Latest / United Baptist Church / Ministry in Ephesus
Transcript
- We are 19 chapters into the Book of Acts, so it seemed like a good time to refresh ourselves and some of the basics of this book. Some of you have joined us partway through. Some are here for the first or second time. So let me connect some dots for you. Is the air conditioning too much? Is it blown? Okay. It's just loud. There's. I can't reach the remote from here. It's on the back there. Sam, you want to grab it? I bet if you put it to auto or something, it'll settle down or tell it to be quiet or don't turn it off. I think. Yeah. Settings Auto. You need some glasses. It is loud, isn't it? I'm not complaining about the heat, though, are we? No. And we're blessed to have a seat right here. You shut it down, buddy. That's all right. I don't know how to run it either, but we want. Yeah, we might figure it out. We might not. Just going to have to be a really concerned that it has to be really loud. So we're connecting dots this morning, going back, realizing that not everybody's been here for this entire series. Some of you are just visiting with us today. Let me give you a little bit of context In this first book, The gospel that bears his name, Luke wrote a record of all that Jesus began to do and teach us the Gospel of Luke. The book of acts that we are studying now is the sequel. It's the second in the series, and it is the accounting of what the risen Jesus continued to do building his church. It is the book of Acts and spells out for us how Jesus would keep His word to His disciples that they should wait in Jerusalem and He would send them a helper x15 John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with a Holy Spirit not many days from now. And Jesus told them, And you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. This promise that Jesus made was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit fell upon the disciples and the expansion of the Gospel into the world in the order with Jesus spoke is exactly what we have seen so far in our study through acts. And when I say gospel, I mean the good news that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God in human form came to this earth to pay the price for our sins through the sacrifice of his life, the shedding of his blood so that guilty sinners can find forgiveness in him and have eternal life. The disciples were to bear witness to this message, to this Jesus who He was, what He did to the reality of his life, his death, and His resurrection. And in these final chapters, we are watching this witness unfold to the ends of the Earth. Our text for today has us in the city of Ephesus, a city in ancient Greece, now modern day Turkey. Ephesus was a major commercial hub with a large and diverse population and an intersection of Roman roads on which the gospel would travel in and eventually travel out. And Ephesus is the last place where the Apostle Paul would actively minister for any length of time as a free man. We are looking at two encounters in Ephesus today, one with the Apostle Paul and the second with the sons of Siva. In these stories, we're going to see how essential it is that we know Jesus, not just know of Him, but to have the Holy Spirit living in us. Let's pray, Father, always, as we come to your Word, we do so humbly, reverently, gratefully thankful that you have shared with us your story, that it is ours, that it helps us to understand who you are. It gives us also some insight into who we are in relation to you. And as we study this word this morning, Lord, we pray for the outpouring of your spirit in our lives, in our minds and hearts, that we might understand rightly what it is you're trying to convey. We ask these things in the name of Jesus. Amen. So versus 1 to 7 of Acts nine is considered by many to be a difficult passage. Maybe you've been reading along and you knew where we were heading and you might have had that exact same thought. This is going to be a tough one. I think in part, at least, this passage is considered difficult because it's not usually considered, in my experience anyway, as part of the whole. The late Tim Keller was a great example and teacher of preaching, and he encourages us pastors and I would expand this to everyone who reads the Bible to ask certain questions of every text that you come to. Questions like these. What is the goal of the passage? What does the author intend for you to know or feel or do? How does the passage fit in or advance the theme of the book? These kind of questions help us read the parts as they relate to the whole and guard against misinterpretation and misapplication. So in these stories, what is Luke conveying? Is it his intention to put forth a theology of the baptism of the Holy Spirit? Is he laying out a formula for the sequence of how one experiences and receives the spirit? That is how some have viewed these words, but I would say no and suggest there is a simpler, more straightforward way to see the stories. I boil it down to this We need Jesus. We need Jesus. Acts 19, verse one. And it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country and came to emphasis there. He found some disciples. And we're reading this passage. Here's where we get tripped up right out of the blocks. Paul is coming back to emphasis. He told them they'd asked him to stay, remember, and he'd stayed for a while. But he said, I've got to go, but I'll return if it's God's will. Clearly it's God's will. Paul is back in emphasis and the first thing he does is he found some disciples. And when we read that word disciples, we probably think followers of Jesus, because that's how we understand disciples. And while the term obviously is used often in the New Testament to refer to Christian