Latest / HBCWestminster / 8.25.24 Acts 19:1-20 Pastor Danny Gardner

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8.25.24 Acts 19:1-20 Pastor Danny Gardner · HBCWestminster

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Would you pray with me, church? Our Heavenly Father, use your word, we pray, to bring glory
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to your name, to bring joy to your people, and to bring salvation to the lost. In Jesus' name,
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amen. Amen. Thank you. Well, our last Sunday in Acts, Paul concluded his second missionary journey.
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This morning in Acts, we launch into journey number three. Three Sundays ago, we studied
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Paul's ministry in Athens, a city well-educated but full of idols. Our last Sunday together,
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we looked at Paul's ministry in Corinth, arguably the most wicked city on earth at the time. And
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this morning, we read about Paul's ministry in Ephesus, a city which was enamored with
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spirituality and the occult. If you want to think of it this way, Athens would be Oxford.
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Corinth would be Cal Berkeley. Ephesus was Hogwarts, all right? So there are your three
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universities. First of all, we're going to look at the city of Athens. We're going to look at the
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three different cities. Kent Hughes, in his commentary on Ephesians, called Ephesus the
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dark castle of Asia Minor. It's Hogwarts. He wrote, Ephesus was a watering hole for every kind of
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magician, witch, clairvoyant, and criminal. Con artists, murderers, and perverts all found the
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climate of Ephesus unusually agreeable. Now, this is where the Apostle Paul would spend the next
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two years of ministry. Our text describes the beginning of the
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two-year ministry among the Ephesians, and our text this morning divides perfectly in half. If
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you want to take notes, we'll call the first 10 verses from Judaism to Jesus, from Judaism to
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Jesus. And then the second 10 verses, we will call dancing with the devil, dancing with the devil.
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And so let's look first at an example, one example of how a soul transfers from death to life.
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How does a soul transfer from darkness to light, from ill-informed
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to rejuvenated? And so we're going to look at the two-year ministry among the Ephesians, and our
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text says, Ephesus was a watering hole for every kind of magician, witch, clairvoyant, and criminal.
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And in the case before us, it is from Judaism to Jesus, but honestly, the truth penetrates the
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hearts of the unsaved the same way, regardless of their mistaken worldview. In other words,
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no matter what your unsaved neighbors and coworkers believe, no matter what their worldview is,
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no matter where they're starting from, the journey to Jesus is always the same.
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And we pick up the story of Paul, now,
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chasing down the partially informed believing pockets, which Apollos had left behind.
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I remember from two Sundays ago, Apollos was a great teacher. I called him a mighty force for
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the first century church, but his message we read was ill-informed. He'd heard the first three
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quarters of the gospel, but he never heard how the story ended. And so he would preach
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in the Ephesian synagogue, attaching the Old Testament prophecies to Jesus Christ,
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but the baptism which he preached was John's baptism. And do you remember John's message?
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John the Baptist, what was his message? Do you remember? It was repent,
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for the kingdom of God is at hand. In other words, be prepared because the Messiah is going to come.
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Prepare your hearts, prepare your minds for the arrival of the Messiah. And then somehow,
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he became detached from the gospel message.
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As the life of Christ continued to play out, ultimately to the cross, to the resurrection,
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to the ascension, to the birth of the church and Pentecost. And for 20 years, that wildfire of the
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church is continuing to spread, but Apollos had become detached in Ephesus. And so he continued
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to preach, prepare yourselves for the coming of the Messiah, even though he had already come.
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He had come. He had fulfilled the promise of the Messiah. And so he continued to preach, prepare
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his while he was still alive. This meant to counsel him, to make firm his vamos vive,
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to make his질 of God, to teach a way for unbelievers in place of a progeny.
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so to give his wits once again. He's been diligent since he was 20,
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but when he left, he showed up atop the
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portals of all others. And one time before, it was some Daisional,
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that Paul had
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19, these eager believers, we can call them almost Christians. They're almost there. They almost,
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they've almost heard the whole story. They're just waiting for somebody to connect the dots.
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And they had heard a gospel message. It's true, but one which didn't include the end. And so the
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apostle Paul would come and fill in the gaps, connect the dots for those almost Christians.
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And can I ask before we even get into it, who are the almost Christians in your life?
