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Tearing Down the
Acts
19:8-27
Paul stayed in
1.
Paul’s opportunity I Cor. 16:8-9
But I will tarry at That door is a door of
opportunity…he had a tremendous chance that he couldn’t pass up.
And we have such an opportunity here in our city.
Paul saw this place of
darkness as a place of opportunity, because he had the opposite philosophy
of many of us here today… …Christians today don’t
want to be in a dark place…they look for the nearest exit, wanting only to
be in the well lit areas.
“There’s so many lost people where I work…I’ve got to get out of there!”
Did it ever occur to you
that’s why God put you there…because it’s a dark place?
The Bible says that you are the light of the world…what better place
to put a light than in a dark room.
If light bulbs could talk:
“put me anyplace but in a dark room”.
I would say to that light bulb, “then what value are you?
What purpose can you serve?” Now, we shouldn’t want to
go to places that will drag us down, or seek out places where we will be
tempted, but God doesn’t want us to be hermits, either…we are to be IN the
world, just not OF it. And
God has placed us right
at the door…a door
of opportunity.
Question is: will we walk
thru it? The darker the room, the
more our light will be seen.
Your light doesn’t stand out here in this auditorium, filled with other
lights…but at your workplace, just walk thru that door and you can be a
heavenly beam that all eyes will focus on, seeing the light in your eyes and
wanting to step into that light themselves! Paul wanted to stay until
Pentecost. Why?
Because at that time…around May…was the Artemesian Games.
And the whole v. 10 Look at what happened in
just 2 years time. Every single
person heard the Word. Not all
got saved, but all had the opportunity…because Paul saw a door of
opportunity and walked thru it!
2.
Paul’s opposition Remember the verse we just
looked at? I Cor. 16: 9
For a great door
and effectual is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries.
[obstacles/opposition] This was a wicked city…so
would it surprise you if I said it was a very religious city?
It shouldn’t…for religion is one of the main tools in the devil’s
shed! Paul had to deal with at
least 3 kinds of
religion in that region:
·
Inadequate
religion v. 8 Paul always
took the gospel to the Jews first.
For 3 months in their synagogue he showed them that their religion
was inadequate. Their OT
teachings had a purpose…to point them to their coming Messiah…but he had
come, Jesus Christ, and they had missed Him…they had rejected Him…they had
killed Him! Their religion was
just an empty
shell…a hull w/ no kernel of reality inside.
Don’t ask people if they’ve found religion, ask them if they’ve found
Jesus! And all over our city
people are steeped in religion that’s inadequate.
On the outside they may dress fancy and look proper, but inside are
dead men’s bones and the meat of the gospel has never grown there.
They are social clubs and promote being good people and basically,
they are making the world a better place to go to hell from!
That’s inadequate! Paul said, don’t be
satisfied with empty ritual when you can have a vital, thriving relationship
w/ the Son of God, Jesus Christ!
Some got saved, most did
not, and after 3 months they kicked him out of the synagogue. v. 9 Paul now moved
his base of operations from the synagogue to the schoolroom.
This was a well-known school and evidently they rented it in the off
hours.
So, he first dealt with inadequate religion…
·
Imitation
religion v. 11-12
This was not the norm and not intended for us to try to duplicate
today. Throughout the book of
Acts God did special miracles at special times to validate the truth. Paul was a tentmaker in a
hot climate. His clothes would
be sweaty. He would wipe his
brow w/ handkerchiefs. And they
noticed that if the sick or possessed came into contact w/ such they would
be healed. Listen now:
I believe God was rebuking the pagan religion of that day.
These pagans were well known for their emphasis on clean, white
garments. They used them in
their rituals…and all had to be prim and proper, and sparkling white.
I believe God was saying, your dead religion can’t accomplish
anything, and your pristine white garments are powerless, but I can do
miracles using old sweat rags! What a great God we serve.
These were temples of hell, thriving in that city, and the tentacles
of demonic religion reached into every home.
So, God gave this sign thru these special miracles. Here’s the imitation… v. 13 v. 15 They were imitators, but
not the real thing themselves.
And these were not the last
people to try to imitate Paul.
Just turn on today’s Christian television…and for a price you can get a nice
prayer cloth, or bottle of miracle spring water prayed over by the guy on
the screen. “put your hand on the TV
and feel the power!” [makes me want to put my
fist thru the tv and really feel it!] Christians, let me remind
you that when you got saved, God did not eradicate your brain!
He wants you to continue to use it! v. 15-16
Pretend Christians beware!
Haphazard, carnal believers should not expect to get away with trying
to ACT like they are right with God.
You need to be the real thing to accomplish real things.
