I was thinking this morning,
as Frank was teaching, how that we've outmarried ourselves.
We have so outmarried ourselves to have one like the Lord Jesus
Christ. My what God has done for us in
Him, I want us to look at this chapter
this morning. I'm only going to try to deal
with 8 through 20. Last week we saw that Paul had
met 12 disciples of John the Baptist, and he questioned them
about the Holy Ghost. If they had received Him, if
they had received the gifts, is what he's talking about. And
they said they hadn't heard that he had come. Paul laid his hands
on them, and they received the gifts of the Holy Ghost. And
that was to confirm their message that they preached as they went
about preaching the gospel. It was to confirm their message.
They didn't have the New Testament, as you know, as we have it. We
have the complete Word of God. We don't need to try and imitate
Like these vagabond Jews, they tried to imitate Paul and the
gifts that were given to Paul, the apostles, and only Paul and
the apostles could give those gifts to others. They tried to
imitate him, but we're not trying to imitate anything. We're here
to preach the gospel, to worship God out of His Word, and to handle
the Word of God rightly. We have to rightly divide the
Word of God. So after Paul laid his hands
on these men, he goes into the synagogue, as he was always wont
to do. He always went in to preach to
his brethren according to the flesh. You know, there in Romans,
he said, My heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that
they might be saved. I believe that's in chapter 10. He had a real love for his brethren.
He would watch them go through those ceremonies, and I know
his heart ached. Just like yours. You have families
that go to places that have nothing to do with the gospel. And it
aches, doesn't it? I would rather they stayed home.
I would. I'd just as soon as they stayed
home. And to listen to that which is not the truth. That which
is not of God. And his heart ached every time
he'd see this go on. And he went in and he preached
to them for three months. For three months, God gave him
an audience there in that synagogue. And his subject was this, the
kingdom of God. The kingdom of God. Several years
ago, I had a church. I called it that. And I went
and preached to them. They would look at me as being
a pastor. I must have preached there five, six, seven times.
And they wanted to meet with me once, one Sunday afternoon. And they started asking me, and
I've told you this before, but they started asking me if I preached
against rock and roll, if I preached against the issues of the day,
and some other questions about the
Lord's table. If it was closed, they had closed communion. I
wouldn't let anybody else have it that didn't belong to that
particular congregation. I said, do you mean if my pastor
shows up, I'm going to say no? I said, I don't think so. I don't think so. And I said,
well, your children can go ahead and quit listening to rock and
roll. They're still going to perish. They can quit their drugs and
they're still going to perish. I said, Christ is my message. I was just
a young man. I was 25 years old, 26. I don't know much now, but I
didn't know much then either. But I said, Christ is the message.
And they said, well, we know that. That's what they said. Well, we know that. Well, that's
beside the point. And they never called me back
after that. Paul went in there for three
months. He preached the gospel to them. He preached Christ and
him crucified when he preached the kingdom of God. Christ was
his subject. You cannot preach the kingdom
of God and not preach the king. There's no such thing. No way.
And his subject was the kingdom of God. And he preached to them
that it's a kingdom of grace. It's a kingdom of life. It's
his kingdom. They look for a kingdom. The
Jews as a whole were looking for a physical kingdom. They
were looking for a physical kingdom to be set up on this earth. They
weren't looking for a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwells
righteousness. No, they were looking to be brought
to world prominence, have political power in this world. Most of
them were. There were a few of them that
believed. Job said, I know what my Redeemer
liveth. Abraham rejoiced to see my day.
