The True Source of Security - Life of Paul Part 54

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:02

The date was may the 10th, 1933, and students under direct orders from Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels students in Hamburg, Germany, transported books from their university library into the city square and began to burn them. And a huge bonfire citizens from all over the city of Hamburg were encouraged to bring their banned books and throw them on the fire as well. And Goebel stated that the purpose of this book burning was to rid Germany of books that contained Ungerman ideas and were there for unfit to read that if you remember our good friend, Indiana Jones was there in town when this happened. Y'all remember that, right? Okay. So that's the one we're talking about now, these books that were burned , uh, came from authors , such as Albert Einstein, HG Wells, Upton, Sinclair, Jack London, Sigmund Freud, and even Helen Keller was among the books that were banned by the Nazis. And this was followed by a series of book burnings all over Germany, time magazine called it a biblio cost Newsweek called it a Holocaust of books. But you know, the real issue for the Nazis was not books. The Nazis weren't trying to destroy books in Germany. They were trying to destroy freedom of thought in Germany. And as one German philosopher said, in words, that proved to be sadly prophetic. And I quote, he said where one burns books, one will soon burn people. End of quote. Now, today, the reason I bring that up is because we're going to look at a book burning that happened here in the Bible. The apostle Paul was right smack dab in the middle of this book burning, but it was a very different sort of thing than happened in Germany. In 1933, we're going to talk about the differences and then bring all that forward into the 21st century and say, well, so what difference does that make to me? So that's our plan. Let's give you a little bit of background here to acts chapter 19. Remember here in acts 19, Paul is on his third missionary journey , uh , acts chapter 19 verse one. Paul took the road through the interior that is of Asia minor and he arrived at emphasis. Remember we said last week, emphasis was such a strategic city that the apostle Paul spent three years here doing ministry verse eight. Paul entered the synagogue in emphasis and spoke boldly there for a period of three months, verse nine. But when some of the Jewish people became obstinate and they began to speak evil of the faith, Paul left and began teaching the word of God daily in the school of tyrannis . The school of Taranis became like, like emphasis Bible college, where believers and non-believers alike would show up and sit at the feet of the apostle Paul and learn word of God, verse 10. And this went on every day for two years from the spring of 54 Ady until the spring of 56, a D so that all the Jews and Gentiles who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of God. Now that's where we've been. So let's jump in and let's see what happens next. First 11, God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that touched him were taken to the sick and they were cured. And to the people with evil spirits and the evil spirits left them. Now, these handkerchiefs, literally in Greek were sweat bands. They were no doubt rags that Paul tied around his forehead while he was making tents in the morning. And they caught sweat off his forehead. And the word aprons here literally means work aprons. They were aprons that were normally worn by. Tanner's working with all the chemicals and you work with the tan leather. And since Paul was making tents out of cloth and leather, it's entirely reasonable. He'd be wearing some of these aprons. And the Bible says that these pieces of clothing, which Paul had touched, were taken and laid on sick people and they were healed. They were taken and laid on people who were demon possessed and the demons departed from them . Folks. This is not the first time here in the book of acts that God has demonstrated this kind of power through the apostles. It's happened two other times, acts chapter five in acts chapter eight. Let me show you in acts chapter five, we read the apostles, performed many miraculous signs and wonders among the people of Jerusalem. As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on mats. So at least Peter's shadow might fall on them. As he passed by crowds, gathered from the towns all around Jerusalem, bringing those who were sick and tormented by evil spirits. And all of them were healed. This happened again in acts chapter eight, when the apostle Philip for the first time took the message of Christ to Samarria summary is what we think of today as Northern Israel and all of the West bank. And this was the first time the message has gone there. And there was a similar outpouring of miracles. Now you say long , wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Do you really believe this happened? I mean, do you really believe Peter's shadow fell on people and they were healed and they took sweat rags off of