08-09-26 Study of Acts Chpater 19:21-41 The Riot In Ephesus

➡ This Bible study discusses the Book of Acts, focusing on chapter 19 and the riot at Ephesus. The lesson emphasizes that the church grows best when it faces challenges, and that persecution often leads to spiritual growth. It also warns against the church becoming too friendly with worldly systems, as this can lead to trouble. The study concludes by reminding believers to be aware of their surroundings and prepared for opposition, as this is a common pattern in the history of the church.
➡ The text discusses how Satan uses various forms of opposition to challenge the spread of Christianity, including organized religion, personal prejudice, and materialism. It also highlights how Christianity can disrupt economic systems, as seen in biblical history. The author emphasizes the importance of strategic planning, using Paul’s journey as an example. Paul planned to visit various locations to collect offerings for the poor in Jerusalem, demonstrating the importance of giving within Christianity.
➡ Paul taught the importance of unity and love within the church, emphasizing the need to support each other. He strategically spread the gospel by planting churches in key cities along a trade route from Antioch to Rome, and planned to extend this to Spain. Despite facing adversaries, Paul remained committed to his mission, believing in the power of evangelism through reproduction, where each church would grow and establish others. His ultimate goal was to saturate the entire area with the Gospel.
➡ The text discusses a riot caused by the spread of Christianity and its teachings in Asia Minor, particularly in Ephesus. The main instigator was Satan, who was upset by the growth and influence of Christianity. A man named Demetrius, a silversmith who made shrines for the goddess Diana, was also involved, as the spread of Christianity threatened his business. The text also explores the concept of mob psychology and the influence of Satan, as well as the historical context of the event, including the existence of guilds and the worship of household gods.
➡ A man named Demetrius, who made money from creating shrines, was upset because the spread of Christianity was hurting his business. People were turning away from idols and towards the teachings of Christ, which was causing a decline in the demand for shrines. This was seen as a success for Christianity, as it was changing people’s beliefs and behaviors. The key to this success was the dedication of one man, Paul, and the purification of the church.
➡ The text discusses the impact of Christianity on society, suggesting it should challenge economic, religious, political, and social systems. It highlights a historical event where a man named Demetrius incited a riot against Christianity, arguing it threatened their livelihood, religion, and reputation. The text emphasizes that anger is a common response to Christianity, but it should not deter believers from spreading their faith.
➡ The text discusses a chaotic event where people were angry and confused about the teachings of Christianity. They were upset with Paul, a Christian teacher, and wanted to harm him. However, Paul was protected by his fellow Christians and some local leaders who advised him not to confront the angry mob. The text emphasizes the importance of using reason and not putting oneself in unnecessary danger, even when having faith in divine protection.
➡ This text talks about a chaotic gathering where most people didn’t understand why they were there. They were shouting and causing confusion, similar to a mob. A man named Alexander tried to speak, but was drowned out by the crowd. Eventually, the town clerk calmed everyone down, reminding them of their shared worship of the goddess Diana and suggesting any disputes be settled in court or at a town assembly. The text suggests that while this ended the immediate chaos, it might have put the Christians in a more dangerous position by aligning them with the town clerk.
➡ The church is in more danger when it’s protected by the system than when it fights for its existence. The Ephesians Church, once led by great pastors like Paul and Timothy, lost its way and was warned by Jesus that it would be wiped out if it didn’t return to its first love. Today, there are no Christians in the area where Ephesus once stood. The church thrives when it’s the conscience of the community, not when it’s patronized by the system.

Foreign. Welcome. This is our Sunday morning Bible study. We’re into the Book of Acts. We’re going to end chapter 19 this morning. I, I want to end it in a, in this way. I, I thought maybe that I wouldn’t do this discussion lesson. But I think from what we’re going through in Revelation and looking at the churches as it relates to how it, how those letters represent your individual lives. And we’ve talked about that every time we’ve looked at a letter. I wanted to re. Look at chapter 19, especially verses 21 through 41 with regards to, to what took place at Ephesus, which was the riot.

And I wanted to do it this way because I want you. This is not going to be a, a lot of doctrine in this, but it’s going to be a historical narrative dealing with this specific instance. And it’s going to allow the Holy Spirit to teach spiritual truth through this historical event as it relates to how you see this historic event in the things that are going on in your life today. So the, the history of Christianity has taught us many things as we’ve looked at in Ephesians, we’ve looked at in, in Acts, all from what we’ve studied so far, and we’re seeing it again in Revelation.

But the one thing the history of Christianity has taught us is that the church thrives best when it is persecuted. And what did I have always say? You mean in your strategic plan of your life to build in persecution? Because that is, that is how you grow. So you just need to build it in and it’s that it’s going to happen and you need to be prepared when it happens, how you’re going to respond to it, because in your response is, is going to be very critical to how you respond to persecution. So when the church was, creates issues in the world, it begins to thrive in purest sense.

That’s the key. Remember Ephesians 4, where it starts out with the first attribute, the first application that you need to have in your life is complete purity, which, well, that’s the church. That’s what we’re looking at. So when, when you create issues in the world about your life with Christ, your Christianity, you are going to thrive, the world is going to persecute and you’re going to be closest to your purest sense of life because you’re doing then God’s work. So the persecuted church confronts the world and, and grows and has an effect of that. Now a bold church is an effective church.

You are the church we’re talking about. You. Okay. A bold church is an effective year and a bold church is a persecuted you. So persecution and effectiveness to some degree go hand in hand. I’m always a little bit shaky when churches receive awards from either civil government or state government or even national federal government, because I feel there has got to be something wrong. Okay. Going on, because why the government is not therefore ministry to you. They’re not biblically aligned. So, and, and I just, I, I think that that would never have happened in the Book of Acts.

So I’m not saying there were to be anti social or anti community relations or anything like that, but there needs to be a sense in which the church is the conscience of the community, not the comforter of the community. Remember, you’re not to compromise. We, we talked about that. And in the Book of Acts, the church grew when it was persecuted. When the church becomes the friend of the system, then it gets into trouble. Now we’re talking about you. So when you become a friend to the system of this world, you get in trouble. When the church begins to play sociological or political games, then it gets into trouble.

Now we’re going to see something of this discussion in the Book of Acts. Here in the 19th chapter, we. Okay, so we find ourselves in the city of Ephesus with the Apostle Paul. He has been there for nearly three years, as we’ve talked about. And this is his third discipleship journey. And of course, he was one of the original pastors of this church at Antioch. After his conversion, conversion and some ministry near his home, he arrived at Antioch and along with Barnabas, as you recall, and three other fellows, and he became one of the pastors of the church of Antioch.

And from that point forward, God separated he and Barnabas to begin discipleship tours. And so he and Barnabas took one and, and he and Silas took one and so forth. And so, you know, this is the third of Paul’s discipleship journeys. So as he arrives at Ephesus, God has already done a marvelous work there. Now we find that the groundwork had been laid by some friends that he had left there. Remember that? That’s a quill in Priscilla that Apollos, the great orator, that polished man who had laid some groundwork. Remember, he was, he was a great scholar and a great oracle.

And Paul arrives and great things begin to happen. And we find in verses 1 to 7 of chapter 19, the church was really born. No, we’ve already. This is sort of like a laying foundation, a little review. It was founded, it was established as twelve disciples of John The Baptist were brought to Jesus Christ and a nucleus of believers began. Now we saw then in, in our last several studies of Acts 19, that Paul went in verse eight into the synagogue and began to teach there for three months. And there were some who were hardened, but there were some who believed the Jews had been evangelized as an.

