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As the gospel begins to take root in Philippi with fresh conversions, a disturbing interruption emerges from an unexpected source—a slave girl under demonic control. Her persistent cries seem to affirm Paul's message at first glance, yet they carry subtle distortions that threaten to undermine the truth. Why does Paul wait days before confronting the spirit directly, and what chain of events unleashes when he finally acts in Jesus' name?
📝 Study Notes, Scripture List, Transcript, and more: https://medicallake.church/sermons/our-enemy-is-real
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📝 Study Notes, Scripture List, Transcript, and more: https://medicallake.church/sermons/our-enemy-is-real
#mlcc #church #churchonline
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00:00So the little men would come.
00:02Say, the little men?
00:03Yeah, the missionary in Papua New Guinea was telling us about experiences
00:06that some of the villages had, that these little men,
00:11they didn't know how to describe them.
00:12They were about knee height, would show up at the village,
00:16and they would disrupt what was going on and cause chaos in the village.
00:19And especially as the missionaries were interested in coming to the village,
00:23these little men would show up, disrupt what was going on,
00:27and cause chaos in the village.
00:29What was interesting, the missionary told us that when the village in mass
00:32turned to Christ, in which most of the people in the village
00:34became believers in Jesus Christ, these little men stopped coming
00:38to the villages.
00:41Say, who were these little men?
00:42They were demons.
00:45These were demons, visibly manifesting themselves as very small little men.
00:55But they couldn't stop the work of God.
00:57When the gospel came, they had no power to stop the work of God.
01:00They wanted to stop the work of God, but they have no power to stop the work of God.
01:03And in the text today, what we're going to see is, when God is on the move,
01:08the enemy seeks to disrupt the work of God, but he is powerless against Jesus.
01:14He may try to work against...
01:16Somehow we get this idea that people have this understanding that Jesus or God
01:20and Satan are at the same level.
01:21And it's kind of like a competition between the two.
01:24Well, let me tell you, Satan and Jesus are not on the same level.
01:27Jesus is the creator God of all things, and Satan is a created being.
01:32They're not on the same level.
01:34But he tries to think he can stop the work of God.
01:36He cannot.
01:38Have we forgotten, as believers, that there is a real enemy against us?
01:43It's real.
01:44It's not just in the movies that you may watch about demons or whatever.
01:49It's real.
01:51I think we've forgotten about that.
01:53And the Bible calls him the Satan or the devil.
01:56This is a reality that we have to understand.
01:59It's real in our world today.
02:02And in the text we saw last week that God was on the move and Lydia got saved.
02:06They went down to the place of prayer by the waterside.
02:08There was no synagogue in Philippi.
02:10So they go down by the waterside to pray.
02:12They met these ladies, and Lydia gets saved, and her whole household gets saved,
02:16and she opens up her house to minister.
02:19And now we see Satan jumping in to try to hinder the ministry of what's taking place at Philippi.
02:24He does not like when God is on the move.
02:27So if you open your Bibles to Acts 16, we're going to continue on.
02:31It's right before that famous passage of the Philippian jailer.
02:34We're going to set the stage of why they ended up in jail.
02:38Well, what ended with them in jail, but why?
02:40So look at verse number 16.
02:43So this is God's word.
02:44We want to look at it together.
02:46As we're going to the place of prayer, we already found out about that in the last week,
02:49that it was a place that they gathered by the riverside to pray,
02:53and the worshipers of God were there.
02:56As we're going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination
03:01and brought her owners much gain by fortune-telling.
03:05That's a key.
03:06They got very rich.
03:07She followed Paul and us.
03:11Remember, us is Luke.
03:12So we've got Paul and Silas and Timothy and Luke that are traveling together now,
03:16the four-man missionary team.
03:19She followed Paul and us, crying out,
03:23Well, that sounds good, but is that really what she's implying in here?
03:35Sounds good when we read it.
03:36Sounds like a true statement.
03:38And she kept doing this for many days.
03:42So it wasn't like a one-time event.
03:44It was like over and over and over again.
