Bible Study: November 17, 2021

Okay, well before we begin, is there anything that anyone wants to talk about? Any questions from last week?

I'll just kind of bring you just a brief recap of what we talked about last week. We followed Paul into Corinth, and we followed Paul into Ephesus. We met some familiar Bible names along the way. We met Priscilla and Aquila, and we see them throughout the New Testament. They worked closely with Paul and the church in Ephesus. Maybe that they actually were in Rome later on as well when we look in the book of Romans. We met Apollos. We see his name. We tracked him. He was called in Ephesus, and remember he went over to Corinth, and that's where we read about Apollos many times. Paul made the comments in 1 Corinthians when he was writing to the Corinthian church there that he planted in Apollos water. Paul laid the foundation Apollos built on it, much as we would have in our congregations today. One minister comes in, another one he may leave, and another one comes in and builds on that very same foundation, the Jesus Christ building on the foundation of the Bible. Paul mentions Paulus because some said, oh, you know, I prefer to hear Paul. Others, I prefer to hear Paul. Apollos said, I prefer to hear Peter. Others said, I'm just here to follow Christ. So that's just kind of the human things, the human tendencies that we find as we go through the book of Acts and realize those same human nature, the same human tendencies, are with us today. We just have to be aware of them and ask God to continually keep us grounded in the faith, grounded in the Bible, grounded with His Holy Spirit, and ask Him to continually bring us all together and realize that it's His work and He'll work His work in us. So, let me say, as we ended Acts 18 last week, Paul, if you'll remember, wanted to go down to the feast in Jerusalem. So he did that. Doesn't tell us much about what he did at the feast in Jerusalem, just as he went up. And then he went back up to, or back down, back down to Antioch.

And then from there, he began his track again to revisit the churches, and he's going to end up in Ephesus for quite a period of time. As we begin, I find the map kind of interesting to kind of remind us who, you know, where we are. You see that Antioch over there in Syria? That's where Paul went as he came back from Jerusalem after the feast. And then as we end in chapter 18, it said he made a tour back through the Galatian churches. That's Derby and Lystra and Iconium.

Went over to Pisidian Antioch, and he's going to be on his way to Ephesus. So we're going to spend the time today in chapter 19 in Ephesus. Turns out Paul spent, you know, several years there in that church. God worked quite a work there. Now, just to remind you, as you see, as you see, that that area is called Asia there, where Ephesus is. That the prior journey, when Paul was going from Derby, Lystra, Iconium, and out west, God prevented him from going into Asia.

This time, he's going to spend quite a bit of time in Ephesus, and it is in Asia where the seven churches of Revelation are all located. So this, in Ephesus, of course, is the first one of the seven churches mentioned in Revelation. So this time, you know, God opens the doors for Paul to go to Ephesus and spend some time there. And quite a bit, quite a bit of, quite a bit happens in Ephesus. So that's kind of where we are today. As we begin chapter 19, we are there with Paul in Ephesus. Okay, let's look at chapter 19 then. Chapter 19, verse 1, it happened while Apollos was at Corinth, you know, he was called and learned a lot from Basil and Quilla in Ephesus, and then he wanted to go over into Corinth. So it happened while Apollos was at Corinth, the Paul, having passed through the upper regions, came to Ephesus, and finding some disciples, finding some disciples, he said to them, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?

And they said to him, we haven't so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.

So they have been baptized, it turns out, by John. But Paul, as he's talking to them, he senses, you know, he senses or maybe wonders, well, when did you get baptized? He can see that they have the truth. He can see that there's a meeting of the minds there, and they're understanding what he's saying when he runs into them. But there's something that is, so he asks the question, they answer it, you know, and kind of a very familiar, we haven't so much as heard whether there's a Holy Spirit. And he said to them, well then, so what were you baptized? And they said into John's baptism. Well, John, you remember, you know, he baptized a number of people. He went out and he preached repent for the kingdom of God as a hand, and many, many people you remember lined up and they were baptized. He preached a baptism of repentance. But he also talked about the Christ that was to come, right? So John's baptism was a baptism of repentance. It was a very good first step. People needed to turn to God. They listened to what John had to say. They were baptized as symbol of repentance and submitting ourselves to God and having our sins washed away. But it wasn't baptized into Jesus Christ. And so we find here in verse 4 and 5 something that we don't see before in the book of Acts. So he's run into this what turns into 12 people who are disciples. He asked the questions and then he said to them in verse 4, John indeed baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on him who would come after him that is on Christ Jesus. So he's kind of finishing the story, you know, for them.

You remember back in chapter 18 when Apollos was preaching that he also just was baptized or knew of John's baptism, but he didn't understand the rest past that. So it was Priscilla and Aquila who took him aside to teach him about Jesus Christ, show him from the scriptures that Jesus Christ is a Messiah, talk about the Holy Spirit, talk about the resurrection, talk about the kingdom of God.

So Apollos, you know, completed his, completed the doctrine for him so that he could go out then and be a minister in Corinth and preach in that area very vigorously as it tells us in Acts 18.

Same thing happening with these 12 disciples. So Paul is now finishing the story for them. Well, okay, John, yes, you did it. You understand you need to repent. You need to put your past life behind you. But Jesus Christ is who you need to have, and the people respond appropriately. When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. It's the first time we have actually written in the book of Acts a re-baptism, right? So they were baptized once, and they might have made the, they might have made the assertion, well, we've been baptized. We need to be immersed again. But Paul made the determination. They did need to be immersed again. They had just been baptized into John's baptism, but not into the name of Jesus Christ. John wasn't baptizing into the name of Jesus Christ, and so they needed to be baptized again. So today, you know, we run into that many times when people come into the church, and they've been baptized before, and they'll ask, do I need to be baptized again? Now we have, you know, quite a conversation about it sometimes, and yes, what were you baptized into before? What doctrine did you follow before? What did your church, church that baptized you? What were they teaching you? Now, what this baptism is, is into the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. It's a different, it's a different church than the church that was baptized into you, and most readily accept that. Some have an issue. Some have an issue with it, but here, these 12 men who were baptized into John's baptism readily allowed Paul and understood that they needed to be rebaptized in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, or as it says here in verse 5, in the name of the Lord Jesus. So it's the first time...

Yes, sir. I had a question on verse 5. Yeah. Where you are. They were baptized in the name of Christ.