As a result of that, the tremendous teaching that Paul was doing. Verse 10 says that all that dwell in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. So Ephesus had a church established. It began a beachhead for evangelism throughout the Asia Minor region. As we have, as we’ve, as we’re studying in Revelation with the letters. And great things had been accomplished. Now the whole thing could be summed up in, in a statement of verse 20. So mildly grew the Word of God and prevailed. Now that was really the key to everything. The Word of God was the dominating force at that point in Ephesus.

This was a historical pattern. And there was great blessing in any place. It was through the Word of God. So you have in Acts 12:24 this statement, but the Word of God grew and multiplied. You have it back in chapter six, also in the book of Acts. And again, where there was great victory, it says in verse seven. And the Word of God increased and the number of disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly. And a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith. So what we have is, is wherever the Word of God dominates, results occur.

And there’s always going to be flak, persecution, because the system which is operated by Satan cannot tolerate unadulterated presentation of what the pure word. So that the prevailing of the Word has two results. Progress for the Gospel and persecution from Satan. If you’re doing what you commanded to do, you will be persecuted. And you’re going to be persecuted by people that you never thought would ever do that to you. And this is the way we ought to expect things to happen today. History is no different. So as we come now to chapter 19 in this book, we find this tremendous pattern had happened in Ephesus.

First of all, there was persecution. We saw it, we’ve talked about it. Satan started out by it by verse nine, just having people speak evil about Christianity. Remember the illegalists that came behind Paul and tried to destroy the ministry. Then all of a sudden he brought along these exorcist. We talked about that last couple of weeks, that exorcist, exorcist cannot exist, all right? They don’t have any power to do what the Catholic Church tells them that they have the power to do. And they tried to mimic what Paul was doing and confused the issue and. And all things begin to happen.

And now as we come to the portion from verse 21 forward on, Satan really musters all of his powers and he creates a riot that surges through the entire city of Ephesus in an effort to counteract the work of the Apostle Paul and the Christians. You could start. I mean, you could be in a position in anywhere in your local community and this would have happened today. That’s the reason why we say you need to be aware of your surroundings, your head on a swivel, and watch what’s going on, because they are going to the streets just like they did in Ephesus.

And so what we’re coming to then is a very predictable thing in the history of the church. The word prevails. When it prevails, progress occurs. That is, people get saved. And Satan begins to find that he has to oppose it. Remember the law of duality and this spiritual war component that we all live in every day, and so we see persecution. Satan always opposes the progress of the gospel. And you can take that to the bank. He always does. What have I said? If you’re not being somewhat affected every day by demonic pressure, Satan himself, then you got something wrong because you’re not doing what’s right.

So in Jerusalem, Satan sent the opposition of organized religion. Did you hear what I just said? Satan sent the opposition of organized religion. What do you have in your cities and towns today? They called it Judaism back then. You could call it Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Church of Christ, Catholic. So you charge any denominational and you find the same thing is occurred today that occurred then in Damascus, it was the same in Antioch, it was the opposition of personal prejudice and envy. And in Listeria, it was the opposition of ignorant paganism, all classified as organized religion. So among the Judaizers, let’s just.

Let’s just say the religious folks, it was the opposition of ceremonial legalism. In Philippi, it was the opposition of angry sorcery. Oh, think, think today, okay? Look at what’s going on in our government in front of you, of how they are just flocking to be heard. And it’s all about hate. It’s all about their witchcraft. It’s all about, oh, trust the science, right? Well, what is science science supposed to be? Truth. That’s biblical, right? So if the scientists say this is the truth, where is it biblically? If they can’t support it biblically, it’s not true. In Thessalonica, it was the opposition of political revolution in Athens, it was the opposition of cultured hedonism in Corinth, it was the opposite of philosophy, philosophical skepticism.

In Ephesus here it’s the opposition basically of a pseudo religious materialism, organized religion. And we’ll talk more about this and I’ll give you some definitions as along the way here in this discussion that you can actually begin to see clearly what today is back then. But first of all, it was the opposition here in Ephesus of verbal slander in verse 9 and then a Santanic infiltration in verse 13 where Satan tried to slide into the Christian community and just become one of them. Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing that scripture tells you. Thirdly, and we’re going to see this, the real riot comes when sort of a pseudo religious materialism comes to the fore.

Now, I suppose that we could say in the case of Ephesus that there were three approaches of Satan. One, he hardened hearts, hardness, hypocrisy and hatred. Think of your government, think of your local communities. And those were the three particular angles of opposition toward the Gospel. So whenever the word prevails, Satan is aggressively set against the word. And here in Ephesus we find beginning in verse 21, that the bent of the people, that their anger is based upon their desire for material gain. Now you can see why I wanted to do this. Blessings abound. In other words, Christianity was affecting their business.

And from a, from a Christianity point of view, that’s really exciting. Christianity was an economic problem in the first place. I would remember the wars that we have fought in this country were not for humanitarian issues. Was all for about economics. And it was about economics of control against the Church. Go look at the Roman Catholic Church history and you find it all the way through the Roman Catholic Church. Now. There’s nothing new here. Christianity and economics have mixed a lot in biblical history and continue to mix today. So if you recall, Simon mixed Christianity with economics.

He wanted to, what? This is Simon, not Simon, Peter. Okay. He wanted to buy his power, remember, to the Holy Spirit. And, and that’s nothing new that happens today. The median girl in Acts 16 and Paul cast out a demon out of her. And what did her owners get upset for? Because they were making a living off of her. So again, Christianity upsets somebody’s economics, doesn’t matter who it is. And it should. It should. There’s some ways that people make livings that Christianity should be upset with, but that’s part of, of the game. So before we get into the actual riot, let’s, let’s look at verses 21 and 22 and kind of a little note on Paul here.

The riot doesn’t start until verse 23. So we’ll have a little bit of peace, if you will, before we hit the milestone. That comes in verse 23, verse 21. After these things were ended, that is after the triumph over magic, okay, sorcery, remember, all the people came and burned their magic books and everything. If you recall that we, we tried, we measured that in economics by saying it was about 50,000 pieces of silver today. And after the gospel was firmly established, Paul proposed in the spirit, in his own mind, literally when he had passed through Macedonia and a K to go to Jerusalem.

He was saying, after I have been there, I must also see Rome. Paul was also, Paul was a planner. He always made plans. Paul was a master strategist. Something that I have talked to you guys to make sure that you include that in your self assessment. You need to be a strategist and you need to be a planner. You need to plan for the future. And here he says, now I’m going to go through Macedonia and a. KA then I’m going to Jerusalem and after that I’m going to go see Rome. Paul sets this firmly in his mind after he sees the church at Ephesus is established, after he sees that these people bring all of their magical books and burn them.

He’s been there for nearly three years. He knows they know enough. And there are elders there, they’re of quality enough to lead the church. And the Christians have all grown up, they’re maturing and the work of the church has matured also. And the churches have been established throughout Asia Minor. So we mentioned last time that we think that at least all seven churches of the book of Revelation possibly could have been founded during this three year period. The Paul was in, in Ephesus. Remember when we looked at the letters of the church, churches in Revelation, we like in Philadelphia, we can’t even find when it was founded, all right, who founded it.

