"Ephesus, Where Even the Demons Know His Name" Acts 19:11-20 Sunday Morning Worship Service

Let me invite you to open your Bibles to Acts chapter 19.

Acts 19 · chapter mention

Acts chapter 19, our text for this morning.

Acts 19 · chapter mention

We have sung of the love that we now experience for the Lord Jesus that He's placed in His in our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

We have witnessed a new believer confessing that in baptismal waters, and now we will study a passage of scripture that helps us to understand even better.

God works in a heart when he brings them to faith in Jesus.

Acts chapter 19, verses 11 through 20 is our text for this morning.

Acts 19:11–20

We all love origin stories.

We as Americans treasure many of our foundational American institutions and we love to recount the origins of them.

And so we spend many hours and much time to make sure that the next generation understands the founding of our institutions, of our democracy, of our constitution.

We make sure that they understand the increase in freedoms in our country through suffrage and civil rights movements.

We draw inspiration from these origin stories, and we even enjoy slightly more trivial origin stories than some of the major corporations in our country.

We draw inspiration from hearing that Nike started from a guy selling sneakers out of the back of his car track meets, or that Apple started with two guys named Steve in a garage.

We even draw inspiration from the origin stories of that great American institution, you know, superhero movies.

The church at Ephesus was a Christian institution.

And as Jesse is about to begin a sermon series through the book of Ephesians in a couple weeks, it is appropriate for us to look at the origins of the church in Ephesus.

And that's what chapter 19 of the Book of Acts is.

Ephesus was a major city in the Roman Empire.

It was the fourth largest in the entire sphere of the Empire.

Its population range between two and four hundred thousand, which was massive at the time.

The heart of the city was a 25,000-seat arena.

Just outside of it was a massive temple to Artemis, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

It was on a port in the Mediterranean.

It was a thriving hub of commerce.

It was a cosmopolitan city with business coming in and people going out.

This was a massive major metropolitan center in the ancient world.

And this is the place where God and his providence caused the gospel to take deep root.

And he began to grow a church that was instrumental in founding the first century church in the ancient world.

There's a verse in the end of chapter 19, in verse 10, rather, in chapter 19, verse 10, that summarizes Paul's ministry in Ephesus.

Look at your Bibles at verse 10.

Excuse me.

Verse 10, it reads, That Paul's ministry in the city continued for two years, so all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.

And so for two years, Paul's pastoring in Ephesus.

People are being converted, and he's ministering the full counsel of God to them, and they're growing in their faith.

And many of these people happen to have been in Ephesus because of their business travels.

They hear the gospel.

They're trained by Paul, and they go out to the places where they came and they share the gospel and plant churches.

In fact, to the best of our knowledge, it seems that the church in Colossae, which received the letter of the Colossians that we have in our New Testament, was planted by a man named Epaphras, who came to faith in Ephesus through Paul's ministry in this period.

So this was an instrumental church planting city.

Ephesus continued to grow and became probably the most mature church in the first century.

When Jesus in the book of Revelation writes his seven letters to the seven churches, Ephesus is first on the list.

They're the leading church in the ancient world.

They're the church who has Timothy as their pastor after Paul.

And that is the place where Paul writes the two letters, first and second Timothy.

And they are the church that receives the magisterial letter to the Ephesians.

This great trove of theological truth that through the ages of Christians have called the divinest letter that men have ever written in such things.

It's an incredible letter because it was written to a mature church.

And so as we are about to embark on a study of the book of Ephesians, it's appropriate as a church body to recount the origin story of this church.

So last week at Sunday evening service, Jesse preached Acts chapter 19, verses 1 through 10, which, if you didn't get to hear that sermon, I beg you to avail yourself of it.

Acts 19:1–10

It's phenomenally helpful.

And the next two Sunday mornings, we will look at the rest of the chapter of chapter 19 of the book of Acts.

So before we dive in this morning, let me just give you a little bit of a framework for this chapter.

Verses 1 through 10 recount a summary of Paul's ministry in Ephesus.

And I think it'd be helpful just to read the end of that summary.

If you look in your Bibles, verses 8 through 10 summarize Paul's ministry.

