As we begin to follow Paul’s pivotal three years of ministry in Ephesus, we are reminded of the importance of yielding to the gracious revelation of truth by God. The alternative is a hardening of the heart, which produces disastrous results.
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So, as we get into our study today, Paul has left Antioch, his home base, and he's on his third missionary journey. He's been traveling throughout central modern-day Turkey, visiting, strengthening, and encouraging the churches that he planted there during his first missionary journey. And here in Acts 19, Paul is going to return to the city of Ephesus, where he will enjoy three of the most profitable years of his ministry, a season many scholars consider to be the pinnacle of Paul's ministry. If you were with us last week, you'll recall that Paul left his dear friends Aquila and Priscilla in Ephesus when he briefly stopped there on his journey homes.
At the end of his second missionary journey, they would host the first church in Ephesus in their home, and they were pillars of that young church. When Paul returns to the city here in Acts 19, it's reasonable to assume that he would have stayed once again with Aquila, Priscilla, and when his funding ran out, he would have worked part-time in their leather shop to make ends meet. So, let's take a look at Acts, chapter 19, verse one. While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul traveled throughout the interior regions and came to Ephesus. Ephesus was the fourth largest city in the empire, and it was one of its wealthiest and most important.
It was known as the supreme metropolis of Asia. It embodied the power of the Roman Empire and the splendor of the Greek Empire that preceded it. Founded around 1400 BC, Ephesus had a population at this time of between a quarter and half a million people, which was massive at that time in history. The city boasted a magnificent theater that seated 24,000. It had good road and river systems and a bustling port, and these traits made it a natural hub for commerce and business, with enormous quantities of goods moving through the city daily.
As a result, it grew into a city of great affluence. People from all over the known world traveled through Ephesus, bringing with them their ideas, philosophies, and belief systems, and turning the city into a hub of superstition, magic, occultism, and paganism. The Ephesian population was multicultural and considered themselves more enlightened than most. They had a pluralistic spirituality, the view that all spiritual views and concepts are true and valid in some form because they ultimately all lead to God. They were comfortable with almost any deity, but extremely uncomfortable with the idea of one supreme God above all other gods.
That would be the idea of monotheism. We know of at least 50 gods who were worshipped in Ephesus, including the wildly popular god whose Roman name was Artemis. She was a goddess whose Greek name was Diana. Her glorious temple was so spectacular that it appears in Antipater of Sidon's Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was about four times the size of the Parthenon in Athens and was richly decorated by works of the greatest painters and sculptors of the age.
Artemis was most famous for the specific form of worship that she allegedly required. If you were an Ephesian man who wished to worship the city's protective mother, you would enter her temple and meet in private with one of the women who worked there as a sacred employee and worship with her. And you would pay the temple for her services and that money would go into the temple. Coffers if you were PAX Romana who chose to worship Artemis, you would soon be notified that it was your turn to serve in the temple as your act of worship. And as you can imagine, it was a stunningly effective form of fundraising and resulted in most of the city's men becoming highly devoted worshippers of Artemis thanks to Artemis Ephesus rivaled Corinth as the filth capital of the Roman world.
The Greek philosopher Israelites commented that the morality of animals exceeded that of the people of Ephesus, perhaps because the city's most popular religions were all rooted in the pursuit of pleasure known as Hedonism. Then we read that he that's Paul found some disciples and asked them, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? We'll learn later that this is a group of twelve men, and Paul and them cross paths somehow, and they get in a conversation about God. They even share with Paul that they were baptized years ago. But Paul can tell that something's a little bit off, and so he asks a clarifying question.
And the question behind Paul's question is, are you Christian? Because all Christians receive the Holy Spirit when they place their faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior. When Paul would later write his Epistle to the Ephesians, he would state plainly, when you believed you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit. Paul's suspicions were correct as we read no, they told him, we haven't even heard that there is a Holy Spirit. Paul learns these men are not Christians.
They are essentially Old Testament saints, even though it's the middle of the first century Ad. Now, when I use the term Old Testament saint, I'm referring to someone who was a believer under the Old Covenant. Typically, in the times of the Old Testament, they were looking ahead in faith to a savior that God would send in the future. Whereas New Testament saints, new Covenant saints like us, we look back in time to the Savior God sent who was Jesus of Nazareth. So, these guys were not acquainted with the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
They were still living as Old Testament saints two decades after Jesus had fulfilled his ministry and returned to heaven. So having established they were not Christians, Paul asks another clarifying question. He says, well, into what then were you baptized? He asked them. Into John's baptism. They replied, like Apollos, who we read about last week, these men had responded to the teaching of John the Baptist, not John the Apostle John the Baptist.
