Some traveling Hebrew exorcists learn the hard way that the name of Jesus is not a magic word or an incantation, and "many" Ephesians turn to Christ after witnessing His power through Paul's ministry in their city. The radical and immediate actions of those new believers remind us just how profound the immediate change produced by the Holy Spirit coming into a person's life is.
Transcription (automatically-generated):
We've spent the past three weeks in verses eleven and twelve of Acts 19 and it's time to move on. And you better hold on because today we are going to go through seven, count them, seven verses. So, let's return to the city of Ephesus and get straight into the text of Acts, chapter 19, verse 13. It says now some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists also attempted to pronounce the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, I command you by the Jesus that Paul preaches, seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish high priest, were doing this. Now, there's no reference in any historical source of a Jewish high priest named Sceva, and we can safely assume he was not a real high priest.
The original Greek word translated here, high priest, is used in Luke's Gospel and the Book of Acts to refer to members of the Jewish priestly aristocracy or who are part of the court that determined issues related to the priests and the temple. So, this guy was just part of the Jewish religious bourgeoisie is the best way to think about it and would have almost certainly lived in Jerusalem. So, who were his seven sons and what were they doing so far from home in Ephesus? Well, the text tells us they were itinerant exorcists. They were traveling professional Jewish exorcists who claimed to cast out evil spirits from the possessed as a professional service.
If you wanted to summon the power of the Hebrew God, the belief in the world at that time was, well, then you had to hire a Hebrew exorcist because he's got the inside track with the Hebrew God. Now remember, Jews would never speak the name of God. They viewed it as an issue of reverence, and they still do today. They will write what we think the name of God is, Yahweh, without the vowels. Because for devout Jews, it would be blasphemous to actually say or write the full name of God.
So, when Jewish exorcists would cast a demon out of a person, they would use all other kinds of phrases and methods to try and do it. They would use phrases, they were allowed to say, spells and sorcery mixed in with some of the names like Jehovah, that maybe they could say the Book of Tobit, which is an extra biblical Hebrew writing, tells a tale. It's just a tale wherein the heart and liver of a miraculously caught fish are burned in the ashes of incense and the resulting smell and smoke will drive away demons. It's basically a spell in this old Jewish book. Josephus, the famed Hebrew historian, told of a cure in which a demon could be drawn out of a person through the nostrils of the possessed by waving a special kind of magic root under their nose that supposedly came from Solomon.
And other rabbinical writers talk about other magical superstitions that were going around at the time. Satan and the demons were playing games with them.
They were creating the perception that these exorcists and the spells that they used were more forceful and powerful than God and nobody could be helped unless they found the right professional, the right exorcist. We read a few weeks ago how Jesus explained that if all the demons are cleansed from a person's spirit, but they don't ask the Lord to take up residence in their place, those demons will just come back even stronger. And we still see those dynamics in Play Torah in the Roman Catholic Church with its well-known history of alleged exorcisms. You have to find the right exorcist. You know, you got to find a super priest and you have to hope he knows the right combination of words, the right incantations to say, because ordinary people are powerless against the powers of darkness.
That's what those powers want you to believe, and it's what they wanted people to believe back then. Before Jesus died and rose again, how did he say demons could be cast out of a person? He told his disciples, sometimes by nothing but prayer and fasting. Now, Jesus could just do it because he had the authority, but for everyone else, he said pray and fast. After Jesus died and rose again, claiming victory over sin and death.
How are demons cast out of a person? Now? That person needs simply repent and turn to Jesus as Lord and Savior. And those who desire to sea such persons freed from demonic oppression need only bring them to Christ if they are willing, and he will set them free. Sceva's sons were traveling around and making money by marketing themselves as Jewish professional exorcists.