Right. Is that, you know, the name also means authority? I'm not, I guess I'm a stickler for details, but what is that? Does that mean they were baptized under the authority of Jesus Christ, or into Him? I don't understand that. Yeah, I think it's both, right? Remember Jesus Christ, they baptized them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. So we do that. So in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. And when we baptize someone, we make the comment that we do this with the authority of Jesus Christ. So I think the answer is both, right? We baptize into the name and we do it by the authority of Jesus Christ. Okay. So we have the first instance of rebaptism here, if anyone ever asks you about it, you know, this would be a place to reference. And again, we have over and over in the book of Acts, we see the laying on of hands has to happen in order for the Holy Spirit to be received. They were baptized. And Paul in verse 6 says, when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit could be upon them. And so, you know, again, this is something that is overlooked by so many churches in the world, but it is over and over in the book of Acts. You remember back in Acts 8 when Philip, Philip a deacon, was in, he was in Samaria and he was preaching and he baptized the people, but he didn't lay hands on them. They waited for the apostles to come from Jerusalem before they could have hands laid on them to complete the baptism, and they received the Holy Spirit. Same thing with Peter. When Peter, you know, went to see the centurion, Cornelius in Rome, they received the Holy Spirit, but then they had to be baptized as well. We have the same thing here, you know, that, again, baptism pictures one thing, and the laying of a lot of hands completes the process so that we ask God to put his Holy Spirit in them as well, because the baptism alone isn't enough. We need God's Spirit to march forward and to, you know, to live the life that he's called us to. And in verse 6, you know, one of the marks here in the book of Acts is when people are baptized in these situations like this, they speak with tongues, and they prophesy, and we see that over and over. And it's kind of like for a way for the apostles to know that God did answer, the God did answer, and the Holy Spirit is in them. We don't see that today. In fact, if we baptized someone and they started speaking in tongues, I would probably scratch my head and wonder what's going on. But that was what they did today. That was what they did, and it was kind of a sign God is with them. God put his Holy Spirit in them. Today, we ask for God's Holy Spirit to be in there, and as people grow, we see the fruits of the Holy Spirit. That's how we can see the Holy Spirit growing in them. We see the love, joy, peace, long suffering, all those traits of God, all those fruits of the Spirit begin to develop in them, and we watch people become different people as they grow in the grace and knowledge of God and as they live by the Holy Spirit. It's a beautiful thing to see. I'll put my notes here and make sure I didn't.

Verse 7 tells us here that the people that Paul had run into, there were about 12 of them that were there. Paul, as his custom was, it could say here in verse 8, he went into the synagogue.

He spoke boldly for three months. This is a long time for Paul to be in Ephesus and to be going in there Sabbath after Sabbath after Sabbath after Sabbath after Sabbath for three months he went in there, reasoning and persuading concerning the things of the kingdom of God. Now, in other places we've seen, you know, where it says concerning the things of Jesus Christ, here it says concerning the things of the kingdom of God. So Paul would have been talking, I mean, three months as he persuaded them and talked about Jesus Christ as the Messiah, then he would talk about the purpose of Jesus Christ's life, he would talk about the kingdom of God, Jesus Christ returning again, and he would be talking about the same things that we do, right, in church. So he had three months that he was bringing them along and apparently during these three months the Jews, who are there in the synagogue, are listening. They're understanding. They're getting what Paul is saying, or at least they're being silent about it, but Paul is progressing. He's giving up a full gospel. You don't need three months, you know, to preach that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. Certainly he continued to recount that, but he was preaching about the kingdom of God. But then we see what happened even after three months, what the Jews so typically did. You know, we they began to harden their hearts against them and just shut their minds off. You know, when we read harden their hearts, it's a very sad thing. They made the choice. We don't want to hear this anymore.

You know, they didn't believe. Why it took three months for this to happen, you know, only knows maybe as they got there. I don't know. Way to know. But they hardened their hearts, and we see the Jews doing this time and time again. We see this pattern that we can even see today, you know, not among groups of people like the Jews, but sometimes we have people come to church, and they'll come for a while, and then all of a sudden it's like they don't want anything, they don't want anything to do with it. They don't want to talk, they don't want to, they don't want to anything. And it's like they've hardened their hearts. We're not, we're simply not going to do this, or we don't want to do it. It's a very sad thing, but here Paul is encountering this again.

He's probably used to it. Every place he goes, this is what happens with the Jews. A group of them don't believe. And since they not only don't believe, but it says here they speak evil. They spoke evil of the way before the multitude. It isn't that they just even stopped believing and wouldn't come when Paul was going to speak. They started last-fading, right? We've seen that before in Lystra, the Galatian churches, and Thessalonica. They spoke evil of the way before the multitude.

And because of that, Paul does here in Ephesus the same thing that he did in Corinth. He stopped going to the synagogue. Because they hardened their heart, he stopped going to the synagogue, and he started preaching from a different location. Remember, we saw that in Corinth. When the Jews hardened their heart, he told them, but I'm not going to talk to you anymore. I'm going to take the message to the Gentiles, and he started preaching from Justices House. Remember that in Acts 18? Here it says he withdrew from the multitude. He withdrew from them, and then he would reason daily at the school of Toranis. I don't have any idea who Toranis is. I looked up, it must have just been someone there who was a disciple who must have had a building that they could meet in, and that's where Paul then started preaching from. Just like we hold, you know, we hold services weekly. Apparently, Toranis had a school that Paul could go there every day and talk to people who were interested about it. But the key is, again, he withdrew from the synagogue, didn't go there anymore. But the message went on, but it went into a church that identified, or a building that was identified with the way, or Christianity, instead of with the Jews.

And notice there in verse 10, this went on for a long time. Two years, two years. So Paul, when he left Antioch, I mean, here he is for, you know, three months reasoning in the synagogue, and now two years reasoning daily in the school of Toranis. So he spent quite a bit of time here in Ephesus in this first church in Asia. And he, quite a work, quite a work is being done.

They didn't have internet, they didn't have TV, they didn't have newspapers, they didn't have any way to publish the Gospel. It had to be by word of mouth, or by Paul talking to people, and people hearing and sharing it with everyone. And the Gospel did spread. It says, and this continued for two years, so that all, and again, when the Bible says all, you know, don't discount it. God doesn't speak like we speak and say never when we mean most of the time, or always when we mean most of the time, or all when we mean most of people, all who dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. And so we see here in Ephesus in the first church in Asia, we see that happening now all throughout Asia. That would be those other six churches of revelation, right?

That we wonder where do those churches start from, because all who are in Asia, you know, the, I can't name them in order, but the Smirnish of the world, and the Philadelphians of the world, and the Laoticeans of the world, and the Thyatyrans of the world, or Asia, all those churches, they were all hearing as the Gospel spread throughout Asia, and churches began to start throughout Asia. Remember again, God, when first time Paul went through, no, not time, no time to stop. You close the door, don't go into Asia, don't go into Bithynia, but this time God has called here for two years, and the work he's doing as he spreads the Gospel is quite impressive, quite impressive that he would say all who dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. You know, it is a fascinating thing when you think that the Jews and the Greeks were so disparate in their religious beliefs. They didn't like each other, the Jews didn't even want to, you know, have anything to do with the Gentiles. I'm sure the Gentiles looked at them as very uppity and just, you know, they didn't want to... there was no unity between the two at all, and yet the Gospel hit everyone. It hit everyone. They all heard it. It's kind of an amazing thing when God is directing the work, you know, what gets done. So what Paul is doing there, and what he's teaching, is having an effect.

When God is leading what we're doing, you know, we never have to worry about the work being done.