So we just, we just make some certain assumptions because of the way scripture reads that they were founded during this time period that Paul was in Ephesus. And so there’s a great work. The whole province has heard of the Gospel. There are people established in the churches and in other places everything’s going great and it’s in good shape. And he says, now I think I can leave. Two and a half years or so has passed. And he says, I’m going to go to Macedonia, because in Macedonia and Achaia would be west from there, back across the little sea, back west again.

Then he would have to go east to Jerusalem and then back west again to Rome. Now that’s his plan. Well, might ask what’s he want to do all that for going west and back east and west and back east? I mean, why doesn’t he just go east, east, west, west or something like that? Why does he want to go to Macedonia, Nika? Well, let’s start there because I think this is the most interesting point in this review. Why does he want to go in verse 21 to Macedonia? First, why does he want to go west? He’s been there.

He’s established all those churches there, you know, like Corinth and Philippi and Thessalonica and Berea. That’s all over in that geographical area. But why does he want to go back there? Well, here’s the reason. He wanted to go there before he went, before he went to Jerusalem, the church of Jerusalem was very poor and Paul wanted to take a love offering from his churches as a gift to the church at Jerusalem. The reason he wanted to go to all these places was to collect this offering. And I think that’s kind of an exciting reason, if you want to know.

In several places in Corinthians he alluded to this offering. And I’ll just point one out for you in chapter nine, verse one. As touching as a as ministering to the saints is superficious for me to write to you, for I know the forwardness of your mind for which I boast of you to them of Macedonia and Achaia. In other words, what Paul was doing was making reference to these two locations. He goes on to talk about their giving all the way down in this they didn’t even give sparingly. And he talks about not giving grudgingly, etc.

Etc. All of the things that Scripture says before you can receive, you got to give. He makes a note of this particular thing, of their gift elsewhere in Corinthians as well. And at the end of the book of Romans, I think it’s verse 25 or 26 in chapter 15. But now I go under Jerusalem to minister under the saints, for it has pleased them of Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution. Contribution for the poor saints who are at Jerusalem. So Paul went to these places together an offering and then to take it to the poor saints in Jerusalem.

Well, you might say, why did he do that? Well, one, because they need it Remember, we’re to support our brothers and sisters in need. They needed it. And I think it’s important for us to recognize that Paul was teaching the lesson of the unity of the body, that a church in one place is greatly responsible for a body of believers in another place. You’re not out on an island yourself. You’re all connected as one body. We’ve talked about energy, we’ve talked about all kinds of things, about how you’re all connected. There were one body and Paul was emphasizing the unity of the church.

And secondly, I think Paul wanted to teach the practical lessons of love. That love gets right down to the simplicity of giving your money for the sake of somebody else. Now that’s most practical lesson of love, giving, self sacrifice. So Paul did do that. We don’t know all of the details here in Acts, but we did go. If. But he did go to Macedonia. And Acha, he collected the offerings. Finally, over in chapter 21 in verse 17, this is in Corinthians. I’m sorry, in. In Acts, he arrives in Jerusalem. So he did do that. His plan did come to fruition, and the Lord allowed that plan to take place.

So back to verse 21 after that. I must see Rome. Now, just keep this in mind as we continue this. Paul was a strategist, and he wanted to reach as far as he could reach with the Gospel. And Paul’s plan was this, to plant the gospel in key cities on a line from Antioch to Rome. And if you follow Paul’s ministry, he just stops all the way along at key points on the great road from Antioch to Rome. What’s that road? That was a trade route. That was a trade route from all of these cities. I think back in my.

In my younger days. And as we, as Misty and I travel Texas quite a bit now, and we go through these little cities, about every 15 miles there’s another little city. You know why? Every 15 miles there’s a little city in going in the country, not on interstate, but going through the country is because that was the stopping point as people came down from north or up from south to. To the shipping point for the cows. Every 15 miles they stopped. They spent the night, they started the next day, went 15 miles, drove the cow 15 miles.

You see, you see the pin still there? We have. We have ours down here, something called Market Square, where they have the farmers market every Saturday morning. It used to be a lot. The concrete was rocked and it was. Then it was made brick and now it’s concrete. But it used to have A fence there to house the cattle, because the loading dock was right there and the railroad track is still there. So that’s exactly what Paul was doing. He was following the trade route. And everywhere the tradesmen stopp. He wanted to plan a church. So he’s planning these churches in key centers.

And from there they spread to the province. If Paul could knock off the capital of the province, he felt that he had a running start on the province itself strategy. And so he wants to go one step further to reach Rome. And incidentally, that wasn’t the end of it either. By the way, as we’ll see in a minute. After he had planted the church at Ephesus, he realized that the line of witness would then begin to spread from Ephesus. And so if he would go to Rome and plant the witness there, there was already a church there.

But perhaps he could enhance the witness. And then he would begin to spread again. And all these centers begin to spread. They would sort of cross pollinate and the whole area would be saturated with the Gospel. And he believed in the process of reproduction. Network networking, guys, those of you who don’t like to network, you miss your calling of reproducing yourself of evangelism by reproduction. Where you would win some people to Christ, establish a church. That church would grow, send out others to establish other churches, and it would continue. And by multiplication you would conquer an area not by superficial sweep, but.

But it was Paul’s plan. And we got to Rome. There was only a step on the way to somewhere else. You say, where was he going from there? Well, in Romans 15:24, he says, Whenever I take my journey into Spain. And then it says here in the. In. In. In other translations, not in the best of manuscripts, I will come to you, for I trust to see you in my journey. In other words, he writes the Romans and says, I’m coming to stop off on my way to Spain. You might say, why is he going to.

Simple, it was there. It’s just another place. You might ask, why do you climb a mountain on a hike? Well, it’s there. Why do you walk next to water? Because it’s there. That’s Paul. That was Paul. People need to hear about the Lord. This is Paul thinking in Spain was just a great place for that to be done. There were some great men there, as if you study Spain’s history and the history of the Church. And Rome had moved in and conquered Spain as it was. So if he got Rome, he could get into Spain, because Rome was.

Had conquered Spain. So sinico was there the great mind of the Romans and Paul could see that conquering Spain would be a fantastic it means to the, to the cause. And that was just another line from Rome. So he could go all the way from Jerusalem, Antioch and straight out as far as he could go to reach Spain with the gospel. And that was in his mind to do. Say he was a strategist planning his conquest. Self assessment, you need to be a strategist planning your future. He writes to the romans in chapter 1, verse 13 I would not have you ignorant brethren, that oft times I propose to come unto you, but was prevented thus far that I might have some fruit among you.

Even as among other Gentiles, I’m a debtor to the Greeks, to the barbarians, to the wise and to the unwise. So as much as in me is I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are in at Rome. So he wanted to go to Rome after he had taken care of the needs of the saints in Jerusalem. So incidentally, here there’s a great break kind of if you look at this right here in the book of Acts, because from here on the whole goal in the mind of Paul is wrong. And finally at the end of Acts, he gets there, but he doesn’t get there in the way that he thought he would, but he gets there.

And from here on out his sights are set on Rome and he’s going to make it. And it’s an exciting trip getting there. So in verse 22 he sent to Macedonia to their additional men. He’s going to Macedonia. And he sends in two of those administered unto him, Timothy and Eradis. We all know who Timothy is. He had been at Corinth, if you recall in our study, and he had come back to Ephesus. And now Paul sends him to Macedonia to let him know he’s coming, sort of pave the way, get things set up for him in Erratus.