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Who are the people who are not far from the kingdom? Jesus called it. This one is not far
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from the kingdom. The people in your life who honestly are just waiting for a nudge.
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That's all they need. I'm going to share with you kind of a funny story about the church's
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bank account, which happened just a couple of weeks ago. In last month's board meeting,
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it occurred to us that our savings account, and I've told you guys before,
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we've been saving for the last several years for all of this renovation so that we don't have to
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take out any loans. It's all being paid for with cash. We are not going back into debt. We've
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got no debts. And so we are beholden to no one, but the Lord financially. And so we've been saving.
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And so we've amassed that savings account to the point that we can pay for all of this. And
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one of the board members said, are we earning any interest on that savings account? And we have been
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to the tune of 0.01%.
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Okay. So we've been earning 0.01% on our savings account, which if you weren't a math major and I
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was not one, that's not very much. Okay. 0.01% is very, very small. And so it was just brought up
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at the board meeting. What if we check with PNC Bank, who is our banking institution? What if we
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check with them? Just see if there are other options. Can we put them in something else? Or
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can we check with credit unions or something? Maybe we switch it all over so we start earning
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more money. And so we call this meeting. It was the chairman of our trustees and I, and then our
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representative from PNC Bank, which met in my office right there. And we just, we came in and
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we told him what we wanted. We want to check. Is there something we can get more interest on?
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Are there options that we can get more interest on? So he came into the meeting, the three of us
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sit down from our side and he's sitting there and he just says, we have decided as an institution
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that we are going to increase your interest drawing on that savings account. We're going
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to increase your interest from 0.01% to 4%.
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400 times increase. Okay. We're going to give you 400 times more.
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Chairman of our trustee and I were sitting there and we're like, did you hear that? Yeah.
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What? What? And our chairman just looked at him and said, why? And the guy's response was because
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you asked. That's true because you asked, you never asked. So we're going to increase it from
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0.01% to 4%. It's a factor of 400. Why? Because you asked.
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And I was like, well, what if we asked again? What else do you got? Because we asked. Honestly,
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I would encourage you to go to your bank and say, Hey, what more can you do? I mean, honestly,
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if that's all it took. And here's what I'm wondering. Are there people in your life
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who are just waiting to be asked? That's it. I just, nobody ever invited me. That's it. That's
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as simple as it is. Just nobody ever said anything that I've been living next door to a Christian for
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decades.
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They just never said anything about it. We're going to increase our seating ability from 240
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to somewhere around 300, 305 in this room. Somebody's got to fill in all those seats.
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I've got a feeling friends that you already know who they are. You already know their names.
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They're just waiting for that nudge. They are one invitation away. And notice in Acts chapter 19,
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these almost Christians needed several things. First,
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one of the things they needed was new revelation. They needed to know who Jesus Christ was
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and that the Holy spirit had already come. And look at verse one, it says,
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it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country and came
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to Ephesus and he found some disciples. These were Apollos' disciples. And he said to them,
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did you receive the Holy spirit when you believed? And they said, no, we haven't even heard that there
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There is a Holy Spirit.
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And after discovering they had never even heard of the Holy Spirit,
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the Apostle Paul did not launch into a lecture on pneumatology.
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Pneumatology is the study of the Holy Spirit.
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Rather, he is going to launch into a message, a lecture on Christology.
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What they needed was an understanding of Jesus Christ himself.
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Who Jesus is, what he accomplished.
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And this is actually entirely appropriate considering the ministry of the Holy Spirit himself.
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Notice John chapter 16 says this.
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Jesus speaking, he says,
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When the Spirit of truth comes, that is the Holy Spirit,
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he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority,
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but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.
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What does it say he will do?
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He, the Holy Spirit, will glorify me, Jesus Christ.
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The Holy Spirit doesn't talk about himself.
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That's what it says.
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The Holy Spirit talks about who?
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Jesus Christ.
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That is the Holy Spirit's job, is to magnify the Son of God.
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He will take what is mine and declare it to you.
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The role of the Holy Spirit is to point our attention to the Savior.
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And although, indeed, the Spirit of God is the third person of the Trinity,
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he is God, fully God.
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And although he really is fully divine,
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you know, we are never actually called in the Scriptures to worship the Holy Spirit.
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There's never a call.
