In Ephesus, a strange phenomenon occurs as people are miraculously healed by touching Paul's sweat cloths and aprons. We'll dig into what was happening, why, and what it can teach us about supernatural healing in the Church today.
Transcription (automatically-generated):
Well, as we return to our study through the Book of Acts, we find ourselves in chapter 19. Paul is on his third missionary journey, and he has returned to the city of Ephesus, where he is enjoying three of his most profitable years in ministry, a season many scholars consider to be the pinnacle of his ministry history career. And today we're going to look at just two verses because they are on the surface, so strange. And I'm so grateful, actually for these two verses, because by a whisker we have managed to avoid having to talk about the sons of Sceva on a family Sunday with kids here. And those who know will understand why that's a good thing.
But the two verses we're going to talk about today open up a lot of questions that need to be answered. And they lead us into the frequently misunderstood subjects of faith and supernatural healing and the relationship between the two. So, let's get into it. In Acts chapter 19, verse eleven, it says God. Would you underline the word God?
God was performing extraordinary miracles by Paul's hands. And if you've been with us through most of our study, through the Book of Acts, then you'll know that God worked extraordinary miracles on a regular basis through the Apostles - the surviving members of the twelve apostles chosen by Jesus, the twelve Disciples, and Paul - the Lord did this to authenticate their ministry in a world steeped in supernaturalism. These extraordinary miracles proved the Apostles were teaching about a God greater than any other and that their message was divine.
It was from God. If you were with us a few years ago when we went through the Book of Exodus, you may recall that part of the reason for the plagues of Egypt was God demonstrating that he was infinitely greater and more powerful than the gods of Egypt. And a similar dynamic was in play in Ephesus. It was a city steeped in magic and occultism. And through Paul, God was displaying his superiority over all other gods and powers in the region.
These extraordinary miracles also proved the Apostles were authorized by God to write the Scriptures we know today as the New Testament. After the first few decades of the Church, it seems that the Lord no longer worked through the Apostles to perform miracles with the same frequency. They still happened, but with nowhere near the frequency and regularity we see during the first few decades of the Church. In Paul's first letter to Timothy, his pastoral protege, he advises Timothy to drink a little wine to help with his stomach pains and frequent illnesses.
Frequent illnesses. In his last letter, 2 Timothy Paul writes that he had to leave a brother named Trophimus in a city called Miletus because Trophimus was sick. Now. Why didn't Paul just heal Timothy and Trophimus? Because something changed after the first few decades of the Church.
God was still working miracles, but not with the same frequency we see during the first few decades of the Church. Now, why the change? I suggest because by then there was something new and available that God wanted his people to use to Jude between true and false teaching. Most of the New Testament scriptures. God doesn't expect us today to judge teaching by whether the preacher can perform miracles.
He expects us to judge it according to His Word. He expects us to weigh the teaching we hear by comparing it to His Word. If it lines up, we are to accept it. If it doesn't line up, we are to reject it. Does God still do miracles?
Absolutely.
But he no longer empowers individuals with the ability to regularly perform miracles as he did the apostles during the first few decades of the Church as the Gospel was spreading across the world. But it's interesting to note that miracles seem to most frequently happen today in places where people can't read the Scriptures, either because they're illiterate, the Bible hasn't been translated into their language, or because Bibles are illegal or almost impossible to obtain. And in places still steeped in supernaturalism. In those places, there is often a regular stream of testimonies from missionaries who report that God is doing miracles to authenticate the Gospel being shared by his messengers. So, here's the bottom line - and I wrote this out on your outline for you...
The anointing of the apostles to perform regular, extraordinary miracles was unique, especially during the first few decades of the Church. The purpose of that unique anointing was to authenticate their Gospel preaching and writings as authoritative and divine. In other words, coming from God. God was doing two unique things through his apostles that would never be repeated in history. He was establishing the Church, and he was authoring the New Testament.
Today, the Lord expects us to judge all teaching by His Word. God still does miracles, but he no longer empowers individuals with the same unique anointing he placed upon the apostles. So,when we read that God was performing extraordinary miracles by Paul's hands, it was normal Apostle stuff for the first few decades of the Church. And we want to note that in V.11 we're told that it was God who was working the miracles by Paul's hands. God was the power.
Paul was the instrument through which God's power was flowing. Now, verse twelve tells us about comes of the extraordinary miracles that were happening through Paul. It says so that even face lots, the original word there is actually sweat lots or aprons. And these would have been the leather aprons that Paul wore when he worked in Aquila and Priscilla's workshop. So sweat cloths or aprons that had touched his skin, Paul's skin were brought to the sick and the diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them.
