Four Normal People in One Weird Story

"And it came to pass, that, while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul having passed through the upper coasts came to Ephesus: and finding certain disciples, He said unto them, Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. And he said unto them, Unto what then were ye baptized? And they said, Unto John's baptism. Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus. When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied. And all the men were about twelve. And he went into the synagogue, and spake boldly for the space of three months, disputing and persuading the things concerning the kingdom of God. But when divers were hardened, and believed not, but spake evil of that way before the multitude, he departed from them, and separated the disciples, disputing daily in the school of one Tyrannus. And this continued by the space of two years; so that all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul: So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them." 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. And there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, and chief of the priests, which did so. And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye? 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. 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. And many that believed came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds. 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. So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed."

1. What is weird about this story You all know this by now - I'm a big believer in expository preaching. We go through books of the Bible and let the Bible speak for itself. uNo matter where we look in the Bible, we can find instruction. All scripture is given by inspiration and is profitable - not just the fifteen or so passages that I want to emphasize. So we preach all of it and it always speaks to us.

But sometimes, when we look into the Bible, we find a bunch of stuff that is so foreign to us, it might as well be talking about another planet. This is one of those passages. Paul is come to Ephesus again - he's back from his trip to the temple - and he's hunkering down for some long term ministry there and right away, it gets weird.

A. Weird disciples In verses 1-7 Paul meets some disciples who have fatal flaws in their knowlege. They know about the baptism of John - they know the story and teachings of John the Baptist. They are looking for the Messiah. But they haven't yet been saved. They haven't trusted Jesus. They don't even know who the Holy Ghost is. So Paul preaches to them and they believe and are baptized in Jesus name and they get the Holy Ghost and the signs that went with it in that period.

It's a weird story because there are no disciples of John the Baptist running around, people no longer get these visible sign gifts when they get saved. It's odd.

B. Weird Preaching Venue Then in verses 8-10 Paul is preaching in the synagogues and like they had in so many other places, the people in the synagogues harden their heart to the gospel and turn on Paul. So he goes to another public place - the school of Tyrannus. And preaches there.

It's weird because we don't have synagogues around and if we did, we would no longer have the opportunity to preach in them like Paul did.

C. Weird Healing Handkerchiefs Then in verses 11-12 it gets even weirder. God gives Paul this special ability to heal people and it's so strong that Paul can pray over handkerchiefs and aprons and sick people get these handkerchiefs and their sickness goes away.

Now - I know Binny Hinn sells prayer shawls. I've gotten the ads in the mail. There are a lot of these faith healers that are trying to make a buck. Let me say emphatically - THEY ARE FRAUDS and it is NOTHING LIKE WHAT WE SEE HERE.

If Binny Hinn and his crowd realy have this miraculous healing power - they need to go down to St. Judes. They need to go to the hospital. You never see that. It would expose them as frauds.

So that's not something we see today.

D. Weird Exorcists The fourth weird thing we see in this story is in verses 13-16 we have one of the best little stories in the book of Acts. So Paul is so powerful that he's making the charlatans look bad. There is a group who made their living by exorcism and they go to a man who is demon posessed and they are going to try something new. So they say "I adjure thee by Jesus who Paul preacheth come out." And the demon answers back "Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you?"

Then, and this is really great, the demon possessed man jumps on them and gives them a beating and takes off their clothes. So they come running out of their naked and beaten. Must have been a site.

The passage ends with the effects of all of this. A bunch of people see what has been going on and they believe. And some of them who were into black magic burned their black magic books after they believed on Jesus. It says that those books could have been sold for 50,000 pieces of silver. A piece of silver was a attic drachma - it was a days wage. So, 50,000 days wages. The idea here is it was worth a lot of money.

And that's where this story ends. A lot of weird stuff. Weird 1st generation Christian problems with John the Baptist. Weird healing. Weird people running around trying to exorcise people. Weird magicians getting saved and burning their books.

What in the world can we possibly get from this story? What do we have in common with the people in Acts 18?

2. What's normal about this passage: Actually - even though we don't have John the Baptist followers, and we don't have people with the gift of healing, and we don't have jewish excorcists and we don't have black magic books - we still have a lot in commom with the people you see in this passage.

You see, there are four types of people in this passage that are still with us today. And that is what I want to preach to you about this morning. Ask yourself as we go through this - are you one of these types of people?

The first type of people are:

1.Religious people mistaken about their salvation. That's what we see in verses 1-7. Religious people. Devout people. People on the right track. But they were missing the most important part. They were missing the gospel. They weren't saved yet.

Can I tell you that there are thousands of people in church this morning who are in the same boat. They are religious. They may even be zealously religious. They may be devout. But they aren't saved.

Church - being religious isn't what saves you. You don't become saved by being in a church any more than you become a car by being in a garage. Relgion doesn't save you. Only trusing in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus will save you.

In John 3 Jesus met this guy named Nicodemus. Nicodemus was about as religious as you could possibly be. He was a religious leader. He would be a pastor or someone today. He was a good guy. Jesus still said unto him "Verily, verily I say unto you. Ye must be born again."

Later on in the Bible this guy named Saul of Tarsus was so zealous for religion that he made it his life - but he needed to accept Jesus on the damascus road.

The point is obvious isn't it - there are people - lots of people - perhaps even you who are religious but not saved.

Jesus said that one day many people would stand before God and say "But I did many wonderful works in your name" and God will say "Depart from me. I never knew you." And they will be put in Hell.

Church - religion doesn't save you. Jesus does. We see that in this story. We see that today.

The second group we see in this story is:

2. Religious people who hardened their hearts to gospel. Paul preaches in the synagogue to religious people and the text says:

"But when divers were hardened, and believed not,"

Many people heard the gospel. They heard it powerfully. They heard it over and over. But they never believed. They never responded and ultimately, their heart was hardened and they turned against the gospel.

There are probably people this morning who have heard the gospel over and over again. You know you need to get saved. You've felt the conviction of the Spirit drawing you to salvation. You know it. But you keep saying no. Not right now.

Do you know at some point - the Spirit might stop working in your heart. At some point, it may become too late. Your heart will be hardened and it will be too late. I'm convinced that many of the hard core God-haters out there are people who sat in a church like this one and heard the gospel over and over and felt God moving in their heart over and over and they rejected Him.

The third group we see in this story who are still with us are:

3. Religious people who were in it for the money. Verses 13-20 introduce these "vagabond jews - exorcists." Now, I want to be clear - I don't think we have any exorcists in the building today. If we do, correct me. But I'm pretty sure we are safe there. Don't see many of them in the modern church.

But do you know what we do see - people who have the same problem that these men did in Acts 19 - they are just USING church, USING Christ to get something for themselves.

They are using it for a business boost. Using it for respectability. Using it for a social group. Using it so their kids have something to do. Using it to pad their ego. Some maybe even using it to line their pockets.

Can I tell you that in todays world - it seems like 90% of people who go to church are in it for them and not in it for Christ and in today's world - 90% of churches are more than happy to cater to that.

Some people use Jesus like their Genie-in-a-bottle. He's just there for them to rub whenever they need something.

So we have people in this story who are missing Jesus, we have people in this story who are rejecting Jesus, and we have people in this story who are using Jesus. And listen folks, there are probably people in every church who are missing Jesus, rejecting Jesus or using Jesus. Are you one of those people today?

You see, we aren't so different from these folks in Ephesus. One more group that was in this church and I hope is in our church today:

4. People who were truly saved. The passage ends with people who are really really lost getting really, really saved.

Verses 18-20 says:

"And many that believed came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds. 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. So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed"

People were getting saved, and they were changing. They were showing their deeds.