It will always get done. So in verse 11, you know, that is in itself, verse 10, is a miracle that everyone in Asia heard it. But then it says in verse 11, now God works unusual miracles by the hands of Paul. And some of those miracles that we're going to look at here in the next couple verses are things that we take very much for granted today, but this is the first time it was ever done in the New Testament church. Now it's, you know, we have talked, we have spoken about the apostles and the others who would go forth like a Philip into Samaria, and they were always accompanied by signs. Remember we talked about that they would preach the gospel, but then there would be healings and there are the other miracles that were done. And it was like God, God accompanied those and was showing his approval of what they were doing because signs accompanied them. Back Mark, one of the last, if not the last verse of the book of Mark, we even sing it when we sing the song, Go Ye Into All the World, by those signs which accompanied them. Remember that lyric in there?

And that's what, you know, that's what happens. And what happened in the book of Acts when the apostles went out, God, those signs accompanied them. They knew it was of God because, and it highlighted what they were saying, that this is the truth. No one else could do this. No one else could heal the lame and heal the deaf and heal the blind. No one else could, you know, resurrect from the dead. And in verse 12, you know, we see one of those miracles that it's talking about.

Here that Paul did. It says, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them, and the evil spirits went out of them.

Well, that's what we did. That's the anointed cloth of today, right? Here's the first time that we see the anointed cloth, if you will. And Paul is the one. As people asking him, he can't be something. He can't be an Ephesus and run to Corinth. He can't run over to to Vesal and Ica.

That was the only thing, the only way he could get something to them. And it's interesting that he would be the one that would do this. Now we know that it was God who showed Paul, well, this is the way for them to be anointed. Get a piece of cloth, send something to them, anointed, pray over it, send it to them. And the people who receive it will receive it in faith, and they will be healed, and they were. I mean, God blessed this effort. Now where might Paul have taken or gotten the example? Now, certainly it was God who inspired him to do this, but what might have been done previously that would let Paul know, oh, that's what Jesus, that's happened with Jesus Christ.

Look at the example that we have of him. Excuse me, we don't have water here, but well, let's go back. You know, we're going to keep your finger there in Acts 19. We're going to spend a little bit of time in the book of Luke, the Gospel of Luke as well. Remember that Luke is the one who wrote the book of Acts. And as we see some of these things here, we can tie it back to the book of, to the Gospel of Luke as well, because there is something that's similar that happened with Jesus, Jesus Christ involved. It's in Luke, Luke 8. And as soon as I turn to restart reading, you're going to remember this. Luke 8, Luke 8, 4, and 3.

Remember the woman who wasn't healed for 12 years, went to every physician, did everything she could, finally realized no physician can heal her, and she just needed to get to Jesus Christ. He's the only one who can heal. She had that tremendous faith. In verse 43, it says, a woman having a flow of blood for 12 years who had spent all her livelihood on physicians and could not be healed by any. I am sorry, could not be healed by any. I mean, how, you know, how true is that of some today? You know, people will look to physicians, the physicians can do it, the physicians can do it, I can keep running back there. And this woman for 12 years, she did it, and she finally realized the physicians, you know, physicians can be a tremendous benefit in many things, but she was learning a lesson as only God who can heal, and she was done with physicians, spent all her livelihood on it, couldn't be healed by any. She came from behind, and she simply touched the border of Christ's garment, and immediately her flow of blood stopped. She didn't even have to stop and say stop and anoint me, put your hands on me, if I could just touch his garment, and by just touching that piece of cloth, she had such faith, such faith that she that she would be able to be healed.

And Jesus could immediately feel that power. I'm going to put you on hold for a moment. I'm going to get a glass of water so I can stop this. Hold on.

I think you should.

Okay, sorry about that. Actually, sometimes the water doesn't help, but that time it seems so I thought I had a bottle here and it disappeared before I started. So anyway, so she just touched his garment, just touched his garment, and she was healed. Jesus could feel the power go out from him. Who touched me? I went all the night at Peter and those with him said, Master, the multitudes throng impress you, and you say, Who touched me? And Christ said, Somebody touched me, for I perceived power going out from me. And when the woman saw that she wasn't hidden, she came trembling, falling down before him, she declared to him in the presence of all the people, the reason she had touched him and how she was healed immediately. When her one faith was 100% in God, there's a lesson to be learned there. She tried everything else and realized it's only God. And he said to her, Daughter, be of good cheer. Your faith, your faith has made you well. Look what kind of faith she had. Look at the faith that she had.

We look at that, I look at that, and I think, yes, we have all of us have a long way to go to develop the faith that people had back in the time of Christ and in the early New Testament days.

We will get there. We will get there. Christ, when he asks, Will I find faith? When he asks, Will we find faith when he comes to earth? I hope the answer is yes. And that we are all committed to developing that type of faith, the complete faith, the complete faith in God. But anyway, here we have, maybe Paul, as God opened his mind, and he was wondering, How do I, these people that are sick, how do I help them when they're so far off? And God put it in his mind, you know, through the Holy Spirit, you can send some cloth to them. But Paul realized, Look at the example that Jesus Christ set. That example is there for a reason. All she had to do was touch his cloth.

And so today we follow the same thing. And it is a miracle. Healing is a miracle. When God heals us, we need to have faith. But even these anointed cloths, when we ask for them, and we, you know, when we anoint them as ministers, we, you know, we need to have a faith that when that goes out, that's God's, that's God's hands on people. That's his Holy Spirit. We ask for him to heal.

Another receiving end that needs to be that same faith that God can, God can heal, and he will heal.

We need to have, we need to put our faith in him. So, you know, this is one of the, one of the, one of the miracles that's there. I guess the other, there's another verse I wanted to turn to, to John, John 14. John 14.

John 14 and verse 11. You know, Jesus Christ, he made a comment to, to the disciples there on, on the night that he was arrested after that Passover. And he says in verse 11, he says, Believe me, I, that I am in the Father and the Father in me, or else believe me for the sake of the works themselves. Most assuredly I say to you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also. And greater works than these he will do, because I go to my Father. And whatever you ask in my name, I will do that the Father may be glorified in the Son. And so we have, you know, Jesus Christ did many, many works in many different ways. We maybe sometimes take him for granted. He is Jesus Christ. He did have, I mean, he's so far beyond any of us that all these things could happen. But here we have an example, you know, and we've seen examples in Acts where the same miracles that Jesus Christ did, the apostles were, did as well when they had faith in God. And here even in the touching of a garment, you know, a lady is healed. And we follow the same thing today with that. One, and look at my notes here, when we were talking about the Jews, let me go, I don't have to go back, but you know, when Paul would encounter people who had hardened their hearts, they remembered that when Christ sent out the 70 and when he sent out the 12, and he sent them out two by two and told them, you know, don't take any money, don't take any knapsacks, I'll provide everything that you need. He told them when you go into a house, if they received you, let your peace be with that house. But if they don't receive you, if they reject your message, if they don't listen to what you're saying, he told them just depart, shake the sand off of your sandals and just move on. And Paul was beginning to see that, you know, as we look at the Jews. They're in Corinth, it's like, you don't want to hear it. I'm shaking the sand off my sandals, and I'm going over here in the Gospel of preached terror. Same thing we see in Ephesus. But I wanted to draw out that as you see, you know, you see what Christ did, you can see it being implemented into the beginning of the churches here in Acts, or the way the apostles and the disciples behave. Same way that we do today. Sometimes we just have to remember, you know, Jesus Christ set us as examples, and we follow them. And when we follow Him, and have faith and believe and do it for the right reasons, He provides everything. He provides all the answers of everything that we need and how to deal with the situations we come up with. Mr. Shady. Yes, ma'am.