03:46And then I love the text here.
03:47I love how Luke records this.
03:49Paul, having become greatly annoyed.
03:52I love that.
03:53He was just annoyed at this woman.
03:55He's annoyed at what's going on.
03:56And there's more of the reasons why he was annoyed, and we'll unpack that in just a second.
04:00But I love it.
04:00He wasn't just annoyed.
04:02He was greatly annoyed.
04:04I love it.
04:04He turned and said to the spirit, and so he doesn't address the girl.
04:08He addressed the demon to the spirit.
04:11I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her, and it came out that very hour.
04:16That's Luke's way of saying it came out immediately.
04:18It came out immediately.
04:20So when he called on the name of Jesus Christ and commanded the name of Jesus Christ to come out,
04:24the spirit came out immediately.
04:27So the missionary team is heading back to the place of ministry,
04:30and they're confronted with this servant girl, this girl that has a spirit of divination.
04:35Spirit of divination reminds us again what I opened up with is whenever lost people are being saved,
04:41Satan begins to try to hinder the work.
04:45Be aware.
04:47Mark it down.
04:48I wouldn't be surprised if some of you had some pretty tremendous fights on the way to church today.
04:54Why?
04:55Because Satan doesn't want you to hear this.
04:58He doesn't want you to know that he's at work in this world.
05:00He would rather you ignore him.
05:01He would rather you think, ah, that's just when Jesus was walking around.
05:05That doesn't happen today.
05:07The more that you ignore him, he enjoys that.
05:12Be aware.
05:13As we begin to take the gospel to every door, every house in the city of Medical Lake,
05:18that is our goal for 2026.
05:19In some way, getting the gospel to every house in Medical Lake.
05:22Be aware.
05:23The enemy is not going to like this.
05:25And he's going to come against us.
05:29This is what we would call a demon possession.
05:32This girl was possessed by a demon.
05:34The Bible calls it a spirit of divination.
05:37And so you say, well, what is a demon?
05:39What is it?
05:40I mean, the Bible talks about them, but it doesn't talk a lot about them,
05:43especially the Old Testament.
05:44Not a whole lot of information in the Old Testament about them.
05:46But what are demons?
05:48John Gilholy, in 40 Questions About Angels, Demons, and Spiritual Warfare,
05:53gives us a good definition.
05:55Demons are fallen angels, those spiritual beings who send after their creation.
06:01So they're created beings.
06:03And at some point, and this is where we don't know when it was.
06:06We just know about how many of them attached themselves to Satan.
06:09But we don't know exactly when it took place.
06:12Had to take place before the creation of Adam and Eve because Satan comes to the garden
06:15and tempts them.
06:16When it takes place, I don't know.
06:19But they're created, then they send after their creation,
06:22following the devil in his rebellion, and now war against God and his holy angels.
06:27With respect to their nature, they are angelic beings.
06:29They're spirits.
06:30They don't have bodies.
06:31That's why they inhabit people.
06:32They don't have bodies.
06:34They are angelic beings, but they oppose the angels in moral character.
06:38In other words, as the angels are good, the demons are evil.
06:42Unlike angels, there are not clear references to demons in the Old Testament.
06:45Talking about don't sacrifice your kid to demons, that's about it.
06:49There's not a whole lot of information there.
06:51The Bible teaches that Satan and demons are real beings who oppose the people of God.
06:56They promote false doctrines.
06:58Paul told Timothy, be aware, there are doctrines of demons that are coming our way in the latter
07:02days.
07:03Doctrine of demons.
07:04So they promote false doctrines, are active in false religions, and seek to prevent the
07:10advance of the gospel.
07:12Therefore, Christians should stand ready to withstand the spiritual powers of darkness.
07:16That's who these demons are.
07:18Created, sinned after their creation, are following now Satan.
07:21And again, the revelation tells us a third.
07:24His tail drug a third of the angels of heaven.
07:27So that's all that we know.
07:28Number?
07:28I don't know.
07:29A third.
07:30I'm not sure.