Paul and laid them on people. And they got better. You really believe that? Sure. I believe that what's the problem. I mean, if God is who he says, he is in the Bible, there's no problem here. God could do this without even breaking a sweat friends. So I don't have a problem with this, the bigger issue. And let me just say before I go on, if you're here today and you've never trusted Jesus in a real and personal way, what this demonstrates is that God's power to free us from ailments. Whether they be spiritual ailments or physical ailments is enormous. And there may be some of you here today who have some spiritual ailments, addictions things in your life that you feel have gotten their claws into you and their tentacles around you. And you're never going to be free. And I'm here to tell you that's not true. I'm here to tell you the power of Jesus Christ to liberate and free us is beyond belief, but he only does it for people who are in relationship with Jesus Christ. And that's one of the wonderful benefits we get. When we come into relationship with Christ, we get freedom. We get the opportunity to be free and friend, if you need to be free, then I invite you to come into a relationship with Christ and let God do that for you. He will. He's willing. Well, the bigger question here is not whether God could do this. The bigger question is why, why did God pick these three strategic points in the book of acts, acts five, acts eight and acts 19 to pour out miracles in this abundant fashion, the way that we see? Well, let's see. Well , let's answer that question in acts chapter five. I think that the answer is obvious here in acts chapter five, the message of Jesus was in its infancy here in acts five. Jesus has only been risen from the dead for a matter of a few weeks. And the apostles in Jerusalem, the followers of Christ in Jerusalem were struggling to gain a foothold there. They needed some credibility. They needed some proof. They needed some validation that the message they were teaching about Jesus really was true. And so God unleashed the , this outpouring of miracles in Jerusalem to be that kind of proof, that kind of validation. And it worked acts chapter five, verse 14, as a result of these miracles, the apostles were highly regarded by the people and many men and women believed in the Lord, Jesus act six. So the word of God spread and the number of disciples continued to increase in Jerusalem and a large number of priests also became obedient to the faith. Now what about acts chapter eight? Well, remember acts chapter eight is the first time that Jesus Christ has been preached outside of Jerusalem. And just as the apostles needed credibility and validation for the message of Christ in Jerusalem. So Philip needed it when he took the message into Samarria . And I believe that that's exactly why God gave him the outpouring of miracles that he did. And the same thing happened . Hundreds of people, thousands of people came to Christ. Now it's interesting to note, this is very important that in both of these cases, once the message of Jesus Christ had become established in Jerusalem, once it had gained credibility in Samarria, it's interesting that these outpourings of miracles ceased in these two places and the non miraculous preaching and teaching of the word of God took over as the normal practice for the church there. So in acts 19, now we have skipped 20 years ahead from acts chapter eight, acts chapter eight, took place in 34 and acts chapter 19 and 54. And there has not been an outpouring of miracles like this in 20 years. And suddenly we have another one. So the question is why, what was there about Paul's ministry and emphasis that was so unique that God felt it needed this kind of outpouring of miracles? Well , there's an answer. And the answer is that we know from archeology and we know from history that at the time of Paul, the city of emphasis was the center, the world center for magical arts for sorcery and for witchcraft, which is sorceress medium soothsayers excesses . They all congregated in emphasis. They all practice. The occult in this city. Emphasis was the boudou capital of the Roman empire. What Haiti is to the 21st century emphasis was to the first century. Now, in order to saturate this city with the message of Christ, the way Paul wanted to, in order to make the impact on this city, that Paul did dreamed about making folks he had to take on this occult subculture and he had to beat it. You couldn't go around it. It was way too large and way too important way too noticeable in the city. He couldn't pretend like all these witches and soothsayers and sorcerers weren't in town. He had to prove that Jesus was stronger than Satan. He had to prove that the message of Jesus Christ was more powerful than any message they were giving out. He had to prove that what he was offering people was true and what they were offering. People was false. He had to confront them as one commentator said, in addition to Paul's evangelistic ministry, he also had a ministry in emphasis that can be classed as a power encounter with the demonic