This has been wondering. I've been wondering this for a long, long time. Those 70 that were sent out, were they all made? Yes. Oh, okay. That's what I was thinking. Yep. Remember, when we were in the first part of the book of Acts, we talked about the men that were there, and we made the comment that the 70 of the men were there, but there were also women there in Acts 1. There weren't women in the 70, but there were women there in Acts 1, when the disciples were all together together. So, okay.

Okay, let's go back to Acts 19 then.

So, we have, you know, we've seen, uh, rebaptism so far in chapter 19. We've seen anointed cloths instituted here for the first time in verse 12. And then we see, again, what a thing this was when the word spread. Look at the name of Jesus Christ. What is done in this.

This has never happened. The Gentiles would certainly look at their gods and realize that's never happened with any of our gods. The Jews would say, we haven't seen this before. And so, the word spread of what, you know, what the signs that accompanied Paul and the New Testament church there. And it says in verse 13, some of the itinerant Jews, Jewish exorcists, you know, people who kind of made a living by going and casting out demons, I guess, they kind of traveled around. Some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists took it upon themselves to call the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, we exercise you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches.

So it's like, okay, we see what he's doing. They had faith, right? They believed it. Okay, whoever this Jesus is, and again, they would have known who he is because everyone heard the gospel.

He's got the power by whoever Paul is preaching, we cast these demons and these evil spirits out of you. And God doesn't rebuke them. God doesn't have anything at this point to say. Now, we get into 14 in a second, we're going to see, you know, something that happened there, but these men, it might remind us again of something that Luke records in his gospel back in Luke 9, because it is interesting that, you know, Paul doesn't say or no one says, well, you know, stop stop them. Don't let them doing it. Only you only you could do that all or whatever they might say was back in Luke 9 again. Again, Luke is he, you know, so he wrote, as he wrote the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts as well. In verse 49, he says, John, you know, one of the disciples there, he gave the apostle, now John answered and said, master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him because he doesn't follow with us. But Jesus said to him, don't forbid him for he who is not against us is on our side. Okay, you know what they're using my name, they believe they have faith. They have faith in this. And for whatever reason, Jesus said, you know what, let them let them let them do it. They're not against us. And the same I would surmising here as I look at verse 14 in Acts 19 or verse 13, same thing Paul would have applied because they're not against us. They're for us. They are using the name of Jesus Christ, whom Paul teaches the true Jesus. So God allowed that, you know, God allowed that to continue.

But then in verse 14, we see there must be a different spirit of these sons of Sceva, the Jewish chief priest, as they go about that they try to cast out, they cast out demons. So they're, you know, they're there, they, they see what's going on, too, and think, well, you know, we're Jews, we should be able to do the same thing. So we're going to go and cast out demons in, I guess, Jesus's name, or maybe just trying to cast out demons doesn't say that they tried to do it in Jesus's name. But in verse 15, I mean, first 14, they're doing it, who did so, and verse 15, and they get quite a surprise, the evil spirit answers them and said, well, Jesus, I know, and Paul, I know, but who are you?

Why should we be listening to you? We listen to just Jesus Christ, we listen to those who are completely committed to Him, but you, sons of Sceva, you're not. Who are you? Who are you that you're maybe using this name in vain and whatever, and they could see the power behind it? Quite, quite a thing there that, you know, when we do things in God's name, we should have, well, we better, we better have faith, we better believe what we're doing, we better put our, you know, have be completely committed to Him and not being, you know, hypocrites in what we're doing at all, like these people were doing, and just looking to have the power of God.

So, I mean, how startling would that be if you were one of these men to have the evil spirit, the demon, answer you back and say that, and then verse 16 to have happen what happens? The man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, overpowered them, and prevailed against them so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.

It's almost comical, right, when you read that. I mean, here it is, they're trying to do something to kind of match what Paul and the disciples of Christ are doing, and then they get totally humiliated, totally, yeah, totally humbled here. And realize, no, it isn't just a matter of Jesus's name, it's the faith, and it's the heart, and everything behind it.

You know, some people will say, man, if I should go there, I've heard some people say who aren't even with us off, we just, if we just use this name, we just use this name, it's like, really, do you believe God is just this little genie that when we say the right words, it is the heart, it's the faith behind it that makes the difference. It isn't the word, it isn't the specific name that some people might want to attach to it. Well, here they are, you know, they have something happened that I dare say none of us have had happen, we would be absolutely stunned, and it wouldn't even know what to do if an evil spirit jumped out at us and overwhelmed us, you know, and we had to run away with our tails between our legs like these men did.

But it isn't the first time, it isn't the first time that we see an evil spirit do this, right? We also see that back in the book of Luke, in Luke 10, and probably some other instances besides in Luke 10 that you can recall where the evil spirits came out of the person and manifested themselves in a powerful way. Now, we haven't, you know, well, maybe some who have been on the line have heard that I haven't heard of this happening in this day and age, I certainly haven't personally encountered it.

We don't know that it won't happen sometime in the future. Maybe it's happened, and today we rack it up to mental illness or whatever it is, we sometimes, you know, discount the effect of demons that people have in lives when we see some of the horrendous things going on in the world around us, and we wonder how people could be that way. You know, it's mental illness this and mental illness that, you know, we don't know how many of those are demons that are happening where there's these inhuman acts, these inhuman acts occur, but that's the subject for another time. But here in Luke 10, verse 17, nope, I'm in the wrong place. Luke 9, I'm sorry, Luke 9, 37.

It happened. It happened on the next day when they come down from the mountain that a great multitude met Christ, and suddenly a man from the multitude cried out, saying, teacher, I implore you, look on my son, for he is my only child, and behold, a spirit seizes him, and he suddenly cries out. It convulses him so that he foams at the mouth and departs from him with great difficulty, bruising him. So I implored your disciples to cast it out, but they couldn't.

Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you and here bear with you? Bring your son here. And as he was still coming, the demon threw the child, the son, down and convulsed him. They saw the power of this demon. They saw what was going on, and it was evident to all. So Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the child, and gave him back to his father. They were all amazed. The miracle, the power of God, only the power of God, could exercise the demons. They will make their home there forever until someone casts them out. Like I said, we don't talk about that much today.

It happened in the Old Testament times, and they didn't have all of the psychotropic drugs and all of the diagnoses that we have today to explain this behavior and explain that behavior, especially the extremely violent behavior that's out there. We don't know. I know people can be demented, and people can certainly let that spirit live in them. But as we see it here in Acts 19, it was not only the physical healing that God was able to provide, even through an anointed cloth, but even the evil spirits could be cast out by that. Just as it tells us in Matthew 8 that when Jesus Christ healed all that were brought to him, not just the physical sickness, but also the evil spirits, the demons that were in them, he cast them all out. That's the power of God that we should never discount or take for granted. Okay, Acts 19, I guess.

