so Paul preached to them
the gospel of the kingdom. king of grace, king of light,
king of righteousness. Paul preached to them the king
of the kingdom. As I said, you don't have a kingdom
without a king. There's no sense talking about the kingdom without
talking about the king, because he determines the kingdom. The kingdom, you know, you take
any leader, those who really follow him will take on his personality
after a while. They will. They'll take on his
personality. And those who follow Christ will
be conformed to the image of Christ. That's why we don't look
at the kingdom so much as a place, but we look at the king. We look
at the king. And so Paul preached to them
about the king, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the king. It says
in Acts 2.36, he is both Lord and Christ. He's Lord, he's king,
he's Lord. And everything and everyone has
been put under his rule, has been put under his authority,
whether they believe or not. The devil doesn't believe God. He knows that God is, but he
doesn't believe the God that is. But he's still under the
rule of the Lord Jesus Christ. Every person on this earth is
under his authority. He can say right now, This day,
this second, your life is demanded of you, is required of you like
you did that rich man. And you know what's gonna happen?
You're gonna die. You're gonna die. Because the
king has given his word, he's spoken. He has authority. He said, I have authority in
John 17 too. I have authority. Father, you've
given me authority over all flesh. I should give eternal life to
as many as you've given me. power over all flesh. Everything's
been put under his rule, his power. And as God over all, blessed
forever, he's the king. He's the king by nature. He's
the king by office. He's the mediator king. He rules
over heaven and earth and hell. He said he has the keys. He said,
I got the keys. They're in my hands. The keys are in my hands. Whoever
has the keys owns the house. He has the keys to it. He's the
head over all principalities and powers. He says to one go
and he goes, to come and he comes. I don't care who it is. If he
speaks, it happens. He was born king. He's not waiting
next in line. He's born king. He's born king. And then Paul preached Christ.
He preached him as the righteousness of that kingdom. His righteousness
is the only righteousness that God will accept and God did accept.
And his righteousness is the righteousness of that kingdom,
of the kingdom of God. We don't bring any into it. We
don't bring anything into it. He brings us into it. And he
gives us all that we need to be in it. We are born into the
kingdom of God. No one's educated into it. We
are not educated into the kingdom of God. We're born into it. And so Paul preached, he preached
Christ, he preached his righteousness. This is what he's doing in the
synagogue with those Jews. He's taking the Old Testament
and he's pointing out the types in the pictures and he's pointing
out the Lord Jesus Christ and he's bringing them together.
That's what he's doing. And he spoke no doubt of the
subject of God's kingdom. Sinners saved by grace out of
every kindred, tribe, tongue, and nation under heaven. Now, Gentiles liked that. Most
of the Jews didn't like that. We were called dogs and they
didn't want dogs in the house. They didn't like us being in
the house. But God's grace is far reaching. It goes through
throughout the world and there's people out of every kindred,
now listen, every kindred, every tribe, every tongue, every tribe,
every family, God said every family, every tribe, kindred,
tongue, every tongue, every nation, there are families Well, I had
a great aunt that had eight children, 14. She had 14 children. She
buried eight of them before she died, but most of them, seven
of them died in birth. Most of them was at birth and
shortly thereafter. As far as I know, as far as I
know, they never believed the gospel. Her and her husband,
I never knew them to ever go anywhere. But I am full of confidence. I know where seven of those kids
are. I know where so seven children are. I have no doubt that the
kingdom of God is mostly made up of those who have died as
children, infants, and mentally retarded, mentally handicapped. I have no doubt about that. I
don't. You know, I think there might
be something to this. The Lord says, suffer the little
children to come to me and forbid them not, for of such is the
kingdom of God. How many adults do you meet out
there where you work? How many adults do you meet that
really believe the gospel? You don't meet hardly any. I
mean, it's rare. It's rare to run into anybody.
You know, I ran into a couple guys on a golf course here about
a month ago, and boy, that one guy was so religious, and I knew
it was going the wrong way. So I got on, I just started talking
about golf, It's rare to meet anyone that
says, you believe in sovereign grace? You believe that Christ
died to save sinners and all those sinners He's going to save?
You believe that? You believe He's sovereign in
mercy and grace? And Christ redeemed those for
whom He died? It's rare to meet someone who
believes that. You know, one of the examples of that, look
at the empty seats there. If it wasn't rare, this place,
you'd have to add on to it. You would have to add on. So Paul preached to them. He
preached the gospel of the kingdom. He preached Christ of the kingdom. And then listen, in verse nine,
diverse, different ones were hardened. Hardened. Gospel hardened. That's the worst
kind of hardening. That can happen. Gospel hardened. The gospel hardened as well as
softened. You know that? If you put a lump of clay out
there in the sun and you don't moisten it, water it, keep it
moist, it'll harden up like a rock. It'll harden up like a rock.
