"And God..."

Heavenly Father, teach us, we pray, through your living and powerful word. We know that we can only really learn with the help of your Holy Spirit at work in us – so please give us that help. Please enlarge our vision of who you are. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

We love having those who are not yet Christians here among us – those who are wanting to find out more about the faith, and what makes Christians tick. If that’s you, thank you for being here. And I think it’s only fair that I should give you a bit of a heads-up before we get into this passage of the Bible that we’re looking at this evening (Acts 19.11-20). Maybe your starting point is the secular materialist world view that so many in the West soak up, even if they haven’t much thought about it. That is to say, you think that what you see is what you get, all there is is the material world, and maybe, you think that you might be able to add a veneer of Christian faith on top of that because there are things you like about Christianity, or you think the teachings of Jesus could make life more liveable, or whatever. Well, this Bible passage should shatter those illusions. The fact is that the Christian faith is a worldview radically different from that secular materialist worldview. There simply is no getting around that, so you might need mentally to buckle up and hold tight. With that heads-up in mind, then, here we go.

Two weeks ago Matt took us through the first part of Acts 19. The apostle Paul has arrived in Ephesus – a great Greco-Roman pagan city, centre of the cult of the goddess Artemis as we’ll see next week, full of occult and magic practices, but with a Jewish population too. Paul homed in on that Jewish community and for three months worked to persuade them of the truth of the gospel of the crucified and risen Christ. He encountered a good deal of hostility, so he left the synagogue, and set up in the hall of Tyrannus, running Christianity Explored seminars every day for two years, with the effect that, as Acts 19.10 ends:

…all the residents of Asia [that Roman province] heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.

And clearly they didn’t just hear; many believed and became Christians. So, again as we’ll see next week, Paul’s enemies publicly complain (this is in Acts 19.26):

…you see and hear that not only in Ephesus but in almost all of Asia this Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people, saying that gods made with hands are not gods.

So this was very effective evangelism that Paul was engaged in. Why? Not because of Paul’s skill, but because of God’s work. So I love the way our section (Acts 19.11-20) begins:

And God…

You could almost say those two words sum up the Book of Acts. And God… What happened after Jesus was crucified, resurrected and ascended, and the Holy Spirit was poured out? And God… Acts is all about what God does. So it is here, in this section. And there are five realities that I want us to see here, five realities that are true for us today:

1. God has miracle working power

Take a look at Acts 19.11-12:

And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them.

The Bible scholar F. F. Bruce has a fascinating explanation of the precise nature of these handkerchiefs and aprons of Paul’s, from the words used for them. They were, he says:

…the sweat rags being used for tying round his head and the aprons for tying round his waist while he was doing his tent making.

Be that as it may, perhaps we find these miracles rather surprising and even disturbing, but the living God is surprising and disturbing, and the key to understanding what’s going on here is exactly that it is God who is doing these miracles. It’s not some power of Paul’s. Even less is it some magic power in these rags. This is God at work, as he chooses, in this time and place. Even relative to other apostolic miracles in Acts, these are, says Luke, extraordinary. They’re extraordinary because of the means by which they happen – these rags and aprons. They’re also extraordinary in their scope; diseases left the sick and evil spirits came out of them. In fact, all of this should remind us of Jesus. Luke has already told us (in Luke 8) how a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years came through the pressing crowd to Jesus and was healed when she touched the fringe of his robe. And Jesus said (Luke 8.46):

Someone touched me, for I perceive that power has gone out from me.

How was she healed? By the power of Jesus. And that’s exactly what’s going on back in Acts 19. Then just after healing that woman, (Luke 9.1) Jesus:

…called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases…

So, in Acts 19, who was doing these miracles through Paul in Ephesus? Acts 19.11:

And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul…

Jesus is God. This was the power of Jesus at work. God still has miracle-working power. If you get the chance to chat to Jonathan Redfearn (our senior assistant minister who’s on long term sick leave) ask him to tell you about the three miracles he’s seen in his life since he had his brain tumour op. Just don’t expect to be able to manipulate and control God to do miracles for you as if by magic. That’s the whole point of what we’re coming on to. But don’t miss the reality of the miracle-working power of God, God’s actions are sovereign and free. When our vision of God is too small (as it is) then a glimpse of his power is mind-blowing. So, how big is our vision of God? Let’s pray that the Lord will open our minds and expand our grasp of how great he is. God has miracle-working power.

2. Spiritual warfare is real

On to Acts 19.13-14:

Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.” Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva [quite possibly a phoney high priest self-styled for commercial purposes – who knows] were doing this.

The seven sons of Sceva might have been con-artists, but the evil spirits were real enough, as they were about to discover. And we’ve already seen how evil spirits came out of people by the miracle-working power of God through Paul. There is more going on in creation than meets the eye. Secular materialism won’t wash when it encounters the Biblical world view, and what the divine eyes of Jesus saw. There are whole dimensions of creation that are invisible to us. There are angels and demons – the minions of Satan and fallen heavenly beings, implacably hostile to God and goodness. As Paul himself later wrote to the church in Ephesus (this is Ephesians 6.12):

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Our materialistic culture is blind to this reality, but what the blind can’t see can still be there. Some of you might remember the mission weeks that we had here all the way back in the 1990s with the remarkable Australian evangelist John Chapman. Before he came he sent us a recorded message urging us to pray, and he talked about how the lies that keep people from putting their trust in Jesus were from the pit of hell. He was right. Our dear friend Bishop John Ellison (now gone to glory) said to me once that in our current context we need to make sure that we have a robust theology of spiritual warfare because that’s what we’re engaged in. I’ve never met an evil spirit as far as I’m aware, but I have encountered evil from the pit of hell, maybe you have too. We need to be careful and take the sound advice of C.S.Lewis that we should give the devil and his demons neither too little attention nor too much, but we need to know that spiritual warfare is real. Do we reckon with the reality of this invisible war that’s raging all around us?