Now you can imagine as these things are happening around fall and the word is spreading, you know, he sends cloths out to people and the people are healed. In the name of this Jesus Christ who he has preached, evil spirits are cast out. And so the word spread, it tells us in verse 16 or verse 17, this became known both to all Jews and Greeks dwelling in Ephesus. As you can imagine, for God to allow that to happen today, and it started happening in Orlando or Jacksonville or wherever it is you live, word would probably begin to spread. There'd be a lot of naysayers, but it would certainly draw attention. And that's what God was doing here in Ephesus as this church was growing. Again, the signs that accompanied the disciples as the church began to grow, God showed his power. And so as they saw this, as they saw the healing and as they saw the evil spirits come out. Now, you know, when we look at verse 18 and 19, we can almost sense that this was a widespread problem back in those days. People knew about evil spirits. They might have known what demons were. They had no idea how to get these demons out. But here was Paul and this New Testament church, this Jesus that they were preaching, it was happening. So it became known to everyone, Jews and Greeks and Ephesus, and many, verse 18, believed and they came confessing and telling their deeds. Well, it's like, whoa, you know, this church, this Paul, this Jesus, through whose they're preaching, he must be a God different than the God that the Ephesians were worshiping because their gods could never do anything like that. Different than the Jews were able to ask the God that they were worshiping to do. They didn't seem to have God's power with them like Paul did. And so they came and what they did was start just telling their sins. It was kind of like an act of repentance. Okay, I believe. I believe and I need to tell you what I've done wrong.

I need to tell you, you know, some of the things that I've done. They felt the need to physically confess it. Now there is a proverb back in Proverbs 23, 18, that perhaps the Jews of that time were worth thinking of. Remember, they were very, very well-schooled in the Old Testament.

And if they, did I, Proverbs, yeah, yeah, Proverbs 20, no, I'm in the wrong chapter, Proverbs 28 and verse 13. It says this, it says, He who covers his sins will not prosper.

So we know that, right? God wants us, He expects us to repent. When we know we've said it, we come before Him, we acknowledge it, we ask His forgiveness. He who covers his sins, how many closes his eyes to it, thinks not me, I'm okay, I don't need to deal anything with it. He who covers his sins will not prosper. But whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy. So, you know, maybe that was part of the verse, part of what the Jews and the people that were doing coming and talking about their sins and confessing it to you, thinking, okay, I'm going to tell you what I've done wrong. I'm going to tell you that I haven't lived the way of Jesus Christ. I haven't followed the principles of the Bible and everything. And they thought, okay, God have mercy. God have mercy on me. Perhaps that is what it is. But it looks like from verse 19 that they had tried many things to cast out these demons, right? Verse 19 says, also many of those who had practiced magic brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted up the value of them and a total 50,000 pieces of silver. So here we have these books of magic, right? It's not like magic, like, you know, here's my card trick or whatever. When you read through the commentaries and see what it's talking about likely is that these books would have incantations that people could say. Want to get rid of the medieval spirit? Say these words in exactly this order. Do this in exactly this order. Follow all these things and that will get that spirit to leave.

You know, we might have books like that today, not necessarily for casting out demons, but you know, maybe something else. But they had all these books and you can imagine kind of an industry there in Ephesus. Oh, if you do this, this is how you get rid of this evil spirit. This is how you get rid of this the sailment or whatever. Just do this, do this. And all the people realized, wow, all those incantations that they trusted in, all those books that they'd been reading, none of those worked, right? They weren't able to cast out any demons. Whoever came up with a new idea on how to do this or that, none of them worked. But here, if we rely on Jesus Christ, if we trust in him, if the demon is cast out in his name, the demon leaves. So they didn't have these books anymore. And it was kind of there when they brought these books together and burned them.

It was like their public submission to Jesus Christ. I'm going to get rid of these books. I'm not going to rely on them anymore. I don't want anything to do with them anymore. Simply bring them. Let's burn them. Our faith needs to be in Christ, in Jesus. That's the name in which healing comes. That's the name in which salvation is. Now, we might do something similar. We don't have magic incantation books or anything like that. But when we come into the church, you know, many, many will have the various items of Christianity, right? We might have pictures of Jesus. We might have crucifixes hanging on our wall. Now, we realize all those things are not, you know, not of God's will. When we understand what his will is and the obedience to his commands, we bring all those things away. The Christmas ornaments that are hanging, that are up in the attic, they all come out. They get thrown in the trash. The pictures of Jesus get thrown away. The pictures or the crucifixes get thrown away. All these other religious artifacts that are not in keeping with the way we worship Jesus Christ, we do the same thing. And here's the people. This is kind of their way. Okay, I'm going to get rid of all these other little suspicious things that I trusted in, that I put my faith in. They're all gone. My faith is going to be in the way, as the Bible calls it, here from here on out. So they burn it. They burn it. They don't even want it. They don't want it in their house anymore. They don't want anything to go back to it. They know that it's worthless, and that isn't the way of Christ. And look at the value here. When God records that, they counted up the value of all these books that they were burning, a total of 50,000 pieces of silver. Now, I tried to look up and see what would that value be today, but commentaries are all over.

Was it this piece of silver? This piece of silver? It was a lot of money. Remember, by comparison, Judas was willing to sell Christ, to betray Christ, for 30 pieces of silver. Here we have books that are all brought up. The Ephesians are 50,000 pieces of silver, and they're all getting burned up.

They weren't looking to see how they could get money on them, sell them, or do anything else with them. They're just burning them. Get rid of them. They're useless. They're useless to us.

So, kind of a lesson. Look at their faith when they're doing this. This is something they relied on. Verse 20 tells us, it says, So the word of the Lord grew mightily. It prevailed. Look at the faith the people had. We see the work of God. We see what's doing on. We're willing to give up all these things we trusted in before and give it to God. So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed. It became the message in Ephesus during that time. So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed. Companyed by all these signs. Paul there for two years at this point.

The church is developing quite a reputation. God and Jesus Christ and the power of what it is there in Ephesus. As Paul sees it growing, in verse 21, he kind of is making some plans. Like, okay, I've been here for an Ephesus for a long time. Where do I need to go next? Maybe God is working with him. This is where you're going in the future. Verse 21 says, When these things were accomplished, Paul has to look at it and say, look at the work that God has done. Everyone knows the word here. When these things were accomplished, Paul purposed in the spirit. When he had passed through Macedonia, remember Ephesus in the map? It's in the center of the map and go up a little bit north into the west, up into Macedonia. That's where Thessalonica is. When he had passed through Macedonia and the Kaia, down where Corinth is. He's been here in Ephesus for a few years now. Let me go visit the church in Thessalonica. Let me go down to Corinth. Let me go down to St.

John. Remember when there's a church that's down there in St. Prey as well. Then I'm going to go down to Jerusalem, saying after I've been there, I must also see Rome. So he's got his itinerary.

Okay, this is what I'm going to do next. Thessalonica, Corinth, St. Prey, Jerusalem, over to Rome.