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Read them.
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There's never a call.
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Worship the Holy Spirit.
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There's never a call in the Scriptures to pray to the Holy Spirit.
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It never commands us to do that.
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We are to pray to the Father.
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Remember, Jesus gave us a formula for how to pray.
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Pray to the Father by the power which the Spirit provides in the name of Jesus Christ.
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Now, all of that to say, that is not to diminish in any way
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the importance of the Holy Spirit.
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The importance of the Holy Spirit's role in the lives of believers.
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Without the Spirit of God,
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none of us could fulfill the calling of the Father on our lives.
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He indwells us.
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He is the one who first quickened us.
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He fills us.
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He empowers us.
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He gifts us for the building up of Christ's body.
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And when these disciples expressed ignorance of the Spirit,
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the problem was not ignorance of the Spirit.
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The problem was ignorance of Christ.
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It wasn't a lecture on the Spirit they needed.
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It was a fuller understanding.
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It was a fuller understanding of who the second person of the Trinity actually is.
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They needed a new revelation.
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But not only that, that new revelation of Jesus Christ would lead to a new relationship with him.
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A one which had as its object Jesus Christ himself.
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Notice verse 3.
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And he said,
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And they said,
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And Paul said,
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John baptized with the baptism of repentance,
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telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him.
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That is Jesus.
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The word used twice here, into.
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Into John's baptism suggests they were initiated into.
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They were joined together with, incorporated into.
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In other words, to be baptized into John's message was to be incorporated into his doctrine, his system, his religion that he preached.
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It was a doctrine of repentance and preparation.
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For these believers,
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what they had long awaited and prepared for had come.
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They were just waiting for someone to connect the dots.
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And honestly, friends, this is probably where most of your neighbors and co-workers are living.
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They've probably heard at least something about Jesus Christ.
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They've heard some portions of the gospel story.
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They've made assumptions about what they know.
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They have been baptized, if you want to call it that, into whatever worldview they hold.
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What they need is,
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is you and I to connect the dots for them.
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Let me fill in the gaps for you.
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And so connect those dots.
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And that's what Paul did for these believers.
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I'll tell you who Jesus Christ is, and then I'll help you to have a new relationship with him.
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I notice third, what they needed,
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or this, this relationship, this new relationship with Jesus Christ,
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that culminated ultimately in a new rite, R-I-T-E, a new rite, believers baptism.
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Look at verse five.
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On hearing this, it says they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
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They were re-baptized now into the genuine gospel, the full gospel.
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They'd been baptized before into John's gospel, but now that they knew Jesus Christ,
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they were being baptized again into the name of Jesus Christ.
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And the baptism of John was perfectly acceptable until they learned of the work of Jesus Christ and the believers baptism,
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which identified them with Jesus Christ.
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And.
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On this point, I appreciate the notes of Dr.
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Steven Davey, which say that the baptism of John looked forward to the death of Christ,
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but the Christian baptism looks backward to it.
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The baptism of John, he said, signified repentance.
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The Christian baptism signifies regeneration at Highland.
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We will often say that baptism is an outward proclamation of an inner transformation.
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I'm saved.
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And therefore I get baptized.
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And.
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Our.
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Baptism into Christ doesn't save us any more than baptism under John did.
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Our baptism is merely a symbol of our discipleship.
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And so they were baptized.
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But notice, finally, the result of all of these things is revelation, which led to a relationship, which led to a new right back believers baptism.
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Look what happened in verse six, when Paul laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying.
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And there were about 12 men in all the result.
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Was validation of these new disciples faith by the same sign gifts, which had accompanied so many others in that first century church as they spoke in tongues, began prophesying.
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Now, there is certainly some confusion on this point.
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Notice the text does not say that every single Christian will experience these same gifts.
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So many either confused or I would even say downright false doctrines have developed.
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Because of misinterpretation surrounding the book of Acts, let us not forget that the book of Acts itself is a transitional book.
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It is the book is very much like the believers in our texts this morning that these believers in Acts chapter 19 were a bridge between the old and new testaments.
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And so is the book of Acts.
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It is the bridge between old and new testaments.
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It, it doesn't chronicle for its readers, how things will happen now.
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Just what happened.
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Then.