Acts 19, verse 8 says, Paul entered the synagogue and for three months spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God.

Acts 19:8

But when some became stubborn and continued in unbelief, speaking evil of the way before the congregation, he withdrew from them and took the disciples with him, reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus.

And this continued for two years, so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.

There's a summary statement of this incredible, ongoing, significant ministry that Paul had in the city of Ephesus.

The rest of the chapter recounts two snapshot incidents to give us a sense of what life was like in this foundational period of the planting of the church in Ephesus, and that's what we will look at both this week and next.

So let's begin our morning by reading the text before us.

Let me read for us.

Acts 19, verses eleven through twenty.

Will you follow with me in your Bibles as I read?

Acts nineteen, verse eleven.

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 evil spirits came out of them.

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 preaches.

Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Skeva 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 leapt on them, mastered all of them, and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.

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 are now believers came confessing and divulging their practices.

And a number of those who had practiced 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.

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

This is the word of the Lord.

The story unfolds in three stages, and this morning we will look at this story as it unfolds before us and apply the truths in it to our lives.

We who walk in the same faith of the Ephesians, who have believed in the same gospel and been sealed with the same Spirit.

We can draw inspiration for our life from the origin story of the Ephesians.

And their story begins in verse 11 with what we can call the Apostles' power.

The Apostles' power in verses 11 and 12.

Look at verse 11.

Notice there's some interesting language that's used here to describe Paul's ministry.

Verse 11, look at your Bible says, And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul.

Isn't that kind of an oxymoronic phrase?

Is there such a thing as an ordinary miracle?

These are not the regular miracles, they're the extraordinary ones.

The Greek text, if you were to render it really literally, this is a good smooth English sentence, really, if you were to render it very wooden literally, it says, God was doing miracles, not the ordinary ones.

That's what's happening.

What does that mean?

Well, look at verse 12, and we see what that means.

So even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched Paul's skin were carried away from the carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them, and the evil spirits came out of them.

That's crazy.

That doesn't happen anywhere else in the New Testament.

This is extraordinary.

This is wild.

I mean, can you imagine the scene?

They're carrying away sweatbands, which is what the handkerchiefs are.

Handkerchiefs in this context would have been a bandana that you'd wear around your head to absorb sweat as you're working.

And so commentators think either Paul was using this while he was working as a tent maker, or more likely, these are the bandanas that he was wearing as he was preaching all afternoon in the hall of Tyrannus, training up the church in the word of the Lord.

It was customary that an orator would wear a bandana while he was speaking, especially if he's doing it in the heat of the day, which it seems to be that was what Paul was doing.

So can you imagine that scene?

They're in this hall, and Paul's preaching, and he's doing this for hours, people are being built up and they're worshiping, and at the end of it, Paul leaves and people are clamoring to get his headband.

You know, the scene I have in my mind is like LeBron James walking down the tunnel after a game, and people are like, give me your sweatband.

Which I don't understand that at all.

I don't know what that gets you.

Just a stinky sweatband.

At least Paul's sweatbands drove out demons.

But the point of the text here is not that we would go on eBay and search out relics of Paul's preserved sweat, but there's something in verse 11 that we ought to see.

It's really clear, verse 11.

God, God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul.

You see what's happening here is that God is making it obvious that he is at work in the life and ministry of Paul to validate the apostolic ministry.

That was the point of the miracle, to validate apostolic ministry.

And this gives us an opportunity to reflect for a moment on some observations about what miracles did, what was their function or purpose in the New Testament.

I'd like to just make a couple observations, positively and negative, about the role of miracles in the New Testament.

Positively, the role of miracles in the New Testament was to validate the foundation ministry of the New Covenant, to validate the foundation ministry of the New Covenant.

What do I mean by that?

And let me read you a couple verses and I think it'll become apparent.

In Acts chapter 2, the first Christian sermon preached by Peter on the day of Pentecost, he describes Jesus this way.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Acts 2.22, he says, Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst.

So there it is.

The Messiah, the founder of the new covenant, who by his blood, through his perfect life, death, and resurrection, inaugurates the new covenant so that all who repent and embrace him, have their sins forgiven, and are brought into everlasting relationship with God, that that founder, Jesus Christ, the Messiah, has his ministry attested by God with signs and wonders.