That's kind of in his mind as he's putting together a plan of where God would want him to do, wanting to go next. But it isn't time for him to go yet. He's just thinking about these things.

He's planning as God plans, as you and I should plan, but it'll be in God's time.

He knew it wasn't time for him to go to Macedonia yet. So in verse 22, he says, Timothy back to Thessalonica. Remember Thessalonica was a church that was very much persecuted and afflicted. It was of the churches there. It endured persecution and tribulation more than the other churches that appeared in the area where Paul had been raised up. So he was very concerned, as we read in 1 Thessalonians 3, about what was going on in there. So he sent Timothy there, and he sent Erastus there. Now, all this is Erastus there, but if you look across your page or in the next chapter, next 20, it tells us where Erastus is from and what he did for a living, if you will, in Acts 20 verse 4. We see some of the people who accompany Paul on his journeys in Sopater of Berea. He says, accompanied him to Asia. Also, Erastarchus, we're going to see the name Erastarchus a little bit in a few verses here, and Secundus of the Thessalonians. So Erastarchus is from the church in Thessalonica, and Gaius of Derby. We're going to meet Gaius in a little bit here later on in the chapter. And Timothy, um, hold on a minute, Acts 20 verse 4, Gaius of Derby, Timothy and Tychicus, and Trophimus of Asia. Now, did I overlook Erastus in that verse?

He's not in that verse, so he is in a verse here, but let me look at my notes here.

Acts 20 verse 4. Oh, okay, sorry about that. Romans 16, that's where we're going to see where that's where we're going to see where Erastus is from.

Yeah, Romans 16 verse 23. Gaius, we're going to see Gaius in a little bit. My host, okay, Paul's staying with Gaius here. My host and the host of the whole church greet you. Erastus, the treasurer of the city, greets you and courtes the brother. So, Erastus is the treasurer of the city here in Ephesus, so he's got quite a position there. He's now a disciple. He believes, as many, many in Ephesus did believe, we could see that we could see from the Jews and from the Gentiles, people converting to the truth. And as Paul needs those, he needs to send someone back to Thessalonica.

He decides I'm going to send Timothy back up there. He's been up there before. And, Erastus, you're working with me. Can you go with Timothy back to Macedonia and back to Thessalonica as well? So, he sends them up. It says in verse 22, if we go back to Acts 19, Acts 19, Paul stayed behind. It was God's will. The work in Ephesus isn't done yet. A lot has been accomplished, but there's going to be something more that develops here that Paul needs to be there for. And we find that in verse 23. Paul stays in Asia for a time. And verse 23, about that time, there is a great commotion about the way. Well, again, it's taken two years and three months, at least. But now something's going to happen in Ephesus that has happened in other cities.

Notably, I believe it was Iconium. Iconium, maybe it was still a pie, where we met the slave girl who followed Paul around saying, listen to these people, they are the true God. And Paul eventually had to, you know, he exercised the demon from her. And people in that city got all upset because their livelihood was threatened, when she could no longer be a fortune teller. We can see where people get motivated by when their pocketbooks are affected. And here we're going to have that happen in Ephesus. About that time, verse 23, there arose a great commotion about the way.

For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Diana, brought no small prophet to the craftsmen. Okay, Diana is one of the chief goddesses of Ephesus.

She had a magnificent temple to her. History books say it's one of the seven runters of the world. It was such a magnificent temple. In fact, let me just kind of show you it.

You know, there are ruins that have been there. And as you look at that, that's kind of the ruins that you can see where they found the pillars of Diana that are there. And then the artist's rendering of it, there's been actually, you know, replicas of the temple of Artemis.

Artemis is also another name for Diana. But that's what it would have looked like. For the ancient world, this temple was considered so exquisite and so magnificent that history says it was one of the seven runters of the world. And eventually, you know, as his invading armies came in, they completely destroyed, they completely destroyed the temple back somewhere in the 100s AD. So the temple was completely destroyed. I remember history correctly. They tried to rebuild it again, but it could never be built to the magnificence that it was. But other places have built replicas of it. It's a tremendous, I guess, a tremendous tourist attraction in the areas that were there.

But where this was in Ephesus, this was not just any of the run-of-the-mill temples. And if you're in, if you're ever in Greece and in that area, you know, the temples, the the Gentiles put a lot of money and a lot of effort into the gods, you know, that they worshiped.

And the magnificent buildings that were erected to them, the Temple of Diana, was certainly one of them that was magnificent. So they had these people who derived that living. They're living off of this temple and and off of the worship of Diana. And so as we see, all, you know, the Word of God spread, and people are converting to Christianity, you know, to the way, as the Bible says it, Diana, Diana's losing converts, right? The temple is no longer held in the esteem that it used to be.

And so Demetrius looks around and thinks, wait a minute, my business is failing a little bit.

This thing that Paul is talking about, this Jesus Christ, this the way, is affecting my pocketbook.

We better draw some attention to what's happening here. So that's what we find happening in verse 24.

Certain men, you know, he brought no small profit to the craftsmen, it says. And so verse 25, he bands them together. We've got to do something about that. He called them together with the workers of similar occupation and said, men, you know that we have our own prosperity by this trade.

This is where our living is. We don't know how to do anything else. Moreover, you see in here that not only at Ephesus, but throughout almost all Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away many people, saying that they are not gods, which are made with hands. No, they got what he was saying.

And what a tremendous compliment and acknowledgement. Look at what God worked through Paul throughout almost all of Asia. People are turning, are being persuaded and turned away, saying, well, you know what Paul says, and we read it, you know, we read it, you know, not too long ago, but we read it in the Sabbath services. But in Isaiah 45, it is when it says, you know, these are not gods that are made with stone and cannot speak. They have ears, but they cannot hear.

They have mouths, but they cannot speak. That message is going through loud and clear in Ephesus, and people are saying, no, right, you know, Diana, all she has is a statue. She's just made of stone.

What has she ever done? What has she ever done? So people are being converted, and the craftsmen are like, whoa, whoa, look what's happening to us. Our business is about to disappear. Verse 27, so not only is this trade of ours in danger of falling into disrepute, but also the temple of the great goddess Diana may be despised and her magnificence destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worship. Well, we're even, look at that. I mean, people come from miles around to see this temple.

You know, one history thing I read said that it took them, and I didn't double check this, but it was something like 200 years to bring that temple to the conclusion that it was, that it became one of the seven wonders of the world. It had to be a mighty impressive thing.

But look what's happening. Diana, I mean, man, people all over the world worship Diana. People all over the world want to come to see the temple of Artemis, the temple of Diana, and her reputation, everything, everything that we've lived for, everything that we've worked for is disappearing, you know, because of Paul and what the gospel he's preaching and Jesus Christ and the people converting to that religion. So he, you know, he was able to stir up a number of people. They all look at their books, get their accountants out, and the accountants say, yeah, you're right, our business has fallen out, well, fallen off. We need to do something about this. When they heard this, it made them mad. They were full of wrath, and then they start crying out, right, cry out, saying, great is Diana of the Ephesians. So we have this uproar, you know, we all of a sudden have commotion. When Satan gets involved, there's commotion, there's chaos, there's confusion.