And apparently this was a common thing for sons of the Jews, religious bourgeoisie to do. Because in Matthew chapter twelve, when Jesus has just cast demons out of a person, the religious leaders accuse him of doing it by the power of Satan. And part of Jesus's reply to them is, if I drive out demons by Beelzebul, another name for Satan, by whom do your sons drive them out? Jesus was saying, I'm not casting out demons by the power of Satan, but your sons, on the other hand and so these sons of sea had come to Ephesus the perfect place to ply their trade, a city steeped in supernaturalism and religious syncretism. And while there, they hear of mighty miracles being worked by a man named Paul, and they hear of people being healed by merely touching his sweat cloths and aprons.
And they think, this guy Paul, he must have some real powerful magic, he must have some spells, some incantations that are next level. And so they begin doing some research, they start asking around, doing some digging, and they learn that everything Paul is doing, he's doing in the name of the Lord Jesus. And they think, that must be it. That must be the spell. Those are the secret words.
And they decide to try using it themselves on a seriously possessed person. You might recall Simon Magus in Acts chapter eight, who wanted to buy the ability to lay hands on people and give them the Holy Spirit or Elymas in Acts chapter 13. It's the same idea with the sons of Sceva. They had no real interest in the truth, no interest in the Lord, only in learning how they could leverage his power to enrich themselves. And so, they take on this serious case of possession.
They enter the house of a possessed man, and they confidently employ their new super-powerful magic spell, saying, I command you by the Jesus that Paul preaches. See what happens in verse 15. The evil spirit answered them, I know Jesus, and I recognize Paul, but who are you? Note that Paul had a reputation in the spiritual world among demons. They took him seriously.
They knew he represented Jesus, the one who had total authority over them. Paul was a bad man. And among the demons, word was, if you see the apostle Paul coming, you might want to get out of there. And I've always found this scene so cinematic because of how I picture it in my mind. I imagine the sons of Sceva slowly opening a door to a house that's dark inside, just a few little rays of light penetrating, and it seems to be empty, like there's nobody in there.
And then in a corner of the room, suddenly something loves. And at first, they think it's just a shadow, but then when they strain their eyes, they're able to see that it's a man who's hunched over and turned away from them. And then they confidently declare, I command you by the Jesus that Paul preaches. And the figure's head slowly turns, and he looks them in the eyes, and he says, I know Jesus, and I recognize Paul, but who are you? And the faces of the sons of Sceva turn white, and their leader says, we've made a huge mistake, because in verse 16, we read, then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them, overpowered them all, and prevailed against them so that they ran out of that house naked and wounded.
The scene is darkly comical outside of the tragedy of a man being demon possessed. And we know from this account that demonic possession can result in abnormal strength, as this single man tears the clothes off seven men and attacks them so violently that they're collectively forced to flee for their lives. Now, it could be that they're just not the rough and tumble sword because they're from the upper class, and he jumps on them, and they're like it could be that, but it seems clear there's a little more than that going on. This incident, though, busts the popular Christian myth that there is unconditional power in the name of Jesus. I'm speaking of the belief that all a person needs to do when confronted with evil is speak the name of Jesus, and that evil must bow or flee.
The sons of sea confidently name drop Jesus. And yet the demon in this man was completely unmoved. It did nothing to him. And that's because the name of Jesus only holds transferable power when used by those given the authority to use it, or by those crying out to him in desperation and inviting him to come in and reign as Lord. If a person recognizes that their life is under the power of sin and death and cries out to Jesus for deliverance, he will deliver them as long as their cry is not deliver me from this situation and then get out of my life, but rather deliver me from this situation and take the throne as king of my life.
If it is indeed the former rather than the latter, then it matters not how dark or hopeless the situation or circumstance Jesus will free and deliver from the power of sin and death. The only other situation where the name of Jesus has transferable power is when it is employed by those he has given authorization to wield it - His Church. It is an essential detail that Jesus was speaking to his disciples when he said, if you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. Who is the "you" Jesus is speaking of?