It was a common superstitious belief at this time that magical power could be transferred from one person to another through a point of contact. Some people in and around Ephesus who had loved ones who were bedridden with sickness heard about Paul's miracle-working power and thought, if I can't get them to Paul, I'll get Paul to them. And in their mind, the way to do this was to get their hands on something that had been in contact with Paul's person. Now, something he had sweated in was just ideal, because in their minds, Paul's magic powers might be deeply imprinted upon that object. So when the workshop was empty, people started sneaking in and they're stealing Paul's sweat cloths and stealing his aprons, which had to get frustrating after a while.
I mean, I'm sure at first Paul must have thought he was losing his mind before he figured out what was going on. I left it right here; I know I did. And these people would then take those sweat cloths or aprons back to their loved one who was ill. And here's the crazy part they would be healed when they touched it for real.
The diseases left them, and the evil spirits came out of them. So, what in the world do you do with that? Because it is undeniably strange. We've already discussed why God was moving so powerfully through the apostles at this time. But the part that is puzzling, at least to me, is just how bad the theology seems to be.
I mean, it's so off base, I wouldn't even know how to begin explaining to those people how messed up their theology is. And yet it's far from the only example we see in the scriptures of people being healed despite their bad theology and wrong beliefs. The most obvious parallel is the woman with the issue of blood. The story BJ read to us. Let me remind you of her interaction with Jesus.
I'm going to blend some verses together from Matthew nine and Mark five, and they're on your outlines so you can follow along. It says, a woman suffering from bleeding for twelve years had endured much under many doctors. She had spent everything she had and was not helped at all. On the contrary, she became worse. Having heard about Jesus, she approached from behind and touched the end of his robe, for she said to herself, if I can just touch his robe, I'll be made.
Well, it's basically the same theology that was driving people to steal Paul's sweat cloths and aprons in Ephesus. She believes that Jesus' healing power flows from his body to his clothing and will transfer to her if she can just make contact with the hem of his robe. It's terrible theology. And yet we read, instantly her flow of blood ceased, and she sinned in her body that she was healed of her affliction. Immediately Jesus realized that power had gone out from him.
He turned around in the crowd and said, who touched my clothes? His disciples said to him, you see the crowd pressing against you, and yet you say, who touched me? But he was looking around to see who had done this. The woman with fear and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before him and told him the whole truth.
Jesus speaking to her just always messes me up. Have courage, daughter, he said, your faith has saved you. And the actual translation there is, Your faith has made you well. And the woman was made well from that moment. And then one chapter later in Mark's Gospel, we read this about Jesus also on your outlines.
Wherever he went into villages, towns, or the country, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and begged him that they might touch just the end of his robe. Come on, guys. But wait. And everyone who touched it was healed. The bad theology spread just as it did in Ephesus with Paul's Sweat.
And yet people are healed. I mean, someone's got to explain to Jesus that this is bad right now. Why is this happening? Well, I believe we heard the answer in Jesus' words to the woman with the issue of blood. He told her, Your faith has made you well.
Your faith has made you well. Now, what is Jesus talking about when he refers to faith in that context? Write this down and we'll talk about it. Faith is the belief that God is who he says he is. And faith is evidenced by our actions.
Faith is the belief that God is who he says he is, and it's evidenced by our actions because our actions reveal what we truly believe, don't they? Faith is such a big deal to God because our actions either reveal the way we live our lives, either reveals that we really believe that God is who he says he is a good, loving, and faithful God who cares for his children, or our actions reveal we don't really believe that he is who he says he is. When we trust God, it's revealed by our actions. And when we don't trust God, it's revealed by our actions. And we're calling Him a liar.
We're accusing Him of being a fraud. That's why faith is such a big deal to God. Those of you who are parents will understand this intrinsically. How offensive is it when your child treats you and acts like you are not God and loving and, you know, all my life all I've done is love and care for you? It's deeply offensive.
It's wounding. In the same way, you know how much it blesses you when your child is able to see and recognize that you love and care for them. It does happen. I promise it does happen. That's how God feels about the way we interact with Him, and that's why faith is such a big deal to Him.
And it's why Hebrew 11:6 declares, that without faith, it is impossible to please God since the one who draws near to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek Him. Here's where things get a little crazy, especially for those of us who have been around the church and the Bible for a while. Scripture teaches God judges people based upon the revelation they have received, not the revelation they have not received. And we can wrap our heads around that as it relates to eternal issues like who gets into heaven.