And as I shared last week, John the Baptist was a prophet who was given the mission of preparing Israel for the near arrival of the Messiah, the Savior sent by God to provide forgiveness for man's sins and reconcile him to God, bringing those who accept his offer of forgiveness into right relationship with God. John baptized people but with a different baptism to the one we practice in the church. John's baptism was a public declaration that a person recognized they were a sinner, needed forgiveness, wanted to be forgiven, wanted to repent, and desired to receive what the Messiah would soon offer. But John did not identify Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah until the Lord told him to. And that moment arrived when Jesus came out to visit him, and John declared, look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
In our previous study, we learned that Apollos had encountered John's ministry after John had identified Jesus as the Messiah. The group of John's disciples that Paul encounters here in Ephesus apparently encountered John's ministry before John had identified Jesus as the Messiah. And so there seemed to be two possible explanations for these twelve men. 'First possibility is they lived in Ephesus, and they had journeyed to Jerusalem to celebrate one of the feasts. While there, they had heard about the buzz related to John the Baptist ministry, and they went down to Bethabara to check it out.
They responded to John's call to repentance, then returned home to Ephesus, where they had been in a holding pattern for 20 years waiting for any update about the Messiah John had preached about. That could be the case. The other possibility is that somebody else encountered John's ministry, told them about it, baptized them with the baptism of John, and they didn't actually have any direct contact with John the Baptist himself. So, we don't know which one, but they're both possibilities. Verse four, Paul said John baptized with a baptism of repentance, telling the people that they should believe in the one who would come after him, that is, in Jesus.
Paul was familiar with the ministry of John the Baptist, and he had the joy of informing these brothers that the Messiah spoken of by John had indeed arrived, and it was Jesus. Paul would have then explained Jesus' perfect life, his ministry, his death, his resurrection, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the creation of the church. Theologically, it's a small but important point that when Paul realizes these men don't have the Holy Spirit, he doesn't teach them about the Holy Spirit, he teaches them about Jesus, because those who place their faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 1:13. We know these brothers were sincere seekers of God because we see their response in the next verse.
It says, when they heard this. So, when they heard the Gospel, they were baptized and then underline into the name of the Lord Jesus. Into the name of the Lord Jesus. The baptism we practice in the church is the one we see here. It's the public profession that we recognize Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah, the one and only Savior sent by God to provide forgiveness of sins to all who place their faith in Him.
And we have placed our faith in Him as our Savior. But not only that, notice what I had you underline, but we have decided to follow him as Lord the Lord Jesus. We now belong to him. He's both our savior and our master. He's the loved Jesus.
Verse six and when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them and they began to speak in tongues and to prophesy. Well, hang on a minute. If people receive the Holy Spirit when they place their faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior, and if Paul said that in Ephesians 113, then why do these disciples of John the Baptist only receive the Holy Spirit when Paul lays his hands on them? Excellent question. We should remember that many things are happening in the Book of Acts that are not normal.
The church is being established from scratch. This is a very special season of history, and God is doing some extra-ordinary things. He's also doing some normal things in extra-ordinary ways. And the reason in play here seems to be to explicitly link the ministry of Paul to Pentecost and the ministry of the other apostles, clarifying that they preach the same Gospel and that those who respond to it receive the same Holy Spirit and become part of the same church. The external evidence of them receiving the Holy Spirit is the same as on Pentecost in Acts chapter two, where we read they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
And you'll recall the crowd that gathered around them in Jerusalem in Acts chapter two said we hear them declaring the magnificent Acts of God in our own tongues. That seems to be partly at least what's meant by the word "prophesy" in Acts 19:6. It seems they were speaking out praises and blessings to God. So, when they received the Holy Spirit on Pentecost in Acts chapter two, and here in Ephesus in Acts 19, the external evidence is the same, linking the two events together. And if you want more information about what tongues is, you can go to the website and watch or listen to the message I taught on that subject back in Acts chapter two, verse four.
I've put the link on your outline. When these men in Ephesus received the Holy Spirit by Paul laying his hands on them, there's a link made to the way the Samaritans received the Holy Spirit. When the apostles John and Peter laid their hands on them in Acts 817. And so, when you put it all together, it seems the Lord chose to give the Holy Spirit to these twelve men in this way, to make it clear once again that Paul was indeed a legitimate apostle just like John, just like Peter, and that everyone who placed their faith in Jesus was receiving the same Holy Spirit and becoming part of the same church, whether you were an Old Testament saint, a Samaritan, a Gentile, or a Jew.