He saw it and was glad. Some of them saw it. David saw
it. David spoke of him throughout
the Psalms. So there were some that saw,
but for the most part, that Jewish nation, they were looking just
for a physical kingdom and just a natural king. A natural king. An earthly king. They were not
looking for the incarnate God from heaven. They were not looking
for Him. I tell you this, you can be sure
that whatever religion is looking at and looking for, it's the
opposite. You can just pretty well write
it down. It'll be the opposite of what they think. So Paul goes in here and he preaches
in the Kingdom of God, or the Gospel of the Kingdom, the same
message that the Lord Jesus Christ preached. The message has not
changed. We have a little more light on
it, but the message hasn't changed. Let's go over to Matthew chapter
4. In Matthew chapter 4, in verse 23, and Jesus went about
all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the
gospel of the kingdom. in healing all manner of sickness
and all manner of diseases among the people. But he preached the
gospel of the kingdom, and that's what Paul was doing, preaching
the gospel of the kingdom. Look over in chapter 24 of Matthew. We're here in chapter 24 and
verse 14. And this gospel of the kingdom,
that our Lord preached, and that Paul preached, and that we preach,
shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all
nations, and then shall the end come. It's amazing. I think it's amazing right now
how quickly this gospel is being spread throughout this world
through the Internet and all the other communication systems
we have. Look how fast it's going now
throughout the world. If you look at those downloads where
they are downloaded in China, you'd be surprised all these
places now that are listening. Then come at the end. So Paul preached the gospel of
the kingdom. He preached to them the king of that kingdom, Jesus
Christ. He stood in that synagogue, and
he looked those Jews in the face, and he said, Jesus Christ, this
One who was despised and rejected of men, this One who was nailed
to a cross, is the King of the kingdom of God. He's the King
of this kingdom. We have to start with the King.
And Jesus Christ is that King. Look over in Revelation 15. We have a King, and I thank God
we have a King. We have a righteous King. We
have a benevolent King. We have a God-King, the Lord
Jesus Christ. Revelation 15, verse 3, and they
sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb,
saying, Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are thy ways. of
saints. King of saints. Now look over
in chapter 19. In chapter 19 of Revelations, it says in verse 16, And he hath
on his vesture, that is Christ, hath on his vesture and on his
thigh a name written. And here's that name. King of
kings. And Lord We have a President of the United
States whom God has put there, whether people like him or not.
God's the one who sets men up and who brings men down. We cast
our votes and God puts who He wants in there. That's the truth. God puts who's going to be there,
whether it's for our good or for our punishment of the nation. He puts them there. But Christ
is our King. We are under Him. King of saints. I'm glad, I'm telling you, I'm
thankful that we are under the reign and the rule of the Lord
Jesus Christ. You're not glad of that? Our
Lord, right now, in all that looks chaotic, Doesn't it? All that looks scary, especially
to the natural man, is under the dominion, control
of our King. It's not out of control. It's
under His control. It's under His control. Everything
and everyone has been put under His rule. Everything. Look over in Luke chapter 1. I thought the songs were appropriate
this morning. We didn't even get together on
that. In Luke chapter 1. Let me see here. Verse 33. It says in, let me go to verse
31, And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, this is from birth,
and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall
be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest. And the
Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David.
He's a king, he's the son of a king. And he shall reign over the house
of Jacob forever. There's no end to his reign.
They said David is dead and his bones are with us to this day.
But the bones of Christ are not with us to this day. He's risen.
He's king and he'll reign forever. And of his kingdom there shall
be no end. How many kingdoms have come in
God? When you look at history and
you see kingdoms that have risen and were great at one time, world
powers at one time, where are they now? Gone. His kingdom is forever. His kingdom will never be destroyed.
As God over all, blessed forever, He's King. He's King by nature. But as also As mediator, he's
king by office. He's king. He rules over heaven
and earth and hell. He has all power. He said, all
power and all authority is given unto me in heaven and earth.
Now how could his kingdom be forever if he did not have that
power and that right to rule? He hasn't. Christ is the head,
it is said in the Scriptures, of all principalities and powers. Those sons of Sceva tried to
cast that devil out, that demon out, and that one evil spirit
jumped on all seven of those men and just whipped the daylights
out of them. That's what happened. But not one of them could resist
the Word of the Lord Jesus Christ. When He said, come out, they
came out. They came out. They came out
kicking and screaming sometimes. Fall on the ground, the guy would
foam. You read in the Gospels where they fell on the ground
and foam with their mouth and scream. They came out kicking,
but they came out. Just like that. They didn't want
to, but they did. They did what He said. Look over in Revelation chapter
11. I wish I could preach this as
it really deserves to be preached, because it would give so much
comfort to you. The power of our King, the reign
and rule of our King. That used to mean something in
this world. The King used to mean something.