It's his disciples. It's the church. It's those who belong to him. So, would you write this down? The name of Jesus only holds power for those who call upon him as loved those who call upon him as Lord.
The name of Jesus is not some magic incantation. It's not a magic word. He is not like the lesser gods. The sons of Sceva learned that lesson the hard way. The demon knew that Jews had not given them authority to operate in the power of his name, and so it did not have to respect their command.
These men would have been shocked as assumingly Satan had in the past allowed them to appear to succeed most of the time, but this was something different. Satan, it seems, was not permitted by God to impersonate the power of the name of Jesus. These demons were not given permission to impersonate the power of the specific name of Jesus in Ephesus. And this event serves as a serious warning to anyone who wishes to simply add Jesus to their spiritual toolbox. It will not end well for those who carelessly meddle in the supernatural realm.
A couple of weeks ago, we looked at several examples of Jesus casting demons out of people in the Gospels. And in each case, I'm struck by the effortlessness with which Jesus commands spiritual powers. He has authority, real authority. It's that simple. If he tells a demon to flee, it must flee.
There's no discussion, no battle, no, "The power of Christ compels you!" Just effortless, authority, effortless. He's the king of what? Everything. Everything and just as word had spread throughout Ephesus of the miracles being worked by Paul, so too did word spread rapidly of the spectacular failure of the sons of sea to invoke the name of Jesus Paul preached about.
And so, we read in verse 17, when this became known to everyone, underline everyone, everyone who lived in Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks, the whole city heard about it. Hey, look, there's those guys who ran out of that house naked. The whole city knew. And when the whole city heard about it, the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high esteem. You see, first, they had seen Jesus work miracles that no other God could perform through Paul.
Second, they had seen this Jesus behave not like other gods. Men could not summon him with a spell or an incantation. This Jesus was something else entirely, something other, something more powerful and more awesome than anything they had ever experienced or even heard about. And as a result, they were filled with fear, the good kind of fear, the fear that Scripture says is the beginning of wisdom, because they understood that God was real and all powerful, and his messengers are to be taken seriously. And the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high esteem.
As I mentioned earlier, there was a tendency back then to do the same thing that many people do today with spirituality. Simply add anything new that you find that is good or that you like to your spiritual toolbox, pick up a Bible and add it to your bookshelf. Put it on the same shelf as all your other books on spirituality and occultic practices and the secret and things like that. But anyone in Ephesus who was paying attention realized very quickly that this Jesus was not like any other god. And the Jesus Paul preached, demanded exclusivity.
He claimed to be the only true God and demanded that his followers renounce all other gods. He said, you want to put Me on the shelf? Everything else on the shelf has to go. So logically, Jesus is not compatible with other belief systems. You can't fit him into universalism or pluralism, because he claims to be the only true God and demands to be the only object of worship.
He refuses to share the throne in terms of power. Jesus stands alone. There's no other God like him. Those who have been part of home groups will know that in the Old Testament, the Lord repeatedly points to his unique ability to predict the future and then bring it about to pass. In fact, he directly challenges any other god to do the same thing because he knows they can't.
Jesus is the king of kings. He's the Lord of Lords. He's the God of gods. And that's why we see the following response. For many in Ephesus, beginning in verse 18, it says and many who had become believers came confessing and disclosing their practices.
While many of those who had practiced magic collected their books and burned them in front of everyone. So, they calculated their value and found it to be 50,000 pieces of silver. In response to the incredible displays of God's power among the Ephesians, it says, many turned to Christ. I'm going to ask you to make a note of this, because we see here a demonstration of the reality that turning to Christ means turning from sin and all other gods. Turning to Christ means turning from sin and all other gods.
God and everything else are in opposite directions. So, if you're walking toward one, you're walking away from the other, and if you turn toward one, you are turning away from the other. The Ephesians understood that turning to Christ meant turning from sin and all other gods. There was a belief at the time that spells and incantations lost their power if they were not kept secret. And so, as people turned to Christ, they understood that would mean turning from their occultic practices.