And if you want more clarity on the events of Pentecost in Acts chapter two and what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit, or what the purpose is of being filled with the Holy Spirit, I'd again encourage you to go to the website, go back to some of those earlier studies we did in Acts Chapter Two, where we explain those things in detail. Now, thinking back to our previous study, you'll recall that Apollos had received the Holy Spirit. He was fervent in spirit. He was preaching with the power of the Holy Spirit, but he too had responded to the ministry of John the Baptist. So why did Apollos have the Holy Spirit, but the twelve disciples of John the Baptist in Ephesus didn't have the Holy Spirit?
What was the difference? The difference was that Apollos knew about Jesus specifically, and Apollos had placed his faith in Jesus specifically. We read that he was speaking and teaching accurately about Jesus. Apollos knew that Jesus was the Messiah. He just had some gaps in his knowledge about the full ministry and work of Jesus as the Messiah.
The twelve disciples in Ephesus didn't know about Jesus, and so they did not have faith in him specifically. And it is faith in Jesus specifically as Lord and Savior that is a prerequisite to receiving the Holy Spirit. And this speaks to an interesting question that some will raise. One of the classic questions that's been asked of Christianity is what about the man in the jungle? Meaning, what about the man, the hypothetical man who's part of a remote tribe, he's born in the jungle, he dies in the jungle, and in between, never has even the opportunity to hear the Gospel.
What about that man? Does he go to hell? In Romans one and two, as we've talked about many times, Paul explains that every person receives general revelation - revelation of God through creation and our moral conscience. And scripture clarifies that each person will be judged by Jesus based on how they responded to the revelation they received. And this has led some to ask, well, then why should we evangelize?
I mean, why should we share the Gospel if people who don't hear the Gospel can actually end up in heaven one day by just recognizing that creation points to a Creator and by doing what their conscience tells them is good and not doing what their conscience tells them is bad? Why evangelize? And here in Acts 19, we find part of the answer that they might receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, that they might be brought back into relationship with God now and experience all the rich blessings that come with being part of the family of God now and having the joy and peace and life of his spirit within you. Now, if we want good for people, we must share the Gospel with them. Additionally, if they receive the Holy Spirit now, they will have the power to live for Christ and bring him glory with their lives.
So, if we care about the glory of God, we must share the Gospel. And as they live for Christ, they will have the opportunity to live a life of meaning. Rather than wasting their days on trivial pursuits, they'll have the opportunity to accumulate eternal rewards. Indeed, if we care about God's glory and man's good, we must share the Gospel, because there is no comparison between a life lived with or without the Holy Spirit. No comparison.
Verse seven, it says now, they were about twelve men in all. And so, these men and their families would have then become part of the early church in Ephesus, in the house of Aquila and Priscilla. In Acts 18, verses 19 through 21 in the previous chapter, we read about Paul's first brief visit to Ephesus, where he entered the synagogue and debated with the Jews. When they asked him to stay for a longer time, he declined, but he said farewell and added, I'll come back to you again if God wills. They wanted to hear more from Paul, and the Lord did indeed will Paul to return.
And so, when Paul does, he picks up right where he left off. And we read in verse eight, Paul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly over a period of three months, arguing and persuading them about the Kingdom of God. Now, remember, the Jews had a very different expectation for the Messiah. They believed he would free them from Roman oppression and restore Israel to a place of prominence among the nations. They believed that's what the kingdom of God would look like when it came, and that's what the Messiah would bring.
And it was really interesting. I was watching this morning William Lane Craig, who's probably the most eminent philosopher in the world today, 'strong Christian. He was on Ben Shapiro's show talking with him about why Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. And it was so interesting to hear Ben Shapiro, who's a Jew, repeating this exact thing. He's saying, Jesus can't be the Messiah because all Jews know that the Messiah is going to do things like restore Israel's prominence among the nations, free her from her enemies, and all these sorts of things, literally, that is still the present-day belief of Orthodox Jews.
And so, he was kind of surprised when William Lane Craig says, yeah, Christians know that. That's the Jewish expectation. We just believe that Jesus taught that, that expectation was not biblical. That's not what the Scriptures said in their entirety about the work of the Messiah. And so the essence of Paul's preaching to the Jews was the Gospel message and explaining how Jesus fulfilled all these Old Testament messianic prophecies, even though it didn't look like they thought it would.
