I've entitled this message, Preaching
the Kingdom of God. Now, this passage of scripture
that we just read speaks of Paul's longest stay in any one place. Now, these people in Ephesus
heard Paul the apostle preach two years after this three-month
period, he never stayed this long in any one place. Now, can you imagine getting
to hear the Apostle Paul? I don't know how many times they
met a week. Maybe they met every day, I don't know. I know one
time there, we're going to see this in the next chapter, he
preached so long And it preached past midnight, and somebody fell
asleep, fell out, and died. He was there a long time at any
rate. And the Lord bless this time with the church at Ephesus. And David just read out of Ephesus
this, that was written, that epistle was written 10 years
after this. And we have what many have said
is the most sublime of all of Paul's epistles. And I certainly
wouldn't disagree with that. I love the book of Ephesians. Ephesus was a city in Greece. Now look in verse eight. And he went into the synagogue.
Now, whenever he came into a new place, this is where he would
go. I mean, you think about this. He would go into a town, a city
that he didn't know anyone, and he would think, where am I going
to start preaching? And the first place he would go would be to
a synagogue. Now, sometimes these were big,
sometimes they were small. If you had 10 Jews, it you could
have a synagogue in a place. And so sometimes I'm sure there
were a lot of people, sometimes just a few, but he would always
go at first into a synagogue if there was one. Like we saw
in Philippi, there wasn't a synagogue. He went by a river where some
people were gathered together and began to preach to them.
But here he begins at the synagogue. And he went into the synagogue
and spake boldly for the space of three months Disputing and
persuading the things concerning the kingdom of God. Now, there are three words that
are used to describe his preaching when he was preaching the kingdom
of God. And really, preaching the kingdom
of God and preaching gospel is the same thing. You don't preach
the gospel if you don't preach the kingdom of God. And you don't
preach the kingdom of God unless you preach the gospel. I love
thinking about the Lord. He's the king. He's the eternal
king. He's the immortal king. He's
everybody's king. He's the king of kings. He's
the Lord of lords. Everybody inside of this room
and everybody outside of this room, he's their king. They might
not know it, but he's their king. He is the king, and Paul came
preaching the kingdom of God. But three words are used to describe
his preaching. Number one, he preached boldly.
Number two, he disputed. And that word is usually translated,
he reasoned. He reasoned from the scripture.
And the third word that's used to describe his preaching was
persuading. It wasn't just delivering a lecture
and being indifferent as to whether or not the people heard or not.
I'm just trying to get at the truth and you all can do with
it what you want. No, he was persuading concerning
the kingdom of God. Now, if those three things aren't
in preaching, it's not preaching. First, you preach with boldness.
Now, there are some people who are
bold acting in their preaching. Very forceful, but they're not
preaching with boldness because bold preaching is preaching without
ambiguity. Bold preaching is preaching in
such a way as people understand what you're saying. And it can't
be taken in two different ways or three different ways. I mean,
it's just right out there. That's what bold preaching is.
It may be someone has a soft voice and a gentle spirit and
just not a real forceful person, but they can be given bold preaching
by preaching without ambiguity. They preach in such a way, well,
he could have meant this, he could have meant that. No, not
in bold preaching. I mean, you preach the truth as it is in
Jesus. You don't hold back. You don't preach in such a way
as men could take what you're saying one way and the other
group take it another way. I'll tell you, here's an example
of preaching that's not bold preaching. Christ died for those
who believe. Christ died for those who believe.
That's true, isn't it? It's also compromising the truth. Christ died for those who believe.
Well, the people who believe in particular redemption can
be happy with that, and the people who believe in universal redemption
can be happy with that. I mean, you satisfy everybody
with a statement like that, and it is not bold preaching. It is preaching in generalizations
and so on, and that's not the way to preach. He came with boldness.