And so, they begin reading their spells and their incantations aloud, not as a way to practice them or use them, but as a way to render them useless, to read them out in public based on their thinking at the time. Again, this is not theologically true, but they're coming from a real place of sincerity and devotion to Christ. They're making the choice, they believe, to render all of those things worthless and useless. And I want us to note that they didn't try and sell their spells and books. They destroyed them.
They spoke them aloud, believing that would render them worthless, and then they burned their books. If the Lord ever leads you to get rid of something because it's sinful, don't sell it. Don't put it on Facebook marketplace. Don't be like, great deal on a bong. Don't do that.
Don't donate it to a thrift store either. Destroy it. Because heaven forbid you give someone a great deal on something that's going to help them sin more. Don't do that. I don't care what it is.
I don't care how much it's worth. We're told the value of all the books they burned was 50,000 pieces of silver. That is basically the equivalent of 50,000 days wages. But they weren't concerned about the value of what they were giving up. They were only concerned with the value of what they were gaining Christ.
They were gaining eternal life in the Holy Spirit, a right relationship with God, freedom from sin and guilt and shame and death, and receiving in its place joy and life and hope and peace. What they were gaining was priceless. They didn't even stop to think about the value of what they were destroying. Somebody else who was on the side was like, this is a lot of stuff. I wonder how much this is worth.
When our brother Paul wrote to the Philippian believers, he laid out for them all the things he had confidence and trust in before he came to Christ. His lineage, his education, his social status, his good works. And then Paul wrote this. He said but everything that was a gain to me I have considered to be a loss because of Christ. More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.
Because of Him I've suffered the loss of all things and consider them as dung so that I may gain Christ and be found in Him not having a righteousness of my own from the law, but one that is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. My goal is to know Him. Paul says, I've seen Christ, and nothing is anything compared to Him. By most accounts, Abraham became one of the wealthiest, if not the wealthiest men on earth over the course of his life. And yet Scripture says he never even built himself a home because God gave him a glimpse of what awaited him in Heaven.
And when he saw that nothing he could build on Earth seemed all that impressive anymore. Hebrew Eleven tells us of Abraham by faith. He stayed as a foreigner in the land of promise, living in tents, for he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. What happened to Paul after he encountered Christ and Abraham after he was visited by God, happened to the Ephesians? They caught just a glimpse of God's glory and goodness and worth.
They understood just a tiny bit of it and nothing could compare. And their immediate response was, I'll do anything to have Christ. I'll do anything just to have Him. There's no record of anybody telling them to burn their books or confess their spells. They just did it.
They were moved by the Holy Spirit that had come into them. They were convicted by the Spirit and driven by a desire to have more of Christ. And they understood intrinsically, if I want more of Christ, I have to make more room for Christ in my life. So, these things have to go. As we said, the Lord will not share the throne if you want Him to come into your life.
Everything else must bow to Him. And to state the obvious, that can only happen if we want everything else to bow to Him. So, write this down the Ephesian converts gladly traded the vestiges of their old lives for new lives in Christ. They gladly gave up the old for the new, gladly gave up death for life. And I want to be very clear about something as we talk about this.
I am not saying that you must clean out your life and get rid of everything before you come to Christ. You can't, you won't, because you do not have the power. The power comes from the Holy Spirit. And when he enters your life, he gives you the power to get rid of the things that need to go. He breaks the chains of the things that are holding you captive, the things holding you in bondage and in shame and in condemnation and loving destruction in our life.
He goes to work changing us from the inside out. But before we come to Christ, we must decide whether we want the Holy Spirit to do that work in our lives. We must decide whether we want Him to turn over tables in our hearts, command wicked things to leave, shine a light in dark corners, smash our precious idols, and kick out anything that desires to be on the throne instead of the Lord. When we come to Christ, we must understand that is what he is going to do. He is not offering to come into our lives and serve on a committee of advisors whose counsel we can take or leave.