But it's not just the Messiah who founds the new covenant, whose ministry is validated by miracles, it's also the eyewitness apostolic prophetic testimony that is also validated by miracles.

You see this in 2 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 12, where Paul says, You know I'm a true apostle, because the signs of a true apostle were performed among you.

2 Corinthians 12:12

So God's at work in the apostolic ministry, validating their foundation ministry through miracles.

Finally, you see this in Hebrews chapter 2, verses 3 and 4, which speaking about the gospel message, the writer of Hebrews says it was declared first by the Lord, that's Jesus, and attested by those who heard, that's the apostles and those with them, while God bore witness by signs, wonders, and various miracles.

Hebrews 2:3

The function of miracles in the New Testament was to validate the foundation ministry of new cu of the new covenant.

That's the positive role of miracles.

That leads us to a couple negative observations about miracles.

And here's the first one Miracles don't happen in that way anymore.

They don't.

Now, what I mean by that is not that God can't do miracles anymore.

God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

He has the same supernatural, sovereign power at his disposal.

If he wants to do a miracle, he can.

And we are told to pray to this God who has become our Father for all things pertaining to our lives.

And if God chooses to answer one of our prayers through what appears in every way to be a manifestation of his supernatural power, praise the Lord.

But there are no more individuals running around into the 21st century doing miracles by their own hands like the Apostle Paul.

There are no more, we could say, miracle workers like this.

And I know this for two reasons.

Number one is a common sense observation.

Do you know how I know there aren't any more Paul-like miracle workers?

Because if you want to heal somebody, we send you to medical school.

For a good reason.

And the second reason I know that we don't have miracle workers like this is because it's what Paul taught the Ephesian church.

When he later wrote a letter to these people who had watched him perform these supernatural works of healing, he didn't instruct them, now that I'm gone, go find the next miracle worker.

Rather, he taught them to be impressed by the miracle God was still doing among them, which was something different.

Here's what I mean.

Ephesians chapter 2, Paul describes the church as a building.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

He uses his metaphor of a building.

And he says the foundation of the church is the apostles and prophets, Jesus himself being the cornerstone, and then successive stories are being added to the church as generation by generation, people from all tribes, tongues, and nations, that's people like us, are believing the gospel and coming into the church.

You get the picture?

Now I confess that I am absolutely useless as a handyman.

So I don't understand construction very well.

In fact, on all of the times that Tom Joyce has gone around recruiting men from our church to go with him on a mission trip to build a church building, he's never asked me to go with him.

But I do know this.

You're gonna build a house, you're gonna do it well, you lay the foundation once, and you do it well.

And Jesus did a pretty good job when he laid the foundation of his church.

He laid a foundation which was the prophets and the apostles.

What does that mean?

Well, Jesus himself inaugurates the new covenant, he sends the prophets and the apostles to found the first churches, and the culmination of their ministry is the writing of the New Testament.

And the writing of the New Testament is now sufficient to fulfill the ongoing mission of the church through the successive generations, the stories that are being added onto that foundation.

So we just have to ask the question: what is the mission of the church?

Is it to just gather a crowd and impress people?

No.

The mission of the church is stated very clearly by Jesus Himself.

He resurrects from the dead at the end of Matthew's gospel, gathers his disciples to him in Galilee, and says to them, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, so you better listen to what I'm about to say.

Here's the mission: make disciples of all the nations.

That is the laser beam-focused mission of Jesus Christ's church is to make disciples of all nations.

And do you know what?

Miracles cannot do that.

That leads to our third observation on miracles.

Miracles cannot produce conversion, they cannot bring about repentance, which is the mission of the church.

And we see this everywhere in the New Testament.

Last week Dan Crabtree preached in Matthew chapter 11, and that chapter begins with Jesus decrying Corazon and Betheda, these towns where Jesus grew up, he's decrying that they have seen so many miracles from the hands of Jesus himself and have not repented.

Matthew 11 · chapter mention

Miracles in themselves, bare miracles, cannot produce repentance.

Miracles are insufficient to fulfill the mission of the church.

They don't have the armament to accomplish the mission.