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It is a history book that remember we've said that access descriptive, not necessarily prescriptive, it is narrative, not necessarily normative, it contains the pages, which take the reader from the old Testament to the new and the way that that transition happened was unique.
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It was remarkable.
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It should not be assumed to be permanent to assume that every modern believer must perform the same.
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Works that were performed in the book of Acts would be as erroneous in my opinion, as saying that every believer should also be able to part, seize, unleash plagues, call down fire from heaven, because after all, those miracles are also in court recorded in the Bible.
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Why would they be recorded if they weren't promised specifically to me, Chuck Swindoll and his commentary on access it this way.
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And I liked it.
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He says, acts is a book about decades of transition, new ways of worshiping.
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Teaching new attitudes toward outsiders.
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These were the kinds of changes Christ was instituting through the new covenant acts.
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Therefore represents a state of flux.
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So we must be careful about getting our doctrinal foundations from this book because we may be trying to set in cement something which God hadn't fully formed yet.
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A much more concerning church doctrine and Christian practice can be learned from the epistles.
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The letters.
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In the new Testament, rather than from the book of Acts, because by the time those letters were written, this situation, this transition situation had already concluded.
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They think of it like this, the old Testament had a dirt floor.
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The book of Acts is wet cement.
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The epistles are the cured rock, some cement floor, concrete floor.
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Does that make sense?
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The book of Acts, that cement is still wet.
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It's still in a state of flux.
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But if all of that is true, how do we know if a believer is genuine or not?
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Is there a new Testament proof?
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If in the book of Acts, it was something like speaking in tongues or prophesying.
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Is there a new Testament proof or a validation of genuine faith?
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And listen, friends, there is, yes, there is a supernatural test that you can test yourself.
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You can test others.
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How do I know if someone is genuinely part of God's family?
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It comes from Galatians chapter five.
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Again.
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In the epistles, Galatians chapter five, beginning of verse 16 says, but I say, walk by the spirit
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and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
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There's the test right there.
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Walk by the spirit.
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Do not gratify the sinful desires of the flesh.
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He continues for the desires of the flesh are against the spirit.
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The desires of the spirit are against the flesh for those who are opposed to each other
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to keep you from doing the things you want to do.
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But if you are, what does it say?
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Led by the spirit.
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You're not under the light.
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You're under the law.
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The works of the flesh are evident.
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Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of
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rage, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, things like these.
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That's how our world lives.
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It's how our country lives.
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That's how our neighbors live.
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I mean, that's how it is.
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How do you know the works of the flesh?
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It's all of those things.
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And then he says, I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things
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will not inherit the kingdom of God.
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But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
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gentleness, self-control.
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Against such things there is no law.
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And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and
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desires.
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If we live by the spirit, he says, let us also keep in step with the spirit and let
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us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
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Notice all of the verbs in there.
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Walk by the spirit, he says.
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Led by the spirit.
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Led by the spirit.
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Led by the spirit.
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Manifesting the fruit of the spirit, living by the spirit.
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Romans chapter eight and verse nine says, you, however, are not in the flesh, but in
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the spirit.
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If in fact the spirit of God dwells in you, anyone who does not have the spirit of Christ
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does not belong to him.
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Is there a supernatural sign for genuineness of faith?
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Yes.
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The supernatural sign is the spirit of God himself.
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If the spirit of God lives in you.
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You are a child of God, and if the spirit of God does not live in you, you are not a
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child of God.
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Do you see what he says?
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Anyone who does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
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The spirit himself is the supernatural sign.
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Notice back in Acts chapter 19, now in verse eight, it says he entered the synagogue.
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That was his norm.
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Remember synagogue first.
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For three months, he spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God.
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It was his normal custom.
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And keep in mind, this synagogue in Ephesus was the very same synagogue he had visited
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briefly in Acts chapter 18.
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During that time, there were some believers, they begged him to stay, but he wouldn't.
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This was also the same synagogue where Aquila and Priscilla discovered Apollos.
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And now not only had Paul returned, but now he would spend three months in the synagogue
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preaching about Christ, winning many converts, but eventually the patience of those who did
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not have ears to hear his message ran out.
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Verse nine says, some became stubborn.
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They continued in unbelief, speaking evil of the way before the congregation.
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He withdrew from them.
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He took the disciples with him, reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus.