And if God leaves you alone, if he leaves a person alone,
sitting on the gospel, that person will just become gospel hardened.
And they became gospel hardened. Diverse were hardened. You see,
the scripture says that the gospel, the preaching of the cross, is
a saver of death and the death to some and a saver of life and
the life to some. Serious business. Hearing the
gospel, serious business. I'm telling you, there's nothing
in this life you'll do that's more serious than what you're
doing right now. And what I'm doing. I give you the truth and
you listen to the truth. Receive it, believe it. Follow
it. This is what happens when the
Holy Spirit leaves a person alone. They just get hardened. And here's
evidence of this hardening. They speak evil that way. That way by which God can be
just and be a just God and a savior. That way of righteousness, that
way of grace alone, that way which is the only way that God's
given, the Lord Jesus Christ. When they speak evil that way,
they spoke evil of Jesus Christ. They weren't just speaking evil
of some doctrines You know, just like now, you can go out, the
place I used to go before I heard the gospel, when you spoke of
election, they spoke of it as evil. I heard Jimmy Swagger,
I hate to even use his name on the pulpit, but I heard him preach
a message one time on five damnable doctrines. I listened to the
whole message. He got my attention. He said,
you know what, he first took total depravity, He took election. He took what we call Calvinism,
but it's the gospel. It's the doctrines of grace.
He took all five of them, but he just tried his best to rip
the guts out of them. He thought he was speaking evil
of the doctrines. It was Christ he was speaking
evil of. That's who he's speaking evil of. Christ is his teachings. He is his teaching. He is the
elect. When we speak of election, behold,
he says in Isaiah 42, behold, mine elect. You can't speak of
election without speaking of the elect, the Lord Jesus Christ.
We were chosen in him. Now to speak evil of that doctrine
of election is to speak evil of God. It's to speak evil of
Jesus Christ. Well, that's dangerous now. That's
dangerous. That's blasphemy. Blasphemy. He was attributing these things
to the devil. Oh, I tell you, when we talk
about sealing, you're doomed. That's to speak evil of God and
Christ and the whole work of redemption. Jesus Christ is the
only way to God. He said, no man comes to the
Father but by me. He is that way. He is that way. And you know what Paul does?
Now, I probably won't get through all this, but I wrote down a
lot of notes, and then this morning, I go through this, and then something
will jump out at me. And I'm thinking, well, this
might be the whole message. And I've learned this. Make your
notes, and then just get to where you get. You know, the Lord gave
you some liberty, if it's just the first scripture, the first
verse, just don't try to get through all of them. At least
Vicki tells me all the time, don't try to get through all
your notes. But I want you to look here in
verse nine. See, I was going to go to verse 20, but we'll
see. But when diverse were hardened, different ones were hardened,
and believe not, but spake evil of that way before the multitude,
He departed from them. Paul left them. The gospel left
those men who fought against it, stood against it. The gospel
left them. When Paul left, the gospel left.
Now, here's what jumped out at me. He departed from them and
separated the disciples. He said, you come out from among
them. You don't attend there no more. You don't go there no
more. There's a time to leave someone
alone. And there's a time for you to
leave. And I learned this lesson as
a young man. You know, I was trying to I was
excited about trying to tell about the Henry told me this.
Henry said, you know, you'll have to leave. He said, you'll
have to leave. And I did. I did. And I learned this. There's one reason. One reason,
and I can only give you one reason and one reason only for a church
to split. And it's over the gospel. It's
not over anything else. Whatever anything else is, you
and I got to get over it. We just have to get over it for
Christ's sake. Well, the glory of Christ and
the good of the body of Christ get over it. But now with the
gospel, if it's the gospel, we're going to split. We've got to
leave it. We have to leave it. Paul told
his disciples, or the ones that believed, you've got to leave
this place. God's not in it. He's not in
it. You're not going to rub off on
them. They're going to rub off on you, but you ain't going to
rub off on them. You're gonna have to go to another
place. There's a time, he says, to separate. Come out from among them, says
the Lord, and I'll receive you. Touch not the unclean thing and
I'll receive you. That's what he says in 2 Corinthians 6. Says
the same thing in Isaiah 52 11. It's a time you gotta leave. The word of God, now listen,
this is serious. The Word of God forbids worshiping
where another gospel is proclaimed. Where another gospel is preached.
