I’ve been asking a question, leading up to this sermon for the past few months, it’s simply this, do you believe in the supernatural. It seems like a strange question to ask of Christians after all we pray to a God we can’t see, we believe in life after death, we believe in miracles, we believe in all of the good things that come from the supernatural realm where God reigns, but do we believe in the bad things because the Bible clearly states that we have an enemy who exists in that unseen, but very real area. Look at our key passage for today, “Acts 19:11-20, “God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them. Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed. They would say, “In the name of Jesus, whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out.” Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. One day the evil spirit answered them, ‘Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?” Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding. When this became known to the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus, they were all seized with fear, and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honor. Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed their evil deeds. A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas. In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.”
This passage is a story of the kinds of confrontations that happen when events in the supernatural realm spill over into ours. Look at what was going on here. Verse 11 says that “God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them.” Look at that phrase, “extraordinary miracles” I’ve seen a few miracles in my time and I thought all of them were extraordinary, but Luke says here that these were extraordinary miracles, I think what he is saying is that it wasn’t just a rare occurrence, but that it was happening all the time. Isn’t it good to know that we serve and know the same God? We serve a God who works miracles. Notice I wrote that in the present tense. The same God who empowered Paul and who worked miracles back then, is the same God who walks with us today. Just like He answered Paul’s prayer back then, He can and will answer our prayers today, but we have to pray with faith. Too many times we act like God has somehow changed. We pray if it’s God’s will, as an out clause, just in case the answer is no. We pray for God to work through the doctors, as if that is the only way that He can or will show up. But our God works in the unseen world and He can and does do things that can not be explained any other way. I have seen God heal in ways that shock the doctors, He doesn’t do it often, when He does it’s a miracle and our job is not to ask why or how but to say thank-you. We serve a God who still works miracles, but we need to pray and live as if we believe that.
The reality of our God is what sets us apart from every other belief system, our God is real and He shows up in history. Look at what the definition of a miracle is, miracle: an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs. That is the definition of a miracle, it’s when God shows up in our lives.
Evidently when Paul arrived in Ephesus, God was showing up, a lot. It’s not just that Luke tells us that but look at the impact on the people around Paul. This is going to tell us as much about them as it does about God. It says that people wanted his handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him. God’s power was manifested so powerfully in Paul that people wanted things that had touched him. Understand that these would be the pieces of cloth that he either wore around his head as a sweatband or that he would tie around his waist to hold his clothes together when working. They were scrapes of clothe that normally would be discarded but since they had touched Paul they were now considered valuable, because people wanted to have access to the power that he had. They thought if they could just have the clothes that had touched him then maybe the miracle working power would come with them. They thought the power was in the scrapes, that somehow it was coming out of Paul, but the power was from God, it’s not because of what he was wearing but because of who he knew.
But that idea was foreign to Ephesus. Ephesus was a city full of people who believed in and practiced magic. Notice I didn’t say miracles, I said, magic. What’s the difference, well look at the definition. Magic is the use of means (as charms or spells) believed to have supernatural power over natural forces. Notice the difference, one is when the divine shows up, the other is using props in the belief that you can cause something supernatural to happen. One is based on someone else and one is based on what you do. The Ephesians believed in the use of props, that’s why they wanted the things that touched Paul. They were trying to make things happen on their own.
Do we know people like this? Of course we do they are all around us. How many of us know people who consider themselves to be spiritual. They believe in God or some higher power, just not necessarily our God. Or they say they believe in our God, but they don’t know what to believe about Him. The irony of this incident is that these people believed in the power that Paul had, they believed because they saw the miracles happen, they saw God’s power on display again and again around Paul. But they didn’t hear the message that Paul was speaking. If we know anything about the character of Paul after studying his life for the last several weeks, it’s that he was always preaching the gospel of Christ. Persecution, couldn’t stop him, insults couldn’t stop him. Even when he was just supposed to sit and wait for Silas and Timothy, he couldn’t stop he was always preaching Christ. As God is working miracles through Paul, we know that he was preaching Christ. But these people weren’t accepting the gospel they just wanted what they could see, and touch and control. They wanted clothes because then maybe they could make something happen the way that they wanted it rather then accepting the gospel and letting God work in the way that He wanted to work. The issue with that is that God is always in control and things are going to happen the way that He wants them to.