He's coming to reign. He's coming to establish a monarchy in our hearts. And those who have seen just a glimpse of the goodness of God, say, yes. Come and do it, Lord, please.
That is the only gospel offer there is. There is no other offer of salvation through Christ where you have Christ as Savior, but you don't have to have Him as Lord. There's no offer where turning to Christ doesn't also mean turning from sin. There's no solution where you can just live cross-eyed. It's not loving to work.
I think of the rich young ruler when I think of people who think they can negotiate with God, people who want to come to the Lord and say, hey, I want you, Jesus, but I also want to keep my sin. The rich young ruler came to Jesus, and in his heart, he was hoping to negotiate. He wanted to strike a deal where he could be right with God and yet continue serving money as his Lord and master. But Jesus knew what was going on in his heart, and he knew that money was this man's God. And so, Jesus, like he does with us, put his finger right on that pressure point.
He probably hasn't come to many of you and said, like, you need to give up everything. You have to follow me. Give up all your money. Because some of you are probably like me, and you're like, okay, listen, Lord, if you want my $12 that bad, it's yours. You can take it, Jesus.
But the Lord has probably put his finger on that pressure point, and maybe he's doing it now. And it's not an accident. That thing where you think, oh, man, if this command wasn't just in the Bible, if the Lord didn't just ask this, why does he have to make such a big deal over this issue? Because that's your issue. He's putting his finger right on it, and he does it with the rich young ruler, and he says to him, go sell all your belongings and give to the poor and you'll have treasure in heaven, then come and follow me.
Jesus didn't say that to anybody else. He didn't go to any of the disciples and say, sell everything you have. Didn't need to. And then in Matthew's Gospel, we read, when the young man heard that, he went away grieving because he had many possessions. And I'm always struck when I read this that Jesus did not chase after him.
There are so many Christians today who would have chided Jesus, corrected Jesus, rebuked Jesus in that situation for being cold and legalistic. I know many Christians who would have said, he's just a baby Christian, Jesus. You can't expect him to make such radical changes so fast. People take time to change Jesus. He needs to experience love and community first, and then his heart can change over time.
Don't be so judgmental, Jesus. Listen to me, church. And if you're listening or watching online, tune in, because I believe the modern church needs to hear this. We fear making Christianity too hard for people, and so we lower the bar on God's behalf, something we do not have the authority to do. And when we lower the bar and redefine what it means to be a Christian, we devalue Jews, we lower the value of Christ.
We say to people, I know Christ is pretty expensive, he's costly, but what if I took 50% off the cost? Would you be interested then? Would you be a buyer then? What if I told you you could keep your sin and have Christ? What if I offered you 50% off Jesus as Savior, but you don't have to take him as Lord as well?
Would you be interested then?
May God have mercy on us for trying to lower the value of the perfect Son of God and the priceless sacrifice he made on our behalf. May the Lord forgive us for cheapening his blood, his broken body, and his death on our behalf. And this is how twisted much of the modern church has become, how distorted our view of grace has become, that we think we're putting too much of a burden on people if we tell them that in order to follow Christ, they must abandon all their other gods and idols. We think that's asking too much of people when Jesus says they can't have him and their idols too. As though Jesus Christ is asking too much when he offers us freedom from sin and death.
As though Christ is asking too much when he refuses to share the throne with idols. And if you think I'm misrepresenting Jesus or the Bible in this, let's allow the Lord to speak for Himself. This is going to be on your outlines. Our brother Luke, who recorded the Book of Acts, also wrote this in chapter 14 of his Gospel. He wrote, now great crowds were traveling with him, with Jesus.
So, he turned and said to them, I love this. Do you understand what's happening here? There's great crowds traveling with Jesus, and it says so he turned to them. There's great crowds. So, Jesus literally says, I got to do something about this.