We can say, oh, okay, that makes sense to me that there will be people in heaven who maybe don't even know the full gospel, but they've responded to what they did know. But here's where it gets crazy, is that this principle can affect even the here and now. God will interact with people differently here and now. Based on how they're responding to the revelation they have received, an incredible number of people with incomplete and horrendously flawed beliefs about God were healed at the hands of Jesus and the apostles. And this happened for two reasons.
Here's why it happened. Number one, they responded in faith to the revelation they had received about God. All some of them knew and understood was that the God Paul was preaching about was the all-powerful God who was greater than all others. God had the power to heal, and he rewards those who seek Him. That's all they knew.
But what did they do with that knowledge? They responded in faith. They did everything they could to make contact with God by touching the hem of Jesus' robe or stealing one of Paul's sweat cloths. They responded in faith to the revelation they had about God, even though that revelation was woefully incomplete. 'Second reason people with bad theology got healed...
Write this down. They placed their faith in the right thing, Jesus. They placed their faith in the right thing, Jesus. Now, we live in a world that wants to believe that if you just believe something strong enough, then it must be true. We hear this when we use phrases like, well, what's true for you is true for you, and what's true for me is true for me.
Or when we talk about phrases like your truth, as though your truth can be different from the truth, and the philosophy behind that is actually the belief. No, if you just believe something strong enough, then it's true.
This is like Disney children's level stupidity. Just believe it. Just wish upon a star and it'll be true. A lot of areas where I could point out, but I'll show some restraint in that area right now. Suffice it to say, you can believe something with all your heart and be completely wrong, and it will not make it true even if you believe it with all your heart.
Now imagine we're in a plane, and that plane is going down, but we have a chance to jump and land safely. You are given a choice between a parachute or an umbrella to aid you in your journey to the ground. Now, let me ask you if you have all the faith in the world, you believe with all your heart and Saul that that umbrella is going to save your life. Does that mean you're loving to jump out the plane and float down like Mary freaking Poppins to the ground? No, of course not.
Why? Because the issue is not, first and foremost, how much faith you have. The issue, first and foremost, is the object you have placed your faith in. A little faith in something powerful will accomplish far more than much faith in something useless. A little faith in something with the power to heal and save you will accomplish a lot more than all the faith in the world in something that cannot heal and cannot save.
It's not about how much faith you have. It's about the object of your faith first and foremost. And even though there was some wacky theology involved, these people had great faith in the great one, Jesus, and consequently experienced a miracle. Now, when you understand these principles of the kingdom, you will understand why people can still experience a miracle when there's bad theology involved. I think most faith healers on TV are frauds and charlatans, pretty much all of them.
They're false teachers. And yet some people are genuinely healed while watching their TV shows or attending their crusades. How is that possible? Number one, those people are responding in faith to the revelation they have received about God, as simplistic as it may be. And secondly, they've placed their faith in Jesus.
If their faith is in the guy on the TV, they're not getting healed. I'll tell you that right now. But if their faith is in Jesus, then a miracle may be possible, even though they're watching a false teacher. It's crazy, but it's true. Let me share some other examples of faith being connected to healing in the Scriptures.
I couldn't fit it on your outline, but we'll put these up on the screen as we go through them. In Acts 515, we learned that for a time, Peter's shadow was healing people. We read they would carry the sick out into the streets and lay them on COTS and mats so that when Peter came by, at least his shadow might fall on some of them. I tried finding a verse in the Bible that tells us that's how healing is supposed to work, and I couldn't find it because it's not there, because it's terrible theology. And yet they were healed.
And it's too simplistic to just say, wow, that was a unique time. Don't read too much into it. That's too simplistic because Jesus told the woman with the issue of blood, your faith has made you well. He didn't say, Lucky for you, you're here while I'm here. He said, Your faith has made you well.
What about this interaction Jesus had with two blind men? In Matthew 9, it says two blind men followed him, calling out, have mercy on us, Son of David. When he entered the house, the blind men approached him, and Jesus said to them, do you believe that I can do this? They said to him, yes, Lord. Then he touched their eyes, saying, let it be done for you according to your faith.
And their eyes were opened. In Matthew 15, a Canaanite woman begs Jesus to heal her demon-possessed daughter. And we read that Jesus replied, woman, your faith is great. Let it be done for you as you want. And from that moment, her daughter was healed.
Or Luke 18, where we read as he approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the road, begging, hearing a crowd passing him by. He inquired what was happening. Jesus of Nazareth is passing by, they told him. So, he called out, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me. Then those in front of him told him to keep quiet, but he kept crying out all the more, Son of David, have mercy on me.