It doesn't mean anything now, but he used to. Over in Revelation
11, look in verse 15. And the seventh angel sounded,
and there were great voices in heaven saying, The kingdoms of
this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ,
and he shall reign forever and ever. The kingdoms of this world
belong to him. It's not like we have our little
nation, Russia has their little nation, and China has theirs,
and so on and so forth. They're all His. Scripture says, His kingdom ruleth
over all. Does it not say that? His kingdom
ruleth over all. It's not subject to any other
kingdom. And He was born King. This One who is our King was
born King. He didn't have to wait in line
till somebody died so He could be King. He was born King. Born
king of the Jews. And then Paul preached the righteousness
of Christ as the only righteousness of God's kingdom. See, they went
about to establish their own righteousness. And Paul was telling
them, stop it. Just stop trying to produce a
righteousness of your own, because the only righteousness God accepts
in His kingdom is the righteousness of His Son. And that belongs to every one
of his children. The dress code of heaven is the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why he's called the Lord
Our Righteousness. There in Jeremiah 23, he's the
Lord Our Righteousness. He didn't just produce one, he
is the righteousness. Oh, I wish people would quit
separating that from Him. He is the righteousness of His
people. He's the righteous King. He's
the Lord our righteousness. Then Paul spoke of the subject
of God's kingdom. The Jews as a whole, that nation
as a whole, believed they were the only ones that were going
to be in that kingdom. And you and I are not going to
be there. He's going to take care of us. We're finally going
to get shot. It's like they'd like to shot
us. They hated the Gentiles. They
hated people like us. And Paul said, those who are going to be in
the kingdom of God are sinners. They said in one place, we'd
be not sinners. Well, you won't be in the kingdom of God. The subjects are sinners. by
the grace of God. Saved by grace, not by works,
but by grace. Sinners redeemed out of all nations. Here's what they didn't understand.
Here's what went right over their heads. Most of them. Not all,
but most. He's not a Jew, which is one
outwardly. He is a Jew, which is one inwardly. Circumcision is not that of the
flesh, but that of the heart. They missed it. They missed it. They missed the spirituality
of it. We're talking about a spiritual kingdom here, not a physical
fleshly kingdom. Our Lord said the kingdom of
God cometh not with observation. They were looking for it. They
were just looking to see if it was coming. No. He said it comes
not with observation. He said the kingdom of God is
within you. It's within you. If Christ is
in you, the Kingdom of God is in you, because it's all bound
up in Him. It's all in Him. And whatever
is in Him is in you. And when He preached there for
three months, these Jews sat under the Apostle Paul for three
months, and it says, "...and diverse were hardened." It takes God to save, doesn't
it? You can take the most powerful preacher, if you want to say
it that way, most influential, and he won't save you at all.
It takes God to do it. It takes God to do it. The gospel
hardens as well as softens, just like the sun does. The sun will
melt and the sun will harden, depending on which object it's
shining on. The nature of that object. To some it adds to their
condemnation. Saviour of life unto life to
some and a saviour of death unto death to some. And this is what happens when
the Holy Spirit leads a person to themselves. This is what happens
when you take the Holy Spirit out of it. Hardening. Hardening effect. When he does
not take the Word of God and apply it with power. And the evidence of that hardening? They spake evil of that way.
What a glorious gospel we have to preach. What a message of
grace and mercy to a bunch of wretched people, to sinners,
sinful, ungodly. The Scripture doesn't paint a
good picture of us. Not one of us. And they spoke evil of that way. That's the effects of hardship.
That way by which God can be a just God and a Savior. You'd
think we'd rejoice over that, wouldn't you? You'd think all
men would rejoice over that. Only those whom God enables to
rejoice over. They spoke evil of that way of
righteousness. The doing and dying of the Lord
Jesus Christ. They spoke evil of that way.
You know, we want to impress God by what we do. They speak evil of grace alone,
not works, excluding works. I thank God it's all of grace.
None of us would be there. None of us would be there. They
speak evil that way, which is the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what they spake evil of,
him. They spake evil of Christ, the
Son of God. Come, they said, this is the
heir, let us kill him. Jesus Christ is the only way
to God. He's the only way. He's the only
way from earth to heaven. He's the only way from sin to
righteousness. He's the only way. He said, no
man comes to the Father but by me. And they spake evil of him. So you know what Paul did? He
left them. But he didn't leave by himself.