And we don’t know who this guy is. We just got his name, maybe the same one as mentioned in Romans 16:23, but that was a fairly common name back then. So we really don’t know who this guy is. He’s not given to us in scripture as some, as in a lot of cases when you, when you read the Epistles of Paul. But he himself stayed in Asia for a season. He sent these two advanced guys out to get things ready for his coming to Macedonia, to make it the collection and to do some preaching. You might ask why did he stay? Well, I think it’s clear why he stayed because he wrote Corinthians.

He says this in 1st Corinthians 16:8. I will tarry at Ephesus until Pentecost. Why? Well, I think it is before a great. This is what Scripture says, for a great door and effectual has opened unto me, and there are many adversaries. Now if Timothy come, see that he may be with you without fear. So he’s writing to these guys and telling him somebody’s coming, watch for him and make sure that his arrival is safe and without fear. So he’s writing to the Corinth and saying, from Ephesus he wrote this. I’m going to send Timothy, you receive him.

I’m staying because a great door and effectual has opened unto me. And there are many adversaries. The position of the riot. Okay, so he wasn’t done yet there. He realized God had some more for him to do. In Ephesus he had a great door and he also had many adversaries. Well, the adversary comes to the four beginning then in verse 23, and we see the riot. Now. If, if, if we outline this, we’d pull out three simple thoughts. What’s the cause of the riot, the characteristics of the riot and the calming of the riot. Now let’s.

Let’s just say this. The real cause of the riot was Satan’s antagonism. Antagonism. Sorry to the prevailing of the word. That’s just the general truth that sort of pervades everything. But in verse 20, the word grew and prevailed and Satan got uptight and started this riot. That’s the real behind the scenes reason for the riot. Okay, let’s stop here. Self assessment. The majority of your causes and your life is you. Why? Because you have elected behind the scenes by your thoughts and actions to compromise with this world. But as we look at these verses, there are some sort of superficial reasons and some superficial causes that actually brought this thing to pass.

If we look at verse 23, we’ll see the start with the causes of the riot at the same time. This is when Paul is staying in Asia Minor or Ephesus. There arose no small stir about that way. And what have we said about the term the way? That way. That was a reference to what Christianity. Why? Jesus said, I’m the way. And Peter said, said, neither is there salvation in any other. There’s none other name under heaven. So Christianity got the name of the way. Remember, the Jews would not speak God’s name or Jesus’s name. They wouldn’t call him the Messiah.

It was just known as the Way. So there was no small stir over Christianity. They were really uptight about the Christian message. And things have moved. Paul had been preaching, people had been getting converted. The church was growing. The whole of Asia Minor was just dominated by the message of the Gospel. It was like having an early Jerusalem at Pentecost. That’s what was going on when the leaders came and said, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine. And they got all uptight and started to persecute him. Well, they had filled Asia Mina with their doctrine, the Gospel.

The gospel was sweeping over Asia Minor. God was doing some exciting things and people got upset. Satan stirring them up. And it’s kind of exciting to see. That’s what the gospel should always do. The church should always create no small stir. Whenever I hear that there’s some flak flying around about the Church of Jesus Christ somewhere, I get excited about it because that’s what the church should be doing. But we should be the adjunct into the community. If our agitation is in the area of godliness, okay, you shouldn’t stir the pot in compromising at all, but you should stir the pot if you’re following the commands set forth by Jesus Christ.

That should be the outcome. Now, this riot will provide for us, especially those that are studying sociology and mob psychology. It will provide for us some great insights into the typical approach of mob philosophy, the psychology about what’s behind it, as well as giving you some insight into how Satan operates. So the basic cause of the riot then was Christianity’s tremendous spread and the mighty use of the word of God. But there were some specific causes, and we begin to see that in verse 24, we meet a man by the name of Demetrius. Now, that’s a very common name back then.

There’s another Demetrius or so in the Bible, so we don’t know if it’s the same as this one, but scripture says for a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines for Artemis or Diana, as you know that name, probably better, The Greek is Artemis. Brought. Brought no small gain into the craftsmanship. Now here we meet this guy Demetrius. He’s a big will in the gold of silver smith. Okay, what does that say he’s into basically a order of society like masonry. Okay. You had to be part of the golds back then if you wanted to work.

Oh, just think about how they progressed through the ages to today. If you had to be part of the ghouls to work then with. This is not something new today. Right? I mean, you could. I double F lied should or the, you know, the Illuminati in itself, all of it started here, back in time. Nothing’s new. So any of you who studied any kind of world history or ancient history, you’ll know that there were such things as ghouls in Europe, where people who were artesians of the same craft would band together just like unions today. Perhaps they were less sophisticated, but they were just as powerful in the community where they existed.

And so all of these people would band together for common profit. It may be that Demetrius was the head of the gold of silversmiths or something like that, just a leader by his very nature, but nevertheless he kind of steps to the front. He was the guy who made silver shrines for Diana goddess and brought no small gain unto the craftsman. In other words, probably he did was contract out the rest of these silversmiths to make these shrines. This was big business back then. His name appears also, as I mentioned, in other places like 3rd John.

I think it’s like maybe verse 12, but we have no idea whether it was the same one, if it was the same one. He was later converted, which is certainly possible. We’re not denying that at all because we just don’t know who really this guy is. Now it’s interesting that in many of the archaeological discoveries around Ephesus, there is evidence of such a trade as silversmith. True. The only interesting thing is that we can’t find any of these shrines made in silver. We can find them made of terracotta, that’s clay by the way, earthen type stuff.

We find them made out of other types of things. But we can’t find, at least today in archaeological, archaeological finds there is no silver ones yet. So what historians have included is the fact that when conquering people came in through the centuries and found anything in silver, they melted it down because of its value. And so all of the silver artifacts are pretty much long gone. But we do have evidence that such a silversmith goals did exist or, or unions at that time. So it was a probably this Demetrius was probably a wealthy and a very influential man.

The temple of Diana, remember, was a big business. It was a monstrous place at that time. It’s 420ft by 250ft, a huge place. Hundreds of people preached to eunuchs, temple worshipers, priestesses, prostitutes, the whole thing, all worshiping up there. And this temple was also a treasure house for gold and silver. It was very, very wealthy place, a very famous place even today. And people from all over the world came there. There was a whole multitude of pillars there. These pillars were donated by princes and rulers from all over the world. Oh, think about what’s going on today.

So it’s very, very famous place. Periodically during the year, it had a string of pilgrims making an influx into the city. It was a tourist traffic in the worship of Artemis, Diana. And it was a really big business. And these silversmiths made their living by selling these little shrines to the tourists and people making pilgrimage to the city of Ephesus to worship at the shrine of Diana. Now, the best we can tell from this is there are little models of a temple or little statutes of Diana. And if you study history, this, this is a very interesting thing.

The fact that in our history pass clear back into the Old Testament, people always had household gods. You can look up all kinds of Old Testament passages that would talk about that. It was so in the day of Paul. It’s so today. Those people who worship the various gods got little of these gods and they sometimes put them in their houses, sometimes they stuck in on the chariots. We stick them on our walls. And a lot of people still do that. So that’s really nothing new. They did, they did it even in a time of the New Testament.

And so these silver smiths were really in big business. Ephesus had at a period in the month of May a thing called Artemisian Games, where people from all over the known world converged on this, on the city of Ephesus, Olympics. Gladiator style. And some historians believe that the time of the year and that those are Artemisians games were going on right at the time of this riot. Now, you don’t get that from Scripture, but if you study history and look at historians take on this about, they, they don’t pinpoint it, but it was really close to the time that Paul was at Ephesus.