disciples, it's not exclusive to that. And keep that in mind. The word means learner and follower. That's what it means to be a disciple or a disciple is an inherent to a school of thought, sometimes to an individual. Twice before, in his previous book in Luke, Luke used this term to refer to the followers of John the Baptist. And again, it is used many times to refer to Christians. It doesn't automatically equate to Christian. In verse one of Chapter 19, Paul found some disciples. So there's no question whatsoever that they are disciples. They're believers in someone or something. The question is what do they believe and who or what are they following? So right away, Paul asks an interesting question. Follow along. If you've got your Bible of follow along, you want to follow this one. Paul asked them an interesting question. What inspires this question is not known to us. Luke, in his famous by now economy of words, doesn't give us all the explanation, but something specific quite likely brought it on because it's not the sort of thing that one asks, just as a matter of course. In fact, it's probably a question that you've really never asked anybody. We find it in verse two. He said to them, Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? So you get to wonder right away, was there something wrong with these Ephesians men that Paul could discern quickly that they may not have the Holy Spirit? Was there no evidence in their conversation? No evidence in their conduct before Paul that would help him to see that they had the spirit as possible? Because the Scripture is clear. I'm sure you know this. You've read Galatians chapter five. You know, there is such a thing as the fruit of the spirit, and we will know the presence of the spirit in our lives by the fruit that we produce. Jesus is clear about that. And the fruit of the spirit of these things. Right? LOVEJOY Peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. If one doesn't have any of those characterized sticks in his or her life, there's a good chance that the Holy Spirit is not in that person's life. So it's possible that Paul had made that observation of these men at Ephesus, and that inspired his challenging questions. But I want to put forth a more what I think more probable or plausible explanation. You may or may not know of what scholars call the Baptist movement. And the Baptist movement is not the history of the Baptist denomination. It is the existence of adherence to the teaching of John the Baptist. John the Baptist had lots of followers. He was a very popular speaker. We might imagine that he had lots of followers. Mark tells us that in his heyday, all of Judea went out to hear him. That's a lot of people and a lot of people were convinced and convicted by what John the Baptist had to say. So he he brought to himself a lot of disciples. At least two of Jesus disciples, according to John Chapter one, were previously disciples of John the Baptist. They left John the Baptist to follow Jesus. But here's the thing. Not everybody that followed John the Baptist ended up following Jesus. Not everyone who received him believed in John's message of repentance and a coming savior. Got the news that the Savior had actually come. In fact, people were still calling themselves disciples of John the Baptist. Certainly at the time of this encounter. So we're getting here a little snapshot into how messy first century Christianity was and how many competing ideas and philosophies and whatnot were melding and coming together. There were plenty of people who still consider themselves to be disciples of John the Baptist at the time of this encounter. But scholars say into the second century ad and some say as far as the fourth century A.D., there were still disciples of John the Baptist. And we might wonder, how could that be? How can people not know about Jesus if they're followers of John the Baptist? How could that be? Friend You've got to try to put yourself there, okay? There's no daily news. There's no Internet, there's no TV. There's no global network for getting information from one place to another. There's a lot of information out there. It's circulating word of mouth, but there's also a lot of misinformation out there circulating the same way. And the Ephesians doesn't hear. We found Paul tells us there were 12 of them were believers, in the words of John the Baptist, either because that's all they had known, they hadn't heard about Jesus or Let me throw one other thing out there for you to think about, perhaps because they had been taught by Apollos, Oh, what do we know about Apollos? Besides that, he was alerted man from Alexandria, an eloquent teacher. We know that initially on coming to Ephesus and before being enlightened by Priscilla Nicholas. And now we're back in chapter 18, some of the territory we covered last week. Verse 25, he had been instructed in the way of the Lord and being fervent in spirit. He spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. Well, we conclude at last week was that Apollos was a nice guy who believed in what John the Baptist had preached and taught and promoted. But he his understanding in his theology was incomplete. So Priscilla and Aquila pulled him aside and gently filled him in so that when he taught, he would teach more accurately. Apollos knew only the baptism of John. As a result, while he was a good preacher and an eloquent so that people wanted to listen to him, what he taught reflected the truths that John the Baptist taught and proclaimed and preached and was in complete because Apollo's own understanding for a time was incomplete. So these men that Paul encounters, they might be straight up disciples of John the Baptist had nothing to do with Apollos. Quite possibly, they