forces that bound the people of that town, the miracles that took place in emphasis were needed to demonstrate God's power as being superior to these evil forces. And you know, if you know your Bible, well, you will know, you will remember that Paul's most comprehensive treatment of how we deal with demonic forces. We call it the whole armor of God in Ephesians chapter six. You'll remember that that's written in the letter to the church of emphasis . You say , well, why is it well friends? Listen. When Paul wrote letters to these churches, he wrote to them about the problems and the issues they were dealing with in that church. He didn't just sit around and say, Oh , let me see. I need to write something about the spiritual armor of God here. Let's spin a bottle and see what church it points to. And I'll write it to them. No, no, no. He wrote this to the church of emphasis because this was such an issue in this town. And that's why it's contained in the letter to the Ephesians. Well, what happened? Paul's confronting and beating these demonic forces, verse 13, some Jewish excersice who went from place to place, driving out demons, try to invoke the name of the Lord, Jesus, over those who were demon possessed saying in the name of Jesus, whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out. We know in the days of Paul, there were a number of itinerant, extra cyst and itinerant sorcerers going around, casting demons out of people. There were a lot of Jewish people doing this. And they decided to add when they saw what the power of Jesus and emphasis, they decided to add the name of Jesus to their repertoire. They decided to add him as another incantation that they use. And a guy named Skiva, a Jewish man who had seven sons, his seven sons decided they were going to try this. So look what happened. And the demon answered and said to them, Jesus, I know. And Paul, I know, but who are you now ? I think that's hysterical. Don't you think that's hysterical? You know, well that's cause this is Bible humor and you don't get it, but this is hysterical. They go up to this demon possessed guy and they go in the name of Jesus that Paul preaches, we command you to come out. And the demon says, I know Paul and I know Jesus. I never heard of you guys, who are you guys? And then the Bible says that the man who had the demon jumped on these seven guys overpower them beat all seven of them up to such a degree that they ran out of the house, naked and bleeding. That's what you call a bad day. Now this happened and look, verse 17 says this event became known to all those who lived in emphasis, Jews and Gentiles alike, and fear seized them all. And the name of the Lord, Jesus was held in high esteem. Women take a break for a second. Wasn't that the purpose isn't that what God was trying to do? Isn't God that wasn't God, by pouring out all these miracles, trying to take the name of Jesus and exalt that name above the name of all these sources and witches and all the things incantations they had. Well, the point is it worked and many of those who believe now came and openly confess their magical practices. A number who had practiced sorcery, brought their books and began burning them publicly. Here's our book burning. They brought them all down to the square and emphasis and they started burning these books. And when they calculated the value of the books, the total came to 50,000. Drachmas in today's money. That's about $20 million that books were worth in this way. The word of the Lord was spreading widely and prevailing. Now, these people who came to Christ because of the superiority of the message of Jesus that these miracles had displayed, many of them were these sorcerers and witches and excesses. And the Bible says not only did they embrace Jesus as their Lord and savior, not only did they openly confess their cult practices and repent, but more than that, they brought their, a Colt books with all their spells and their potions and their formulas, and write down in the middle of the city. They had a huge book burning. And you know, we, we are, we are sure that these books existed. Some of them have survived to this day, having the magic spells and everything in them. In fact, if you go to the library at Princeton university, one of these ancient books is actually on display there containing magical potions and all kinds of witchcraft formulas that has survived to this day. We know these books existed and they went right out in the square and had this huge book burning in downtown emphasis. And the result is that the message of Jesus Christ made a huge impact on the city of emphasis in the province of Asia. May I also add that? Just like in Jerusalem and just like in Samarria the Bible is clear that once the message of Jesus Christ became established here in the town of emphasis, guess what happened? The miracles disappeared. There was no more outpouring of miracles like this after that, but the regular preaching and teaching of the word of God then took over. Now that's as far as we want to go in the passage, cause we got a question to ask and you all know