He took the disciples with him. It says he separated the disciples. Paul told those disciples that
believed, this is what he told them, quit
going to that place. Quit going to that place. Don't think that your presence
is going to make them better. There's a time. There is a time
to separate. Paul separated those who believed
from that synagogue. At that time, a lot of people
who did believe the gospel would still go to the synagogue. It
was just an early church there. They were still bathed in Christ.
And Paul brought them out of there. He said, don't go there
no more. God's not in that place. Don't go where God's not. Don't
go there. He separated them. He said, come
out of them. The scripture says, come out from among them and
be separate, sayeth the Lord. That's what he says in 2 Corinthians
6, 14 through 17. It says the same thing in Isaiah
52, 11. The message never changes. Never changes. Same message. However, the gospel did not leave
Ephesus. The gospel didn't leave Ephesus.
They used a schoolroom of a teacher named Tyrannus. And they continued
there. Listen, Paul continued there
preaching for two years. For two years he stayed there
and preached the gospel, and the word of the Lord was preached,
and the Jews and the Greeks both heard the gospel for two years. Our Lord said, The gates of hell
will not prevail against you. It will not keep the gospel out.
The Gospel will leave when God removes it, not when men remove
it. Men cannot remove the Gospel. God removes it. The Lord said
to one of the churches there in Revelation, if you don't straighten
up, I will come and remove the candlestick. They didn't remove
it. They couldn't do it. And Christ
raised up a big church. There was a huge church there
in Ephesus. Many miracles were wrought there
by Paul. Mighty miracles. And then you had these imitators. Along comes the imitators. They're
always around, aren't they? Actors. Vagabond Jews. Wandering Jews. I wonder if that's
where they got the name of that plant. Wandering Jew. That's
what vagabond means. Wanderer. Wandering Jews. And these religious hooksters.
They were in it for the money. They would go from town to town
and they would use curious arts. They would play like they were
casting out devils, just like they do on TV now. They take
the name of the Lord. They don't preach Him, but they
take His name and then they try to act like they're casting us
out somehow. I wish the Lord would let them demon spirits
just jump on and whip Him on stage. I wish they would. But they was in it for the money.
They would use these sorceries and those types of things. They
saw Paul doing this. They saw evil spirits being cast
out by Paul in the name of Christ. Christ was the one casting them
out. Paul was an instrument. Just
like we're just instruments. We're just clay pots in the hands
of God. That's all we are. This is getting a lot of attention.
We can really make some money out of this. So they tried to
cast out an evil spirit. And this is God's providence.
He uses this to gain attention to the gospel and to Paul. And
they tried to cast out this evil spirit. That evil spirit said,
now Jesus we know. He's the Lord. He's the Lord. If He tells us
to go, we've got to go. And we know, and Paul we know,
he's the Lord's servant. Don't you think they don't know
the Lord's servant? And don't you think they don't know the
Lord's children? But who are you? I like that
answer. I like what he said there. Who are you? That's probably
the only thing they've ever said that made sense. Who are you? Who do you think you are? What power Do you have over us,
over me? What power do you have over me?
We have no power over evil spirits. We don't have any. Don't deal
with it. Don't fool with it. Don't go
looking for it. Don't even study it. You don't need it. Study
Christ. Spend your time studying Him who can cast them out by
word. You can study your life away
and you couldn't get one to pick up a piece of paper for you.
Not at your word. Not at all. But if the Lord speaks, they have to obey. Who are you? Who do you think you are? This is the providence of God.
He made that evil spirit to leap on those men and expose them
for who they were and it gave attention to the message Paul
preached. It says in verse 17, And this
was known to all the Jews and Greeks. And fear, fear it says,
fell on them all. They began to reverence the name
of Christ. They saw that they used His name
in an irreverent manner. They used His name in vain because
it wasn't given to them to use. They used His name, and I have
no doubt that they began to fear that name. Whoa! They reversed that name! How many people you hear today
using the Lord's name? It's always Jesus this. Fear fell on these people. This
evil spirit jumped on all seven of those men, whipped them, and
ran out of the house naked and wounded. Here's the power of God's grace.
Here's the power of God's Spirit. And many that believed came. They saw this, and they heard
the message Paul preached, and they believed. They believed
God. They truly believed the gospel.