I say to everyone here, you don't go there. Don't go there. Say,
well, I want to see what they preach. Well, I know what they
preach. I know from who they're connected
to. I know the denominations they're
connected to. I know the message they preach. And what he's saying here, you
don't go and mix with those who do not believe the gospel, but
they believe another gospel. If you believe it. The Word of
God forbids that. Be not unequally yoked. We would
be unequally yoked. See, this is what makes people
mad. This is what makes, not God's people, but this is what
makes people mad is that the Word of God is dogmatic. We live
in a day when people can't stand being dogmatic. Don't be so dogmatic. Well, if you want to talk about
the length of your hair, that's all right. We don't need to be
dogmatic about that. But when it comes to the gospel,
we are dogmatic. That's God's glory. That's God's
glory. But, now listen, he left the
synagogue, but the gospel did not leave Ephesus. God raised
a church. I've been wanting to look at
the book of Ephesians. I've been reading and studying
it, and I'm thinking, Lord willing, we're gonna look at it, but I'm
just waiting till I, probably here in a week or two, we'll
start looking at it. But the church, God raised a church up
there, and he used a school room of a famous teacher, a philosopher,
named Tyrannus. And Paul went and rented that
room of this heathen philosopher and preached the gospel. And
you know that made the Jews mad. Those of the synagogue, they
had it mad that he would dare go over there to this philosopher,
this Greek philosopher and use his school But it says here in
verse 10, and Asia, Asia heard the Word of the Lord. Asia heard
the Word of the Lord. That whole area over there heard
the Word of the Lord. First thing I thought was this.
Number one, that flask that the Word of God was sent to. They
heard the Word of the Lord. Second thing I thought up there
now without excuse. Boy, that's a two-edged sword. You're blessed to have the Word
of God because you're not going to be saved apart from it. But you're without excuse too. Every time you come here and
I come here, and we sit and we open the Word of God, we are
without excuse. Because it's God's Word and He's
teaching us. Now it says in verse 11 and 12
that Paul did many miracles there. Got what? No, let me back up.
I just misquoted it. I see you don't have the word
of God in your lap, how it can be misquoted. And God wrought
special miracles through Paul. Now see how you can get that
turned around? Paul wrought special miracles. All of a sudden, St.
Paul. Now he's St. Paul. Now we pray to Paul. Now
Paul becomes everything. But it says God worked special
miracles by the hands of Paul. Paul didn't do it. God did it. God did it. And it says that,
so that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or
aprons. And that's where you see the people. I've seen this
on television. They say, send your handkerchief, you know,
I'll give you a handkerchief, just send me your address in
your bank account, and I'll send you a handkerchief. And you can
be healed, or you can be this. This was for this day. This confirmed
the Word of God, the Gospel that was being preached, because they
didn't have the whole Word of God. This confirmed this. We
don't need this. We have God's Word. We have a
more sure Word of Prophecy. The Word of God. Paul was preaching
there to the Gentiles, the heathens. They didn't have the Old Testament.
They didn't have anything. I'll tell you what they did have.
They had the statue of the goddess Diana. That's what they had.
They had a lot of idolatry. They had a lot of these things.
That's what they had. And so God confirmed Paul's message
and his messenger with these miracles. And they're over with. They're over with. Nobody needs
to ask me for a handkerchief. Nothing's going to happen with
it. You can wipe the sweat off your
head, but that's about it. Nothing else is going to happen.
But now listen. Verse 13. Then certain vagabond
Jews. You know what that word means?
Vagabond means wonder about. Wonder about. These were wonder
about Jews. Wondering Jews. That's what they
were. There's certain vagabond Jews,
exorcists, they took upon them to call over them which had evil
spirits, the name of the Lord Jesus. They saw that devils were
cast out by the name of Jesus Christ. They saw, no doubt, they
was around and heard, maybe even watched Paul or one of the other
disciples do this, or I mean apostles. And so they started
doing it. You know, to them, Jesus Christ,
saying Jesus Christ in abracadabra meant nothing. There was no difference
to them, but they thought that it was pretty effectual when
they used the name Jesus Christ. So they started doing that. They
started using his name. Isn't that what false preachers
do today in the pulpit? They use his name. They'd use
his name and get people to make profession, get them to do whatever
they wanted to do, and they'd just use his name, just like
these vagabond Jews. They're vagabond preachers, that's
what they are. They're just vagabond wonderabouts,
that's all they are. Seeing who they can make merchandise
of, who they can get the money out of. Anyway, they come up
on this man and they're gonna cast out This evil spirit, or
it may have been spirits, whether it be one or many, I don't know.