07:32But what is God's instruction to his people about how we're, what are we supposed to do
07:37with these demons or not do with these demons?
07:40A couple of passages about God's people in the Old Testament.
07:44Leviticus 19.
07:46You shall not eat any flesh with the blood in it.
07:48We've talked about that.
07:49Life's in the blood.
07:50You shall not interpret omens or tell fortunes.
07:53Don't take your tea, drink it, and look at the tea leaves at the bottom and predict something.
07:58Or throw your bones on the ground and predict something that's coming in the future.
08:02Don't do that, God says.
08:05Do not turn to mediums or necromancers, people who talk with the dead, necromancers.
08:10Do not seek them out and so make yourselves unclean by them.
08:13I am the Lord your God.
08:14So don't do that.
08:16Deuteronomy 18.
08:17There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering.
08:22You think that is crazy.
08:24Why would someone kill your own child?
08:26Yet they would do that to Moloch.
08:28God, the G, small g, God of fertility.
08:31They would take their children and they would sacrifice their child to Moloch saying,
08:35please give me more children.
08:37Does that make any sense to you?
08:38Makes no sense to me.
08:39You're killing a child asking for more children.
08:43It's crazy.
08:44Anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens or a sorcerer or a charmer
08:53or a medium or a necromancer, again, someone talking with the dead or one who inquires of
08:59the dead.
08:59Don't do that.
09:01Don't do that.
09:02He would say to us today, do not play with tarot cards.
09:06Do not play with tarot cards.
09:08Do not use a Ouija board.
09:10Don't go down that road.
09:11That's not for my people.
09:13They're real.
09:17Sometimes we think in the Bible, oh yeah, well, they had some sort of physical malady.
09:22No, the Bible says they were demon-possessed.
09:24It may result in a physical malady, but it's not a mental or bodily problem.
09:28It's a demon-possession problem.
09:31These evil spirits, they take possession of and they control people.
09:35They speak through them.
09:37They control them.
09:38They take control of their behaviors and of their speech.
09:42So they control the behaviors and speech of their victims.
09:46And they are still around today.
09:49They are still around today.
09:51They're here.
09:51Not here, because the angels are here.
09:54But they're here in this world.
09:57They're around us.
10:00People are still being possessed by demons today.
10:03I saw a couple of videos.
10:06I don't know these people.
10:07And they could have just been putting on a show.
10:09But it was concerning the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
10:13I heard two people, a man and a woman.
10:15You would say after listening to them, they're possessed by a demon.
10:19The way they talked does sound like a demon possession.
10:22I don't know.
10:23I don't know them.
10:23But it sure sounded like it.
10:24So this word divination is actually the spirit of Python.
10:30You say, Python?
10:30What is that?
10:31Well, it's important to know they were fortune tellers or ventriloquists.
10:38John Polio says, the Greek speaks literally of a Python spirit.
10:43The Python was a symbol of the famous Delphic Oracle, the Oracle of Delphi,
10:50represented the cosmology god Apollo,
10:52who was believed to render predictions of future events.
10:56So it's attached to that, that Python, spirit of Python-ness,
11:01or a spirit of divination.
11:03In the New Testament, Timothy and Barbara Freiberg said,
11:07Python in Greek mythology, the name of a giant snake,
11:10guarding the Oracle sanctuary at Delphi.
11:12Maybe that's why I don't like snakes.
11:13I don't like snakes.
11:15Some people like them.
11:15That's just not me.
11:16I don't like them.
11:17So, guarding the Oracle sanctuary at Delphi until slain by that small-g god Apollo.
11:26So, this divination was a process of trying to determine the future by demonic activity.
11:35It was said to guard the temple of Apollo, the Delphonic Oracle at Mount Parcinitas.
11:40So, here was my question when I was, okay, demons are not all-knowing.
11:45They're creatures.
11:46They're limited.
11:48So, I asked myself the question, how can demons predict the future since they're not all-knowing?
11:53That is a reasonable question to ask.
11:55How can they do that?
11:56How can they predict the future?