our question and all you guys in overflow, don't you punk out on me now. I want to hear it. All right, here we go. You ready? One, two, three, right ? Say Lord . So what say, all right. So they had a book burning and emphasis like they had in Germany, big woop with differences that make to me, wait a minute. Now wait a minute. The book burning that they had in Germany in 1933 is not at all the same kind of book burning that they had an emphasis in 54, a D . Let me tell you why the Nazis burned their books. As a way of snuffing out, all freedom of thought, friends, these new believers in emphasis, they burned their books as a way of breaking from their sinful past and beginning a new life in Jesus Christ. Do you understand these weren't the same events at all, and this whole principle that there's a need to break from our sinful past, and there's a need to begin a whole new life in Christ. This is a very biblical principle. Look, Jesus said, Matthew six, no person can serve two masters. Either. He will hate the one and love the other. Or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God. And the things of this world. What was Jesus really saying here? He's saying, if you really want to follow me, you got to leave the past behind. There are some things you got to break with. Hey , Paul said, Romans 13, verse 12, let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave properly. As in the day, let us put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for gratifying the desires of our sinful nature. What's Paul saying, he's saying that in order to honor God in our life, there are some things in our life we got to leave behind. There are some things in life you've got to break from. And finally, Hebrews 12, therefore let us throw off every encumbrance and the sin that so easily entangles us. And let us run with endurance. The race that is set before us looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith. What is the writer of Hebrews saying? He's saying, if we're going to run the race well and successfully that Jesus has called us to run. There are some things we got to lay off of us. There are some things that we got to leave behind and separate from. This is what these new believers in emphasis were doing. They were leaving the past behind. They were jettisoning. The things that had spiritually encumbered them. They were cutting their ties to the sins of the past so that they could really run the race and run it well. And that's what that book burning was all about. You know, I'm going to show you a picture of a little animal here. I don't know if you know what this is, but uh , you say lawn. I don't know what that is. And honestly, whatever it is, I don't want one of them. Well, let me tell you what is, what you're looking at is a barnacle. This is the living animal. It's a little salt water animal, but a barnacle builds a house for itself out of calcium. And they're famous for building these houses on the underside of seagoing vessels. Now, when barnacles accumulate on a ship, they create drag. They slow the ship down. They , they impede its forward progress so much so that either the ship moves slower through the water, or if it wants to keep it speed up, it's got to burn more fuel. As a matter of fact, I read in an article that even a six month growth of barnacles on a ship will cause the ship to burn 40 to 50% more fuel just to stay at speed. That's the only one way to fix the problem of barnacles. And that is you put the ship in dry dock and you scrape the barnacles off. You don't negotiate with barnacles. You don't compromise with barnacles. You don't stand there and say, well, I don't really think that they're harming us in any way. So it doesn't make any difference. No, no, no. There's only one thing to do with barnacles. You're scrape them off. That's how you deal with them. Friends. You know, I believe the Bible is telling us in these verses that there are some things in life that are like spiritual barnacles. They slow down our progress. They impede forward motion. They get in the way of us running the race. Like we ought to run the race. You say, well like what? Well, I think there's two categories of spiritual barnacles category. Number one are those things that are just playing ungodly. They are just playing sinful things. These are things that are inappropriate and damaging to any follower of Christ at any time in any place. Under any circumstances you say examples, pornography, sexual activity, outside of marriage, cheating, lying, stealing, allowing bitterness to control your life. Man, you talk about slowing down your progress in your walk for Christ. These things are barnacles. That'll do it. And the second category of spiritual barnacles are things that in and of themselves, they're not sinful for different people. They can really be an encumbrance. They can really be a millstone. They can really be an impediment in our life. And this can be different. What may be a barnacle for you may not be a barnacle for me. You say examples lawn. Well, an old boyfriend or an old girlfriend. Hey, I've dated some huge