Sometimes when someone says they are spiritual it is because they haven’t found the truth yet. But often it’s because they don’t want to know the truth. It’s a power struggle between them and God. They want control of their lives and their afraid to give that control to God or simply unwilling. The problem is that God is God no matter what, it’s not a popularity contest. Today just like back then there were people who saw the blessings of God, they saw the good things of God and they wanted them, but they don’t want to pay the price of giving control to God.
There’s another similarity to today, just like today there were people then who were willing to take the name of Christ and use it for their own gain. In Acts we read about the seven sons of Sceva Luke writes about them beginning in verse 13 he writes, “Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon possessed. They would say, “In the name of Jesus, whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out.” You understand they weren’t saying this because they followers of Jesus or because they knew Him, this was just something that they had either seen work for Paul or heard about it so they thought they would se if it would work for them to. Notice that Luke wrote that they tried to invoke the name of Jesus. To them this was nothing more then another spell, an incantation that they could speak to try and control the supernatural. What Luke records them saying, is just that an incantation. They tried to take the real God the only worker of miracles and reduce Him down to a magic trick, and it didn’t work.
The thing is that they weren’t the only one’s there are scrolls that have been recovered or written about from the area around Ephesus that record similar incantations. One read, “I adjure you by the Hebrews Jesus…” Another says, “Hail, God of Abraham, hail, God of Isaac, hail, God of Jacob, Jesus Chrestus, Holy Spirit, Son of the Father.” There were several people who were trying to tap into the power that the early church had. The scrolls they left behind not only support the story that we read today, but that God was at work in the church in this area. If God wasn’t doing anything then they wouldn’t have been trying to copy them. God was up to something and people wanted to be a part of the good things.
We see the same thing in America today, people who claim to know Christ, who use His name but when you really look at what they are doing and what they are teaching, you realize that they don’t really know Him. I was talking with a wiccan once, she was having problems with her spirit guide. Yet even as I was trying to help her, even as you could see that whatever she was dealing with was causing her way more trouble then any good she was possibly getting out of it, she insisted that she loved God, and knew Jesus. She just could tell me anything about Him.
The thing is that they were on the right track. The key to victory in spiritual realms is the name and authority of Jesus. He knew this, it’s why He gave his authority to His followers before he left. It’s one of the most familiar passages in the New Testament, but read it again from a different angle, Matthew 28:18-20, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” When we read this verse we tend to focus on what He is commanding us to do, to go make disciples, but a look at the first part tells us why He thinks we can do it. He claim all authority on heaven and earth, in the world that we can see and the unseen world, He has authority over all of it. When He gives us the charge to go in His name that makes us His agents, in other words, we go on His authority. While some in this world may question it and Him in the unseen world they know Him. Why did Jesus give us that authority? Because He knew that we would need it. If we are going to live our lives trying to fulfill God’s supernatural mission, we must realize that we will face supernatural opposition. But we have authority over it, more then that we have ultimate victory over it in Jesus name.
But there are those who only want to take the name of Christ and use it for their own gain. This practice has always been dangerous. Look at verse 14, “Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. One day the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you? Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding.” This is a bad day at work. It’s one of those days you’d like to forget, but Luke records it for all history. You can imagine their shock, it says that they went around doing this. This was not a new thing to them, but I’ll bet the beaten and driven out naked thing was? What went wrong? Simple, they tried to make the one and only miracle worker a magic trick. They tried to use His name to bring attention to theirs and it didn’t work. Spiritual warfare is always about His name and your relationship with Him. Why could Paul cast out a demon is Jesus name, because He knew Jesus, not as a name or a concept but as the living savior. Why did God work extraordinary miracles through Paul, because Paul called himself a bondservant of Christ, everything he did and wanted to do was to lift up the name of Jesus and help people to know Him. Notice they said, “Jesus whom Paul preaches.” Paul didn’t preach about Paul, he preached Jesus. If we really want God’s power in our lives then we have to lift up His name.