It doesn't matter. But they happened to come up
on one that was really possessed. I mean, this man was really possessed.
And they said, we adjure you by Jesus, whom Paul preaches. You notice it's not whom we preach.
It's this one Paul preaches. Name-dropping. That's what they
were doing, name dropping. And so. You watch what happens here,
and there were seven sons of one Siva, a Jew, a sorcerer,
chief of the priest, which did so in the evil spirit answered
and said. This tells you what demons know. Jesus, I know. They said, we
know you, you're the holy one of Israel. We know who you are. We know you're the holy, you're
God. You're God manifest in effect. We know who you are. Jesus, I
know. And Paul, God's servant, I know. They knew that, you know, they
know who God's servants are. They know who's preaching the
gospel of grace. They know who's preaching the
gospel and the power of God's spirit. They know. They know
who God's servant is wherever he is. They know who he is. Jesus
I know, and Paul I know, but who are you? Who are you? Who do you think you are to come
in here and try to cast us out? Men have no power over evil spirits. I tell you this, don't mess with
them. I don't want to mess with them. If God is pleased to cast
one out, let it be through the preaching of the gospel. Cast
them out of every one of you that believe, every one of us
that believe. That's how they were cast out. You were under
the spirit of darkness. You and I were born under the
spirit of darkness. We were under the power of the spirit of darkness.
It had us. But through the preaching of
the gospel, it was cast out. Now you're children of light.
You're not children of darkness no more. You're children of God. Jesus I know, and Paul I know,
but who are you? And here's Providence. And the
man in whom the evil spirit was leaped, was leaped on the, wait
a minute, and the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on
them and overcame them and prevailed against them so that they fled
out of the house naked and wounded. God exposed them. God used that
evil spirit. God uses whom he will, what he
will. He used that evil spirit. to
expose these men. They ran out naked. But they
exposed their falsehood. They exposed them for who and
what they were. But at the same time, it got
their attention. And they listened to Paul. Because
it says in verse 17, fear fell on them all. The Jews and the
Greeks that dwelt there in Ephesus, that great idolatrous city, fear
fell on all of them. And the name of Jesus Christ
was magnified, lifted up. Now we wanna hear about this
one. You know, God'll get your attention. He'll burn your field
if he needs to, if that's what he needs to do, to get your attention. But he'll get your attention
if you're his. If you're not his, he can burn your house down,
burn your car up, burn your family up, and you still won't believe.
You still won't pay any attention. You just say, boy, I was unlucky.
I'm unlucky. You sure are. And many, listen to verse 18,
and many that believed came and confessed and showed their deeds.
They came and confessed their need of Christ. They confessed
their sins. A person who won't confess is
lost. A person who won't say guilty is lost. They confessed
and they showed their deeds. They showed true conversion by
what they confessed. They confessed their sins. And
listen, and many of them also which used curious arts brought
their books. They had a book burning. There
are some books that ought to be burned. They brought their
curious arts and they burned. They saw the folly of them. They
saw the weakness of them. They didn't sell them. They didn't
say, well, I don't need this anymore. Let's take them and
see what we can get out of them. No, if they're sinful to me,
I don't need to pass that on. No, they brought their books
and they burned them before all of them and they counted the
price of it. It's 50,000 pieces of silver. And so mightily, mightily
grew the word of God and prevailed. Brethren, there's nothing more
mighty than the Word of God. It's like a two-edged sword.
You know, I've known places that they'll have special singing
services. No preaching, just singing. Talent show. That's all that is. Talent show. Can you believe? Well, I know
you can believe this. They give out these awards for
the best gospel song of the year. Best gospel singer of the year.
I'm waiting for them to get the best preacher of the year. We'll
give an award for that one. It's the Word of God to Jews.
God blesses His Word. He's saved by His Word. He doesn't
save anyone by singing. He's saved by His Word. "...of
His own will begat He us with the Word of truth." Singing is
what we do in worship. We sing unto the Lord. That's
who we sing to. I'm preaching to you. I'm preaching
to the congregation. When I stand to preach, I preach
to the congregation. But when we stand to sing, we
sing. I don't sing to the congregation. We sing unto the Lord. And when
we preach it to the people. And God's Word, there's just,
you can't replace God's Word. Powerful, powerful, mightily
grew the Word of God. That tells me how much we need
to really saturate ourselves in this. All right.