11:58How can they seemingly give us implication of what's coming in the future?
12:02And it seems to be sometimes right.
12:03How do they do that?
12:05William Baker gives a really good explanation.
12:09The ability of evil spirits or demons to predict the future with convincing accuracy,
12:13although they are not omniscient, that means all-knowing,
12:16is due to their ability to secure information via their vast numbers scattered throughout the world.
12:23So, they've got a communication going on somehow.
12:25And they can give you information all over the place.
12:27And they can seemingly predict the future, even though they're not all-knowing,
12:31because they have this vast arraignment of communication going on.
12:36And the Romans loved these people like this young girl, this slave girl.
12:41They loved them.
12:41Because if they ever went out to war, they always went to the oracle first and asked for guidance.
12:48Politicians would go to the oracle to say, how can I lead my city?
12:50The Romans loved these oracles, and they paid good money to get the predictions from these oracles.
12:59So, a person with the python spirit would be an asset and make lots of money.
13:05That's what really makes these men mad, the owners of the slave girl.
13:09They're mad because they're losing their economic resources here.
13:13She goes out crying out.
13:15That means she did it over and over and over and over and over again.
13:18That's probably why I got a greatly annoyed part of it.
13:20And she kept doing it over and over and over.
13:23The text tells us, again, I'm not going to go into the grammar stuff,
13:26but it just means they did it over and over and over again.
13:28She wouldn't stop.
13:30She becomes greatly annoyed.
13:34And like with Jesus, the demon recognized who these men were.
13:39He recognized who these men were.
13:43In Mark's gospel, dealing with Jesus, there are a lot of demonic stuff going on
13:47when the Son of God, the Creator God, the Messiah was here on earth.
13:51A lot of stuff with demons.
13:52Mark 1.
13:53And immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit.
13:57And he cried out,
13:58What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?
14:01Have you come to destroy us?
14:03I know who you are, the Holy One of God.
14:06These demons know.
14:07They recognize.
14:08Like Jesus, they recognize that these men were of God.
14:11Or a Jew, to say the term Most High God refers to Yahweh.
14:18But for a Roman mind, the term Most High God can refer to Zeus.
14:23So is she saying, these are servants of Yahweh or are these servants of Zeus?
14:29What is she saying there in the text when she says these are servants of Most High God?
14:34And there are many saviors.
14:37In fact, the emperor calls himself a savior.
14:39So what does she mean by, and they have the way of salvation?
14:45See, the slave girl's proclamation associated the gospel with the occult.
14:51She was making a connection between what Paul was proclaiming.
14:55She's claiming, oh yeah, this is part of the occult.
14:59This is part of what the small g gods of the Pantheon of the Romans or the Greek,
15:03this is what they're doing.
15:04This is occult.
15:06So he can't have that.
15:07And I don't blame him.
15:08I would be greatly annoyed, too, if you associate the gospel with the occult.
15:13He is irked.
15:14He's irked.
15:15We don't use that term anymore.
15:16He's irked is what the, he's irked.
15:19He's, and what is it, upset.
15:21He's annoyed.
15:22He's greatly annoyed.
15:23I get it.
15:25So in essence, the demon-possessed girl was not glorifying Yahweh.
15:29Because Zeus was also given the title Most High God.
15:32And also, another thing, I think most of all of our translations, and I, and I had to really
15:38work through this one.
15:39This is a struggle.
15:40In verse number 17, it says, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.
15:45The way, in other words, a particular definitive the way of salvation.
15:49The only problem in the Greek, there's no article.
15:51It doesn't say the way of salvation.
15:55It says a way of salvation.
15:58So she's only saying, associating the gospel with the occult.
16:01She's saying, or they're just giving you a way, because there's lots of different ways
16:04of salvation.
16:05No wonder he's greatly annoyed at this.
16:09In Acts 9, 2, here's where Luke uses a definite article in front of the word way.
16:14And he asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus so that if he found any belonging
16:19to the way, a direct article in front of the, not a way, the way, men or women, he might
16:27bring them bound to Jerusalem.