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This continued for two more years so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of
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the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.
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You know, in Corinth, a couple of Sundays ago, Paul took the new believers.
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Do you remember where he took them?
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Do you remember who got them?
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Who got saved?
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Who was the first person to get saved in Corinth?
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It was right next door.
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Titius Justice.
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Do you remember him?
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The next door neighbor to the synagogue.
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And he just left the synagogue, hung a left, hung a left, and ended up in the next door
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neighbor's house.
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And Titius Justice's house would house the first church in Corinth.
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And then do you remember who else got saved?
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Was the leader of the synagogue himself, the rabbi gets saved and he hangs a left and a
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left and becomes Corinth's first pastor.
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Notice now in Ephesus.
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The new believers met.
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Initially in the hall of Tyrannus, this says.
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This was a public forum, a public square.
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If you look carefully at your scriptures, you're going to notice a small footnote there.
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It could be that Paul preached during what would have been the normal siesta hours.
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It actually gives some hours.
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He would preach from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. in many ancient cities.
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And this still actually happens in other countries and other cultures.
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People would work in the mornings and the evenings, but during the heat of the day,
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they would rest.
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They might have something going there.
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If they don't have air conditioning, right, you rest.
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And so during those normal hours of rest, that public hall would not be used for anything
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else.
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Everybody's at home.
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So Paul brought that first Ephesian church into the hall of Tyrannus, and that's where
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they stayed.
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And for two years, he continued to do that, traveling to the churches, which would have
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been planted in and around Ephesus, strengthening new believers there.
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And consider how amazing that first church must have been planted and pastored by the
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apostle Paul himself.
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These were the first recipients of the book of Ephesians.
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Man, if you haven't read that yet, get on it this week.
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I mean, it's an unbelievable book talking about what we have in Christ.
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Just read the first 14 verses of the first chapter, what we have in Christ, that we really
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are children of God.
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It's unbelievable.
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And that inheritance has been guaranteed by the Holy Spirit himself, a down payment for
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us.
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They were the first recipients of the book of Ephesians.
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Not long after Paul left.
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Timothy was sent to pastor the church at Ephesus.
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And so they also received the letters of first and second Timothy during his tenure.
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Three books.
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Church history says that after Timothy, it was the apostle John.
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John went and pastored at the church at Ephesus.
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And if Jesus' mother Mary was still alive at the time, John is the one who became her
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adopted son.
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Do you remember that?
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John.
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And so if she was still alive, Scripture doesn't record.
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But if she was still alive, she was the one who became her adopted son.
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If she was still alive, she would have accompanied her adopted son.
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There's a possibility that Mary herself worshiped at one of these churches in Ephesus.
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What an unbelievable legacy.
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If John indeed was the pastor, this is where, this is the church from which he would have
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penned his gospel and those three letters for second and third John.
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They got it.
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They got Ephesians.
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They got first and second Timothy.
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And maybe their pastor was the one who penned inspired Scripture.
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Can you imagine?
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Unbelievable church.
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And then you go to Revelation 2, the first of the seven churches listed, called out by
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Jesus Christ.
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He says, I know your works, you're doing awesome things.
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You don't tolerate false teaching.
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You're loving one another.
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You're taking care of one another.
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You're busy as all get out.
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The church calendar is full.
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You're doing renovations.
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And on top of that, you're doing renovations, paying in cash.
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You're not even taking out loans.
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I mean, he's just commending them, commending them.
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But I have this against you.
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Do you remember what it was?
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They lost their first love.
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You know the problem, Ephesus?
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You fell out of love with Jesus Christ.
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And friends, may this be a warning to us, doing all of these great things and fall out
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of love with Jesus Christ.
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It's a reminder that we should never stop stoking the fire of our love for Christ in
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our hearts.
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Because we know how easily that fire can be snuffed away.
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We know how easily that fire can be snuffed out.
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Now, during those two years, Paul's ministry was marked by manifestations of divine power,
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especially in the forms of healings, exorcisms.
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And the author gives one example of those many extraordinary things which Paul did.
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Notice in verse 11, it says, God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul,
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so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to
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the sick, and their diseases left them, and the evil spirits came out of them.
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The Lord was confirming the legitimacy of Paul's apostolic calling.
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He was calling by widely and universally using him to heal every manner of person.
