The True Danger

And if you have your Bibles and you wish to turn with me, we'll be reading from

the book of Acts, Acts chapter 19, verse 21 to the end of the chapter, verse 41,

Acts 19:21

Acts chapter 19, still hear pages turning, so I'll wait a second.

Acts 19 · chapter mention

Acts 19, verse 21. What you're about to hear is God's holy and inspired word, so listen accordingly.

Acts 19:21

Now, after these events, Paul resolved in the spirit to pass through Macedonia

and Achaia and to go to Jerusalem, saying, After I've been there, I must also see Rome.

Having sent into Macedonia two of his helpers, Timothy and Erastus,

he himself stayed in Asia for a while.

About that time, there arose no little disturbance concerning the way.

For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines of Artemis,

brought no little business to the craftsmen.

These he gathered together with the workmen in similar trades and said,

Men, you know that from this business we have our wealth.

And 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 the gods made with hands are not gods.

And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute,

but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be counted as nothing,

and that she may even be deposed from her magnificence, she whom all Asia and the world worship.

When they heard this, they were enraged and were crying out,

Great is Artemis of the Ephesians.

So the city was filled with confusion, and they rushed together into the theater,

dragging with them Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians who were with Paul's companions in travel.

But when Paul wished to go into the crowd, the disciples would not let him.

And even some of the Asiarchs, who were friends of his, sent to him and urged

him not to venture into the theater.

Now some cried out one thing, some another, for the assembly was in confusion,

and most of them did not even know why they had come together.

Some of the crowd prompted Alexander, whom the Jews had put forward,

and Alexander, motioning with his hands, wanted to make a defense to the crowd.

But when they recognized that he was a Jew, for about two hours they all cried

out with one voice, Great is Artemis of the Ephesians.

And when the town clerk had finally quieted the crowd, he said,

Men of Ephesus, who is there who does not know that the city of Ephesians is

temple keeper of the great Artemis, and of the sacred stone that fell from the sky?

Seeing then that these cannot be denied, you ought to be quiet and do nothing, nothing rash.

For you have brought these men here who are neither sacrilegious nor blasphemers of our goddess.

If therefore Demetrius and the craftsmouth with him have a complaint against

anyone, the courts are open and there are pro-councils.

Let them bring charges against one another.

But if you seek anything further, it shall be settled in the regular assembly.

For we really are in danger of being charged with rioting today,

since there is no cause that we can give to justify this commotion.

And when he had said these things, he dismissed the assembly.

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You can be seated.

Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, as we do, and as we know we need,

we call down your Spirit to be upon us and with us, to open our mind and eyes

and hearts and ears to hear what you have for us in this Word.

And ultimately, Lord, may it lead us to Jesus Christ himself,

in whose name we pray, amen.

This morning's passage is riddled

with this idea of danger. Demetrius and his brothers are in danger.

They call on the people of the city and they all say, we're in danger.

But I think it's interesting that when we go through this passage,

we ought to ask ourselves the question, what is really our true danger?

What's the biggest danger in our lives? I've been not glued to the news all

the time, but just recently there's this upsurge where everyone is saying, AI is a danger.

It is going to provoke an apocalyptic Terminator-style destruction of the earth,

the likes of which we've never seen.

I remember as a child, I grew up in the Cold War, so we were always being told,

nuclear disaster, that is the danger. That's the major danger of the world.

Even riddled within that in the 80s and so forth was the danger of climate change.

What I heard in the late 80s and early 90s By now we should be flooded And the

earth should be too hot for anybody's existence And by the way,

I'm not saying Time out I'm not saying that there's no danger to nuclear war That's a danger,

I'm not dismissing AI superintelligence as a danger Nor global climate change

sometimes can be a danger I'm not dismissing them But what is the ultimate danger?

What's the true danger in our

lives? Is it not simply sin and the kingdom of Satan that goes with it?

These men here who are crying out, there's a danger to our craft.

There's a danger to the city. There's a danger to the great goddess Artemis.

Weren't they the true danger?