Satan is not afraid of me or you, or anyone but God, so we must be
filled with the Spirit…is He in you? If this attempted exorcism
had succeeded, it would have belittled the name of Christ…but it rather
magnified His name! v. 17 you can fool all the people
some of the time
you can fool some people all the time
but you can’t fool all the people all the time!
People know the real thing when they see it. v. 18-19
Some of the ones who had truly been saved hadn’t yet made the clean
break with the world that God wants His children to make.
Apparently, some of them still had their Ouija boards, tarot cards,
and their Harry Potter books!
[if you let your kids read that stuff you’ve got rooms for rent!] These new believers saw
this demon attack on the counterfeit Christians and they got under
conviction and began to deal w/ the sin they were holding onto in their
lives.
When
Jesus is magnified, sin gets dealt with.
Isaiah saw Christ in His glory and said, woe is me, I’m unclean. New believers:
God wants to change you.
He wants you to give up some of the old things for Him, and make sure and
replace them with some new things.
There was a book burning in Acts 19, and I’ve hosted a couple of
bonfires myself thru the years where tapes and CD’s, books and other items
were thrown in…things of value, too!
When they added up what it
was all worth, it was 50k pieces of silver, which is equal to 1 year’s wages
for 150 men! Some of you may need to go
home and pour something out, throw something out, flush something down!
Some of you may need to get your home in order, get a handle on some
things, or get married. Don’t
look at the cost…it’s called sacrifice…telling God He’s worthy of it, and
recognizing that HE paid the real price for you! Something else now:
it’s interesting that
the demons of hell knew
Paul. Do they know you?
Are they threatened by your witness?
I’d like to think that the forces of evil and Satan himself know the
name
Paul had to deal w/ inadequate religion,
imitation religion…
·
Idolatrous
religion v. 26-28, 34-35
Who is this Diana? She
was the goddess of fertility in the Greek culture.
Sex was the center of their worship.
This was the biggest religion, and her temple was one of the 7
wonders of that world…yes, sex sells!
But it was a
pagan cult…idolatry of the worst kind.
Hundreds of priestesses were available for a price.
It was prostitution in the name of worship!
This may have been a temple, but
it was a temple
of hell. That brings us to our final
point…we’ve seen Paul’s opportunity
and opposition, now…
3.
Paul’s overcoming v. 23-26
Paul’s teaching in the Imagine you’re walking down
the street in
But that’s just what God
did thru Paul.
Paul
got them saved and they didn’t need Diana anymore.
And a guy named Demetrius and his cohorts had been making a fortune
off of selling statues of Diana, but sales were dropping fast!
They weren’t worried about losing their religion, but their money! Joke:
letter from a father to his daughter’s ex-fiancé: “Dear Tony, I have been
unable to sleep since I broke off your engagement to my daughter.
Will you forgive and forget?
I was much too sensitive about your Mohawk, tattoos, and pierced
nose. I now realize that
motorcycles aren’t that dangerous, and I really shouldn’t have reacted the
way I did to the fact that you have no job.
I’m sure that there are many very nice people who also live under a
bridge in the park. Sure, she’s
only 18, and she could go to Harvard on a full ride scholarship, but she
wants to marry you! But you
can’t learn everything about life just from books.
I sometimes forget how backward I can be.
I was wrong, I was a fool…but I have come to my senses, and you can
have my full blessing to marry my daughter.
Sincerely, your future father-in-law.
P.S.: Congratulations on
winning this week’s lottery!” This world revolves around
the almighty dollar. What would
you sell your convictions for? 25% of men said they’d
leave wife and family. [you’re
thinking, “I’d do it for a lot less!”] 23% of women said they’d be
a prostitute for 1 week. 3% said they would put
their children up for adoption! Paul here is putting the
devil out of business. He didn’t
organize a march or a demonstration, or just merely preach about it to the
church…no, he got busy winning lost souls and they stopped going to those
places! History records that
shortly after Paul’s departure from We hope to see
Roe v. Wade overturned, but do you
know a better way of preventing abortion?
By winning young ladies to the Lord!
Last century alcohol was
prohibited for a time, but much more effective a solution is seeing
alcoholics come to know Jesus as their Savior!
We have a major drug
problem in our town, but here’s a solution, win users to Jesus, and watch
them win others. There’s an open door…will you walk thru it? We have many opportunities…and sure, there are many obstacles, but we can be over comers in Jesus’ name, and tear down the temples of hell!
Grace Notes Sermon Ministry:
NOTICE! Our sermons are free to download, copy and paste, edit and use as you see fit...but only our free subscribers get the newest messages, featured sermons, and some free gifts we shower on them from time to time! Help keep this service free by recommending it using the links above the sermon
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