might also have sat at Apollo's feet before. Apollos was enlightened before he learned about and received the rest of the story, which is the good news of the gospel and the salvation that's available through Jesus. Now, if that is the case, either case, Paul would ask about their experience with the Spirit, not because he's looking at these people and seeing men who are mired in the deeds of the flesh, obviously devoid of the spirit, but because if they're disciples of John the Baptist, or if they had sat under Apollos before Apollo had the full story, their faith would not be in Jesus. Saving Belief requires the Spirit is and is accompanied by the Spirit. They had not heard about Christ's life, about His death, about his resurrection. They didn't know about the promise that Jesus made. They didn't know about the helper. They didn't know about the day of Pentecost, which explains their response. And they said, No, no, we haven't even heard there is a Holy Spirit. So no, we don't. We haven't received the Holy Spirit. We don't even really know what you're talking about and that we can't take that literally, I don't think, because John the Baptist himself preached about the Holy Spirit, not as good. They didn't think there was that a Holy Spirit existed. Right. John the Baptist says Matthew 311 I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who's coming after me is mightier than I who sandals I am not worthy to carry or tie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. John the Baptist talked about the Holy Spirit. So when they said, We don't even know there's a Holy Spirit, they're probably not saying we're not aware of his existence, but we are saying we don't understand this idea of an indwelling Holy Spirit who comes to live in a believer. They didn't know Holy Spirit power. They didn't know of a spirit who comes to dwell in everyone who receives Christ by faith. So Paul continues his questions to ascertain their true status. Verse three into What then? Were you baptized? And they said, into John's baptism, What is baptism? What baptism is a lot of things, but baptism is ID Christian baptism is identification with Christ. When you want to be baptized, you say you want to be baptized. It is a public thing and we are going to stand in front of anybody who will come in in this church. Somebody a lot of people to watch. You identify yourself publicly with Jesus Christ. Baptism is, among other things, identification. Christian baptism is identification with Christ. John's baptism is identification with John. So Paul said, John baptized with baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him. Would you agree with that? And that's what you would be saying to them. You heard the message of John. What did John say? John said one is coming. Who is mightier than I? One is coming. And what Paul's doing now is let me fill in the blank for you. He's come and his name is Jesus. And on hearing the rest of the story, they were verse five, baptize in the name of the Lord Jesus. So these men were disciples, but they were not disciples of Christ. They were disciples of John. And when they heard that Jesus was the one John had predicted was talking about, they changed their identification, they changed their allegiance, and they were baptized into Jesus. They did not know about the Person of the Holy Spirit. So Paul laid his hands on them and they were introduced to the Holy Spirit and they were introduced to Him in a fashion similar to what we saw at Pentecost. Now, at Pentecost in chapter two, we saw how believers spoke in the languages of the visitors to the city. So even foreigners in the city, Jerusalem was full of foreigners at the time. And these people, the disciples began speaking in all these foreign languages. They were no languages but not known to them. And in Samaria and here in Ephesus, some say the tongues that are spoken are the same as the ones at Pentecost. But we can't be sure and we don't need to be sure. These men may have simply been given utterance by the Spirit to speak in an unknown tongue as evidence of the overpowering spirit of God on them. The point is not and this is where people get hung up and where people kind of maybe get argumentative. The point is not what gift these men exercised upon experiencing the spirit, but that the spirit fell upon them when Paul laid hands on them. That's the point. They didn't have the spirit. Now they have the spirit. How that manifests is not the major teaching. They didn't have the Holy Spirit prior to this. They had not been baptized as Jesus commanded in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. They needed to be saved and they needed to have the Spirit living in them. Because if the Spirit had not come upon them again, this is the major piece of the Spirit had not come upon them, they would not be saved. That's what's confusing about the passage know how can these disciples not have the spirit? How can you be a disciple? And they weren't. And Paul helped them to become disciples. ROMANS eight nine says Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him. You have to have the Spirit to be saved. So the emphasis doesn't devote, as they were dedicated, as they were disciples of John the Baptist, needed to know Jesus, and by God's grace they came to know Him. The next story from our passage also contains some characters who likewise did not follow Jesus and did not have the Spirit. Verse 13 If you're following along, it's 1913. Then some of the itinerant Jewish ecstasies undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits saying, I adore you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims, I got to say, I love how this story begins. This story has always been one of my favorite