You knew what he was saying. And he came, the word here, disputing. When we think of dispute, we
generally think of arguing and speaking against things, and
maybe that is involved, but what the word means is reasoning from
the scriptures. Now, our preaching better be
reasoning from the scriptures. It's logical. We don't believe
something because it's logical. We believe something because
the Bible teaches it. But if somebody's preaching the
truth, they can reason from the scriptures and show, this is
why I'm telling this. This is why. The authority is
not in the man. The authority is in the word
of God. And the reasoning is from the scriptures. And that's how he came. He came
with boldness. And he came reasoning from the
scriptures. And the scripture also said he
was persuading. In true preaching, if there's
not persuasion going on, I want you to believe the gospel. I
want you to believe what I believe. Not because I believe it, but
because I know it's what the word of God teaches, and that's
what I want you to believe. I want to persuade you to believe,
and if God persuades you, you'll be persuaded. Now in preaching,
there is persuasion. It's not just like delivering
a lecture. A man in a university delivers a lecture. He's not
trying to persuade anybody of anything. He's just delivering
the goods. Here it is. That's not preaching. Just saying
this is what is true. That's not preaching. I want
to persuade you to believe. And if there's not boldness,
If there's not reasoning from the scriptures, if there's not
persuading going on, true persuading out of a love to God and a love
to the people we're preaching to, desiring them to believe,
desiring them to know the Lord, desiring them to bow the knee
to the Christ, desiring them to know the joy and the peace
and the liberty of believing. What was his subject matter where
he used these three words to describe his preaching? Well,
look, verse eight, and he went into the synagogue and spake
boldly for the space of three months, disputing and persuading
the things concerning the kingdom of God. Now, I love thinking
of the gospel in these terms, the kingdom of God, not the kingdom
of men, the kingdom of God. And let me tell you something
about the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God has a king.
Let me show you a verse of scripture in Revelation chapter 17. Would
you turn with me there? These are the enemies of Christ,
verse 13. These have one mind and shall
give their power and strength unto the beast. And these shall
make war with the lamb. Now here's a war you can't win. This is a war you cannot win. These shall make war with the
lamb and the lamb shall overcome them for. He is Lord of Lords
and King of Kings. What was the accusation written
over his head? Written in Greek and Latin and
Hebrew. It was the only languages that
anybody knew. The language, the common language,
the language of the educated, the language of the religious.
These three languages. Same message, though. We don't
have one message for the educated, another message for the religious,
and another message for the common person. Same message. This is
the accusation, and I love that word accusation. This is what
they accused him of. Nobody was upset about his healing. Nobody
was upset about him feeding the hungry. Nobody was upset about
his miracles. They were upset with this. He
said, I'm king. Are you king? To this end was
I born. This is why I came as king of
kings. He's the king and he's your king.
He's my king. Aren't you thankful to that way?
I mean, there's one right now completely controlling everything
and everybody. The one who is Lord of Lords
and King of Kings. And look at this description
of his subjects. I love this. Remember, we're
talking about the kingdom of God. He's the king of this kingdom.
And we have this beautiful, simple description of all of his subjects. Verse 14. And they that are with him. Now
that's the only place I want to be. With him. With him. They that are with Him, three
descriptions, called, chosen, and faithful. Now, every single
one of them are called, called with the invincible call of effectual
grace, called to believe the gospel, called by the gospel. They're all called. Was the Lord
called me? Well, if he has, you'll be calling
on his name. That's what the called do, they
call upon him. But every one of his people are described as
called. And then the next description
I love, they're all chosen. Chosen by him, this is the elect.
These are they who he chose before the foundation of the world.
And they are all faithful. They all believe the gospel and
you can believe them there. They believe, and they can be
believed every single one of them. They're faithful. Now this
is the kingdom of God. Now preaching the gospel and
preaching the kingdom of God is the same thing. When Christ
commenced his public ministry, he did so preaching the scripture
says the gospel of the kingdom of God. The gospel of the kingdom
of God saying, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent ye and believe the gospel.
The Lord said to his disciples, it's given to you to know the
mysteries of the kingdom. Now the mysteries of the kingdom,
you know that what we believe is mysterious. who we believe is mysterious. Now that doesn't mean we don't
know what those mysteries are, because we do, because they're
revealed in the scripture. But Paul said, I preach the word
of God. I preach the gospel as a mystery. And you think of all
the mysteries the scripture speaks of. These mysteries are things
we would have never known had not God made them known in his
word. How would you ever know God is
one God in three distinct persons without the Bible? Could you
figure that out, would you think? Let me think about this. God
must be one God and three distinct persons. Well, of course not.