It took a mighty, mighty work of the Holy Spirit to break through these deeply entrenched paradigms in the Jewish mind. Indeed, every time a Jew would turn to Christ in the early church, that is a miracle, because it took them making a 180-degree turn from beliefs they had been raised in their entire lives. It took much arguing and persuading them about the Kingdom of God, but Paul faithfully lectured, answered questions, and engaged with those who challenged his teaching.
Verse nine. But when some became hardened and would not believe - underline hardened and would not believe, I'll come back to it - slandering the way in front of the crowd, he withdrew from them, taking the disciples and conducted discussions every day in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. You'll recall that the way was an early term for Christianity derived from Jesus' statement, I am the way, the truth, and the life. So, some of the Jews in the synagogue hardened their hearts and refused to respond to the Holy Spirit calling them through Paul's preaching. And these stubborn men quickly stirred up trouble and made Paul's ministry in the synagogue untenable.
And this made me think how often do we struggle to accept when a paradigm we have about the Kingdom of God turns out to be wrong? How often do we get angry or frustrated when our expectations turn out to be different from the word of God? This is not an exclusive issue for new Christians or baby Christians. You can be a Christian for decades and then somebody points out in a message, or you hear a message or you have a loving confrontation or conversation, and somebody points out, hey, what you've been believing is wrong. Look what the word says right here.
And how often do we respond in that one little area in a similar way, and we harden our hearts? I don't like that. I don't want to hear that. Let's talk about something else. Why are you slowing down your speech, Jeff?
Let's keep it moving. And when that happens, we face the same decision the Jews in Ephesus face. Will we embrace the glorious truth even if it looks different from how we think it should? Or will we just become hardened and refuse to believe, refuse to hear, refuse to. No, no. My old paradigm is working just fine for me, thank you very much.
One of the greatest truths that anyone who has followed Jesus for a long time will discover is that you have to be absolutely ruthless in how you deal with your thoughts, opinions, and emotions. You have to be absolutely ruthless over and over again. You have to go back to the questions. Is it true? And what has Christ commanded?
You have to say, it doesn't matter what I think, it doesn't matter what I feel, it doesn't matter what I want. Is it true? What has Christ commanded? You realize you must become ruthless in crucifying your flesh because the heart is more deceitful than anything else. And there's a way that seems right to a person, but its end is the way of death.
If you're not aware, it is not natural to suppress one's opinions and desires and to instead exalt God's opinions and desires. It's not natural. It doesn't come easy, ever. That's why God gave us the Holy Spirit, to give us the power and the option to choose his way rather than our own. But even when we have the Holy Spirit, being led by Him is not a natural action for us.
We have to choose to be led by Him moment to moment, and we have to be ruthless in our rejection of our flesh. That desire to become ruthless grows from finally recognizing, just through reps and repeated failure, that my ways lead to death, but the Lord's ways lead to life. It comes from finally having the light bulb turn on one day and just notice the pattern that, hey, my ways tend to produce destruction and death in my relationships. My ways tend to produce death and destruction in my mental health and my daily life, and you name it. But the Lord's ways lead to life.
It's really weird. Like when I do things the Lord's way, I experience life, but when I do things my way, I experience not that. And it's super consistent. It's almost like there's some sort of law in play here. And when you finally get tired of seeing the results of doing things our way, and you respond to the conviction of the Holy Spirit, a desire, his birthed in you, and you begin to pray, lord, help me to be ruthless with my sin.
Please help me because I want life. I want you. There's only life or death in every area of life. All of us are trending in one of those two directions in every area of our lives right now - some faster than others, some slower. And, tragically, this group of stubborn men at the synagogue in Ephesus chose death. They chose to reject the truth and instead choose the path that leads to death. And this will mark Paul's last interaction with a synagogue in Luke's record. So, Paul takes those who had responded to his teaching with him, and he leaves the synagogue. He heads to the lecture hall of Tyrannus.
Now, this may have been a school owned by a philosopher named Tyrannus, or it may have simply been a public building where Tyrannus taught. As a humorous aside, the name Tyrannus means our tyrant, and it might actually have been a nickname that was given to him by his students. Now, in this part of the world, it gets hot. It gets really hot. If you go to Greece or Turkey or anywhere around the Aegean in the summer, it is insanely hot.
And so, they developed a daily schedule very different from ours. They would typically get up with the sun and work from around 07:00 A.m. To 11:00 a.m. And then break for the hottest part of the day from around 11:00 A.m. To 04:00 p.m.