They were. They were the true danger. If you'll notice in the story,

and I love the way the story begins. I'm going to skip down just as a side note.

We'll get back to the first section in which Paul determines to go to Rome.

And as a, not really a side note But as a structural note, from this point forward,

The entire book of Acts will be leading us to Rome with Paul So that's just

a side note we'll get back to But the story this morning,

Starts out with Luke's typical understatement. I really, I hope you started

to appreciate Luke's writing, the way he words things.

He says, also about that time there arose no little disturbance. You think?

I mean, the whole city is in an uproar.

Thousands of people come together in rage and screaming and shouting and confusion.

And Luke is in his typical understated way, which I really appreciate.

There's no small disturbance.

Kind of reminds me of the CNN reporter in Minneapolis, like,

it's a mostly peaceful protest, you know, as the buildings are burning and people

beating each other up. It's like,

it's a mostly peaceful. That was an understatement that wasn't even true.

But here Luke says, okay, there's no small disturbance. And you'll notice when

he's recording Demetrius' word, he says there's no small gain that we're about to lose.

Both those are put into contrast. There's no small disturbance because of this

supposedly no small gain, which is an understated way of saying everything's

at risk for these idol makers. Everything's at risk for them.

And they keep saying over and over, verse 27, and there is danger,

danger, not only here, but among the whole world.

Again, this is the apocalypse. This is the end of the world as we know it.

And I want you to notice the irony in what they say, because they're partly true.

It is actually true. If the city of Ephesus began in mass to turn to the living

and true God, Jesus Christ, the idol-making factories would be out of existence

and out of business, and they knew it, and that's true.

But they're hardly a danger to life and limb like these rioters were.

That's the contrast we need to see.

The real danger, the true danger, was Demetrius and their sin and their love

of money and their hatred and their violence and their willingness to stir up

people to kill Paul and his followers without any evidence, without any charges,

without any court. That's a real danger.

And I want you to note, by the way, and I hope you'll see it immediately,

the parallels between the ancient classical world and when Paul preached the

gospel into that world are strikingly similar to the parallels today, right?

Haven't you been called a right-wing extremist?

Maybe even a Christian nationalist. Oh, my word. Nationalism is closely connected,

of course, to the rise, as we're always told, of Nazi Germany.

Basically, you guys are Hitler.

You guys out here, all you Christians who believe in Jesus Christ are Hitler.

You're a true danger to the existence of the entire world order, really.

That's the way it's framed, isn't it? That's the way we feel.

I want you to see the parallels because I want you to see the way Paul and the

apostles handled those parallels with faithfulness to Christ and preaching the

gospel in spite of all persecution and danger.

No, it's Demetrius and sin that are the true enemies of life,

of culture, of civilization, of order. These are the true enemies of all the

things they accuse the Christians of being.

Glance around at the present cultural events and you'll be called a right-wing

extremist for believing, ready, in marriage.

Between one man and one woman, you are a right, you're a danger.

You Christians, especially those of you out there having children, you're a danger.

Well, to the homosexual activists, that is a danger, right? They want to push

a completely different agenda.

You're a real danger. I remember even after 9-11, I remember being stunned by

the fact that the whole thing of a radical Islamic attack on our nation was

quickly turned to, maybe Christians are to blame.

I remember people being asked, like Franklin Graham once, do you think that

those terrorists who crashed those planes into that tower are going to hell?

I loved it. He was like, yeah, if they don't believe in Jesus.

And the whole narrative was now, oh, maybe it's the Christians to blame for 9-11. Can you imagine?

We're peacefully abiding about our business. were attacked by radical jihadists,

and perhaps Christianity is to blame.

That's the way it's framed. It's the way it was framed.

By the way, I hope you'll notice too, cancel culture didn't originate 10 years

ago with progressive left. Cancel culture is happening right here in our story.

It was the ultimate cancellation of Paul, just throw a riot and beat them up and kill them.

That's cancel culture, which comes from sin and the kingdom of Satan.

It's the hatred and the violence and the mob action, all coming from the true

danger to our lives and life and order itself and your hope after life and eternity.

