ACTS 19:13-20
13 Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth. 14 And there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, and chief of the priests, which did so. 15 And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye? 16 And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. 17 And this was known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. 18 And many that believed came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds. 19 Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. 20 So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.
Sceva- A chief priest with much influence, the Sceva boys could have good employment in a number of different jobs but chose to be into curious arts or fake magic.
Exorcists- Appearantly already had a successful practice as exorcist until they decided to use Jesus’ name, but not based on personal knowledge but based on Paul’s relationship, now how often do we call on the precious of Jesus with having a deep personal relationship that was my problem years ago I Jesus but it was mainly based on other people’s testimony, not my own, the Sceva boys didn’t have a close relationship with God, a real Christian would have known not to show up where the Holy Ghost didn’t send them.
Mean Old Nasty Man: Said Hey wait a minute I know Jesus, we were Heaven together he was there in the beginning, we use to hang out until my man Lucy convince me to join him and now look at me, well we were doing pretty good til he became flesh and hung his head and died now everyone has a right to that eternal life of luxury that we could never have again , and Paul oh yes he was once fooled by us also he was doing a good job until you know he was exposed to the beauties of the Heaven, oh man Heaven was sweeet but now since we cannot go back, we are going to make sure we fool as many people as possible. I know Paul he understands the word he spent some time with God he spends time trusting Jesus praying putting God first, oh yes I know him he makes us work real hard, I have a reason to know JesusI have a reason to know Paul I know....(put in People’s name from you congregation and state their attributes or accomplishments ex. I know Billy Graham because he lead people to Christ) but you I don’t know you, you haven’t been a thorn in our side, you are not on my hit list, you have done nothing but called on a Jesus that you don’t even know yourself, you don’t even know him for yourself, you are only going on the experience of Paul, not your own, yeah you may know what Paul says, but have you tried him for yourself, I know you have not because you have NO POWER, so I don’t know you, I don’t have to know you, matter of fact, I don’t want to know you, and before you leave just for calling on a name that makes us tremble, I am going to give you a thrashing.
Then he prevailed against them : He busted them up real good, a viscious, deliberate attack with much trashing, a mugging, a seriuos whooping that would have been on Real TV if it was to happen now, he beat them because they had no protection, didn’t know Jesus but having the audacity to call on his name,you have no protection from the devil or God when you call on the name of Jesus emptily, when you belong to the devil he will look out for you so you can stay on with him , and when others see one of the devil’s own prosper then they feel what you are doing is right , when you fully belong to Jesus he protects you, but when you play the middle, no protection nowhere, how about us calling on the name of Jesus in the time of trouble, without knowing him, look at us always playing with the devil, when we don’t know the word we are constantly in the face of the devil, we don’t know what God says about what is right or wrong, calling on the name of Jesus with no power , then when the devil comes to whoop our butts, and we can’t get him off us and beat us viciously until he beats naked, strips us of our identity, strips us down to the bare essentials, strips us of our dignity, and he has us exposed for the world to see, out there naked, no class, lost everything valuable, and he has us running for our lives, and God is allowing this, because we didn’t spend time in daily devotion with him, daily reading, daily praying, and offering our services to him daily, we can get lost in a world where we thought we knew Jesus, do we know him just so he can bless us, or do we know him so we can bless him, think about it, do I look to serve God or do I look for him to serve me,
Aftermath: Well now look here they got beat up,and in Acts 5:41 they could not rejoice because they were counted worthy to suffer for Christ no they didn’t qualify for that benefit, and in verse 17 the whooping was so severe, fear fell on the people of Ephesus and the Lord was magnified, The Lord can get magnified from somebody getting busted up, the devil meant it for evil but God meant it for good, God can take the whoopin that the devil put on you for your empty faithfulness, and make a public example of you and get the praise from it, people started confessing their sins, started exposing their bad deeds, and gave up the fake magic, or (sorcery ) they threw all the books with the special tricks in the fire, and these were any old books these were expensive books, these were not those books they may call the the idiots guide to magic these were expensive books, the NEW LIVING TRANSLATION" says that it was calculated at a worth of several million dollars. Don’t let God be magnified through your folly.