Remember back a few chapters ago in Acts, the Jews would even, the Jews would even employ people who could instigate a crowd, get a crowd going, because it was in their interest to create a commotion, to get attention, and to try to get the people out of there that they didn't want. So we have this great shouting going on, great is Diana of the Ephesians, great is the Diana of the Ephesians.

These merchants, these craftsmen are all upset. Look what they're doing to us. And so verse 29, which was apparently a peaceful city before that, as far as the gospel going and people converting into it, all of a sudden you have this uproar. The whole city was filled with confusion. When confusion exists, is God there? No, confusion is where Satan is. God is not the author of confusion. Remember Paul wrote that in 1 Corinthians? He saw it firsthand, and this isn't of God. Where there is confusion, and he saw it in many, many, many cities, God is not the author of confusion, because he saw it and here he sees it in Ephesus. The whole city was filled with confusion, and they rushed into the theater with one accord. Let's get rid of Paul. Let's get rid of this gospel. Let's put this behind us. Remember they, you know, they had those open theaters like the Areopagus that we saw in Athens, like the Bema in Corinth. They all go out to the city square where judgments are made, where hearings are made, where conversations go on, where trials are held and everything. They all go into the theater, into that city area, with one accord having seized Gaius. Remember we just met Gaius. He's a disciple. He is from Derby, one of the Galatian churches. He's there working with Paul. That's in Acts 20 verse 4. So they seize a couple of the people, a couple of the disciples, Gaius, they seized, and Aristarchus. In Acts 20 verse 4, we saw Aristarchus as well. Aristarchus was from Thessalonica. We have people down there working with Paul and helping Paul. Kind of his assistance is travel companions, as it says here in verse 29.

So they kind of seize these two people. They don't have Paul, but it's like, look, these are the guys.

These are two of the disciples that are there. Let's put them up on a pedestal, and let's have at them, right? Paul, now Paul wasn't one to back off. Paul would go out there, and he would defend what he's saying, and he's used to it. He's been there at the Areopagus. He's been beaten. He's been stoned. He's had all these things. So he's not afraid to go out and talk the truth. Verse 30, when Paul wanted to go into the people, the disciples wouldn't allow him. You know, I'm sure they're very concerned for his well-being. Paul, look at the crowd. They're ready to kill. They're ready to kill. You don't need to do this, Paul. You stay here and stay behind. The same thing that you and I would do today if the same thing was happening in our city, and someone would go there, no, just let God work it out. Don't put yourself in harm's danger. They're in harm's way, I guess it is.

He wanted to go out there. He said, no, no, Paul, don't go out there. Verse 31, so some of the officials of Asia who were his friends sent to him pleading that he wouldn't venture into the theater. So the disciples didn't want him to go, but these friends weren't disciples. We all have friends in the world, right? I mean, our neighbors hopefully would consider themselves our friends.

We might have other people we work with and whatever. They're not necessarily not necessarily disciples, but they don't hate us, right? And it's like, okay, yeah, they may have this strange religion, but they're good, peaceful people and whatever. So Paul had these people in Asia. They're like, you know, no, Paul, don't go. Please don't go. Now, maybe they realized there could be quite an issue that happens here if Paul goes. We don't know when a mob takes control of something. What will happen? If we think back again to Acts 18, remember we had the galley of the proud consul, the governor, if you will, of Corinth, who wouldn't look, he wouldn't allow the Jews to stir up the confusion. He said, I'm not going to listen. I'm not going to listen to anything of what you guys had to say. This is an internal matter. You deal with it yourself.

You know, in early, the first verse of Acts 18 talks about how, you know, in Rome, the Jews were expelled from Rome, and because they created all these two molds and all these things that were going on. So again, we see all of a sudden, you know, we don't need this mob rule. We don't need things happening here that we're going to regret. Paul, just stay away. Just stay away. Let's not throw any fuel on the fire here. So Paul apparently listens to them. In verse 32, we see the crowd is kind of out of control, and we have people that really don't even know why they're there, what they're fighting against, or what they're protesting against. Some, therefore, cried one thing and some another, for the assembly was confused, and most of them didn't even know why they'd come together. Hey, here's an uprising. Here's something. Let's just go there and participate. And you know, we kind of see that. We didn't even see that today. Sometimes when you look at some of the protests, do people even know what's going on? Do they even know what they're protesting? Do they even have the facts? They're just there to create a problem. And that's what we have in verse 32. One are saying one thing, some of them say, well, no, this is that. None of them.

It's all confusion. It's all just about creating a mob scene to get what they want. And most of them, they're just so telling, most of them did not know why they had come together. And so they drew Alexander. They pulled someone else out of the crowd. They drew Alexander out of the multitude.

The Jews putting him forward. And Alexander, you know, he comes up there and I guess he's going to speak. Alexander motioned with his hand, wanted to make his defense to the people. Now, it's interesting that the Jews put him forward. We don't know for sure whether he's a convert or what exactly he is. You know, we find another Alexander. I don't remember what that one is. Let me look at my notes here. Find another Alexander later on in the Bible. But it doesn't appear that that's that's him. And it doesn't appear that he's a disciple. But let me leave that for a while.

The Jews put him forward. You know, whether the Jews want him to talk against Paul too and show, hey, we're in the same ballpark with you, Gentiles. We don't want this religion either.

You don't you don't want Diana, you know, minimized. We don't want this the way religion either. We want Paul to go. So perhaps they were putting him out there to show, hey, we're all in one. We just want these guys going. Anyway, Alexander wanted to talk. But when the people found out he was a Jew, it's like, well, we don't want to hear from him either. All with one voice.

They cried for about two hours, if you can imagine. Great is Diana of the Ephesians. Can you imagine the ruckus? Can you imagine the scene that was going on in Ephesus at that time? They don't want that. Some of the Jews are going to kind of perhaps be there with them to kind of side with them. Yes, we're with you on this. We're united in this. You know, we don't like you Gentiles. But hey, we are both united and we want Paul gone. We want Paul gone and this thing out of our city. They say, no way, no way. Great is Diana of the Ephesians for two hours. The mayhem there had to be just incredible what went on. And so when the city clerk, 1st 35, it's very interesting, you know, when you kind of just read through this and picture what was going on with the city clerk had quieted the crowd, he said, men of Ephesus, what man is there who doesn't know that the city of the Ephesians is temple guardian of the great goddess Diana and of the image which fell down from Zeus or from heaven is really what I guess it means there. Well, we all know that Ephesus, Diana, is our goddess. We have this temple here and all you're doing is shouting great is great is Diana, the god of the Ephesians, right? Well, what man doesn't know that we're known the known world over we're known all over the Mediterranean area as a city. That's the home of Diana. So it's kind of bringing to their attention. What are you doing? Therefore, he says, verse 36, trying to bring reason to the crowd. Therefore, since these things can't be denied, you ought to be quiet and do nothing rationally. Here again, it's like, here's a crowd about to get out of hand. Paul has stayed in the background, which is where he needed to be.

Mob rule. We've talked about mob rule before. It's there, and we've seen Paul be the victim of it.