stories in the Bible, but maybe not for a great reason. It makes me laugh and I think I'm not being reverent with this passage, but it does. It makes me giggle. Then some of the itinerant Jewish exegesis I'm reading that right away. I can't help, but I'm like some of them like not all. Okay. Which makes me wonder, like, how many of these guys are out there, these Jewish itinerant actresses running around? What kind of market is there for Jewish itinerant actresses? But anyway, that's it. They are they are Jewish, very specific. They are itinerant, which means they're traveling exorcists. I don't know how you get that job. I don't know who necessarily would want it, but they are not nailed down to time and place. And they are exorcists. They're demon fighters. That's quite a resume that these guys have. Some of these guys, King James versions, calls them Vagabond Jews, took it upon themselves to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits. Brothers and sisters. Let me say this just in case you're wondering, evil spirits are real. Evil spirits are real. The Bible teaches this without a cause. I know people today in our society were so enlightened that we don't believe in sort of these things that Scripture tells us. So very clearly. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, do we? We don't we wrestle against these principalities, against their evil spirits are real. And so one of the enemies greatest tricks is to get you to believe that they're not real or that he's not really imagining the chaos and destruction an enemy can do. If you don't believe that enemy exists, evil spirits are real. The Bible takes us as a given, and so do I. And Ephesus is a city known to be a haven of demonic activity. And as we've already seen through our study and as we'll see again that ancient culture possessed and employed a a wide variety, a mix of many beliefs, Sorceress magic, we've encountered this already a couple of times going through acts. All these different ideas and theories are out there that people adopted and held on to in order to meet their needs for the day. We would call their approach to faith, especially these in Ephesus. Synchronistic a little bit of this and a little bit of that kind of a hodgepodge of beliefs. So these traveling exorcists who are Jewish and come from a priestly line had obviously heard about, if not personally witnessed the power of the name of Jesus over demons. So they caught on to that. Wait a minute. Demons are fleeing at this particular name that is being uttered, and this is the name of Jesus. It's more powerful than the evil spirits they caught on to that anybody? Well, how would they know that verses 11 and 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. You catch that? That's how powerful the name of Jesus is. This is how powerful not Paul. Paul would be the first one to say, I got no power. The Spirit in Paul. The Spirit on Paul The Spirit because of Paul being a willing vessel. And here Luke again is doing his good job of affirming Paul's apostolic credentials. Extraordinary miracles are happening. Even demons are fleeing. So. So they think these actresses, if the name of Jesus works for Paul, maybe it'll work for us. Maybe we can grab that name and use it. These men were not Christians, mind you. Not at all. But they're willing to invoke the name of Christ. Really? They'd be willing to vote, invoke any name that might get them the result that they're hoping to have that's reminiscent of the sailors in the Book of Jonah. Some of you have just come through a Sunday school class on Jonah. Remember, they encouraged everyone on that boat to appeal to their god when that when it got tough, when it got rough, hoping that at least one of those guys might be powerful enough to calm the winds in the waves. You talk to your God, you talk to your ego. Well, this is kind of the similar thing. It's rather like the citizens of Athens. We just went through Paul in Athens, where they've got idols everywhere. And even one erected to an unknown god, just in case, like no offense, but we want to cover all of our bases. That's how these guys are. They're pragmatic. They're not necessarily theology, Nicole. They're certainly not grounded. They'll use any name if it gets them what they want. At least the sons of Siva are honest. They commanded Demon in the name of Jesus, not whom they preach, but whom. Paul proclaims, okay. Again, they are fumbling for a formula here. They are looking for a divine power that might be at the beck and call of themselves if they say the right words or if they say them in the right order. What they're really thinking about or hoping to have in the name of Jesus is sort of a magic spell. And we we can we can be critical of them, but we can use this the same way because Jesus says, Ask for whatever you want in my name and it will be granted to you. And we're like, okay, Jesus, I want a million marks in Jesus name. That's not exactly what it means, but I just throw that out there because some of you have probably asked for some things in Jesus name that might not actually have been in Jesus name. You're looking for power or you're looking to manipulate that name a little bit, and that's what these guys are doing. Act 19, verse 15. But the evil spirit answered them, Jesus, I know. And Paul, I recognize. But who are you? That's a good indication that things are not going well when the demons turn the tables and the Bible says that the man possessed leave it upon the sons of Siva and I want you to picture a lion springing on to its its its prey and tearing it to shreds because that's what's happening here. He attacked all seven of them. The scripture says that he mastered them all, which means he thrashed them soundly. He beat