There's so many people following me. I got to do something about this. So, he turned and said to them, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Now, here's what Jesus is saying. He's simply saying, if you love your family more than you love me, you cannot be my disciple.
And we see this reality play out today all the time when we see people who refuse to obey Christ because it goes against their family traditions. I've seen this many times, oh, I don't want to get baptized because I come from an Episcopalian family, and I got sprinkled, and it might be offensive to my parents if I get baptized by immersion because it goes against our family traditions. And Jesus would just say coldly, then you can't be my disciple, because you're more concerned about offending your family than you are about offending me. We see this with people who refuse to obey Christ because of the wishes of their children or the wishes of their spouse.
Then Jesus says, Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. In other words, we've got to be ready to pay whatever price it ends up costing to follow Jesus. There's no option where we get to say yes to the Lord, say, but on one condition, as long as it doesn't include suffering, if those are our terms. Jesus says, you cannot be my disciple if you're not willing to die for me, you cannot be my disciple. You're not willing to suffer for me, you cannot be my disciple.
I imagine the crowd starts thinning pretty quick for which of you, wanting to build a tower doesn't first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it. Otherwise, after he's laid the foundation and cannot finish it, all the onlookers will begin to ridicule him, saying, this man started to build and wasn't able to finish. Jesus points out that we need to count the cost of following him before we commit to follow him. He's been very, very clear in His Word about what he's offering and what it will cost. He's been very clear about the price you need to be willing to pay if you want to follow him.
And Jesus says, don't impulsively rose your hand in a church service just because your emotions were stirred, and they were playing that song and you got caught up in the moment. He says think. Weigh the cost, weigh the benefits, and then decide with a sober mind or what king going to war against another king will not first sit down and decide if he is able with 10,000 to oppose the one who comes against him with 20,000. If not, while the other is still far off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.
In the same way. Therefore, every one of you who does not renounce - that means leave - all his possessions cannot be my disciple. Jesus likens himself to a mighty king. And indeed, he will judge the living and the dead one day as the King of kings. And we would be wise to ask what his terms of peace are, knowing that he's coming as a conquering king.
And when we stand before Him one day, we will be powerless. And he's told us his terms. Him over everything. Those are his terms. If we refuse, we cannot be his disciples.
Now, salt is good, but if salt loses its taste, how will it be made salty? It isn't fit for the soil or for the manure pile, and they throw it out. That everyone who has ears to hear, listen. Lastly, Jesus says if we try to find neutral ground, try to have it both ways and refuse to make a decision.
We are making a decision by not saying yes to Him and his conditions. We are saying no. And ultimately that will result in us being cast from his presence to spend eternity apart from Him. Christ has laid out the terms of salvation and they are simple. We get all of Him and he gets all of us.
No other gods, no other idols. Those are the terms. And I want to clarify the kinds of changes that Christ expects upon salvation. I've already shared that the Lord does not expect you to change your life before you come to Him, because you can't. You don't have the power.
He will give you the power through the Holy Spirit, and he expects you to want that power. He expects you to want the power to free your life from the grip of sin and bondage. Now, some changes can take a lifetime. There are some issues we will be battling until we go to be with the Lord. We can experience greater victory in those areas, but perhaps not total victory until we go to be with the Lord.
And I say that because most of the time you can't snap your fingers and just change certain heart issues. Lust is a great example. I wish you could be saved and just I don't lust anymore because I love Jesus now. But most men and many women will battle it until they go to be with the Lord. And generally, we can experience greater victory and freedom as we allow the Lord to sanctify us, but not total victory until we arrive in his presence.
Patterns of thinking, deeply held beliefs, attitudes that are being stirred up by repressed life events. There can be all kinds of heart issues that take time to change. And the change we experience will be dramatically impacted by our desire to change and our willingness to confront those issues with the help of the Holy Spirit. But hear me on this some sin issues can be dealt with immediately or at a minimum, significantly impacted. I'm talking about situations where you can make a decision and then take an action that will free you from that sin or at least make it significantly harder to get caught up in it again.