And so this would be a time when the masses of people were swarming the city of Ephesus and these people were making their living at the various highest level of the year off their silver shrines and silver statues of goddess Diana and all of these people would be buying their household gods. The Romans called them pennants. Oh, where did that word come from? Remember back in World War I when men would buy women pictures and call them pennants, put them on the wall and all these people would be buying their household goods, okay? And these were typical household guides.

And if you read Genesis 31:19 or 1st Samuel 19:13, Hosea 3, 4, you’ll read about such gods even in the Old Testament. So Demetrius in verse 25, called together all of these guys who are making money off shrines. And in verse 25, it says he called in together with the workmen of, like, occupation and said, sirs, you know that this is craft. We have our wealth. He says, guys, we make our living off of making these little shrines. And as I said, this was probably, according to some chronologists, the month of May. And it was a really big time.

This was really the place that was filled with worshipers, and this was the time of making big money. And what happened was the gospel hit him right square in his money bag. The gospel was fouling up their business because people were accepting the truth of Christ and turning from idols they had. They went from good business to bad business. Well, you know, you ever thought, wouldn’t it be exciting if the church had such an effect on the community that we put all of that kind of illicit stuff out of business? Can you imagine all of the bars and all that kind of stuff protesting that we were messing up their business by winning people to Christ? Well, that’s exactly what was happening here.

It was becoming an economic problem because Christianity was having such a tremendous spread of power in Ephesus and surrounding areas. They were losing their power because people were coming to know the truth. What are we doing in this awakening cycle of our life? So the gospel hit him in the money bag. Verse 26. Moreover, you see and hear that not alone in Ephesus, at Ephesus, but almost throughout all of Asia. Now, this is Demetrius talking, this Paul, you could get a little disdain in that. Has persuaded and turned away many people saying that they are no gods which are made with hands.

Can you just believe at this time the depth of paganism that believes that you take a pile of silver and form it into a guide? He says, do you realize that all over Asia, Meyer, Paul has made people to believe that these gods weren’t making. That we’re making aren’t legit. Do you know what that is going to do to our business? Oh, the war that’s going to come in this world is yet to be fully fought. Yet because of this reason, this is exactly what’s going on today. The. The Christian preachers were denying the existence of God made with hands.

Many people were persuaded that they were right. So Demetrius confessed that the apostolic preaching was successful. Well, that’s a good testimony for the preaching of the gospel. Do you know one of the reasons God put this whole account in here, in this is. Okay, why does God take up all these 20 verses to tell us about a riot. One of the reasons is because it’s exciting to see the successes of Christianity put in the mouths of the pagans. It’s isn’t just us that’s claiming God’s power. The pagans are admitting it. That’s what they’re doing today. They’re admitting it by spewing their hate.

Could you see how important that kind of apologetic is? It’s one reason why it’s here. It’s another thing, the reason the Spirit puts it here is because the, the rioters are so frustrated because there’s nothing they can really do because there’s no one to blame and there’s no, there’s nothing evil that Christians have done. Oh, spewing crap out of somebody’s mouth with no truth, trying to sway your mind in a direction that doesn’t even exist. So again, God lets the pagans state the case that Christianity is successful. God is turning people away from idols. And secondly, there’s nothing you can criticize him for.

That’s why the whole account’s here, by the way. And that’s the reason why I felt it important for you to understand this, mainly because of your own self assessment. Now we’re going to see in a minute that they all get together and riot like crazy and they don’t know what to do. Well, you might ask, how did this success of Christianity come about? What brought this success? Well, one man totally committed to Jesus Christ. One man totally committed to Jesus Christ. It doesn’t take a village, it doesn’t take an army. It just takes you to do what is right.

You need to believe that one man, you totally committed to Jesus Christ like Paul, can make a difference in, in a whole province, in a state or in a country. One man can do that. Well, we find that one man did. It was Paul. One man committed to Jesus Christ came into one city and turned a province on its ear. But you know what that one man spent his time doing night and day praying and teaching with tears the word of God and what an effect he had. So it was, first of all the success that came by the presence of one man dedicated to Jesus Christ, obedient.

But secondly, it was a success that came by the presence of a purified church. You, you know when those people who believe verses 17 to 19 of chapter 19, when they believe, they, they believe. They who believe, verse 18 says, confessed and showed their their deed, or revealed their secrets and burned their magic books and so forth and so on. And when the church got purified things Begin to happen. Church you not group of people. You. Ephesians, chapter four. It’s in response to the purity of the church that verse 20 is written. So my league grew the word of God and prevailed.

See, the success of the gospel was dependent upon one dedicated man and a purified church. Therein lies the key to success, dedication and purification. The victories or victories of a positive ministry. What did I say Tuesday night? We think more negatively than we do positively because that is our nature. They didn’t go around blast blasting Diana. They didn’t have marches against the temple of Diana. They didn’t carry posters around down with Diana of the Ephesians. They didn’t lambast that. All they did was preach a positive message and the negative took care of itself. Self assessment. Why are you fighting so hard for the wrong reason? See, people who become temples of the Holy Spirit don’t need temples of Diana.

There was no demonstration against idolatry. There was no. There was just salvation and new forced out the old. Now, I read a little deal that was kind of interesting the other day. I don’t often like to read stuff like this, but this particular day I did. And I was reading about a scrub oak tree because I’m writing about trees in Revelation and I read about a scrub oak tree for some strange reason. Now I know why God does things in mysterious ways. See, during the wintertime, all of the tree loses their leaves except the scrub oak.

And it has three crummy little leaves. And the wind blows like mad and it keeps blowing through the autumn and it blows through the winter. And this scrub oak tree still has its leaves and the scrub oak loses its leaves in the springtime. That doesn’t make any sense to me. You know why? Because new leaves push off the old ones. Oh, you get the point now of the scrub oak tree. I thought this is really an. An apt illustration of what happened here in Ephesus. It wasn’t some great big tempest that blew off the worship of Diana.

It was just some attack on was the growth of a new life in the church that was just automatically pushed out the old. That’s just how you’re supposed to do in your salvation. And the issue took care of itself. And that which is outside tempest could never accomplish inside life did. Okay, as we talked about on Tuesday and Thursday, your focus needs to be on 100%. Your relationship to Jesus Christ and everything else gets pushed aside. But you tend to focus on all of your issues that you create instead of the issue of your relationship with Jesus Christ.

See, people if you want to change the community for Jesus Christ, don’t protest against the community. Just live a holy life and start leading people to Jesus Christ. Start talking about your salvation and the end result is the community won’t be able to handle you. Oh, that’s what’s supposed to happen. Always thought about this particular pastor who used to march on the city hall all the time. Well, I think about Martin Luther King, a preacher that wanted to march for civil rights. Do you realize that his whole thing was not about civil rights? Have you ever studied Martin Luther King’s history? Do you know he came from a family that owned a plantation? He owned slaves the same color of his skin slaves his family did.

And he was having a beef with the President. Because he knew President Johnson embezzled a billion dollars from the war in Vietnam. He thought he could get his way by going head to head with President Johnson and identifying he knew. Well, that caused a big problem for him, didn’t it? That problem was Jesse Jackson. Do you know Jesse Jackson put the three men together to scope the hotel before Martin Luther King stayed at that hotel where he was shot? You know, he had the rifleman positioned in various locations to get the best shot and then had to change the rooms from for Martin Luther King to get him just at the right angle so those marksmen could hit their target.

