Hello, my ‘Walking with Jesus’ friends on this Tuesday,
I wonder if you’ve noticed an increase in fascination with things of the dark kingdom in your part of the world. What types of things? Things of the occult or divination or sorcery or what some might call alternative lifestyles or worldviews which are contrary and perhaps opposed to God’s Truth, God honoring living, or Jesus Christ?
Yesterday in our travels with the apostle Paul we discovered that he spent two full years, 52-54ad, in the great city of Ephesus. For three months Paul was found regularly debating truth in the Jewish Synagogue but then Paul moved into a more public forum, the hall of Tyrannus, where Jews and Gentiles, Greeks, and Romans from all over the empire who lived or were passing through Ephesus, could engage Paul in discussion and debate, about really important things of life. It must have been a remarkable 2 years for Luke tells us there was virtually no person in the region who had not heard of Jesus Christ and His Gospel!
Among other things Ephesus was well known as a city fascinated with what I call the ‘dark kingdom’. Sorcery in a wide array of forms was both practiced and celebrated in Ephesus! Demonic forces were very active and very powerful. The dark spiritual world was not something reserved for dingy, dimly lit, back-alley shops. Oh no! Those involved in the various practices which engaged the dark spirit world were high profile, well known, main street shops and influential people in Ephesus. Therefore, as we can imagine a growing kingdom conflict arose between the kingdom of Jesus, as proclaimed by Paul, and the dark kingdom, with a great many adherents in Ephesus.
Acts 19:11 says “God did extraordinary miracles through Paul…” We’ve seen that in many of the towns and cities where Paul has been on his previous two missionary journeys, so this isn’t really new. What was fairly new in Ephesus was what I might call ‘copycat’ miracles. Luke wrote: “Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon possessed. They would say, ‘in the name of Jesus whom Paul preaches I command you evil spirit to come out.’ Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. One day a man who had an evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding. When this became known to the Jews and Greeks in Ephesus, they were all seized with fear, and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honor.” (Acts 19:13-17)
I have found that the dark kingdom, under the overall leadership of Satan, is rarely viewed with the seriousness it warrants. Most people pass off things related to the evil world as myth or magic or theory or philosophy...things of a different world that have little to do with the practical, tangible world our five senses can validate. But it is in that atmosphere, that social sense of irrelevance, that the dark kingdom power can work so diabolically and destructively.
This strange report from Ephesus is an example. 7 men, praying over a person, attempting to free that man from strongholds of the dark kingdom, are themselves overpowered by this one man, beaten and sent fleeing, bleeding and humiliated, from the house where they were engaged in a spiritual battle. One man taking on seven men and giving them a thrashing!
Do you remember the story of the man Jesus encountered who lived among the tombs, cut himself with stones, could not be bound by any rope or chain without breaking it, and was possessed by a legion of demons? Jesus in all His sovereign power freed that man by demanding the legion of demons leave the man and enter into 2000 pigs grazing on a nearby hillside. Those pigs ran down the hillside into Lake Galilee and drowned themselves! (Mark 5:1-20; Luke 8:26-39)
Do you remember Jesus being tempted by Satan, during His 40 day fast, immediately following His baptism? (Matt. 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-13) Jesus rebuked Satan each time by the power of God’s Word and Satan was defeated each time.
Perhaps you remember Paul had encountered a demonized woman fortune teller in Philippi and when Paul drove that demon out of the girl, he and Silas were arrested, beaten and imprisoned! (Act 16:16-24) But late that night, God sent an earthquake which powerfully broke open the prison and the jailer came to believe in Jesus as his Savior! (Acts 16:25-34)
Ephesus was a city of many different religions, none of which were any threat to Satan and his demonic forces who were so powerfully controlling many people in that city. But Paul proclaimed the story of Jesus and explained that Jesus was God incarnate! Paul also explained what Jesus had accomplished in defeating sin, Satan and death in His atonement death and victorious resurrection, and that changed everything in Ephesus!
In fact, do you see Luke says the people in Ephesus were seized with fear? (Acts 19:17) Do you also see Luke wrote: “the name of the Lord Jesus Christ was held in high honor.“ A very powerful change was occurring in Ephesus.
Yes, it was a powerful spiritual battle, and it was manifesting itself in very practical ways! The power of Jesus was delivering people from many things that were destroying their lives! May I ask, do you see a similar battle raging in your town? Do you see addictions leading people into deep darkness and self-destruction? Do you see deceitfulness and bullying and lust and manipulation leading people into great conflict that sometimes results in bloodshed or death or even suicide? Do you see people confused about their gender identity or confused about whether they are attracted to men or women or even animals?
All of these, and much more, are tangible, practical evidences of the diabolical, destructive influence of the dark kingdom, distorting the minds and hearts of people in our day, drawing them AWAY from the God honoring life we are each designed by God to live, and drawing people INTO self-destructive living. Now pause and ponder that for a moment my friends.
In Ephesus, two radical things happened which changed that city and the lives of many people there. First, as we saw some people were seized with fear, and the name of the Lord Jesus Christ was held in high honor. And secondly, “many of those who believed in Jesus now came and openly confessed what they had done. A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to 50,000 drachmas! In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.” (Acts 19:18-20) A ‘drachma’, my friends, was equivalent to one day’s wages for the average person. So do the math my friends, what would be the equivalent of 137 years of the average salary in your city?
Yesterday we saw in Acts 19:9 that some people, in their rejection of Jesus and His Gospel in Ephesus, “became obstinate; they refused to believe Jesus and publicly maligned ‘the Way.” Now, in that very same city, Ephesus, a short while later, do you see the absolute opposite is happening? That’s the power of Jesus Christ defeating the power of the dark kingdom as people wake up to and respect God’s truth and have a healthy fear of both God’s powerful love and God’s powerful judgment!
So, in closing today, what will it take in your city and mine for something like this to happen in 2023? And here’s a song to help us consider it, my friends…
Today’s Scripture is Acts 19:13-20.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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