Son of David is a messianic title. Jesus stopped and commanded that he be brought to him. When he came closer, he asked him, what do you want me to do for you, Lord? He said, I want to see. Receive your sight, Jesus told him, your faith has saved you.
Instantly he could see, and he began to follow him. Glorifying God. All the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God. In all those instances, Jesus links the person's faith to their healing. And to make it even clearer that this principle works in the opposite direction too, we get this account in Matthew 13 of a time Jesus came to minister in his hometown of Nazareth.
It says he went to his hometown and began to teach in their synagogue so that they were astonished and said, where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother called Mary? And his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas? And his sisters?
Aren't they all with us? So where does he get all these things? And they were offended by him. Their response to Jesus healing the first few people there and teaching with wisdom and power is to say, who does this guy think he is? He grew up here.
He's just like us. We know him, we know his family. And now he's acting like he's the Messiah. Whatever. And Jesus said to them, a prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and in his household.
Now get this and he did not do many miracles there. Why? Because of their unbelief. The Bible connects the lack of faith of those in Nazareth to the lack of miracles. Jesus worked there.
Now, maybe you're thinking, Great, so all I need is faith. And I can receive a miracle. I can receive my physical healing. Man, I wish that were true, but it's not that simple. The Lord is working all things for good on a level we cannot fathom.
He is balancing things so far above our pay grade, I probably can't even describe them accurately. But he is the only one who knows. This balancing equation between preserving man's free will and part of preserving our free will is allowing us to experience the consequences of our free will. If he removes all consequences of free will, then we don't really have free will, do we? So, he's the only one who can balance free will and honoring our free will individually and collectively as the human race with intervening sometimes miraculously and mercifully in our world.
If he does this too much, it infringes on our free will. He's the only one who can balance this out. He alone knows when healing here and now would be good for us and would be bad for us. All of us in our own minds, we're like, oh, it would be good for me. And the closer you get to the Lord; you see two things more clearly.
You see Him more clearly; you see yourself more clearly. One is glorious, the other is pretty ugly. And we all think, oh if I was just healed, what would I do with my healing? I'd just leap around like a deer giving God the glory for all of my days. That's what we think we would do.
It's so far from the truth so much of the time, most of us would be grateful for like a month, and then we'd just be like, oh good, now I've got a healthy body I can use to serve my own interests. That's the truth. That's the truth, and it's ugly. And so only the Lord knows where healing would be good for us or bad for us. When it comes to becoming more like Jesus, only the Lord knows whether us being healed or us not being healed would cause us to play the right role in this story of humanity and redemption, that he is unfolding across all of human history.
Only he knows what it takes for us to draw closer to Him and cling to Him and what will push us further away. And he alone knows the outcomes in our lives that will cause us to be the most like Him at the end of our lives. And that's the goal. We're concerned about the here and now. He is concerned with one thing where we finish, that's it.
And his sole concern, the work of the Holy Spirit, the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, is to say, what can we do in his life, in her life, that will cause them to be most like Jesus at the end of their life? That's it. That's the goal. And those who love Christ say Amen. Let it be done.
So, here's the deal. Sometimes the Lord is not going to do a miracle no matter what. Sometimes the Lord is going to do a miracle no matter what. He has his reasons. He has his plans.
We know that everything he does in the lives of those who love Him is ultimately for the good of those who love Him. And so when we don't get the miracle we want, we trust in the goodness of God. We walk in faith. Which is what? Believing that he is who he says he is.
So, when we don't get the miracle we want, we walk in faith. I know he's good. I know he's faithful. I know he loves me. But there is this third possibility that is really strange but true.
Sometimes the Lord is open to doing a miracle depending on our faith. There's no other way to harmonize everything the New Testament says about faith. And if we have the faith, God will move through it and if we don't, he won't. That's true. That's biblical.
And listen, there is so much more I want to say about this subject and we're going to keep going next week but on Family Sundays, we try to keep it a little bit shorter to honor the kids whose been so good. Thank you by the way kids for paying such good attention and being so well behaved. And so I know this may have kicked up all kinds of questions for you, but we're going to dig into those more next week. But I want to say this in closing, and I'll ask the worship team to come up - how do you live as a person of faith?
How do you be a person of faith? It's really simple. Believe that God is who he says he is and then live your life in light of who he says he is. I said it was simple. Simple doesn't mean easy.
Simple just means not complicated. How do you be a person of faith? You believe that God is who he says he is? Everything he said about who he is in his word is true. And then you live your life as though you actually believe that you don't live your life like you don't have a Father in Heaven who loves you and cares about you and knows you better than you know yourself and is always with you.