There’s a lot about history that we don’t know. Say you don’t protest, it’s a waste of time. You get a whole bunch of people to march on city hall for what reason? For everybody to say, oh that’s the nut. Marching down to the city hall. How many people go hear you? What’s it for? The power of a new life. If you got the time to march in the city hall, use that time to win some, some people to Christ. Your focus is on the wrong direction of life. And one by one you began to affect your community.

So we’re not in. We shouldn’t be interested in marching anywhere or protesting anything. That’s the negative. We’re just interested in winning people to Jesus Christ and pushing off the old by the new life that comes. That’s what we’re supposed to be doing. See God us to create issues. Not by creating issues, but by being what we are, right, not enemies of ourselves. Verse 27. And here we come to the specific causes. He really gets very, very clear now about what his gripe is. Who’s gripe? Demetrius. So that not only this, our craft is in danger. So first problem, we’ve got men we’re getting it in the pocketbook.

This is the materialistic cause. Demetrius appeals to their pocketbooks. He says we make our wealth by this craft. In other words we make our livelihood. We earn our living by doing this. He says we can’t tolerate this Christianity because receipts are off. Well you don’t want to take a position and look at yourself because can you believe the crashness of our human mind? Eternal souls are at stake and we’re worried about money. See the sickness of the human soul is what we should be thinking about. And I always think of the same scripture when I think about this and probably have already.

Talked about it many times. And it’s Mark 8:36. For what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what a man give in exchange for his soul? Hollywood governmental office what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? Well it doesn’t profit him anything. But here was the world getting uptight because they were losing out on receipts. Luke 16:13 the Bible says you can’t serve God and money. And many a man is in hell because he loved money more than he loved God.

I can name one Judas. Matthew 26:15 says about Judas. These words, sad words but truer of many more than just Judas. What will you give me? And I will. I will deliver him unto you. And they bargained with him for 30 pieces of silver. And from that time he sought to betray them. See, hell is filled with people who love money more than they love God. So Demetrius appeals to these men via their pocketbooks. Secondly, he appeals to them Piet tree wise and this is sort of to temper their crash. Crashness. Verse 27 that the temple of the great goddess Diana should be despised.

Wow. He starts appealing to their piety. But the real issue was the first one. Here comes the pseudo religious thing. Our God is being defamed. And I suppose that made him feel a little less crash. For their reaction to Christianity they could at least feel a sort of religious issue and they needed to defend their goddess. I know churches that if you don’t conform to their man made doctrine, they don’t want you around. Now I’m telling you that’s some temple. Your temples exist on your self assessment. It’s a big deal. 220 years in building, finishing, finished off everything.

It was an unbelievable place Chris, constantly being embellished. One of the seven wonders of the world. This temple of Diana, this was their goddess. And they’re saying our goddess is being defamed these Christians are challenging the majestic magistrate of Diana. And so he appeals not only to their pocket, but. But to their piety. And thirdly, appeals to their patriotism. Oh, that should hit home. And her magnificence should be destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worship. Now, just an interesting comment here. See, their goddess that was there. Diana was venerated by the world. The whole civilized world, with certain reasonable bounds, was knowledgeable about Diana.

Why? Who’s Diana? Who’s Diana? Ishtar. Ishtar. It had been built by the gifts and many rulers and worldwide influence. And so what he’s saying is this, Demetrius is saying is this is a question of our own reputation in the world. Ephesus stands in the world in the place it stands because of this temple. This is our claim to fame. This is us before the world. See, Ephesus is Diana. And if you believe in Ephesus, then you’ve got to stand for Diana. In other words, the world is going to look down on us if something happens to our goddess, we’ve lost our statue in the world.

So he appeals to patriotism, reputation. A good patriot wouldn’t want to see their religion that had made the city fall aside. So their trade was in danger. Think about you. Their trade was in danger. Their religion was in danger. Their reputation in the world was in danger. Christianity hit them economically, religiously, politically and socially. See, that’s what Christianity ought to do. It ought to affect the system economically. It ought to throw some kinds of businesses right out of business just by the power that it generates in changing lives. It ought to affect things religiously. It ought to just destroy false religion.

And it ought to affect things politically and socially. Well, we talk a lot about what we need to be doing to change our country. Well, our country won’t be changed by you. Our country will be changed by what the Holy Spirit does through you. Well, Demitra speech caused a riot, and so there are the causes. Well, let’s look at the characteristics of the riot. I think this will be interesting. Verse 28. And when they heard these things. You know the first thing about mob psychology? You’ve got to get a catalyst. Somebody’s got a spark, So you’ve got to have a Demetrius.

You got to have some guy that gets up there and whips everybody into a frenzy. And so Demetrius was that tool. Verse 28. And when they heard these things, they were full of breath. This is really kind of funny. Luke has a terrific sense of humor, by the way. And you’ll. You’ll see it as we go through this, they were so mad, they cried out in, in Diana of the Ephesians. They just started yelling. Oh, remember when Trump was first elected, what people do? They stood outside and yelled. That’s all they did, screamed. Fired on by an incendiary speech.

They ran into the open street and started invoking their goddess. The literal Greek here is they said, great Diana of the Ephesians. They started yelling to their guide, do something. They were mad. That’s the first characteristic of the riot is anger, self assessment. Incidentally, there’s. That’s typical of a rioting mob. They’re mad, they’re angry. Well, you may have seen some riots where you just got as injured as being a part of the riot, as being the object. There are dirt because it, it, it’s indiscriminate. It doesn’t care who gets. There’s one reason why we say do not get involved.

If you see something, go the other opposite direction because anger runs wild. And so they were angry. It’s typical of a riot. And the world does not get angry with Christianity. So you need to expect. That does get angry with Christianity. You need to expect it. You want to make some people angry who need to be made angry over Christianity. Oh, remember Stephen in Acts 7? He preached a wonderful message from my standpoint and loved it from the standpoint of the unbelieving people in town. They hated says when they heard these things, they were cut to the heart and they gnashed on him with their teeth.

In other words, they ground their teeth at him, they were so mad. And they grabbed stones and killed him. Then it happened again in chapter 16 of Acts the frustration of sinners. When confronted with the Gospel, the multitude rose up, Acts 16:22 together against them. And the magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded to beat them. See, they just started ripping their clothes off, they were so furious. And they started yelling at the lectors. Beat them, beat them, they said. Lay many stripes on them. They threw them in a jail and slapped them in stocks. And the world gets mad.

That gets very angry with Christianity. Sometimes I hear I was so worried because I shared Christ and they got upset. My response has always been good. As long as they got upset about Christ and not about you. In Acts 21:27 when the seven days were almost ended, the Jews were in were of Asia when they saw him. And the temple stirred up all the people and laid hands on him. It wasn’t to ordain him. In verse 28 says crying out, men of Israel, help get them this is the man that teaches all men everywhere against the people and the law in this place and has brought Greeks into the temple and has polluted the holy place.

And these people were mad. They wanted to kill Paul. See, Christianity, the truth makes people mad because people don’t like to be confronted with sinfulness of their sin. They don’t like the truth and they don’t like to have to face the fact that the entire way of life and their entire system is wrong self assessment. And so into their fury they start screaming the name of their goddess. It’s kind of reminds you of the first kings where those guys were trying to get to BAAL and they started hollering up to BAAL and cutting themselves and tearing the clothes and saying bell.