barnacles before I came to Jesus Christ. I mean, you talked about slowing down your spiritual progress. Hey, here's another one, some kind of music that you listened to before you came to Christ. But when you listen to it, now it affects your spiritual life old friends that you had before you came to Christ. Or even after you came to Christ who take you to the wrong places and encourage you to do the wrong things that don't help your spiritual life, that hinder your walk with God foul language that you use before you were follower of Christ. Certain addictions like to television, like to some hobby that controls your life like to some leisure activity like golf or tennis or sailing. It could be cards. It can be gambling. It could be going to the racetrack . It can be alcohol abuse. It can be , um , overeating. Any of these things have the potential to be barnacles in our life and slow down. Our spiritual progress can even be dancing. You say dancing. Yup . I had a lady came to this church, true story, true story, who was addicted to square dancing. She was, she went square dancing six nights a week. This is true. And she began to neglect her family. She began to not show up at work the next day. Cause she's out all night square dancing. It began to ruin her life. And she finally came to me and she said, you know what? I'm a follower of Jesus Christ and square dancing is ruining my walk with God. I said, there's a simple solution. Scrape it off, scrape it off. And she did. And I was proud of her for doing that. It was hard. She stopped going. She stopped talking to the friends . She knew down at the square dancing place. This was a barnacle in her life. Now these things caused us to lose our salvation of things that I just named. No, no, but they'll slow us down. It's the it'll impede our race for Christ. It's like a marathon runner, a backpack full of bricks brands. You can finish the race, but it's ugly. And that's what this is like . And this , and God calls us in the Bible to scrape these things off our life. He calls us in the Bible to empty out our backpacks so that we can run the race and run it. Well, you know, a great example of this in the Bible was a guy named Elisha . The great prophet, Elijah wasn't born a prophet. He wasn't trained as a prophet. He was a farmer. And one day he was out in his fields farming. He had his plow in front of him and two oxen , the pulling it and Elijah, the prophet came up, aged prophet through his robe around Elijah and Elisha knew what that meant. It meant God was calling him now to be the next prophet in Israel, to face Jezza bell , to face King Ahab, to go against the prophets of bale there. And so what he did look first Kings 19, Elijah called all the people together and took the pair of OCS . And he'd been plowing with end . He killed them. He slaughtered them and he also burned the plowing equipment that he'd been plowing with to cook the meat. And he gave it to the people to eat. You say, Lord , what kind of stupid thing was this? If he killed his oxen and he burned up his blouse, he couldn't go back to farming. If things got rough, bingo, that was the whole point. Eliza decided that if God was calling him to go be a prophet, he wasn't coming back. No matter how rough things got . If that was the will of God for his life, it was full steam ahead and no looking back. So you know what he did? Oh , he killed the oxen . He burned the plow so that in those days when it got rough and he looked back, there was nothing to go back to. He cut his ties. You see that? That's what a person does. It's serious about their walk with God. I never met a person who ever came to faith in Christ. This is what I'm saying to you never met one who in order to run the race well that God's calling us to run. Didn't have to scrape off. Some barnacles, never met one, never met one. Didn't have to burn some oxen . You know , I did. I came to Christ in 1971 in chapel Hill, North Carolina, and the man who led me to Christ a couple months after I was a believer. He said to me, you know what? I'll never forget it. He said, if you're ever going to amount to anything for God, he said to me, lawn, you got to get out of this town. He said, all your girlfriends are here. All your old drug buddies are here. All your old drinking buddies are here. Everybody in this town is pulling you in the wrong direction. And if you ever want to amount to anything for God, you need to leave this town behind for the rest of your life. I took him seriously. I sold everything. I had put it in a knapsack, took my dog, Noah 85 pound German shepherd. In fact, actually only half the backpack was mine because half of it was his food, his bowl, his brush. So I only had half the knapsack and we left chapel Hill, North Carolina and started hitchhiking around the country, 1971. And except for a couple of five minute visits, while through on the way to Florida or back, I've never been back to chapel Hill. And you know why? Because that man was right. If I hadn't cut those ties and left those things behind and scrape those barnacles off my life friend, they would