I'm talking about things like burning occultic books. How do I know I won't be tempted to go back and look at the book again? Burn it. Just destroy it. The Ephesians are a perfect example.
It would take a while for them to learn solid theology and grow in their Bible knowledge of the spiritual world, but they could make a choice. They could take a specific action and free themselves from the power of sin in that area by getting rid of anything and everything they owned that had anything to do with the occult. Hear me on this. They didn't need time to weigh it, time to think about it, time to discern the will of the Lord. They didn't need time to grieve over it or grieve having to let go of it or emotionally process letting it go.
They didn't need to say, I'll destroy one page a week. I'll make a commitment and I'll get there. They just needed to get rid of it and they could do it in a moment. And the only issue was, do you want to obey Christ or not? Yes or no?
You can decide and stop living with your boyfriend or girlfriend. You can put your stuff in a box and move out. You can do that. You can stop paying for our part of the rent. You can decide and stop going to those places, those bars, those clubs.
You can decide to install covenant eyes on your phone and all your computers. You can decide to ask a mature brother or sister to be an accountability partner. You can decide to cancel TV service that give you access to sexually immoral content. You can decide to throw out your drug paraphernalia and go to rehab if it's needed. You can make a choice.
You can decide to stop being part of non-biblical spiritual practices and get rid of all other spiritually related stuff that's in your life and in your home. Our thinking is so often flawed in this area because we see things clearly when it concerns more serious sins. None of us would say it's nuanced, Jeff. None of us would say this if I said to you, how long should the murderer keep murdering after salvation? How should we taper that down over time?
How long should the thief keep stealing? Well, maybe he can lower the dollar amount, like incrementally, you know, how long should the witch keep practicing wicca? But we pretend it's somehow more complicated and nuanced and I don't know something about grace. When the question is something like how long should the fornicator keep fornicating? The answer, of course, is they shouldn't.
And while the issue of lust, the internal heart issue, may take a long time to work on, there are action steps that can be taken immediately and where we can take action. Hear me on this. Christ expects us to take action because he assumes we want to obey Him. Would you write this down where we can? Christian expects us to take immediate action to obey Him and make it harder to indulge sin in our lives.
Listen, if you love the Lord, if you really love the Lord, then you are genuinely grateful for those times where you can just make a decision, take an action and obey the Lord. You are. You're grateful that, hey, if I want to start honoring the Lord in my finances, I just got to write a check and my heart might not be all the way there yet, but I can just make this decision and then do it, and then I'm doing it. The most frustrating part of following Christ is the slow pace at which my heart changes.
Anybody's heart changing at the speed they thought it would when they first got saved. No. Anybody like this is taking much longer than I anticipated. All of us, right? Because my heart is so uncooperative, it is so resistant to the work of the Spirit.
So, when I can obey Christ by just making a decision and taking an action, I'm so glad. I'm so glad. Just burn those books and then I'm done with that. Yeah, then you're done with that. Oh, praise God.
Being anyone's disciple, this is going to be a news flash for some. But being anyone's disciple means you want to be like them. This is what the word means. And so, you're submitting yourself to them to learn from them how you can be like them. So when Jesus says, this is how you can be like me, do this, don't do that, think this way, don't think that way.
We're so glad and grateful for his instruction because we want to be like him. Because we are disciples of Christ. We seek to obey Christ. We want to obey Christ. Why?
Because obeying him is what's going to make us more like Him. And that's the whole point. Now, hear me on this. There is no such thing as a disciple who does not want to be like Christ. There's no such thing.
And there's no such thing as a person who wants to be like Christ but doesn't want to obey Christ. Doesn't even make sense. If you don't want to be like Jesus, you're not a disciple of Jesus. If you don't want to obey Jesus, you're not a disciple of Jesus. When someone turns to Christ, his spirit, the Holy Spirit, comes into their life, producing an immediate change in desires.