them to pieces and pulled their clothes off and sent them out running naked and afraid. There are times you should be. So this is a story, right, of things not going to plan. That's a bad day for the sons of Siva. And the lesson. What is the lesson? What do we take away from this? Well, I can think of a couple. First, I want to tell you this friend. Don't don't. Don't bring a knife to a gunfight, okay? Don't bring a knife to a gunfight. These guys are completely outmatched. They learn the hard way that there is power in the name of Jesus, but it is not at the disposable disposal of those who are not surrendered to his will. Possessed by him. It's not at the disposal of those who weren't possessed by him in Union with Christ to do his will. Evil can definitely be overcome. But you know what? It can't be overcome in human strength. First, John four four encourages us saying for he who was in you is greater than he who was in the world. The one in us is greater than the one who is in the world. Evil can be overcome, but it's not going to be overcome in human strength. The problem with the sons of Siva is that the spirit wasn't in them. So let me ask, is the spirit in you? Is the spirit in you? Because friends, sin and evil are powerful, and in your battle against sin and evil, you are apt to exit that conflict. Just like the sons of Siva battered and bruised. If you are not first possessed by the Holy Ghost, if you go up against evil without the Holy Ghost, you are taken a knife to a gunfight. The simple principle at play here with the sons of Siva is that evil will not be expelled by evil. So follow me here. Do you remember there was a time in Jesus ministry? I think you'll find this in Mark Chapter three, when he had been casting out demons and the Pharisees accused him of of casting them out in the power of the devil. You remember that? And Jesus said to them, How can Satan cast out? Satan said, That is not how this thing works. A house divided against itself cannot stand. Evil doesn't work against evil, only good overcomes evil, and no one apart from Christ is good. So no one apart from Christ overcomes evil. Only Christ in us, only the Holy Spirit in us truly over comes. Maybe you are here today and you are sick and tired of fighting the same fight against some besetting sin, some habit of behavior or attitude that keeps you from being who and how you know. God wants you to be considered a friend. That the victory you want is found in your surrender to Christ if you are not saved, the answer that you're looking for is to become saved. Jesus invites the weak and weary. Jesus invites the people who are tired of the fight and tired of failing and unable to overcome evil in their own strength. Jesus says, Come to me, come to me and I will give you rest. Join him and he will fight with you and he will fight for you. Fight against him. And you're fighting battles on at least two fronts. You're trying to overcome evil in your own strength and you're trying to keep God at arm's length. No wonder you're exhausted. Come to Christ and find rest. The sons of Siva failed because they, like the emphasis, doesn't didn't have Jesus, didn't have the Holy Spirit, which comes by faith. Further, their behavior exposes something that it's easy to be guilty of and something to be careful that we avoid. I don't think there's a way to put this gingerly. So let me just say, these men were more interested, the sons of Siva, in using Jesus than being used by Jesus. They wanted his power, but they didn't really want him. They only wanted him for what he could do for them, not for what they could do for him. You might recall back in Chapter eight, a fellow named Simon, the magician, who when he saw how the spirit was given through the the laying on of the Apostles hands, he tried to buy that. You remember that. And he said to them, Give me this power. And he was harshly rebuked. You remember that too. We should. You and I never desire the signs over the source. Sometimes we can desire the gifts of God more than we desire God himself. So keep it in mind, Christian. God gives us the gift of himself. Not so we can use him for our glory, but rather so we can be used by him for His glory. He gives us the gifts of the Spirit to be used in service to others for the purpose of edifying building up the body which is the church, not to make much of ourselves, but to make much of him, and to show love to our brothers and sisters. When word of this encounter of the sons of Siva spread verse 17 says, Fear fell upon them all in the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled, Magnify the Apostle Paul's God was so powerful, even his handkerchiefs could do what seven religious men couldn't think about. Think about that story. These guys failed miserably. But you know what? This guy's apron sends the demons flying this Lord Jesus and has something to this Lord Jesus. We need to look into this Lord Jesus. And then something interesting happens verses 18 and 19. Also, many of those who are now believers came confessing in divulging their practices. What we're really talking about is sort of a revival of sorts, and a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the side of all, and they counted the value of them and found it came to 50 pieces of silver. So Luke adds, That's that We know that's a lot of books, a lot of writings that were burned. So what's happening is that as a true theory of God fell over the people, many of the believers were convicted. One of the roles of the Holy Spirit is to convict us, right when we're when we're out of line, He convicts us. And these these believers, these were believers. These were disciples. They came forward. They were believers who had had maybe hidden or not yet fully