have slowed me down the rest of my life. It was one of the best decisions I ever made. Was it hard? Sure. It was hard. Those , those were all my relationships, all my friendships. I didn't know anybody else. Yeah, it was hard, but I'm glad I did. It was the right decision. And you know, I'll bet you here today that a lot of you guys have some barnacles in your life. I just, I don't know. You personally, I'm not nosing in your business, but I know people and I'm sure it's true. There are a lot of people here today who have things in our lives that are slowing down the pace of our Christian growth. They are slowing down the effectiveness of our service for Jesus Christ. They are slowing down the rate of our spiritual transformation and the new creatures in Christ. You say like what? Hey, some of us here have got an old boyfriend. That is a huge Barnicle . You need to scrape that guy off your life. Some of us here have old girlfriends that are the same way. You need to scrape that gal out of your life. Some of us here have hobbies in our life or leisure practices in our life that are slowing us down. And we need to scrape that habit off our life. Maybe not forever, but for now, some of us here have habits in our life that every time we do them, man, it slows us down and I'll walk with God. They need to be scraped off our life or addictions. They need to be scraped off our life. He said, Lord , I hear what you're saying, but you know what? If I scrape these things off my life, it's going to cost me something . Well, you're right. Always does. You know, it costs me something to leave chapel Hill, Hey, it costs these Ephesians something to burn up all their books from 50,000. Drachmas remember what we said. That's almost $20 million that they burned up, but you know why they did it because they were serious about their walk with Jesus Christ. Do you know why they did it? Because they were determined to be everything. God wanted them to be. You know why they did it because they were so in love with Jesus Christ, that they were happy to pay any price it took. If it meant that they Gren could run the race and run it well, that's why they did what they did. And folks, let me say in conclusion, those are the kinds of people God's still looking for today. Same kind of people. People who love him enough and are serious enough about their walk with God and are determined enough to become everything. God wants them to be. That they'll pay any price they need to pay to get there. Those are the people God is looking for. And those are the people God uses. So I'll leave you with two questions today. Question number one, as a follower of Jesus Christ, does there need to be a book burning or an oxen slang or barnacle scraping pick whatever image you like best in your life. And only you can answer that. I can't answer that for you, but friend, I urge you be honest with yourself and you can't remember what I said. You can't negotiate with barnacles. You can't compromise with barnacles. And , and certainly it's not healthy to pretend like they're not slowing you down. Be honest with yourself. All right . And if you got some of them, my second and last question is, do you love Jesus enough that you're willing to do that? You're willing to scrape them off. That's again, a question only you can answer, but friends, these are the kinds of people. As I said, God's looking for and he wants you to be one of them. Let's pray together with our heads bowed and our eyes closed. I want to give you just a moment if you need to, to do some business with God. So if there's some things in your life that you and God needed to talk about, why don't you do that right now? Lord Jesus, as you know, barnacles, well, we can pick them up and not even notice we pick them up. It's easy for us to be going along and everything's fine in our spiritual life. And then all of a sudden, before we know it, we're encrusted with these things. That's just part of being human Lord. And so my prayer today is that you would help us to really take a hard look at our lives, an honest look at our lives. And if we looked like that shift that I showed a picture of earlier, just all in crusted , up with stuff that that's just impeding our progress spiritually. I pray today. You'd give us the courage to pay whatever price we need to pay to scrape them off of our lives. So we can be lean and mean in our walk with Jesus Christ father. I pray that you would inspire us by the example of these Ephesians, who didn't just say they believed in Jesus and they didn't just confess that openly, but they took steps to get rid of the encumbrances, to their spiritual walk. They made a break with the past, so they could really maximize their new life in Christ father. May we draw encouragement from their example? And may we copy it for the people who've prayed here today and talk to you about some really tough things in their life. If they make a break from them , I pray that you would give them the courage and the strength they need to follow through on what they've talked to you about today. And we ask this in Jesus name. Amen.