And old Elijah is standing over there saying maybe he’s on vacation. Oh, oh, you might want to get a little louder folks. He can’t hear you. Elijah thinks at least he says he might even be sleeping. You get, we need to get louder guys. In Jeremiah 50, 38, they’re mad over their idols. These people just lose their cool. Think. Purity, humbleness, all of the things in Ephesians 4, 5 and 6. Compare that to the people that you’re listening to. They were in a frenzy, screaming, rioting, yelling the name of their goddess. You know, that’s what happened.

And that kind of anger is what happened at the death of Christ as well. That the people were so infuriated that they started screaming and yelling, crucify him, away with him. And they turned into a frenzy mob. And the truth only angered them. Pilate had tried every way that he could to get the truth across or at least allow them to concede something. So the first characteristic of the mob is anger. The second is confusion. Now I want you to see this, I want you to apply it to you. Verse 29. So they’re all screaming their heads off, Great Diane of the Ephesians.

And the whole city was filled with confusion. That’s the second characteristics of a mod confusion. They don’t know what to do. It’s all chaos, it’s complete disorder. So in their confusion they grabbed two guys by the name of Gaius and Aristicus, men of Macedonia, Paul’s fellow travelers, and rushed with one accord into the theater. Now this theater was an interesting thing. It still exists in Ephesus, by the way, today the ruins of it still exist and it could hold anywhere from 25 to 30,000 people. It’s quite a place. It was hewed out of the side of a hill.

We don’t know much about gas. He could be the name. It could be the same guy, that one mentioned in chapter 20, verse 4, Gaius of Derby. We don’t know that because there are several of that name in scripture. This common name. We don’t know which one they are. So we don’t know whether we know about him or not. But Aristocras, who was a man of Macedonia, incidentally, the best manuscripts would make men of Macedonia man of Macedonia referring to Aristocrus, since Gaius is said in chap. 24 to be Derby. Derby was where? In Galatia. So Macedonia would be the assignment given to Arist the curse.

And he was a native of Thessalonica, he was a converted Jew, and he shared many things at all. In fact, he was in prison with Paul in Rome. And so he was really a beloved companion. So they grabbed these two guys, fellow travelers, fellow companions, and they hauled them off into the theater. And there’s this frenzy mount filling the theat and they got these two guys standing in the middle of them. Now watch what verse 30 says. When Paul would have entered in under the people, the disciples permitted him not. Well, you got to like Paul’s courage.

The first reaction was, I’m going over to that theater. And that’s good. John Wesley, who was very experienced with angry mobs, advised his early Methodist associates with this statement, always look a mob in the face. Now, that’s Paul’s thought. Paul says, I’m going to go down there and I’m just going to stand there and I’ll take care of that mob. Well, he had seen so many victories in the power of God, he wasn’t afraid of anything, absolutely nothing. But some Christians restrained him. His life was in danger. Well, you might say, couldn’t God take care of that? Yes, but there’s an interesting principle that’s being made here.

And I’ve not put together all of the ramifications of this, but I thought of this. Sometimes reason is better than foolish faith. I mean, you know the old story, God’s going to protect me anyway, so I’ll just lay down in the last lane of the freeway and see what happens. There’s a certain sense in which you got to use your head. Let’s just put it this way. It is faith to be in danger and believe God will deliver you. It is presumption to put yourself in danger and then expect God to deliver you. If the danger comes around, you believe God will take care of you, but there’s no sense in being stupid about it.

Remember, Your worst enemy is you. Dive off the temple. Oh, just step off of a building, see what happens. Can you fly? Are you going to go splat? Do you think God’s gonna, you know, come down on wings and. And scoop down like Superman and get you before you hit the ground? See, that’s what Satan tried to get Jesus to do. Dive off the temple and the angels will lift you up. Well, Christ was no fool. He says, wait a minute. That would be to tempt God. Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. Why, that would be presumed on God.

You would actually be tempting God on whether or not he was going to save you. That’s a sin. It’s one thing to be in danger and believe God will get you out. It’s something else to pursue, to presume on God and go jumping into danger. And so the other Christians used their heads and said no to Paul. There’s no sense in going over there. You’re going to get it. You’re going to be killed. They’ll kill you. So the disciples restrained him. And in verse 30. I’m sorry, in 31, the same message came from another source, certain of the chief of Asia, who were his friends.

Apparently, Paul had made some friends of the Azrex. And that would be because he was a Roman citizen sent unto him, besieging him, that he would not venture into the theater. So here come these political wills. Well, we just have to lay just a bit of foundation about these. Each province had an assigned guys from the Roman government. In other words, the province was the Roman province. And so the Romans would send some guys to kind of run province. Our history. That’s exactly what the United Kingdom did in establishing the colonies in this great country of ours.

They had really two responsibilities. They were there to promote the worship of Rome or the allegiance to Rome and the worship of the Emperor. They were Roman PR men. Our founding fathers, they were to get those people to subscribe to Rome and worship the Emperor. Well, our founding fathers were to get the people to understand the lack of independence was independence and that we didn’t win the war. We were still under the king rulership. Now, the Emperor worship was a very broad and general thing at this time. The guys also presided over the games. And that’s one of the reasons we believe that this was the month of May and the games were going on because they were all there in Ephesus, that I’ll probably be stationed in Asia Minor and.

But they were all there and they knew that this was a possible volatile situation. So in order to keep peace and everything calm and intact, they said, Paul, don’t go in there. And apparently they had some dealings with Paul before. Why? Because they were his friends. That doesn’t mean they were bosom buddies, but they were acquaintances. They knew Paul personally. And so because Paul was a Roman citizen and they were Roman architects, they were guardians over this area, they desired to protect him. He was a Roman citizen and this was basically a kind of pagan area through though it was now ruled by Rome.

And so they were trying to protect Paul on the basis probably of his Roman citizenship. They didn’t want him to be get in trouble. They saw what was going on and they just wanted to let it all die down. And if Paul went there, they’d really have something going that the riot would not become a riot, it become a lynching mob. So they be sought him not to go. He got the word from the Christians and from the non Christians not to go. That seems to me then it’s pretty evident that God was behind that. Now the mop.

Everybody’s yelling their, their whole heads off and saying what they want for the assembly was in confusion. Now here’s Luke’s sense of humor and he says this in scripture. And the greater part knew not for what reason they were come together. See, they had no idea what was even going on. They were just there. Oh, they were just there, right? Oh, paid protesters today. They’re just there. They’re all screaming. And I guess in looking at this, that’s what they were supposed to be doing. And they’re all yelling and everybody’s screaming and it’s a confused thing and nobody even is aware of what’s going on.

They don’t even know what they’re doing. That’s a typical mob today. Interesting word cried. There is in the imperfect tense. It indicates a continuous confusion. This confusion went on and on and on and they had no idea what they were doing. I wonder if you could just put your mind in those days and see what a mob did in those days. As I was preparing for this, I thought about that. What do you do if you worry in a mod? Well, I did a re. I did a search on that. There was no matches. They can’t burn anything.

There’s no windows, so you can’t break anything. You just stand in the theater and keep screaming. They’re lunatics. Being in a mob in those days would really be. There’s no cars, there’s no things you can overturn. You can’t burn anything. You can’t Break any windows. There’s no. There’s no storefronts. What are you going to do? They have no spray cans. All you can do is stand there and scream and get frustrated. Well, that got really old very quick. So a mob has two characteristics, anger and confusion. And the third one is closed mindedness. Have you ever noticed that? About a moment.