Do you know the obstacle to conversion?

It's not something a miracle can overcome.

What is the obstacle to conversion?

Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 4 and verse 4 that if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.

2 Corinthians 4 · chapter mention

In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the glory of Christ in the gospel.

That's the obstacle.

Satanic blindness is what Paul says.

There's a veil over our hearts so that even if we grow up in the church or if we grow up outside of the church and we hear the gospel, we see a miracle.

We don't in that perceive the glory of Christ.

We don't in that perceive the horror of our sin.

We don't, in that, in seeing the miracle or hearing the gospel, come to embrace Jesus and repent of our sins.

The only way that can happen is a direct miracle in the heart of an individual.

So two verses later in 2 Corinthians 4, Paul says, But the same God who spoke light out of darkness, the same God who by his supernatural power created the universe out of nothing, has shone in our heart to reveal to us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

You know what how a conversion comes about, how any individual becomes a Christian?

If you're a Christian, how did you become a Christian?

Paul says it was a supernatural miracle parallel to the miracle of creating the world out of nothing.

The Spirit Himself, through the gospel, pierced your heart, ripped off the veil, so that now in the gospel you perceive the glory, the value of knowing Jesus Christ.

You perceive that your sin was an offense against a beautiful and holy, perfect God.

You perceive that you rightly deserved judgment for your sins from this God who created you, and you perceive that Jesus stands ready to forgive you, and you sold everything to follow him.

That was a supernatural work of God.

That was a miracle.

That is the central miracle of New Covenant ministry.

The apostolic foundation culminated in the writing of the New Testament, which is the instrument the Spirit uses to perform the fundamental New Covenant miracle that he's doing every day.

He's doing it in our midst.

We just saw one.

He's doing it every day in our community, he's doing it every day around the world.

He is doing a supernatural work that only God can do when he rips out a heart of stone and gives a person a heart of flesh to love Jesus Christ.

That is the heart of new covenant ministry.

And you know, the Ephesians got this.

When Paul wrote to them, I alluded a moment ago to this fact that when Paul wrote to them, he didn't tell them, go seek a new miracle worker.

He taught them to be more enamored with the miracle God was continuing to do among them, namely conversion.

Ephesians chapter 2, verse 1.

Ephesians 2:1

You were dead in your trespasses and sins.

Verse 4, but God, out of the great love with which he loved us, caused us to come alive together with Jesus Christ.

He made us alive with him.

That's the miracle that you have experienced if you know Jesus Christ savingly.

And that's the miracle that God works through our proclamation of the gospel.

This is the great miracle that we get to be a part of every day.

This is, you know, to be a Christian is to be called to a miracle-working ministry, but it's not in the way that Paul did.

It's through the proclamation of the gospel and seeing the Spirit change lives.

I don't think that we are ever in danger of having too great a desire for God to manifest a miracle among us.

I think we have too small a desire because I think sometimes we get sidetracked by the sweatbands.

We want to see sweatbands cast out demons, and Paul would say that's pitily little things compared to the miracle that God does in regeneration when he changes a stone-cold sinner's heart to love and worship Jesus with reckless abandon.

Paul would stir our affections and love for the gospel and admiration for Christ and zeal to see the Spirit work through our evangelism in new and fresh ways and bring people to saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

That is the central miracle of the new covenant.

As we walk through the rest of this text, we're going to see everything in this text is driving to that reality.

Well, that leads us to one final observation in the New Testament pertaining to miracles, and that is this.

Even if we were to encounter an individual working miracles among us, casting out demons, performing healings, do you know that Jesus says that wouldn't even prove that he's saved?

After all, Jesus concludes his Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 7.22, with these words.

Even the presence of miracles doesn't necessarily validate that someone knows Jesus.

That drives us to the second stage of this story.

We've seen the apostle's power, but now we're going to encounter an exorcist weakness.

An exorcist weakness.

That's in verses 13 through 16.

So notice, look down at your Bibles, verse 13.

The story continues.

Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Skeva were doing this.

So these Jewish exorcists are attempting to invoke the name of Jesus, to manipulate it.

They use this common formula that was used in various incantations at that time.