The only way we know that is because God reveals it in his
word. And you think the scripture speaks
of the mystery of the faith, isn't it? Isn't it a great mystery
revealed by God that salvation comes through believing Christ
rather than by your works? What about the mystery of godliness? Great is the mystery of godliness.
God was manifest in the flesh. What a mystery. You mean to tell
me that the creator became a human being? Yes, I do. How would we ever know that without
the word of God? The word was made flesh and dwelt
among us. Think of the mystery of the eternal
union of the church with Christ. What a mystery that is when he
said the two should be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but
I speak concerning Christ and the church. Now, think of this. Beloved, you've always been in
Christ. Before time began, you were in
Christ. You were in him. Was there a
consciousness of it? I don't think so. But I love what Greg Elmquist
said. He said, when we get to heaven,
we're going to find out we've always been there. And that's
what it is to be united to the Lord Jesus Christ. The union,
the two are one, one with him. You think of this, the great
mystery of Christ in you. What a mystery that is. What
a glorious thing that is to have Christ in you. Jesus Christ is
in me. That's why I believe. That's
why I love his father. That's why I love him. Jesus
Christ is in me. Christ in you, this great mystery,
Christ in you, the hope of glory. What about the mystery of the
resurrection? Paul said, behold, I show you a mystery. We shall
all sleep, but we'll all be changed in a moment. And he talks about
the physical resurrection. What a mystery that is, that
people that have been nothing but a pile of dirt, all of a
sudden they're gonna be raised up incorruptible. What a mystery. What about the mystery of the
Lord dying in the first place and being raised from the dead?
I don't know of anything that I, I can't get my mind wrapped
around that the God man died and raised himself from the dead. What about the great mystery
of the new birth? Being born of God? Mystery, that's the spiritual
resurrection. And then this, the final physical
resurrection, we preach the word of God as a mystery. Now this kingdom, we would have
never known these mysteries had not God made them known to us. It's given to you. It's given to you. Who gave it?
God did. It's given to you to know the
mysteries. of the kingdom of God. Now this
is the kingdom that a natural man cannot enter. What we're talking about, the
natural man cannot understand, can't grasp, can't believe, can't
receive, cannot enter, except he be born from above, born of
God. He can't see, he can't enter
the kingdom of heaven without this. The kingdom of God cometh
not with observation. I love that scripture. Somebody
says, here's what the kingdom of God looks like. You're clueless.
You don't know, you don't have any idea. Over there, there you
see the kingdom of God. No, you don't. It cometh not
with human natural observation. It's way beyond anything that
any natural man could ever see or understand. The Lord said,
seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Now, when most folks hear that,
seek ye the kingdom of God and his righteousness, they think
about righteous living. We need to live righteously.
What does he make of that? No, you ought not do that. Of
course we're not saying that. But what does the text say? Seek
ye the kingdom of God and what? His righteousness. I am seeking to have not my own
righteousness, but his. Now that's a mystery, isn't it?
That's glorious, that's, but that's, we want, I don't want
to have, like Paul said, O thou knowing Christ, and be found
in him not having my own righteousness. I don't want to have anything
to do with that. But that which is through the faith of Jesus
Christ, the righteousness which is of God, by faith. Seek ye first the kingdom of
God and his righteousness. Righteousness. Now, this is the kingdom of which
Paul said the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power.
I love that. What a simple description of
the kingdom of God. It's not in word. It's in power, omnipotence. Now, what's meant by that power? God became a man. Is that omnipotence? God became flesh in the flesh. God kept the law perfectly. Did that take omnipotence in his death? He made my sin
not to be. Did that take omnipotence? He gave me divine life, raising
me from the dead and giving me spiritual life. Did that take
omnipotence? You see, the gospel we preach, it's not a thing that's
in word only. It's not a thing in human ability,
but the very power of God. The kingdom of God is not meat
and drink. It's righteousness, it's peace. You know the only thing that
gives me peace is knowing the only righteousness I have is
the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Do you know that gives me peace?