That's the true danger, sin and Satan's kingdom.

Is it not sin and sinful living that caused this riot?

And you'll notice at least three things from this that I hope you'll notice.

First, we should not be surprised at the present attacks that we're receiving.

It's the same thing Paul received, okay? That's why Peter will say,

don't be surprised, brothers, when you face suffering.

It's normal. I'm not saying I like it.

And if you like it, see me after church. You shouldn't.

Right? But it's normal. If you proclaim the gospel, if you believe the Bible,

if you live your life according to God's word, you are a threat to the pagan world order.

And you'll be hated for it. Second, we should take comfort and perspective regarding

these attacks and their ultimate outcome.

Praise be to God, no matter how many times Paul goes into cities,

even when he gets stoned, even when he gets beaten, even when he gets exiled,

he rises up in resurrection power and the church triumphs over it all. It's glorious.

Persecution and suffering is normal, but the church of Jesus Christ is never

stopped by it. Not only not stopped, every story we've seen,

have you noticed, it expands even more.

And third, we see that Christ's work on the cross and his love for us is the

ultimate answer to this true danger, both sin and Satan's kingdom,

our own sin and the threats that are around us.

You'll notice something also that I want to draw your attention to in verse

23. At that time, there arose no little disturbance concerning the way.

Now, we've seen in Antioch, they were first called Christians.

But we've also seen this before. In fact, when Paul was persecuting Christians,

Acts chapter 9, he said, I was sent with letters so that if anyone was found

Acts 9 · chapter mention

belonging to, ready, the way.

That was what Christians were called, the way, men or women,

that I might bring them in.

So this is an interesting phrase. Christians were referred to, we are people of the way.

And the way, of course, you're immediately drawn or should be drawn,

if you know your scriptures, to Christ's own words who said, I am the what?

I am the way, the truth, the life. There's no other way to the Father except to me. It corresponds.

Jesus used this illustration in many places in scripture, and we read about it in Matthew 7.

He says in verse 13 of the chapter, enter by the narrow gate,

for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction.

There are many who go into it because narrow is the gate and difficult is the

way which leads to life. And there are a few who find it.

Jesus uses a very, very ancient metaphorical or literary tool of establishing

our lives as looking forward as we look in our lives to two different ways, two paths set before us.

The Didache, one of the oldest Christian documents that we have says at the

very beginning, this is to set out two ways, the one that leads to life and

the other that leads to death.

Two ways. It's a common literary setting.

It's ancient. The Egyptians used it. The Greeks and the Romans used it.

Most of you know the story of Hercules, you know, when he was sat there and

the goddesses were tempting him with one way, kakai, the way of vice and the

way of lust and the way of pleasure or the way of strength and courage and virtue.

And that point at which he chose one direction versus the other set into direction his whole life.

And in many of these ancient literary stories, it's also these ways that you

choose also are connected to the afterlife.

This sets in motion your life and where you go in the afterlife.

And Jesus wants us to know that the way, that his way is a difficult way.

You see in the book of Acts, it's obvious. There's not a city that Paul enters

where everyone's saying, yay, Paul, way to You have a good message? Let's hear it.

Let's hear it. What's the good news? He had missionaries that used to go into

villages, and the villagers would rush out and say, what news?

And he would say, good news. And they would all rush and laugh.

That's not how Paul was greeted.

He didn't just say, guess what? I have an understanding of scripture that will

lead you and everyone who believes to eternal life and hope and salvation,

the forgiveness of your sins. Kill him.

That was the response. Jesus says this. He wants us to know,

I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through

me, but the way is narrow.

And the word he uses is not so much narrow as in tiny, like one path is gigantic

and the other path is really tiny.

Both paths appear to be about the same size, but one path looks like it's gonna

be something fraught with suffering.

It's the word that's used there is a funny word. It's like if you choose this

way, you're gonna be squeezed in on.

The path is not going to be easy. There's going to be troubles.

It's going to be difficulties.

You see this in Pilgrim's Progress. You see this in many stories where the way

that you choose to follow Christ is not an easy way.

Christ demands it to be such.