You live your life as though that is true because it is. That's how you be a person of faith. Even when you have doubts you choose to act as a person of faith. Can I tell you a secret? Sometimes in my life when I'm wrestling with doubt, I break it down to this and I say, man, there's stuff going on in my head I can't get a handle on.
But here's what I can do, I can control what I do. So, what would a person who had rock-solid faith do in this situation? I'm going to do that. I'm going to walk in faith even as I fight the battle of faith in my mind. And you can do that.
If you wait all the time for your heart, mind, and soul to be perfectly aligned, you're going to end up paralyzed in the area of faith. But praise God for these moments where you can make a decision to act in faith while your mind and your heart plays catch up. Make the decision to act in faith. And here is the wonderful promise of Scripture. God rewards those who seek Him.
Here's the encouragement for you wherever you're at. And I hope you get this. It doesn't matter how much you know about God right now. What matters is what you are doing with what you know about God right now, how you are responding to the revelation you have received. Act upon what you do know about Jesus.
Act upon what you do understand about God. Obey the commands you do know. Seek him and his word promises you will find him. Don't say, When I understand everything, then I'll start trusting God and doing this. Know this.
The Lord knows how much revelation you've been given, and he's interested in one thing right now. What are you doing with what you've been given? The Word of God says, to whom more is given, more will be given. So, you respond to what you've been given, you'll get more. But to Him, a little has been given.
Even that will be taken away. Here's the idea. He gives you a little, and you do nothing with it. He'll take it away. So be encouraged.
Be encouraged. Doesn't matter how much you know about God right now. It matters what you're doing with what you do know. And for you, the Word is this he rewards those who seek Him. You can be rewarded by God.
You can be blessed by God wherever you are in your faith right now, if you'll seek Him where you are right now, even in this coming time of worship. Maybe your next step is just, lord, I don't even know if you're real, but would you just show me if you're real? I'm just going to close my eyes and just try and quiet my heart and just see if you speak to me. He's a rewarder of those who seek Him. Maybe you're in the place where you're just way down and you're thinking, I don't know how to give my burdens to God.
How can I do that? And so maybe for you, it's just saying, hey, I'm going to just lift my hands as an outward sign that I want to give my burdens to God. I don't know why this would magically make that happen, but Scripture calls us to do this when we praise God. So I'm going to do it in faith. Watch and see what the Lord will do.
He rewards those who seek Him. He rewards. Those who seek him. God honors faith. He's blessed by faith.
And my prayer for us is that at Gospel City, our faith in Christ would grow along with our knowledge of Christ. Because if it doesn't, then what's the point? My prayer is that he might be more greatly honored, glorified, and blessed in our lives by us living as people of faith, that when he looks down on us, he would say, now, that group of people, they believe that I am who I say I am. How do I know? Because I can look at their lives and they live in faith that I am who I say I am.
So, let's pray. Would you bow your head and close your eyes? Lord, thank you so much for Your Word. And Jesus, thank you for these incredible examples of people with messed up theology, incomplete theology, who were blessed by you, who were touched by you in life-changing ways because they responded to the little bit of revelation they had been given. I thank you that you're not a God who demands perfection from those who seek you because that perfection was attained by you.
For us. You've been perfect on our behalf, Jesus. And so, your invitation is simply, come. If you're thirsty, come and drink.
If you're hungry, come and eat. If you're tired, come and be refreshed. If you're dead, come and be brought to life. Just come. And thank you that you are a rewarder of those who seek you.
So, I pray right now for everyone in this room. And, Lord, I want to pray against all those reasons the enemy is putting in their head of why they shouldn't come right now in the state that they're in. Lord, I pray that the voice of Your Spirit would speak louder than any other, and you would speak those words. I am a rewarder of those who seek me. So, Lord, please speak to hearts.
Reveal yourself to hearts, minister to hearts in this time for Your glory and for Your fame. And Jesus. We are sorry. We repent for all the ways in which we have chosen to live that reveal. We don't believe you are who you say you are.
And we acknowledge you have only ever been faithful. You've only ever been good. You've only ever been true to us, Jesus. So please forgive us for the ways that we failed you in that regard. And please speak to us by Your spirit now, because we want to obey.
If there's any area of our life where the way we're living is a denial that you are who you say you are, please show it to us so that we can repent and so that we can change, so that our whose lives can be a testimony to Your faithfulness and Your goodness and Your character. We love you. You our only ever good. Thank you. That a life built on you is a life built upon a first foundation.
Thank you. That you reward those who seek you. We love you, Lord. In your name we pray. Amen.
Amen.