I adjure you by the power of some deity, and it's an attempt to manipulate, to control, to cajole both the person you're talking to and the deity whose authority you're appealing to.

This particular phrase is used one other time in the New Testament, Mark chapter 5, verse 7, when Jesus encounters the man inhabited by the legion of demons, the Ghazarine man.

Mark 5:7

You remember what he says to Jesus?

And you know what Jesus says to him?

Come out.

Manipulation.

And so these Jewish exorcists learn this the hard way.

Look at what happens to them in verse 15.

But the evil spirit answered them, Jesus I know.

Or I know Jesus.

We just read that in Mark chapter 1, right?

Mark 1 · chapter mention

Jesus comes into the synagogue, and the man with a demon cries out, I know who you are, the Holy One of God.

The demons know who Jesus is.

And verse 15 continues, he also says, And Paul I recognize, I know he's an apostle, he has authority from Jesus.

But then he says, But who are you?

And boy, those boys should have run right then and there.

Because it doesn't end well for them.

Look at verse 16.

The man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all of them, and overpowered them, so that they fled out of the house, naked and wounded.

I mean, it is a funny verse.

But it wasn't funny to these guys, and it wasn't funny to the people who heard.

I just want you to kind of think about.

I know 21st century, this is like a youth pastor joke verse, you know.

I've used this many times.

John, you better sit down.

You know, it's not just the sons of Skeva who are gonna get a beaten.

The language in the text is pretty intense, though.

Uh I mean, flaying out naked, obviously, that would be shameful even in our 21st century American culture, to an even greater degree in the ancient Mediterranean culture.

This was the height of shame.

But more than that, this word for wounded, I mean, this is a strong word.

It doesn't occur anywhere else in the New Testament.

It occurs a few times in the Greek translation of the Old Testament.

It describes King Saul's wound on the battlefield where he turns to his bodyguard and says, Slay me.

And it also is used in Isaiah 53 to describe the sufferings of the Messiah who was wounded for our transgressions.

So this is serious business.

These guys didn't just run out with a black eye and a couple scratches, and they got a beatdown.

But I wonder if maybe there's a lesson for us in here beyond just laughing at the silliness of thinking that you could run around using the name of Jesus like some kind of incantation and finding that you don't understand how this weapon works and it blows up in your hands.

I want to ask this question.

Why didn't it work?

I don't know if you had considered when you're reading the text that, I mean, maybe they'd had experience going the other way before.

Just here's what I mean.

Look at verse 13 in your Bibles.

Verse 13 describes these men as itinerant Jewish exorcists.

They're itinerant preachers.

They've been going around doing this many times.

And the next verse, verse 14, describes them as family of the high priests.

So they're from Jerusalem and they're from the aristocracy.

They've come all the way from Jerusalem, modern-day Turkey, they've been doing this over and over.

This is not their first rodeo.

I mean, if they are getting the beat down every time they go into a house with a man possessed by a demon, I think they would have stopped by now.

The only way they got here is because I think they probably had some success.

And if you ask, no, they're not possible because you like you see here, they can't control the name of Jesus.

Well, I would just remind you the way that Jesus responds to some of the Pharisees who accuse him of casting out demons by the power of the devil.

Do you remember what he said to them?

In Luke chapter 11, he says, If I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your exorcists cast them out?

Luke 11 · chapter mention

Which seems to imply two things, doesn't it?

One, that they had had some success in casting out demons, and second, that if they did have success, it was because they were in fact in league with Satan.

And if that's the case, and just imagine the situation here in Ephesus.

Paul has been performing miracles, he's gathering crowds, he's proclaiming the gospel, and through the proclamation of the gospel, people are being converted and brought from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light.

You would think that maybe Satan would like to distract people from listening to Paul.

And so as these exorcists come, you would think that Satan in league with them would let the demon go out, and people would think that these Jewish exorcists have real power and they would follow them instead of Paul.

And that's not what happens.

And at this point you might think, oh, this is a little bit speculative, Ryan, and I confess it is a little bit speculative, but I'm driving you to a conclusion here because no matter what angle you look at this text, you must come to this conclusion that the reason that this outcome is the way it is, is because at the end of the day, there is only one sovereign over the spiritual realm.