We've seen Peter be the victim of it. We saw Jesus Christ become the victim of it.

It was interesting when I was watching this trial going up on in Kenosha that they actually talked a little bit about the mob that was outside, and could it be that the jurors are getting frightened by what the mob was going to do, and it was that going to influence the verdict.

Certainly, we've seen mobs influence a crowd here, so we may... Again, this is not anything that's first century AD. It happens today, human nature, and Satan's way of promoting what his will is is still alive and well today. But here's the city clerk trying to calm things down.

Just let this get out of hand. For you brought, verse 37, you brought these men here who are neither robbers of temples nor blasphemers of your goddesses. What have they done? They haven't committed any crime. Just like Jesus Christ didn't commit any crime. Just like Peter didn't commit any crime. Just like Paul didn't commit. They haven't robbed anything. What are we going to prosecute them for? What are we going to have a trial for? They haven't done anything wrong.

They haven't even preached against your goddess. They haven't blasphemed her. They're just preaching Jesus Christ. And so, you know, there is reasoning with them. Now, remember the background, that Gallio and Corinth wouldn't allow the mob to take control either. And here in Ephesus, the same thing. We're not going to let the crowd take over here and have something happen here that's against Roman law. Remember we read that Roman law didn't permit these things.

It just sort of just sort of happened. So verse 38, the court goes on, therefore, if Demetrius and his fellow craftsmen have a case against anyone, the courts are open. And there are proconsuls.

There are attorneys. There are people who can deal with these things. Let them bring a case, and let's hear those things individually if they have a case. If there's something specific that's against the law, charge them. Bring them to court. Let them bring charges against one another.

But if you have any other inquiry to make, it shall be determined in the lawful assembly.

Verse 40 is very telling. What is happening is Rome, the people in these cities, are beginning to realize we cannot allow these riots and these mobs to get out of control and have, you know, people beaten and stoned and everything else that they did to them imprisoned wrongly. For we are in danger, verse 40, of being called in question for today's uproar.

There being no reason, which we may give to account for this disorderly gathering.

So the city clerk was pretty wise. When you read through the commentaries, and I saw this in one and I verified it in a few others, it actually says that there was a Roman law, and I'll just quote, you know, says, there was a Roman law which made it a capital offense for anyone to be engaged in promoting a riot. So here, you know, we've seen that throughout the Roman Empire, kind of got out of hand, but now the city officials, now that it's being called to their attention, it's like, we can't have this happening in our city. It is a Roman law.

That edict must have come from Rome. Maybe, I'm just gonna maybe, you know, with Claudius the Emperor there in chapter 18 saying, stop these riots, right? So there was a Roman law. In this case, you know, Paul doesn't find himself immediately imprisoned or anything like that. It's not going to be a little, you know, but here we have then, when they bring it in and call attention to the law, the crowd disperses. When he said these things, he dismissed the assembly.

And so we have, you know, quite a bit, quite a bit that goes on in chapter 19. To me, all very interesting, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna leave it there and we'll begin at chapter 20 the next time, but if there is any, any discussion, any comments that anyone has?

Well, while you're thinking of that, I would just, you know, next week, next week in America is next Thursday, a week from tomorrow, is Thanksgiving. So I've been looking at our Bible study here for Wednesday. I know, I know several have mentioned that they will be gone on Thursday. I know women are, women are thinking about, about food and everything else. So I think we probably will not, well, I don't know, probably, I think we'll just not have a Bible study next week in deference to that so that we, people can do that if that's okay. And that may, and then the following two weeks, I'm up in Cincinnati. So it'll be a, it'll be a few weeks before we have a Bible study again.

But I will, I will make you, I'll make you aware, I'll make you aware of that. So if that's okay, unless I get a flood of emails saying, can we have a Bible study anyway? I'm going to be in town on Wednesday, but I don't want to, I don't want to interfere with other people's family plans either.

So okay. Mr. Shady. Yes, ma'am. This is for just the people getting jacked in there. And as you know, about three or four months ago, they dropped our recycling. And they told us we had to take them to a specific bin. Well, my bin has been filled up sitting on the side of my house since that time, because I wasn't going to take anything to the bin. Well, anyway, my son was over, over his Sunday, and he says, mama, they picked up my recycle. I said, what are they picking up on your side of time and not picking up on ours? You know, I got a little confused there. And so he said, well, put it out, they might pick it up. So sure enough, today I put my recycled bin out next to my regular garbage, and they picked it up. So all of you in Jacksonville, if you know, recycled bin is still sitting next to your house, sit it out on the next time that they're supposed to pick up your regular garbage. Now, why did they say they stopped doing it? Just for lack of personnel or to save money?

Back of money, they say, product interruption. Wow. Wow. Yeah, and we pay a fee for them to pick up our waste and our taxes every year. Yeah, no, I was going, we owned a house, it was part of the taxes.

Yeah, so. Right. And one of the officials at the city hall was asked, will we get our feedback? They said no. You're out of money. Right. Yeah, well, you know what? Yeah, that's, they probably just pick it up as trash, then. That's what you do. You just pick it up. Yeah, so. Right. Yeah, they have no choice.

Interesting. Because people are not taking their trash to a specific point, because I'm not eating it.

So just sit it out. Yeah, yeah, pick it up. Unless you want it to go. Right. You mentioned in Jacksonville, let me mention to the people in Jacksonville, too, remember, Andy Bureau's memorial services this Friday at two o'clock. So I know a few of you have mentioned that you're going to be there. I know there's a number of family members that Andy had that are going to be there. But, you know, I think we're going to have room for everyone. So if you want to be there at that memorial service at the church hall at two o'clock on on Friday. Okay. Okay, let me say Sabbath. Sabbath, Jacksonville, 1130, Orlando, Orlando, 130 this week. Okay. Excuse me. So, Shavie? Yes, sir. Yeah, and back on the verse 19, where those people were burning their magic books. Yeah. Did you check it? That word is that Greek word, pharmacopia, had to do with drugs, or it's different word.

I may need to check that. Just to... And let me check that one out. It wouldn't surprise me it's pharmacopia. It would be kind of drug type things. It's their incantations and their their ways of doing things. So, yeah. I was kind of thinking of magic as sorcery, but sorcery is, yeah, sorcery is that word. So, yeah. It could be. Yep. And then the Alexander that's mentioned there that the Jews put forward. I think it may be the same one that's mentioned in second Timothy 4 verse 14, where Paul says that he is a coppersmith that did him a lot of harm.

So maybe it wasn't necessarily one of the good guys, unless the guy changed afterwards and basically betrayed the way. But yeah, yeah, the coppersmith. I knew it was mentioned. I didn't write down the verse, but yeah, that made that... It's interesting. I mean, for a name to show up, you know, and Paul writing to him, he knew who Alexander was. So that may well be the same person. So yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. You see these names show up. I mean, they are and then Alexander somehow turned against him. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Anything else? Anyone?

Okay. Well, all of you, all of you take care. We will, we will see you again very soon. I'll see some of you this Sabbath and everything, but take care and we'll see you again in a couple in a few weeks. Okay.