My way is not easy in fact if you want to follow my way take up your cross and

follow me give up everything,

leave your riches and leave your money and leave your family if necessary and

follow me the way the truth and the life and you'll notice by the way it provokes conflict,

it always provokes conflict if there's only one way right then all other ways

are damnable ways sorry he's like geez easy doesn't sound very tolerant.

No. The Roman world, by the way, fancied themselves, like the postmodern world

today, as extremely tolerant.

And by ancient standards, they were. You could believe in any of the gods you

wanted. Just choose them. They're

all over the place. You could choose Artemis. You could choose Zeus.

Poseidon could be your thing. You'll notice certain cities, like Ephesus,

had the rights by the Roman Empire to be the city of Artemis,

The Diana, the goddess of Diana.

And it was a big deal, as we'll see. It meant a lot of money,

a lot of tourism, a lot of worshipers coming their way. You could choose any of that.

But if you came in and said, all of these ways, they're all wrong.

Just like Paul did, remember, in Athens? I see that you're a very religious

people. You have shrines everywhere, temples all over the place.

But guess what? There's only one God.

And he made the heavens and the earth. And he set your boundaries.

And he brought us right here today so that I could preach the message of the

resurrection of Jesus Christ so that all these shrines and all these idols are worthless.

That's the message of the gospel. It's a hard message. We were on vacation recently.

And you bump into people and you're hanging out on the beach or the hot tub.

And you get to talking. and it's so nice to be around people until the small talk stops.

So what do you do? I'm a pastor. Oh,

Okay, conversation killer. Or they might move to the, oh, they start saying

God. Oh, God bless you. I love God too. I love God. God, in fact, God wants me to go. But.

It's interesting, isn't it? That you can talk about someone's dog and how they're

enjoying the beach and the vacation and the shrimp and everything else.

But when you really get down to issues that are gospel oriented.

It's an offensive thing.

It offends people. The gospel is an offense. It's called a skandalon.

It's a stumbling block. It's the place at which people begin to say,

I hate you for telling me this.

People don't welcome that message. Your life is in ruins. Your life is a wreck.

You're heading for hell.

And I can give you the way in which you can have peace and forgiveness.

And the response is hatred. You see the response right here.

The madness of the mobs is the response of the world.

This mob, this crowd. And by the way, when you look through the scriptures,

the crowd, I think may be the most unrecognized group of people in the Bible,

right? All the way back to the crowd when Jesus died on the cross, similar situation.

Pontius Pilate trying to be a judicious guy. Well, I've got an innocent guy.

Jesus has done nothing, innocent. Or I got this scoundrel who's a rebel and

a murderer. Everybody knows it. And what was their response? Crucify him.

It says that the crowd's like, kill him, crucify him. A chanting,

just like you see at Ephesus.

A mad, hate-filled, violent chanting, crucify him, kill him.

It's exactly what the response is. It's no different for Jesus.

It was no different for the apostles. It may not be any different for us as

well. We're very protected in our culture.

I know we're alarmed because the liberal progressive left is pushing in on us

and we're not used to that, but we should not see it as unexpected.

Our way, the way of Jesus Christ is a threat to everything they believe and

everything they hope and everything they want, it's an offense to them.

And so you have what you usually have in riots. You have an instigator, Demetrius.

Demetrius is a funny guy because he's like, at first he's like,

guys, we're going to, our business is dead. We're going to get no money.

And then it transforms. You'll notice as he moves to greatest Artemis of Ephesians.

Suddenly it's a religious crusade, right?

Isn't that funny? Demetrius is like, guys, this is all about money.

This is all about money. But as soon as they get out, they're like,

we love Diana. Wait, where's the shrine again? Yay, Diana.

They're all for it. They shroud their true motives. They hide their true hidden

agendas with religious words.

Just like today, women's reproductive rights, women's liberation,

right? That's the way it's it. Kill babies is what they're saying.

Nobody wants to say kill babies. So they shroud, they hide their agenda in this

language that makes it sound wonderful for women. And if we don't do this,

everybody, you Hitlers out there, you're going to destroy a women's way of life.