3. Playing with this fire is dangerous

That’s so obvious when you see what happened next to those seven sons of Sceva. This is in Acts 19.15-16, but let’s recap from Acts 19.13-16:

Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.” Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. But the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?” And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.

This would be almost be comic if it weren’t so serious. These travelling Jewish exorcists were clearly trying to make a living from claiming to be able to cast out evil spirits. They were also clearly either frauds or failures and probably both, because when the saw what God was doing through Paul, they recognised the real thing, and they knew they didn’t have it. The mistake they made was that they didn’t repent and believe the gospel of Jesus that Paul was teaching. Instead, they thought they could see a way to make a quick buck. They thought they could manipulate this power they saw at work through Paul. They thought they now had the magic name and they could wield it like a magic wand. They were wrong. This evil spirit’s ominous and threatening conversation starter is a reminder of what the apostle James says when he’s talking about the difference between true and false faith. He says (this is James 2.19):

Even the demons believe – and shudder!

Acts 19.15:

“Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?”

The evil spirit knows that Jesus and his servant through Jesus only have to say a word and he’s done for. He cannot stand against them. But he also knows that these seven sons of Sceva don’t know Jesus and they don’t know what they’re dealing with. They are sitting ducks in the face of real evil. The power of this evil spirit may be nothing against Jesus, but it’s more than they can handle. They are mastered and overpowered by the evil spirit. Not a good place to be. They flee naked and wounded. By the restraining grace of God they live to tell the tale and are given time to repent yet. They were playing with fire, and they got burnt. What about you? Are there ways in which you have been playing with fire? Messing with what you know to be evil, thinking that you can handle it? Maybe you’ve been involved with occult experiences of some form. Maybe it’s been evil in another form. The fact that you’re here means that by the restraining grace of God you have the opportunity to repent and find freedom through faith in Jesus. Talk to Jesus about it. Trust in him. And it might well help to talk to a Christian you have confidence in. You’re not alone. Spiritual warfare is real, and playing with this fire is dangerous.

4. Real repentance can be costly

It is absolutely characteristic of the work of God that he uses even evil for his good purposes, and that’s what happens here. On to Acts 19.17-19:

And this became known to all the residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks. And fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled. Also many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices. And a number of those who had practised magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the value of them and found it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver.

Here’s another example of the surprising and disturbing power of God at work. This is basically the outbreak of revival as a result of the testimony of an evil spirit that becomes widely known:

“Jesus I know, and Paul I recognise, but who are you?”

Fear falls on them all: a proper fear of the living God, a proper fear of Jesus. They had been living under the fear of evil and occult powers – but with no fear of the living God. All topsy-turvy. Now their lives are turned right way up. They no longer need to fear evil, but they learn a right fear of God. God is sovereign, free, powerful, surprising and disturbing. He is also good, gracious, holy, and glorious. Fear falling on them leads on to freedom and forgiveness. They also immediately see that they cannot stay as they are; sinful practices and sinful things need to be purged from their lives. And that’s costly because they’ve invested a lot in them. But they burn them all. They realise that they must all go. To the value of fifty thousand silver coins – drachmas. How much was that worth? Comparisons are always hard, but one drachma was roughly pay for a day’s labour. Fifty thousand is a lot to burn. Why did they do it? Because they realised that what they had found was worth giving up everything for. So there is an undercurrent of exhilarating joy about this because what they have now is far more valuable than all that. It’s a lesson we need to learn. Are we missing out on the freedom of forgiveness and life with Christ because of our reluctance to repent and take the consequences? Is there something you need to do? Something in your life you need to be rid of – however valuable it has been to you? Real repentance can be costly but it’s nothing to the price that Jesus paid to set us free from sin, Satan and death. And it’s nothing to the eternal life he’s freely given us. Then finally:

5. Jesus and his word are inevitably victorious

We’ve already seen in Acts 19.17 how their new found Godly fear lead them to lift high the name of Jesus:

Fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled.

And that was only the beginning. Acts 19.20:

So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.

Or to put it another way – as we started (Acts 19.11):

And God was doing extraordinary miracles.

And God, it’s all about the unstoppable work of God. Whatever Satan and his minions throw at it, the word of God cannot be contained or constrained. It will do the work for which God sent it out into the world. So it continues today. By 1953 in China, all the Protestant missionaries had been expelled, and there were maybe one million Protestant Christians. Today there are tens of millions. And look around you this evening. If you’re a believer, look at your own heart. Every believer among us has miraculously been given the gift of faith. Despite all that the powers of evil try to do to prevent it, the word of the Lord continues to increase and prevail mightily. The church in this country is in crisis, but that must not be blind us to the underlying reality. So are we realistically and joyfully optimistic about the growth of Christ’s kingdom in the world? We should be.

So there are five questions for us to reflect on, in the light of these five realities. How big is our vision of God? Do we reckon with the reality of the invisible war? Are there ways in which we are playing with fire? Are we missing out on the freedom of forgiveness in Christ because of our reluctance to repent and take the consequences? And are we realistically and joyfully optimistic about the growth of Christ’s kingdom around the world? Let’s pray:

“And God…” Heavenly Father we praise you that you are a sovereign, free, powerful, surprising and disturbing Lord – and that you are good, holy, gracious and glorious. Increase our faith. Protect us from evil. Help us by the power of your Spirit to turn away from all that is sinful and evil in our lives, whatever the cost, because knowing Jesus is worth so much more. And Lord we praise you that for all the pressures that we face, we can be confident that nothing can prevent the progress of your word across the world. In the name of Jesus, our precious Lord and Saviour, Amen.