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But some charlatans come in.
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Had Paul the desire, he could have monetized his abilities.
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He could have.
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Asking people to send in their donations.
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He could have become insanely wealthy.
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He could have completely disappeared.
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But he never succumbed to that temptation for fame or wealth.
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But there were others who decided.
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You know what?
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That looks pretty good.
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And I'm going to try to replicate what Paul was doing and specifically for sordid gain.
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Now, the idea of casual dating is strange to me.
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I'm not talking about blind dating or online dating or speed dating or courting or just
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the old school way of walking up to a young lady and asking her to accompany you to a
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show or to coffee.
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All of those make perfect sense if in the end you're trying to figure out compatibility
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and you're searching for a spouse.
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And listen.
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I'm not talking about that.
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Ask a girl out there.
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Ask a girl out.
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Sometimes I see the young ladies at Highland and I'm like, what are these guys waiting
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for?
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You know, like, I don't, I don't understand.
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You know, there are some quality, quality, quality, young single women at our church
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and I just think, okay, at some point I'm just going to start probing them.
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That makes perfect sense.
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The dating I'm talking about is the dating with no goal in mind.
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Do you know the difference, right?
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No intention of any kind of commitment, any kind of relationship, anything lasting at
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all.
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It's just this casual one weekend to the next one partner to the next they're going or it's
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casual dating.
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It doesn't make any sense to me.
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Hallie and I recently went to a Colorado Rockies game behind us sat a young couple who were
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obviously dating.
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I discovered very quickly that they were not compatible when they began discussing what
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it means for a base runner to tag up when there are less than two outs and a fly ball
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is caught before hitting the ground.
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One of the two of them had no idea what tagging up is and if you don't either, that's okay.
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You wouldn't be compatible with these people either, okay, but just tagging up.
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So one of them begins explaining to the other about the tag up rule, what it means to tag
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up.
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The other starts arguing with them.
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What was interesting was it was the girl who knew every single detail about baseball,
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her rules.
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The guy began arguing with her.
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He says, I'm pretty sure they changed that rule.
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She goes, no, they didn't.
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I'm pretty sure you don't have to tag up anymore.
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Yes, you do.
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I mean, she's like arguing with this new guy, you know?
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Yes, you do.
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I think they changed it.
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It's one of the rules.
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She said, no, they did not.
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And he said, listen, I played baseball.
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I played little league baseball.
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And when I played, he said this, Hallie was there.
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He said, when I played, if a ball was hit in the air and I ran to second base, the ball
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was caught, we'd both be out.
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She says, that's because the guy threw behind you to first base.
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The rule hasn't changed.
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Honestly, I was, I was, I mean, I was itching.
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They're having this conversation behind me and I'm just like, dude, I was so tempted
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to just like lean back to the young lady and just say, you guys should play baseball.
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And I'm like, no, I don't want to break up.
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There's no, there's no hope.
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There's no hope.
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You know, that, that idea of being too casual with serious, serious situations, maybe I'm
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doing that now.
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It doesn't make a ton of sense to me.
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And what we see in the remainder of the text, and we'll go through these last few verses
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quickly is that there were men who, who just casually trod upon ground for which they were
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not prepared.
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They very quickly got out of their depth.
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They got out of their depth above their pay grade.
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Okay.
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And it did not work out well for them.
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Look at verse 13, some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists, remember this is Hogwarts, demonology,
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witchcraft, all of that stuff.
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It's normal in Ephesus.
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So these guys were all over the place.
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And some of the locals undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who
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had the evil spirits and saying, I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.
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They were going to take the name of Jesus and use it as their secret new formula.
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It's.
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It's their new spell casting, commanding evil spirits to leave.
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And they're just trotting all over the name of Jesus, wearing their muddy boots.
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And seven of these guys, verse seven says, seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva
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were doing this.
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There's not really a lot of information about who this guy was, Sceva.
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There was no high priest named Sceva and more than likely he was self-appointed, self-proclaimed.
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Okay.
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But the evil spirit answered them.
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So they walk in.
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They say by the name of Jesus Christ, whom Paul proclaims, right?
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I command you to come out and the evil spirit's response is interesting.
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Jesus.
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I know.
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Oh, you bet.
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He knows.
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Paul.