His name is Jesus.

There was only going to be one outcome in this situation.

Jesus was going to be glorified.

In this case, the way he's glorified is by validating Paul and proving the falseness of anybody else.

You know, that is an encouraging reality for you because whether we recognize it in our daily lives or not, and I suspect that often in modern secular Northern Virginia, often we don't realize that as you live your Christian life, you are indeed engaged in spiritual battle.

And Paul has told us exactly how to deal with the reality that there are spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places, and you engage with them in your daily life, whether you know it or not.

But the way that you engage with them is through the power of Jesus Himself, the only one who is sovereign over the spiritual realm.

But the way that you access his power is not through an incantation.

It's not through appealing to his name as though somehow, and this is so often the way that we use the word the name of Jesus in the modern world.

We think his name is something, some kind of power we can access, separate from whole persons' relationship with the person of Jesus Christ.

His name is just synonymous with his person.

The only way to access his power is to know him personally.

And Paul says to the Ephesians in chapter 6 of his letter to them that you are engaged in spiritual battle, and the way to fight these spiritual forces is not an incantation, but verse 13, to take up the whole armor of God.

To take up the whole armor of God, the belt of truth, the shoes that are the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the breastpaste of righteousness, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and praying incessantly.

And Paul says that when you do this, you access the might of the Lord Himself.

Because when you come to know Jesus personally, when you come to know Jesus truly, you come into a union with Jesus Christ.

Your whole life is united with him.

And so as you engage in spiritual battle, you are accessing the very power of the one and only who is sovereign over the spiritual realm.

There's something else to note in Ephesians chapter 6.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

You know, I don't want to get too far afield here, but the reality of that text is that the only foothold that a spirit can have in your life is your own sin.

But if you are engaged in spiritual battle via the sword of the spirit, praying incessantly, putting on the character of a new nature, a new man, and you are fleeing sin and pursuing Christ, then you are in such firm grasp that no one can access you.

And this is exactly what the sons of Skeva did not have.

Notice the language that describes their ministry.

Look at verse 13 and 14 again.

Just look at the end of verse 13.

They say, this is their incantation.

I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.

You know what they have?

They have secondhand knowledge of Jesus.

They know the cliches, they know the catchphrases, they're associated with some tradition, they're aware of Jesus, they believe in Jesus, but they don't know Jesus savingly.

They haven't experienced the new birth, they haven't experienced the miracle conversion, they're not united to him in one union through faith.

They just have a secondary knowledge of Jesus.

And when you have merely a second-hand knowledge of Jesus, you have none of Jesus.

Saving faith is coming to Jesus, not in order to access some benefit that he offers so that I can get this in my life.

Which is the way that naturally we all want to come to Jesus, isn't it?

Do you see this in your own heart?

Naturally, Henry Scougal wrote a book called, 17th century author wrote a book called The Life of God and the Soul of Man.

It's this little book, I'd encourage all of you to read it.

It was used to convert George Whitfield and John Wesley, who launched The Great Awakening in England and in the United States.

And in it, Henry Schougel says that all of us naturally has what he calls animal inclinations.

That's a little bit offensive, but listen to what he says.

Naturally, all of us function with animal inclinations.

We want X because we know it's going to help our life progress in this and this way.

He says, but what happens when a person is converted is that I want this so that I can have this, so that I can have this.

What's the termination of this chain of desires?

The termination is no longer so I can.

The termination is now so I can have Jesus.

So I can know Christ.

So I can, as Paul says, count everything as rubbish in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ, Jesus my Lord.

That's what firsthand experiential knowledge of the Lord Jesus looks like.

And the only way to access that is for the Spirit to lift the veil, to bring you to life and bring you to Christ.

But when you have that, when you have firsthand knowledge of Jesus and you see that he's more valuable than anything, and the only thing keeping you from him is your sin, which you want to be rid of and cleansed of, then you have union with the one who is sovereign over the entire universe.

And as you flee sin and pursue him, there's nothing that can stop you or get in your way.

Well, we've seen two stages of this story so far.

We've seen the power of the apostle, the weakness of an exorcist.

But the final thing that we see, and this is, I think you can tell, where this whole story is driving, we see the glory of Jesus.