It's peace. You know what else? It gives
me joy. Joy in the Holy Ghost. I would
not want it to be any other way. Now the subjects of this kingdom
all have this in common. Listen to these scriptures. Blessed
be ye poor. You don't have anything to bring
to the table. Not a thing. Blessed be ye poor, for yours
is the kingdom of God. The subject of this kingdom are
all like this. Suffer the little children to
come unto me, for such is the kingdom of God. Everybody in
his kingdom, they're a little child. You know what that means?
They believe what their father says. They believe. It doesn't mean they're just
gullible. You know, the way, you know, you can tell a kid
something and they're gullible and they're going to believe
what you say because it's not just like that, although it's
sort of like that in a way. You just believe what's being
said. But a little child believes what their father says. Of such
is the kingdom of heaven. Now, Paul preached boldly. He disputed or reasoned from
the scriptures, and he persuaded them concerning the kingdom of
God. Oh, what the gospel is, the kingdom
of God, speaking of the king of kings. Now look in verse nine,
back in our text, in Acts chapter 19. But when divers were hardened, And believe not, but spake evil
of that way before the multitude. He departed from them. He didn't
say, well, let me rephrase this. Let me say this in such a way
as maybe you can receive it. He left them. He departed and separated the disciples disputing
daily in the school of one Tyranus. Now look at the language when
diverse were hardened. Now, that word is in the passive
voice. Do you know what that means?
That means God hardened them. Just like he did Pharaoh, God
hardened their hearts. Does God do things like that?
Sure does. He sure does. And something like that scares
me to death. I don't wanna be given over to
a hardened heart. God hardened them. But when divers were hardened
and believed not, now there the believe not is in the active
voice. It's in the active voice. If you believe not, you choose
to not believe. It's what you do. Now, they believe
not, Unbelief is always a choice. You don't choose to believe.
You believe something because it's the truth. You don't choose
to believe it. You believe it because it's true.
But to believe not, you have to choose to not believe. And these people were hardened.
God hardened them. And what I get out of this is
there's a time, if I believe not, there's a time when the
lights go out on the kingdom of heaven. God hardened their
heart, just like he hardened Pharaoh's heart. God hardened
their heart. They believe not, but spake evil. Now look what they did. Here's
the result of his hardened heart and not believing. They spake
evil of that way. Here's another name for the gospel.
I love this name. I love the simplicity of it.
The way. I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life,
the way. This is called in the scripture,
the way of God, the way of the Lord, as opposed to the way of
men. It's called the way of salvation.
being saved, the way of being saved from my sins by what Christ
did for me, the way of salvation. It's called the new and living
way in Hebrews chapter 10, and I love this. The blood of Christ is always
new. It's not a thing of the past,
although it is. Yes, it's grounded in history,
but it's in the present right now. Right now, the only hope
I have is the power of His blood, nothing else. Right now. It's new. It comes as news. It happened in here today. Yes,
it happened 2,000 years ago on the cross. Yes, it happened as
the lamb slain before the foundation of the world, but it's right
now. Right now, however long I've been a believer, I don't
know, but for however long I've been a believer, all of my hope
is in him saying it is finished. That's it. It's ever new. And I love the way he says it's
the new and the living way. An Old Testament priest brings
the blood of a dead animal in. Dead. Christ, the living one. brings his own blood, the one
who died and lives again eternally. And he presents his blood. The living one presents his blood
to his father in behalf of all his people. Do you know right
now there's one presenting his blood to his father for you? The new and the living way. It's called in the scriptures
the way into the holiest, into the very presence of the holiness.
It's called the way of righteousness. There's only one way of righteousness.
It's called the way of peace. There is no other peace, but
the peace that he made, the way of peace, it's called the narrow
way. This is the way they were speaking evil of. And I love
how narrow, I love how narrow the way is. The way of Christ
is so narrow that if you have anything to add to it, you can't,
The gate is so narrow that if you have anything of your own
to bring through it, you can't get through the straight and
narrow way. It's so narrow and excludes all
other ways. And I like this, it's also what
Paul called the way they call heresy. You know, when I'd be
nervous, I'd know something's wrong if the religious person
liked what I say. I'd say, something's wrong with
this. I know I'm wrong. It's the way they call heresy. And the Lord said, the way you
know, it's the way you know. I know the way. I know the way. I'm like that fella, I think
it was Roland Hill. He got on a carriage with a man,
and he was going to Bath, and he said, what's down that road?