16:28So she's associating the gospel with the occult and claiming that's just a way of salvation.
16:33You could do multiple different ways.
16:36She was identifying Paul with divination and suggesting an alternative way, not the way
16:42of salvation.
16:43And there's one more thing.
16:44A guy named Weaver did some research, made a very interesting find.
16:47And that is before they opened up offices of the occult or occult, let's say Dionysus or
16:53Zeus or Apollo, they would send in the Delphic Oracle into a city, or let's see, he listed
17:00cities of Corinth, Sycon, Sparta, Patra, Athens.
17:04They would send this Oracle into the city to proclaim a new cult is coming.
17:10Get ready, open up the doors for this new message that's coming.
17:13So she's not only associating that with the occult, she's saying, hey, I'm here ahead of
17:18time to proclaim a new cult is coming to town.
17:20So he is greatly annoyed with this.
17:22All this stuff wrapped up in why he was so annoyed.
17:24What I want to know is why did he wait so long to cast the demon out?
17:30It says many days.
17:31I would have been fed up with one day.
17:33I mean, that was enough for me.
17:35He waits many days.
17:37He's patient.
17:38I don't know why he waits so long, but he does.
17:41And then he commanded the demon in the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus Christ, and
17:46the demon left immediately.
17:48Immediately.
17:48Notice, again, some things in the text.
17:51Let's just stick with what the text says.
17:53He addressed the demon, not the girl.
17:57Notice there's no mention of Paul being afraid in the text.
18:02No fear.
18:04Also, there's no arrogance.
18:05He's not saying, hey, I'm better than you, therefore I can just cast you out.
18:08There's no arrogance wrapped with that.
18:10And Jude, there were some people that were arrogant about the spirit world, and he's
18:15saying, I'm not being, when the archangel Michael, which is a very powerful being, the archangel
18:20Michael, contending with the devil, another powerful being, but fallen, was disputing
18:25about the body of Moses, or arguing about where we're going to bury the, where the body
18:29of Moses is going to.
18:31Again, God doesn't let us know where Moses was buried, and a good reason.
18:35He did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, the Lord rebuke you.
18:40When Michael, the archangel, who is, in my opinion, far superior to Satan, doesn't
18:45rebuke him, doesn't take the arrogance to say, hey, I'm better than you.
18:48He says, the Lord rebuke you.
18:50So there's no fear in Paul, and no arrogance in Paul.
18:53Very important.
18:54I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of there.
18:58No fear of the demon.
19:00No negotiation with the demon.
19:03Doesn't ask the demon's name.
19:05It's not negotiating with the demon.
19:07It's not like, if you do this, I'll do this.
19:08There's no negotiation with the demon.
19:11And there's no conversation between Paul and the demon.
19:14They're not talking.
19:15There's no conversation.
19:19So we don't really know, again, a lot about demonology.
19:22There's some stuff written.
19:23In the Old Testament, there's sparse, but some about it.
19:26We just don't know a lot about it.
19:27Questions we don't have answers to at this point.
19:30John Gilahoy, again, back to this, says, the Bible does not tell us much about demons
19:34or occult practice.
19:36Again, we have some information.
19:37We have more on holy angels than we do demons.
19:39The biblical authors focus on what is true and not primarily on what is false.
19:44No biblical author commands us to seek knowledge about demons specifically,
19:49to attempt to learn their names, locations, or occupations,
19:52to seek opportunities to encounter them,
19:55to learn rituals to cast them out or bind them,
19:57or to otherwise involve ourself in occult speculation.
20:01There's no instructions for us to do that.
20:03He commands in the name of Jesus, in the authority of Jesus,
20:06that's all that we have for information.
20:09It's the name of Jesus that overpowers the evil one.
20:15It's not Paul.
20:16It's Jesus' authority.
20:18It's Jesus' character.
20:19It's Jesus' name that casts out this demon.
20:23It wasn't Paul.
20:24It was Jesus who exercised this demon.