We're going to put them back to the Stone Age. We're going to all live in caves,

handmaiden's tale, blah, blah, blah.

You see that? It's today. It's everywhere.

So this riot is no different, by the way. And the motive for the riot,

the motive for the riot, we've seen it already in Acts. I just want to go back to a few verses.

I'll check my time. I'm okay.

Acts 5, you'll notice that the people who are fighting against Peter,

the apostles, Stephen, all the men.

Here's what they're described as. A high priest rose up. This is Acts 5.

That is the party of the Sadducees. And notice the motive, filled with jealousy.

It wasn't an argument, don't you? How many times do you just would like to talk

to someone about an issue and the arguments that are there and the issue?

But it's not about that. It's jealousy here. Acts chapter 7.

Acts 7 · chapter mention

Now, when they heard this, they were enraged. So anger.

And they ground their teeth at him. That's Stephen. Stephen is outlining a glorious

picture of the Old Testament that leads to Jesus Christ, and they hate him and

they kill him. They're angered.

Acts chapter 8, one guy wants to have the ability to cast out demons and to

Acts 8 · chapter mention

make magic. And what was his, he says, give me this so that I can obtain the gift of money.

Money, jealousy, anger. Acts 12, remember Herod.

Herod wanted power. He said, when he saw that it pleased the Jews,

he's like, let's arrest Peter too. Let's kill him. That'll be great for my own

image, for my own power. Pleased the people.

Acts 13, when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy. You get the picture?

These aren't people with pure motives who want to have peace and harmony in the culture.

These are people with evil, sinful, personal motives, whether it's jealousy

or power, or in our case, money.

In Acts chapter 16, it says, but when her owners saw that their hope was gone,

Acts 16 · chapter mention

remember the demon-possessed girl, they were using her to make money.

And then they said, they caused a riot. They disturbed the whole city.

This is not new in Acts. It's not new in our life.

Acts chapter 17, but the Jews were jealous and taking some wicked men of the

Acts 17 · chapter mention

rabble, they formed a mob.

Oh, now pretty typical thing here too, whether you're in Acts 16 or Acts 17,

and now we're in Acts 19. And the main motive here is mammon, money. That's it.

These men aren't driven by peace for Ephesus. These men aren't driven by religious

purity to worship the goddess Diana. These men want money.

And by the way, we saw in the previous section, money was at stake.

I mean, when these people came together and they burned their books on witchcraft

and they burned their, they were burning the very little statues that these

foolish men were making.

And they looked at it and in our text, it says it came to like 10,000 shekels or pieces of silver.

I looked up a couple of different accounts. It could be $3 to $5 million of

money today that these people were burning in the streets of Ephesus.

So he's right. There's no small threat to their income.

This is a big deal. One guy said it could have been as much as $13 million,

dollars, especially if you include the fact that many of these people also had

been working in the industry and they also quit.

Imagine what happens to your idol-making factories when no one wants to buy

them. People that have them are burning them, and other people are quitting.

This is a big deal. This is a real threat to their life, but not through violence

or jealousy or anger. It's through preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Demetrius made a fortune crafting idols, and it was—you can just imagine in

Ephesus, there would have been what's called the stoa or the columned porches.

It could have been—they're not sure. They're still excavating.

Could have been, you know, a quarter of a mile, half a mile.

It could have been a whole mile stretch of all these beautiful columns.

And each of the columns would be these vendors.

You ever been on a vacation? Some of you went on a cruise, you get off on the

island. They let you off on the island. There's just hundreds.

Hey, you buy from me, you buy. They're all out there shilling for their things.

That's exactly what these guys are doing. All along the path to the shrine or

temple of Diana or Artemis is this money-making scheme.

And it works, man. Back to my vacation. I went on vacation. I never buy t-shirts

or hats or anything, but my buddy took me to the first and second battle of Manassas in Virginia.

I saw that statue of Stonewall Jackson, looked more like a bodybuilder than

a soldier. And I said, I'm buying a Stonewall Jackson t-shirt.