If we do that our impact will be beyond what we can imagine. Notice what the demon said, “Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?” Do you see it? You expect for a demon to know the name of Jesus but notice it says, “I know about Paul.” Do you know what a complement this is? Demons aren’t omnipotent, only God is. They don’ know everything. They are also more powerful then we can imagine. Remember they are fallen angels. Daniel described an angel in Daniel chapter 10:5-6, this is the same Daniel who spent the night in a lions den, “I looked up and there before me was a man dressed in linen, with a belt of the finest gold around his waist. His body was like chrysolite, his face like lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and his voice like the sound of a multitude.” Daniel then writes that when the angel started to speak, he passed out.
Angels are powerful things, demons are fallen angels, in our own strength they are beyond us. The only authority we have over them is Jesus. So think about what it is that this demon knew who Paul was when Paul wasn’t even there. It speaks to the power of the testimony and effectiveness of Paul. He preached Christ and the impact was felt even in the unseen world. Let me ask you this question, what does the devil say about you? When was the last time you had an impact for the kingdom of Christ? You know how you have an impact. It’s not just by coming to church, it’s by living for Christ and sharing Him with people outside of church. That’s what Paul did and it’s still how we’re supposed to do it.
What does it take to get us to do that? Well sometimes it takes a crisis. Understand what happened in Ephesus, this was a city where a lot of people played with magic, a lot of people messed with the unseen world, so the overpowering of the seven sons of Sceva was a crisis that demonstrated the difference between the real God and the form of God to the entire city. They were all playing in the unseen world, what happened to the sons of Sceva could have happened to any of them and if freaked them out. God now had everyone’s attention.
Sometimes it takes a crisis to get peoples attention. It’s always been true and still is today. Most people who accept Christ do so before 18 these are our kids and those of us who grew up in church. That’s not surprising. But the next most active group is. 75% of people who accept Christ do so before 18 but 15% of people who accept Christ do so after 50. Why is that? It’s not just that their cramming for a final, it’s that it’s the time in our lives with crisis comes. Our friends get sick, we start to go too many funerals, we start to realize that life and death are beyond us and we are open to the one who can help us.
And who is supposed to carry this message, we are all of us to the people around us. Look at what happened here. It’s not that Paul preached a powerful message and people responded to him. It says starting in verse 17, “When this became known to the Jews and the Greeks living in Ephesus, they were all seized with fear, and the name of the Lord Jesus was held I high honor. Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed their evil deeds. A number of those who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas.” It starts with when this became known. How did it become known because one person told another person. That’s still how it works. I’m going to preach Jesus every Sunday, that He is the way, the truth, and the life, always has been always will be but if you don’t bring people here who need to hear the message, it’s just a nice sermon. If you don’t talk about it with the people around you then the impact and the growth of our church will be limited.
This week one of you came in looking for flyers for 252 because there was someone that he sees regularly he found out that they had a child and so he invited them to come and try 252, they said they might. It’s not surprising, most people in our country say that they would go to church is someone invites them. It’s good to hear these stories, this week the board approved our two year strategic plan as a church. It’s designed to help us grow not only deeper in Christ but as a church. If you look at our giving it’s no secret we need to grow. But the way that we grow the best is no secret. It’s not a matter of all of our programs and events. It’s not about our praise band or sermon’s, it’s simpler then that. You know what it takes for us to grow and have an impact in our community? It takes your sharing and living for Jesus outside the walls of this church if you will do that we will grow.
Growth occurs in the crisis times, the type of times that we live in. A headline in the newspaper this week said that for the first time in 30 months the number of jobs was up compared to the same time a year ago. That’s great, then it said that unemployment was still as 9.7%. We live in a time of crisis economic and other wise. The good news is that God can use the crisis points in our lives to bring about our greatest victories. Economies go up and down. The house that won’t sell today will sell tomorrow. Elections come and go, but God is always there and always in control. If we are open and available to share Him with the people around us then they can come to know the God who lasts forever. The miracle worker who steps out of the unseen world and into our lives. Let me ask you this question, if you don’t know Him would you like to today?