And the fella said, I don't know. And he went down a little ways,
he says, what down that road? He said, well, I don't know either.
And he asked several things. Well, what about who lives there?
I don't know. All he got was an I don't know. He said, what
do you know? I know the way to Bath. And that's, I know the
way to the father. Son. He is that new. He is that living way. And what did Paul do? He departed,
verse 9, after they spake evil of that way. He departed from
them and separated the disciples, disputing daily, the same thing
he was doing in verse 8, in the school of one Tyrannus. And this
continued, by the way, a space of two years. So that all they
which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both
Jews and Greeks. What a blessing. What a blessing. Now, I'm not going to say much
about these. I'm going to I'm going to preach
Lord willing another message on this passage of scripture,
but the three things that took place in him preaching the kingdom
of God. And this is what happens when
the kingdom of God is preached. Number one, verse 11. God brought
special miracles by the hands of Paul. Special miracles of
salvation. Now here he says, so that from
his body were brought into the sick handkerchiefs or aprons
and the diseases departed from them and the evil spirits went
out of them. Did that really happen? Yes. They touched Paul. They left Paul's body. They got
up to somebody else and they were healed of those diseases.
There's a beautiful type of the gospel there, and we'll look
at more of that next week, but here's the point. God works special
miracles. If you're saved, you're a special
miracle worked by God himself. Verse 13, then certain of the vagabond
Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil
spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, we adjure thee
by Jesus whom Paul preacheth. And notice that they took this
upon themselves. No man takes this honor on themselves, but
these fellows did. But here's the point. Whenever
you have the true, you're going to have the false right behind
it. You're going to have the counterfeit at its heels. And
here we have this. And there were seven sons of
one Sceva, a Jew and a chief of the priests, which did so,
and the evil spirits answered and said, Jesus, I know, and
Paul, I know, but who are you? 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. And this was known to all the
Jews and Greeks, also dwelling in Ephesus, and fear fell on
them all. And the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. Now, when the kingdom of God
is preached, you have God working special miracles and you're going
to have a counterfeit right behind it. Verse 18. And many that believed came and
confessed and showed their deeds. Many of them also, which use
curious arts. brought their books together
and burned them before all men, and they counted the price of
them, and it was found out 50,000 pieces of silver, which I read
several commentaries, and they pretty much said that's about
the equivalent of $5 million today. They took $5 million worth
of books and burned them. So mildly grew the word of God
and prevailed. Now, this has been used, I realize,
how many different bonfires have been used to burn your records
and it comes out of this, you know, burn your rock and roll
records, burn your, and people burn them and they go out next
week and buy the ones they burned, get them back. I mean, how many
times has that happened? And that's, that is used out
of this. But here's the point. Here's the point. When you believe
you see the utter and complete valuelessness vanity, it's no
good, it won't do you any good. When you believe the gospel,
you burn that other stuff. It's not real. It's not true. It's worth nothing but to be
burned. And so, mightily grew the word
of God and prevailed. When the kingdom of God is preached,
and there's this Persuading going on. It's preached
in boldness. It's preached reasoning from
the scriptures. God blesses it. And he works special miracles. And wherever there are special
miracles, there will always be counterfeits right behind. And
when the gospel is believed, You burn up everything. You burn your bridges. It was
no good. It's worth nothing but to be
burnt. Let's pray together. Lord, how we thank you. That
you have come to us. and revealed to us your gospel. Lord, we truly say, why me? But
how thankful we are. Lord, we ask that we might be
enabled, every single one of us as individuals, as a church,
we pray that we might be enabled to Preach thy kingdom with boldness,
reasoning from the scriptures, and persuading men because we
love you and we love them. Lord, enable us to do that. And Lord, we ask that through
the preaching of your gospel that you would work special miracles. that the counterfeits will be
exposed. These were, and we pray that we would be given grace
to see the difference between the true and the counterfeit.
And we ask that we might be given such a view of your gospel that
everything else is just to be burnt. There's no value to it
at all. Bless this message for Christ's
sake. In his name we pray. Amen.