So I mean, this is what was happening here. You go along there,

you do this on vacation. I don't need that. That's pretty cool.

You end up buying all these things. That's what's at stake.

The whole industry here, the whole god, goddess, tourist industry was at stake.

And that's all it was. But then as any well-crafted propaganda goes,

they turn it into a religious thing.

They twist religious sentiment around their own money-making ends.

This is about loss of wealth, but the next thing they say is,

we need to protect the goddess Diana, Artemis.

So they mask their true motives and religious motives. Same thing that happens

today. Women's reproductive right, you're not concerned about women.

You want to kill babies. That's what abortion is. It's the slaughter of innocent, unborn children.

But of course, you want to mask it in liberating women and freeing women because,

that masks your selfish motives, that this is an inconvenient thing that may, quote, ruin my life.

And they were, by the way, it says, notice it says the town clerk,

as he's starting to calm them down, he actually says, look, this guy is finally at the end.

And by the way, it's really funny about this riot because you,

again, Luke is hilarious. He's like picturing these people. And all of a sudden,

like in the ancient world, everyone's storming. The streets are full of people

going to the theater, which probably held like 24,000 people.

This is a huge amphitheater in Ephesus. It's still there today.

And so all these people are going. and what happens is like everyone goes with them.

Just like people standing, if a group of people stand and look up,

everyone will start looking up. Everyone goes and you can see them like,

great is Artemis of Ephesus.

You can see these people screaming like, hey Bob, what are you doing here?

I don't know, what's going on? Great is that? They're all screaming and shouting.

That's confusion that's typical of sin and a sin-filled world.

That's the confusion that sin brings into the world.

And the way to calm them down, he says, look, we're the temple keeper.

This statement he made is a title that Ephesus was given by the Roman emperor,

that this city, Ephesus, was the official keeper of the goddess of Artemis or

Diana of her statue and her shrine, which again, meant tourism.

People from all over wanted to go to the place where the temple keeper was.

He also said, this is never going to change, guys. Don't worry.

We have the temple. We have the sacred stone.

Evidently, there was a stone that was said to have fallen. They called it a

Zeus stone or a Jupiter stone that fell from the sky and was the beginning of

the primitive cult there where they built the shrine to Diana.

And evidently there is a stone that archaeologists have uncovered that has some

sort of prehistoric origin that they're saying it fits the model for this.

There was some kind of sacred stone.

And finally the clerk said, look, we got this, guys. Calm down. Everyone go home.

We got the temple. We got the stone. There's nothing that can disturb us And

so they finally began to disperse This does a lot of things It exposes false idolatry,

It demonstrates divine protection. And we see how the gospel is triumphing over

and over and over and over again, in spite of all obstacles,

violent obstacles, mob obstacles. And by the way, there's nothing.

There's nothing more chaotic and crazy than a mob and a riot.

My wife and I can testify, we agree, that of all our time, 10 years in Africa,

the most frightening, the most terrifying thing we ever experienced was accidentally

being caught in the middle of a mob in Kenya.

We're on our way to pick up our son. We're driving along, and all of a sudden,

they light tires on fire, big fires.

They block certain sections of the street, and we made the mistake of following

a police car through it because the crowd was opening up.

We're just about to get to the other end, and the police car stops.

And the crowd that was out of way started to come in. They saw these two white

people. Like, what are these two white people doing in the middle of our mob?

We had a perfectly good riot going. Now we don't know what to do with these guys.

So it gave us a little bit of time. But as the policemen exited the crowd and

we were trying to make our way in, the mob started to come forward.

And when you drive past four or five burning tires, you feel the heat inside your car.

And we saw guys climbing all over trucks. shaking the trucks,

banging, breaking the windows.

And we're like, I don't know if we're going to, what, we didn't know what to

do. It's so chaotic and so confusing.

And you can't roll down your window and say, hey guys, what you doing? I tried that.

It worked. It gave us a few seconds to kind of get out of the mom and say,

hey, what are you guys doing? I'm like, white guy, what is he doing here?