abandoned their sinful practices. Maybe they were believers who didn't quite understand all about the of their involvement in magic arts. Maybe maybe some who were still trusting in these things was sort of that Jesus and the approach that some people take. I want to cover all my bases. I'm I'm not against Jesus. I'm I'm all right with Jesus. But I also believe this that in the other, which is counter to Jesus, they might have been some of that going on. They came convicted of all these things and wanting to forsake them, and they brought their books of spells and their books of incantations and their heresies together, and they burned them as a public testimony. They are forsaking these things. They are giving them up. They are literally separating these sources of sin from themselves. The spirit has led them to this book burning. Book burning had happened before in this part of the ancient world, but most always it was coerced. It was some powerful political figure that made people get rid of certain documents or government that that made people get rid of their books, that that held contrary messages to what the government of the powerful person wanted to promote. But this is not that is different. This this is voluntary because this is not just a bunch of people trying to purge society of what it finds objectionable. It is people seeking to purge their lives of what they now know God finds objectionable. On the one hand, that can be somewhat symbolic, right? Let's just get rid of all the bad stuff. That's not what this is. This is not a symbolic thing. This is the Holy Spirit convicting believers. It says, listen, if you're going to follow me, you need to put some of these things away. This is totally voluntary and we can learn from that conviction a bit. I think at least this we have to be intentional about putting away doing away with sin and what tempts us before it does away with us. That's Johnno and that's how it sets the modification of sin. B Killing sin or sin will be killing you. Jesus preached exactly this. He talked about this radical approach that we should take. He says, If your eye causes you to sin, what should you do with? It Pluck it out. If your hand causes you to sin, what should you do about that? Cut it off. Now. Is Jesus here talking about self surgery? Is he endorsing mutilation? You know, what is he trying to help us see? He's trying to help us see how deadly sin is and how important it is that when we recognize it in our lives, that we separate it from ourselves as fast and efficiently as we possibly can. That is what Jesus is teaching and that is what's happening here with these Ephesians believers. It is so drastically important for us to separate ourselves from the sin that wants to master us from the deceitfulness of sins. The writer of Hebrews Chapter three tells us the deceitfulness of sin, which, when it is engaged in over and again, and a person is not held to account, leads to a hardness of heart, a hardness of heart that can't be turned back from a comfortable ness with sin, a comfortable illness, with the things that offend God. And not only does it lead to hardness of heart, but the Scripture is very clear. Again, in Proverbs, it it leads to death. Romans says that the wages of sin is death. Proverbs says that there is a way that seems right to a man, the end thereof is death, that is sin. And that is what Jesus is trying to help us to see. We've got to get rid of sin or he'll kill us. The believers at Ephesus have seen the miracle working power of Paul. I have heard about the disastrous attempts of the sons of Siva to cast out a demon by the name of Jesus without having Jesus. And they're making a bold statement here by offering their valuable but evil goods to the bonfire. I can imagine I can almost see somebody that You're coming to the bonfire tonight. We're going to burn some books and somebody's sitting home and they're doing this and they're going, I paid a lot for this book. Yeah, but it's just. Yeah, but it is expensive, but it's trash. Maybe I can get something for it. Sometimes my imagination gets a little far afield. It was costly what they did. That's why Luke gives us the number they were willing to do. What cost them to follow Jesus because they were convinced and convicted by the Holy Spirit, that that was the thing to do. These guys are done playing it, done being double minded. They're all in. And I want to ask you today, Christian, can you relate to that? Can you relate to that? Is this a step that you need to take in order to renew the Spirit's power in your life? The Ephesians doesn't. We're close, but not quite there in their relationship to God. They they were what Alistair Begg calls 12 almost Christians, what John Stark calls Old Testament believers. They had an Old Testament faith, but they hadn't come to know Christ. The sons of Siva believed in something too. They would have been regarded as godly. They were religiously inquisitive, religiously inclined, even religiously affiliated. They come from a line of priests. So they believed in something too. But as we can see and we must understand, beloved, this is true. It doesn't matter what society tells you, not all belief is created equal. Not all belief is created equal, and sincerity of belief cannot compensate for misplaced belief or misplaced faith. One must believe in. Put faith in the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved and to receive the indwelling powerful Holy Spirit. Our section concludes with verse 20, and so will we, bringing us back to one of the major themes of this book of acts. Just an encourage you note to end on the Word of the Lord, continue to increase and prevail mightily. The word of the Lord continue to increase and prevail mightily.