We saw that in Ephesus when Christ comes into a person, the things that they want began to immediately change. Most notably, they want more of Christ. Show me a person who has no appetite for God's Word, no desire to serve and love their brothers and sisters in Christ, no desire for the Church gathering and fellowship, no desire to obey the commands of Jesus, no conviction over their sin. And I'll show you someone who's not a Christian. When God comes into a person's life, the change is seismic.
It is seismic. The Bible says they're given a new nature. Paul expected to see dramatic, immediate change in the desires of the Corinthians who had turned to Christ. Why? Because, as he said, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
The old has passed away, and see, the new has come. I cannot overstate the profound difference the Holy Spirit makes in a person's life. Doesn't make us perfect at all, but it changes what we want. It changes what we want. For many of those Ephesian converts, their occultic books were the most significant investment they owned.
They were burning retirement plans and investment portfolios, and that required significant faith, because they chose to believe that whatever they gave up for Christ, he would provide for them and he would meet their needs, and they didn't think twice, and Jesus did. The Lord provided for them, and he will provide for you. Listen, whatever it costs you to obey Christ, he will meet your needs. He will trust him. Put Him first, and then lastly, in verse 20, we read in this way, the word of the Lord spread and prevailed.
Now, notice this. When did the word of the Lord spread and prevail? When believers got radical about personal holiness and did all they could to get sin out of their lives. How often I find that when my appetite for the things of God diminishes, it's because there's something in my life that needs to be burned up. When I lose my passion for being around my brothers and sisters in Christ, when I lose my passion for serving the Lord, reading His Word, worshiping Him and praying, it's almost always because I filled my life with something useless, an idol that's taking up my time and attention, energies and passions.
How do I get that passion back for the things of the Lord? I ask Him, okay, Lord, where's the idol? Where is it? I know it's hiding in here somewhere. Please find it and please smash it.
And if I'm willing to act on what he reveals to me, the passion returns as my focus becomes oriented once again where it belongs, on Christ. But hear me on this do not bother asking the Lord to show you where the idol is in your life unless you've already determined that you're willing to let Him destroy it. God doesn't play games. It's an insult for Him for you to say, show me what the idol is, and then I'll decide if I want you to destroy it or not. He's not going to show you anything.
If that's the attitude, it has to be, Lord, find it. Whatever it is, destroy it. Free me from it, please. And if there's anything I can do, any actions I need to take to help that happen, I'm committed to doing them. Then the Lord says, okay, I'll put my finger right on it for you.
He'll show you tonight if you ask Him to do that. Repentance means turning from sin and turning to Christ. And if you have not yet turned to Christ, I beg you, turn to Christ today. Turn to Him today, because you are turning away only from sin and death and guilt and shame, and you are turning only to good things in the Lord Jesus. And if your focus has turned from Him, I urge you to return your gaze to Him.
There is but one throne in your life and mine, and it cannot be shared. And right now, it is not being shared. There's something on the throne in every life in this room, mine included. There's not room on that throne for Christ and our idols, no matter how precious to us they may be, and the Lord has no intention of tolerating them. If you don't want Jesus to smash your idols, you're going to have a miserable time trying to follow him.
Because those who love Jesus want him to smash the idols in our lives over and over and over again. Because we've recognized that all they do is enslave us while the rule and reign of Christ sets us free. And so, the believer's prayer is always, lord, if you find any idol in my life, please destroy it. As our brother John put it, this is what loves for God, is to keep his commands. And his commands are not a burden.
They're not a burden. They're the path to freedom. Why would you want to go through such upheaval? Why would you want to choose to upend your life in such a radical way as the Ephesians did? Because this is the truth.
My sin is far uglier and Christ far lovelier than I could ever imagine.