20:28In Mark 6, he had given authority to the apostles,
20:30and he called the 12 apostles and began to send them out two by two
20:35and gave them authority.
20:36In other words, they didn't have it before.
20:38He grants them authority, what?
20:41To cast out demons.
20:44Authority over unclean spirits.
20:46In other words, it's Jesus who does this, not us.
20:51And be careful.
20:53You're not a believer in Jesus Christ.
20:55Don't mess around with the demon world.
20:57You can find yourself in some bad situations.
21:01Acts 19 records one of those.
21:04Then some of the internate Jewish exorcists,
21:07so internate means they traveled around, okay?
21:10Jewish exorcists.
21:12Undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil
21:15spirits, saying, I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.
21:21Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this.
21:24But the evil spirit answered them,
21:26Jesus I know and Paul I recognize, but who are you?
21:31What authority do you have?
21:34And then the text says, strip them naked and beat them.
21:37Well, I said crap in the first service.
21:40You're not supposed to say that.
21:41Beat the crap out of them.
21:44Literally, you left them bruised and bleeding.
21:46Yeah, I know.
21:47Edit that out.
21:48Can we edit that out?
21:49Okay.
21:49Yes, it's a little a.
21:53So as a non-believer, you don't want to play around with this stuff.
21:57This is serious stuff.
22:00And the only other reference we have that Paul dealing with demons at all
22:03in the book of Acts is actually an indirect reference.
22:06And it's also in Acts 19.
22:08Acts 19, right before these verses.
22:11And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul,
22:14so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin
22:18were carried away to the sick,
22:20and their diseases left them,
22:22and the evil spirits came out of them.
22:24That's not even him doing it.
22:25That's indirectly him doing it.
22:27That's the only other reference.
22:28And so this is not something that happened every week that we're aware of.
22:31It was very rare.
22:35What's so sad is the people who own this girl,
22:38literally just think of that.
22:39She's owned.
22:40She's not even a free woman.
22:41She's a slave.
22:42They could care less about her.
22:45They only care that they've lost their monetary income.
22:48That's all they care about.
22:49They don't care that someone was controlled by a demon.
22:54Her life wrecked by this demon, I'm sure.
22:56They don't care about this girl.
22:58All they care about is losing money.
23:00What a contrast.
23:01Lydia, who comes to faith,
23:04shares her house as resources for the gospel message.
23:08Here we have a contrast with the dealers,
23:10the owners of this girl, who are just greedy.
23:13There's no sharing going on.
23:15They're just greedy people.
23:17So Luke and Timothy now drop out of the story.
23:20We don't hear anything more about them for a second.
23:22They come back in later on,
23:23but right now we don't hear much about them.
23:25Look what happens now.
23:26After Jesus casts out this demon out of this girl.
23:31Verse 19.
23:33But when her owners saw that their hope of gain was gone,
23:36that's it, all their monetary income was done,
23:39they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace,
23:43that's where the court was,
23:44before the rulers, city officials.
23:47And when they had brought them to the magistrates,
23:50they said, these men are Jews.
23:52That's the first accusation, by the way.
23:53Notice that?
23:54These men are Jews, and they are disturbing our city.
23:58They advocate customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to accept or practice.
24:03The crowd joined in attacking them, and they turned into a mob.
24:08And the magistrates tore the garments, or had the garments torn off of them,
24:12and gave orders to beat them with rods.
24:14So, seemingly reasonable people now are caught up in this mob mentality,
24:19and they're out for blood.
24:21They want blood.
24:24Tore the garments off them, and gave orders to beat them with rods.
24:28It's a Roman practice of flogging.
24:30And when they had inflicted many blows upon them,
24:34so I don't know how many it was, but a lot,
24:36they threw them into prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely,
24:40put them in maximum security.
24:43Having received this order, he put them in the inner prison
24:46and fastened their feet in the stocks.
24:48He put them in the most maximum security they possibly could.
24:53Imprisonment.
24:53So, they drag him to the city place where the court is held.