They would then resume work around 04:00 p.m. And go until 910 11:00 p.m. Before clocking out and staying up till one historical writer observed that in that part of the world at that time, there were more people asleep than awake at 01:00 p.m. And more people awake than asleep at 01:00 A.m.. Some New Testament manuscripts state that Paul taught in the lecture hall of Tyrannus during that midday break time when people would be off work, and many would be sleeping.
That would make sense as Tyrannus and his students would also be taking a break and the building would have been available. So, Paul's daily schedule for most of his time in Ephesus seems to have been he would work part-time, so he would work in the morning in Aquila and Priscilla's leather shop. And then from that midday time of about eleven to four, he would lecture in the hall of Tyrannis, and then in the evening he would minister in people's individual homes to their families and friends and neighbors. Paul was a beast. He just worked so, so hard from dawn till dusk.
He was a literal genius, a brilliant thinker and orator, and a man full of the power of the Holy Spirit. And a testimony to those truths is that he was able to so effectively evangelize Ephesus while lecturing in the hall of Tyrannus. He must have been so captivating that men would rather come and hear him than sleep. There's no greater compliment for a speaker than that. The Lord's providential hand is evident in that this lecture hall was a far better public venue than the synagogue because the whole city came to know where Paul could be found lecturing, and it was in a central, well-known, prominent location.
They could come and go day to day and know where they could hear Paul or drop by and ask him a question pretty much any day of the week. Now, when I say that Paul worked hard and that his ministry in Ephesus was effective, I am understating things, because look at the astonishing truth we read in verse ten. It says this schedule of Paul's went on for two years. And then get this so that all underline all the residents of Asia, both Jews and Greeks, heard the word of the Lord. That's astonishing.
Without ever leaving Ephesus, as far as we know, Paul converted enough people through his ministry to evangelize the entire province of Asia, all of central modern-day Turkey, hundreds of thousands of people. They were so full of the Holy Spirit and love for Jesus that they took the message any and everywhere that they could, with astonishing results. I just can't even wrap my mind around that. Where are we going to Evangelize next? We're done here.
What do you mean? Like we're done? Like British Columbia? Like we're done. Everyone's heard the gospel.
It would be something like that. And during this time, Paul's time in Ephesus, the churches at Colosse and Hierapolis, and probably all of the seven churches from Revelation two and three were planted. An incredible season of ministry in the province of Asia. I'm going to wrap up by just talking to two quick groups those who don't belong to Jesus, and those who do. If you don't belong to Jesus right now, the first step is still repentance as it was 2000 years ago.
It's saying, I recognize that I'm out of relationship with you, God, and I recognize that is because of my sin. I want to turn from that sin, and I want to turn from being God over my life, and I want to turn my life over to you. And if you'll do that, God will forgive you. He will come into your life giving you the gift of the Holy Spirit. You will become connected to Him and you will find his joy, life, peace, and power available to you.
But it means forsaking all other gods, including yourself, it means recognizing that all roads do not lead to God. Jesus is the only way. And the only way that he comes into our lives is as both Savior and Lord, Savior and Master. We trade our lives for His. We get His and he gets all of us.
If that's not clear, it's a trade entirely to our benefit. Entirely to our benefit. And so, if you want to give your life to Jesus for the first time today, you want to enter into that relationship with Him, please come and talk to BJ or me in the coming time of worship. Seriously, just find us, tap us on the shoulder. We'll go out into the hallway where it's private and we just want to talk with you and pray with you and help you take your next step in your walk with God.
You can do it after the service too, but if you want to, don't wait. Come do it immediately in this coming time of worship. Now, if you do belong to Jesus, if you do belong to Jesus, let me lovingly remind you, brethren and exhort you, that we need to be ruthless with our sin. We need to be ruthless in the way we deal with our opinions, our desires, and instead choose the opinions and desires of God and beg Him to help us exalt them above our own. Are you tired of experiencing death and destruction in a certain area of your life that you know is being produced there because.
You're choosing your will over Christ's? Are you tired of what your sin in your flesh is doing to your relationships, to your mental health? The answer is to repent, turn to Christ and say, not my will, but yours be done. That's the answer. Not trying to control it and re-steer it just a little bit, but to repent and say, Lord, I'm sorry. Help me to be ruthless. Your will be done. And because you have the Holy Spirit in you, guess what? You actually have the power to do that. You actually have the power to obey Christ and walk in the paths that lead to life, not only to say it, not only to say not My will, but Yours be done, but to actually live it.
Because that's the power that God gives us through his Spirit.