The glory of Jesus, and the glory of Jesus is manifested in the conversion of his people.

That's the crowning jewel of this text.

And you see that in verses 17 through 20.

So look at those verses with me.

Verse 17 says, Here's the fruits of everything that was happening in this ministry of the Apostle Paul.

Verse 17, all these things became known to 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 are now believers came confessing and divulging their practices, and a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books and burned them in the sight of all, and they counted the value of them, and it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver.

That's what happens when a person becomes a Christian, is he acknowledges I am a sinner, not I'm not perfect.

I mean, every person on planet earth says they're not perfect.

But I am the man, I am a sinner.

And more than that, the text even says they're divulging their practices, which is a very interesting word.

That word's usually translated proclaim or distel.

And it's used positively in every other occurrence in the New Testament.

For example, in Acts chapter 14, Paul and Barnabas, they just finished this awesome missionary journey.

Acts 14 · chapter mention

They go back to their home church and they divulge everything that happened.

Do you think they were like reluctant?

Do you think they were had to be that that information had to be pried out of them?

To divulge is to willingly unfold everything that happened.

In Acts chapter 20, just the next chapter in this book, Paul tells the Ephesian elders that in the course of his ministry among them, he did not shrink back from divulging to them the whole counsel of God.

Acts 20 · chapter mention

He eagerly made known to them all the truth of Scripture, so that by his word they would be sanctified.

Now, that word is what's picked up in his use to describe confession and repentance.

A person who becomes a Christian has been so rocked by the Spirit, they recognize the glory of Christ, they recognize my sin is against this holy God.

They don't reluctantly, against their will, have to be dragged to confess it, but they divulge it.

They come forward with rolling confessions of what I have done against you, the Lord that I now love, the Lord I want to please, the Lord who's changed my heart, the Lord who I long to please.

Confession, and the Ephesians got this, in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 11, Paul told them, Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.

Ephesians 4:11

Repentance entails holding nothing back from Christ, having no parts of your life that Christ can't look at and say, mine.

You know, we've seen that Jesus is the sovereign over the universe.

In this text, we've seen he's sovereign over his spirits.

There was one theologian who said, There is no rogue molecule in the universe over which Jesus Christ doesn't proclaim mine.

There's no spirit roaming about in the world that's rogue over which Jesus can't say, I have sovereign authority.

And there's no crack or sliver of a Christian's life that Jesus doesn't stand as Lord over and declare, that's mine.

And the heart of a Christian willingly says yes, Lord, and divulges his practices and longs to be washed, to be changed, to please the Lord he now loves.

Conversion produces a love for Jesus so transcendent that you divulge anything.

It's just this is the work that God does in the heart of a person whom he saves.

I just want to make a couple of observations here.

You notice verse 19, or rather, sticking with verse 18, it says, many of those who were now believers, and I wonder if maybe some of these people had already been believers.

And over the course of some weeks or months, they have come to a place where now they realize I have repented and embraced Christ and Christ is my Lord, but only now are they beginning to divulge some of these practices they'd been hanging on to.

And do you know this is the process of Christian life is that it's a continual life of deepening repentance.

There are areas in the life of a Christian when he's first converted that he doesn't even yet recognize our sin, but as the Lord brings that to light, as the Lord exposes his conscience to the light of his truth, he recognizes this displeases the Lord and he divulges it.

You know, a Christian is not someone who can say, I've been saved, I've been baptized, don't worry about me.

A Christian is someone who can say, I am loving Jesus Christ and repenting, and my conviction over sin is deepening every day, and my love for Christ has been ever expanding as he's been showing to me more of the glories of knowing this wonderful Lord.

And you see, at the end of verse 19, that repentance is also costly.

Verse 19, those who had practiced their magic arts brought their books, they burned them, and it was worth 50,000 pieces of silver.

Just one interjection regarding the book burning, because we're Americans, and this super offends our democratic sensibilities.

We don't like this, it sounds like some kind of a political pogrom.

But notice it's voluntary, it's not enforced on anybody in the community.

Also, I think we say, I could never do something like that.

I'm an American.

That offends my, like I said, democratic sensibilities.