24:58In fact, the jail was right next to the marketplace,
25:00so they just put him right over in the jail after the fact.
25:04And notice again, I said the Jews were arrested,
25:07but the Gentiles, that is Luke and Timothy's half-Gentile,
25:10they're not in this story.
25:13It's only Paul and Silas that get arrested, the Jews.
25:16Full-on Jews.
25:18And they were beaten with rods, customary Roman practice.
25:21And the first thing that the accusation against them is,
25:24they are Jews.
25:26Anti-Semitism is not new, by the way.
25:29It is not new.
25:30It was around back then.
25:32In fact, it's around today.
25:33It's even growing stronger.
25:34Now, we've seen on our college campuses over the last year and a half,
25:37it's terrible.
25:37Anti-Semitism.
25:39They're Jews.
25:40That's the first thing.
25:41It was alive and right.
25:42As a matter of fact, right about the same time,
25:44the emperor evicted all the Jews out of Rome.
25:48So, right about the same time, it's recorded in Acts 18.
25:52After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth,
25:55and he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus,
25:58recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla,
26:01because Claudius, that's the emperor,
26:03had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome,
26:05and he went to see them.
26:06So, they're Jews.
26:08Even the emperor doesn't like Jews,
26:10and we don't like Jews either.
26:12So, secondly, they were disturbing the peace of the city.
26:14They're disturbing the peace or causing anarchy, chaos.
26:18Well, actually, it's the people that are causing the chaos, not them.
26:21And last is, they're advocating systems unlawful for Romans,
26:25customs unlawful for Romans to do.
26:27I don't understand that one,
26:28because Rome didn't care about how many gods there were in the pantheon.
26:31Add another god.
26:32They didn't care, but they're upset at this one.
26:36So, the owners are not angry for these three reasons.
26:39They're angry because they're losing money.
26:41They just bring these three reasons as a means whereby to get some money.
26:46They didn't care about this human being that had been rescued from the bondage of evil.
26:50They're just going to lose money.
26:53So, the mob gets involved.
26:55They strip them of clothing.
26:57They beat them, and they beat them without a trial.
27:00Without a trial.
27:02The magistrates did not investigate the matter fully.
27:06This caused them great embarrassment later.
27:08You'll see next week.
27:09They're going to be embarrassed to their core about what they did.
27:12They did not do a proper, proper trial.
27:15They didn't look into this matter correctly.
27:18We don't know how many stripes.
27:20The Jews could only get 40 beaten, 40, to be beaten 40 times with a rod.
27:25And that's why they did 39, so they didn't exceed that with the law.
27:27It says Rome had no limit.
27:29I don't know how many times they were beat.
27:31They were beat, and they were beat, and they were beat.
27:34Now, this is what's also interesting to me is, it is unknown why Paul and Silas did not claim the Roman citizenship at this time.
27:44Everything could have stopped.
27:47They could have said, hey, wait, wait, we're Roman citizens.
27:49They bring it up next week.
27:50We're going to see it next week.
27:51But they don't at this point.
27:52Why did they allow themselves to be beaten?
27:55They could have stopped it all by claiming to be Roman citizens.
27:57But they allowed themselves to be beaten.
28:00I'm thinking probably because it's a bigger picture than what they can see.
28:03They end up in the Philippian jail.
28:05The jailer in his house.
28:06Oh, I can't give away the next week.
28:08You know the story.
28:09They get saved.
28:11So maybe that's the reason.
28:12I don't know.
28:12They did not invoke their citizenship at this point.
28:16Paul talked about being beaten in 2 Corinthians 11.
28:18He said, three times I was beaten with rods.
28:20This is probably one of them.
28:22He talked about being mistreated at Philippi in one of his other letters.
28:25This is probably it right here.
28:27They were treated as dangerous criminals who were against the government, anarchists.
28:32They're trying to go against the government or the customs of Rome.
28:36And they place them in the innermost cell.
28:39And as some have said, it was like deep down in and stuff dripping down on them, maybe excrement.
28:45It was a horrible place to be.