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I've heard of right.
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Paul.
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I recognize.
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But who are you?
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You can imagine them getting very quiet, right?
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They've clearly stumbled into something.
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They've clearly stumbled, tripped into territory that they didn't belong in.
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And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped upon them, mastered them all.
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Overpowered them.
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And they fled out of that house naked and wounded.
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Pastor Sam told me about a message that he had heard on this text yesterday as we're
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leaving men's retreat.
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He just said this.
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And Pastor Sam said, if you get in a fight and you leave that fight bruised and naked,
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you didn't win.
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Okay.
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There's, there's no victory.
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You can't claim any victory.
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If not only you got beat up, overpowered bruise, but you're running away naked, it's a total
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loss.
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Like there's, there's nothing that you can claim as victorious.
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And so this word begins to spread.
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And of course it did.
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It became known to all the residents of Ephesus.
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Everybody heard about it, Jews and Greeks and fear fell upon them all.
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And the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled.
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In other words, they stopped casually using the name of Jesus, man.
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There is something about that name and whether they believed it or not, we're not using it
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anymore.
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Do you see that?
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Do you see that fear comes upon them?
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I mean, they are seized.
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Like there is something about the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Many of them, we, we see repented, became believers, followers of Christ.
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Look at verse 18.
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And many of those who were now believers came confessing, divulging their practices, confessing,
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repenting, right?
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No more.
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And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned
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them in the sight of all.
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And they counted the value of them and found it came to 50,000 pieces of silver.
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Today's money, somewhere between 10 and $15 million, right?
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We're talking about millions and millions of dollars worth of these witchcraft books.
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There was, they were holding nothing back.
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Once they came to Christ, they just said, it's all yours.
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And I'm not holding any of it back up at the men's retreat.
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We started by saying that we should be a people who take our souls seriously.
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Amen.
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Highlanders, all of us should take our souls seriously.
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Isn't that right?
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Isn't that true?
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But if we're going to take our souls seriously, man, what else do we need to take seriously?
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Our sin.
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We cannot say we're taking our souls seriously if we are not taking our sin seriously.
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We've got to take our sin seriously.
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We've got to repent from it.
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We've got to get rid of it.
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We've got to make it difficult to ever go back into.
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And that's exactly what these people did.
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They brought everything that was involved in that sinful practice and they destroyed
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it all.
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We're not going to sell it.
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We're not going to sell it and now make money on it.
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We're going to get rid of it.
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It doesn't have any place in our lives anymore.
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There's a story of an old man at a small country church who every single Sunday after the altar
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call, the pastor would call people forward.
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The same old guy would come to the front and very loudly pray, Lord, get rid of the cobwebs
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in my life.
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Remove the cobwebs in my life.
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He'd say it every Sunday.
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Then you go back, you know, you're repenting, asking the Lord to clean up his life.
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You go back and sit down.
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But then the next Sunday, the whole week he got involved in the same exact sin.
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And so the next Sunday he'd come forward and Lord, remove the cobwebs from my life.
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And then he'd go sit back down.
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But the next week he'd get involved in the same sin again.
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And so we'd come forward on Sunday and say, Lord, remove the cobwebs from my life.
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And at that point his wife chimed in and said, and Lord, while you're at it, kill the spider.
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Get rid of what's making the cobwebs.
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Right?
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Lord.
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Get rid of the root cause as well.
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And that's what these people did.
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It ends with a very simple progress report.
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It's now the fifth project progress report in the book of Acts.
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It says the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.
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And may this also be true at Highland Baptist church.
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Allow me to pray a Lord.
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We thank you.
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And we praise you for your word, which prevails mightily in our lives and God, I pray that
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we would not only repent of sin, that we would not only confess sin, but that we would
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repent of sin, the Lord, not just to clean out the cobwebs, but God killed the spiders
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as well.
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Lord.
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I pray that we would view your name as sacred and holy and powerful, and that we would not
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casually tread upon it.
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And Lord, we pray for the almost Christians in our lives, Lord, would you give us the
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grace and the courage to give them that little nudge.
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If there are people in our lives that are just one invitation.
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A way, Lord, would you make that very obvious and plain to us, or thank you for what you're
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doing in us and through our church.
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And we give you all of the glory in Jesus name.
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Amen.