But do you recognize that this offended the Ephesians even more than it could ever offend us?

Do you know that throughout the ancient world, the incantations that were written on these books that would be used to try to manipulate a spiritual realm were known throughout the Mediterranean world as Ephesian letters.

That's the description of them that you find in the books that we've discovered, the papyri that we've discovered, that are on display even right now in the library collections in London and in Leiden and in Paris.

This was part and parcel of being an Ephesian.

I mean, to cut ties with this was to like cut sever ties with everything that previously defined you as a person.

And you're saying, end of me, I have decided to follow Jesus.

What would spark that kind of costly repentance in the heart of a person?

Only a supernatural miracle that has changed the desires in a person's heart to the extent that he recognizes, as Paul says, the surpassing value of knowing Jesus.

This is the miracle of the new covenant.

It's the miracle that was on display in the city of Ephesus.

And do you know it is the miracle God is doing today in the hearts of his people when he converts them to faith in Jesus Christ?

He awakens in them a love for Jesus so strong that they would, as Jesus says, any of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

But when you see the surpassing value of Jesus and God elicits supernatural love in your heart, you would say, like the person in Jesus' parable who has found that treasure in the field, I'll sell everything to get that treasure to know Jesus.

Everything else in Christian life follows from this reality.

The supernatural miracle of a person awakened to the glories of Jesus, sealed with the Holy Spirit to love him with love incorruptible.

You know, as we're thinking about the church in Ephesus and this origin story and how radical it was, the Spirit working in them to elicit this great, wonderful, powerful, supernatural love for Jesus.

This is what made them a mature church.

What made them a mature church was this great love for Jesus, this zeal for Jesus.

And it was this that they were in danger of losing a generation later when Jesus spoke to them through the Apostle John in the book of Revelation.

Remember Revelation chapter 2, the letter that he writes to the book of Ephesians, to the people in Ephesus?

Revelation 2 · chapter mention

Jesus commends them for a number of things they've been doing, but then he says, I have this against you in Revelation 2, 4.

That you have abandoned the love that you had at first.

Because that's the center of Christian life.

Love for Jesus that surpasses anything in this world.

You know, I think that's the lesson that this text has for us as well.

The heart of Christian life, the center of new covenant ministry, the center of church ministry, the center of any individual life who would call himself a Christian is love for Jesus.

You know, if you're here and you still are a person who has merely secondhand knowledge of Jesus, you know the cliches, you want to be a good person because you recognize that following Jesus is better than not following Jesus.

But you can't say from the depths of your experience, I have tasted and seen that the Lord is good.

Maybe you are still, maybe your life still resembles the sons of Skeva more than the converted Ephesians.

What you need is a personal encounter with the Lord Jesus, and the only one who can give that to you is the Spirit.

And the call of this text is to cry out to the Lord, to give you a heart that would love Jesus, so that you can say, from the well of your life, I have seen the surpassing value of knowing Jesus, my Lord.

For all of us who have love for Jesus, the call of this text is to like the Ephesians, remember this is at the heart of Christian life.

And if you find yourself slipping, then the call to us is the same to the Ephesians.

Remember your first love when you first laid eyes on Jesus and you beheld how incredible that the Son of God gave himself for me.

And pursue him with new vigor.

Grow the flame in your heart of love for Jesus.

This is the miracle of the new covenant, the miracle in your life, the miracle to pursue love for Jesus Christ.

Father, we worship you because you've given us Jesus, and we ask that, Lord, that you would seal these truths to our hearts that we have seen in your word this morning.

Father, it is so sweet to trust in Jesus.

I pray that you would through the word that we have heard, through the baptisms that we've seen, through the songs that we have sung, you would swell our affections for your son Jesus, that we would walk out of this place.

Change, that this week it would be evident that you are growing in our hearts new and ever-increasing affection for your son, that we'd be transformed and conformed into his image.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thank you for being with us today.

And now a parting word from Pastor Jesse.

If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, emmanuelbible.church.

If you're not a member of the local church and you live in the Washington, D.C.

area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emanuel.

We'd love to personally meet you this Sunday after our service.

But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church.

Now may God bless you this week.

Use it constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel faithfully.