28:47And in the stocks that were against the wall, there were multiple holes in the wooden stocks.
28:52If they liked you, they would put your feet really close together in the stocks.
28:56But if they didn't like you, they'd spread them out really wide.
28:58It'd be a form of torture at the same time.
29:00And we don't know.
29:01It doesn't say how.
29:02It just says they put their feet in stocks.
29:04We just don't know.
29:06So perhaps Luke is mentioning the security of the prison.
29:10They're in maximum security to highlight what was about to happen that night in prison.
29:15So you've got to come back next week to find out what happens that night in prison.
29:20So what do we learn from this?
29:21What do we learn from this?
29:22Number one is this.
29:23Be aware demons are real and they still seek to disrupt the work of God today.
29:29So what are we supposed to do?
29:31Put on the whole armor of God to stand against the evil one.
29:36And having done all to stand, that's what he's asking us to do.
29:40Be equipped.
29:40It is a real battle.
29:41Put on.
29:42We fight against principalities and powers, not against people.
29:45We're not, we're not warring against people and it's not a physical battle.
29:49Put on the whole armor of God because they're real and they will try to affect us.
29:54Two, Jesus has given believers authority to cast out demons in his name, but it's to be
30:02done without fear and without arrogance.
30:05Without fear and without arrogance.
30:07In other words, we're not better.
30:08We don't come across as better.
30:09It's Jesus who does the work, not us.
30:11If you remember when Jesus sent out the 72, he sent them out and gave them authority over
30:18unclean spirits.
30:19So they went out preaching, they come back and they're reporting back to Jesus everything
30:24they encountered while they were preaching and casting out demons.
30:29So they come back and they said, this was great, Jesus.
30:32Not only we tell them about you, but man, we even got to cast out demons.
30:36That was great.
30:37Even the demons were subject to us in your name.
30:40And do you know what Jesus said to them?
30:42My words, not his.
30:43Don't be so excited.
30:45The fact that you were able to cast out demons.
30:47You know what you really need to be excited about?
30:49That your names are written in heaven.
30:51That's what he says.
30:53It's not about casting out demons.
30:55It's about your name being written in heaven.
30:58Third, as believers, suffering from the name of Christ is to be expected.
31:04I know we don't like to talk about that, especially in America where we're not
31:07really experiencing that.
31:08They understand it.
31:09They know.
31:11My brothers and sisters in Nigeria, they understand this.
31:15Suffering is to be expected for the name of Christ.
31:18Matthew 5, Jesus said,
31:19Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil
31:24against you falsely on my account.
31:27Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.
31:31For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
31:34Suffering is associated with being a believer.
31:37Let's pray.
31:38Father, thank you.
31:39It's not something we normally talk about, Father.
31:41We don't, in our conversations throughout the week, don't even really talk about demon
31:44possession or demons.
31:45It's just not part of what we talk about.
31:48Yet you reminded us again that it's real.
31:50They're real.
31:51There are fallen angels that have rebelled against you.
31:54Some are being held now in captivity in chains.
31:57Some are free to roam.
31:58In the book of the Revelation, we see demons all over the place in the Revelation coming
32:03out, affecting the earth and the people, those who dwell on the earth.
32:07Help us to be aware that it's true and it's real.
32:11And that authority has been given because of who Jesus is.
32:14To cast these out, it's not something that we go looking for, but we may run across it.
32:18But we need to be aware that he's there and he's actively working against what you're
32:22trying to do in this world, Father, to disrupt and cause chaos, to kill and maim and destroy
32:27is what he comes to do.
32:30So help us be aware and not forget we have a real enemy and that we need to put on your
32:34armor every day to fight against him.
32:37And we may suffer.
32:38We may suffer for your cause.
32:41May we be like our believers around the world.
32:43May we have the perseverance to continue and the grace that goes along with it.
32:48So thank you, Father, for what you're doing.
32:51And again, we ask for your protection as we try to reach the citizens of Medical Lake
32:57with the gospel message.
32:58We pray in Jesus' name.
33:00Amen.
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