But the thing is that didn't work long. And the next thing we know,

they're starting to come. We saw a guy grab a, like a concrete block,

put it over his head and start running towards our car.

Mobs are terrifying. Again, you can't just reason with a guy coming at your

car with a concrete block.

We literally had to drive out fast, knock the guy over with my car.

It was terrifying. Mobs are, riots and mobs are terrifying, and they're meant to be that way.

There's no mind behind it anymore. It's completely irrational.

Nobody even knew what they were doing there.

That's what sin creates in our lives and in our world. That's the true danger,

that we face Not Christ and his people,

Christ is the gate, Christ is the way. Are we ready for that kind of narrow way?

Are we prepared as a people, as a church, for persecution, for hatred,

for strife, all because you believe in Jesus Christ?

St. Chrysostom, an ancient church father, who eventually was patriarch of Constantinople, says,

you see that many times God permits trials and by them stirs up and awakens

the disciples and makes them more energetic. Ready for that?

Yay. Persecution, suffering for the sake of the gospel is not fun.

It's not like edgy or avant-garde. It's no fun. But St. Chrysostom says it does help us.

It sharpens us. It focuses us. It makes us more energetic, he says.

So therefore, let us not sink down under the trials, for he himself will also make a way of escape.

Nothing so makes friends and rivets them so firmly as affliction.

Nothing so fastens and compacts the souls of believers together.

Nothing is so seasonable for us as teachers in order that things said by us

may be heard than affliction and suffering.

For the hearer, when he is at ease, is listless and indolent and seems to suffer

annoyance from the speaker.

But when he is in distress and when he is in affliction, he's ready to listen.

He falls into a great longing, in fact, to hear what's being said.

For when distressed in his soul, he seeks on all sides to find comfort for his affliction.

And the preaching brings him no small comfort.

Another understatement by Chrysostom. Great comfort for those who believe.

So the confrontation leads to confusion, which is common.

And this is all brought out by what we would call the antithesis of the gospel.

We preach the gospel and it's contrary to everything.

It's contrary to every religion, every idea in the whole world.

We need to be ready for this. And we need to even teach our children that when

you choose Christ, by the way, it's a narrow way.

Very few people find that when they believe in Jesus, young teenage girls,

they believe in Jesus and they start dressing modestly.

Yay! That's not the cheers of the teenage crowd. Young men who want to remain

pure throughout their whole lives and pure and chaste before they're married,

they won't receive the acclaim of the world for that.

Nobody receives the acclaim of the world for following after this way.

None of us will, not from the world.

But we receive the acclaim from the one who matters most, and that is the one

who answers the true danger, and that is Jesus Christ.

That's the one we seek. That's the acclaim we seek. That's the hope we seek

from the true danger in our lives, which is sin.

And if you don't know that, Christ, if you don't know this way,

if you're not prepared to follow this way, then you're in true danger.

You are in danger right now if you do not turn to the way, the truth, and the life.

There's no other way to the Father except through Him.

That's your only hope from the true danger, which is sin and Satan.

And not just sin and Satan out there, the ones causing the mobs and the riots,

but sin in our own hearts, sin that disturbs our own existence as individuals,

and is a danger to body and soul.

Our call, your call this morning, my call to you is come to the one.

Come to Jesus Christ. Enter into the narrow way.

Enter into the way, the truth, and the life through his work on the cross and

be blessed and saved from your true danger, which is sin. Amen. Let's pray.

Father, how we thank you this morning for this passage.

We know, Lord, that the bullies and the oppressors and the mobs on history stage

are the enemies of Jesus and they will never triumph.

We praise you for that. But Lord, we also know that when we profess Jesus Christ,

we will be the target of these bullies and these oppressors and these haters

and these violent people.

So give us the strength now as we come to the Lord's table to be reminded of

the hope we have in Christ from our true danger, and that is our sin.

Father, we thank you for Jesus Christ. We thank you that as we close,

we can come to him and we can eat and drink his body and his blood and by faith

be encouraged and strengthened for the same thing that Paul and his people faced.

We will be strengthened for our battles ahead, even this week.

We pray in Jesus' name, amen.