Paul preached it for now for two years. And they confessed. I'm sure they confessed him as
Lord. They confessed in, I'm sure,
in Believer's Baptism. And they confessed and they showed
their deeds. You know what they did? They had a book burning. They had a book burning. They
burned their books of curious arts. All these hocus-pocus things
that they had made up and came up with and all these different
books had been written, you could burn Actually, I think you could burn
every book that's ever been written except this one. I was thinking
about that this morning. I looked at all my commentaries
that I've got sitting on the shelf. I've got a lot of different books
written by other men. And I thought, you know, you could burn every book in
the world. Give me this one. This is the one I knew. This
is the Word of God. And the older I get, the more
I read it and the less I read other men. But they burned their books.
And they didn't sell them for money. Apparently these books
were worth something to the superstitious people anyway. They could find
somebody else that believed like they used to believe and say,
well, I'll just pawn it off on me and get my money back. They didn't pass their sins off
on anybody else, if I can say it that way. They took those
books, they admitted the wickedness of their own hearts and what
was written in those books, and they suffered the loss of it.
They took them out on the street and they burned them. Now that's
a great awakening, wasn't it? Want to talk about the great
awakening? There's one. There's one. grew the Word of God and prevailed. Ephesus did not look like a good
garden to plow in, did it? You wouldn't put a plow in Ephesus.
They were so superstitious. The Greek goddess of Diana. Diana! They said the whole world worships
the goddess of Diana. You wouldn't think that would
be a place to go preach the gospel or to plow. So much idolatry,
so much opposition, so much hatred. So mightily grew the Word of
God. But the Word of God was planted.
Paul plowed like a faithful farmer. He plowed and he plowed. And he plowed, just like we were
talking about speaking on the radio. That's what we're doing. We're
plowing. Every Saturday morning, 9.30, we are plowing and planting. And someone else comes along
with water. And maybe God will give the increase. Maybe He will. But Paul plowed and he planted.
He plowed and he planted for two years. He put up with this. And God gave it increase. I thought about this last night.
The horse who plows does not say the field's too rocky. We
first moved on the farm back in 1967. And Dad plowed with horses. He
didn't have a tractor at that time. He had two horses he plowed
with for about a year or two before he bought his first tractor.
I never heard one of those horses Say, this feels too rocky. What
are you doing in this field? They plow. The harness was strapped
on them. And I've been watching those
horses just to this day. I can remember watching those
horses dig in. I mean, dig in. Because some of that ground was
rocky and it's tough. And I mean, they would ball most
of the time. I've watched them tremble. I've
watched them get down in the harness and pull that plow to
the point where they were hunkered down and trembling, pulling,
breaking that ground. I've seen that happen. And that's what Paul's doing
here. That's what he's doing. He's
plowing. He's plowing. has to get down and tremble a
little bit, pulling hard. But he plants. The farmer will
deal with the rocks. God will remove the stony heart.
I can't remove a stony heart. I can't do it. But He can. He said, I'll give you a new
heart. I'll give you a new heart. The Word of God grew. As the
farmer plants, the grain of corn and leaves it in the ground. And it grows. He knows not how. Paul planted and the Word of
God grew in the hearts of those people. You know a forest could
come out of one acorn? A forest could come out of one
acorn. The Word of God grew mightily.
That's the title. It grew mightily. It took over
that city and prevailed. It prevailed. What a powerful
weapon we have in our hands and in our hearts. Do you remember
what I read in Psalm 119? He speaks much of the Word of
God there. I love thy statutes. I love thy law. It's within my
heart. Wherewith shall a young man cleanse
his ways? by taking heed thereunto thy
word." Taking heed to the Word of God. What a powerful, powerful
thing we have here. It's a sword of the Spirit, it's
called. The Word of God. There is a prevailing power in
the Word of God over sin, Satan, and men when it's used in the
hands of the Holy Spirit. sends it forth in power. And I say to you in a minute, make much of
the Word of God. Be in the Word. Study the Word. Pray that the
Lord reveal His Word. And I pray that the Word of God
will mightily grow in us. grow in us. It will make a difference. You talk about making a difference
in a place when the Word of God is there.