Verse 33. And they drew Alexander out of the multitude. Now, Alexander, we don’t know who he is, but it’s somebody by the name of Alexander. The Jews putting him forward. The Jews shoved up Alexander, probably on the stage in the theater. And Alexander beckoned with a hand and would have made his defense under the people. But when they knew that he was a Jew, all with one voice, for about the space of two hours, cried, great Diana of the Ephesians. I couldn’t believe standing there for two or two hours saying that phrase over and over and over again.

I think it would drive me nuts. They didn’t want to hear one word out of the mouth of Alexander, so they just started screaming. And they kept it up for two hours. Yeah, Everybody assumed that Christianity was a sect of Judaism, and so they were afraid. They thought this guy was a Jew, not a Christian, who was just pushed up there to tell everybody that the Jews had nothing to do with this. Huh? We don’t know whether it was a Christian Jew or a non Christian Jew. He was apparently put up there by the Jews to defend them somehow, but nobody would listen to him.

They were screaming Diana of the Ephesians. That was completely out of control. Well, if you let it go on for that two hours, it’s running out of gas by now. So the third point we come to is the calming of the riot. And there’s one sharp guy there who handled the situation in verse 35. And when the town clerk, which is probably not a good designation for this guy, he was the chief citizen in the town. He was the chairman of the town assembly, the town council, if you may. He was the secretary of this town council.

He was the guy who was called the convening of the town meetings when occurred three times a month. He was a very important citizen. He finally quieted the people after two hours of standing in the middle of that place screaming their heads on. He said, ye men of Ephesus, what man is there that knoweth not that the city of Ephesians is a worshipper of great goddess Diana and of the image which fell down from Jupiter? Okay, so then this big, black, ugly image of Diana that they assumed had fallen from Jupiter probably was some sort of meteorite, but the tradition had said it came down from Jupiter mythology.

And he says, don’t you realize that there is in this city the worship of the greatest goddess, Diana, who came from heaven? He’s a smart man. He knows that the Romans are going to hold him responsible for all of the trouble because he’s in charge of the town. He’s got a problem, he’s like the mayor. And he knows that the Romans could impose a fine on that city or the Romans could take away their right to free government because they were a free city, like Athens was independent, under the control of Rome, but independent United States, independent, but under the control of the crown.

And they could really be in trouble. So he jumps up and says, don’t you all know that this city is the worshiper, literally in the Greek, the temple warden of the great goddess Diana. And if you go to verse 36, seeing then that these things cannot be spoken against. In other words, if Diana came from heaven, from Jupiter, and if we are the great temple warden of this Goddess, then nothing can be done against them. Smart guy, you ought to be quiet and do nothing rash. Nothing can affect your great goddess. A whole lot of these little preachers roaming around would be like shooting a pea shooter at the Empire State Building.

That’s big time stuff. They’re not going to affect us. So he fires out a lot of nice glossy platitudes about the greatness of their God. Nothing could ever change that. The goddess’s power was undeniable and secure. He’s basically saying, relax guys. For he had brought here the these men who are neither robbers of the temples, they haven’t plundered the shrines of Diana, and they’re not blasphemers of your goddess. They haven’t blasphemed your goddess. Well, the Holy Spirit put this whole story in here for no other reason than to just have a pagan say in verse 37, the Christians don’t steal, don’t blaspheme other gods.

In this case, These Christians were like Jesus and they were as wise, as serpent as what is harmless, as does self assessment. What a great testimony out of the mouth of a pagan. These Christians do not rob temples, they don’t blaspheme our Goddess. They do not commit sacrilege, they do not commit thievery. And so the pagans give a testimony to the Christian’s quality life character. And so he says, nothing’s going to happen. Why these people can’t affect our great Goddess. They haven’t Done anything to hurt us. Verse 38. Wherefore if Demetrius and the craftsmen who are with him have a matter against any man, the law is open.

What is he saying? Courts in session. Let’s have our disputes. There are. There are judges. Let them accuse one another. In other words, if it’s a legal issue, take it to court. Due process of law. Verse 39. But if you inquire anything concerning other matters, in other words, what he’s told the people, if you do it, and it’s not a legal issue, it’s a social matter, it shall be determined in a lawful assembly. And as I said earlier, Ephesus had an assembly three times a month. That’s when you’re. You were heard in your disputes. And so this town clerk says, look, if it’s a social issue, let’s bring it to the assembly when the assembly convenes.

Not a riot. Oh, why was he concerned about the riot? Well, verse 40. For we are in danger to be called in question for this day’s uproar. There being no cause for which we may give an account of this concourse. You know what this statement is again? This is a statement of a pagan that the Christians have done nothing against the government. Because Romans 13 says Christians are to be subject to what the powers that be that are ordained of gods. And so this clerk says, look, we’re going to be in trouble. We’re in danger to be called and questioned by Rome because we have no reason for this riot.

Verse 41. And when he had thus spoken, he dismissed the assembly. After several hours of mass confusion, mob, hysteric, hysterics, everybody went home. Listen, people, the gospel provokes the world. Self assessment. And it’s exciting to see that provocations take place. This politician of this town, this clerk, was a smart cookie, sharp guy. This town clerk did a great favor for the Ephesians. He did no favor for the church. So why didn’t you say that, Jim? He stopped the riot. You know what he did? He agreed and confirmed the superstitions of the people. He took Christianity under his patronage.

He said, they haven’t done anything. What have they done against us? Let’s let them be. Listen, guys, the moment the church passed under the protection of the town clerk, they were in more danger than they were when the riot was going on. See, the church always is in more danger when it is protected by the system. Than it is when it has to fight for its existence. The last glimpse of the Ephesians Church, where the great pastors they had Paul And Timothy just to name two. The last glimpse of the Ephesians church and and the Bible is in these words.

I have this against thee. Thou didst leave thy first love. And this is what the Lord said. Remember therefore from where thou art fallen and repent and do the first works or else I’ll come unto thee quickly and remove thy lampstand out of its place except though repent. Jesus said, I’m going to come and I’m going to wipe that church out. Church is you. You know what happened. You go to Ephesus today and you know what you’ll find? A squid Mohammed village near where Ephesus was that doesn’t name one single Christian in its population. The church always thrives.

A riot is no threat to the church patronages is see the church always should be the conscious of the community. Whenever we are patronized by the system, we die. We’re going to end our study of Acts chapter 19 with that a review of your life. And where you sit with the master of control. Any comments? No. Let’s pray. Father, thank you again for a morning of worship into your word where we can reveal truth as it applies to us individually in our lives. Where you reveal yourself to us with the knowledge and wisdom of how we should put on Christ.

Father, we want to offer a special request that you look after Bobby. Confront the issue with not only a healing hand, but with joy and comfort for the family. Whatever the outcome may be, you’re in total control. And we give you that glory and praise, knowing that that control is going to be the outcome that is planned for. Father, give us a giving spirit, a wise spirit that can interact with our physical mind and, and overcome the boundaries that we set in allowing you to totally control our lives. May we be reminded that we are the church, that when you speak in scripture about the church, you’re speeching, you’re.

You’re speaking about our individual lives. Give us the opportunity of sanctification to be sanctified in Christ with the knowledge of who he is so we can understand who we are. Be with our world leaders as things progress according to your plan. May you be with the things that are happening this week and may they come to successful conclusions in. In. In order as you planned. Father, we want to thank you for your son, the death on the cross, resurrection, ascension, which is our ticket home. And we ask all these things in your son.
[tr:tra].