Guest Speaker - Dr. David Whitcomb
The story is based on Acts chapters 19-20, Ephesians, and 1 & 2 Timothy. This will be a high level overview, so all students of the Word must search these Scriptures to see if the story and its implications are true.
- Building the Church at Ephesus
- Paul founded the church with 12 Jews (Acts 19:1-8)
- Paul left the synagogue and taught the people Daily for Two years. (Acts 19:9-10)
- The name of Jesus was Magnified (Acts 19:17-20)
- Paul later sent a letter, recognizes as God’s Word, called Ephesians.
- Ch. 1 - Believers are chosen by God and blessed in over Thirty ways (Eph 1:3).
- Ch. 2 - God has united the Jews and gentiles into one Body (Eph 2:16, 19)
- Ch. 3 - The Holy Spirit indwells and strengths the Inner man (Eph 3:16)
- Ch. 4 - God gives each member of the body special Gifts (Eph 4:11-12, 16)
- Ch. 5 - God gives us Examples of how to live (Eph 5:1-2; cf 1 Cor 4:16-17)
- Ch. 6 - God provides Everything for us so that in evil days, we will be able to Stand (Eph 6:13).
Believers must be Strong (Eph 6:10) - Paul sends Timothy (next week)
- Satan attacks from the outside (Plan A)
- Demetrius opposes Paul because of Money (Acts 19:23-27)
- People riot because the Truth challenges their Lifestyles (Acts 19:28-29)
- God protects the church through Government (Acts 19:34-36)
- Satan attacks from the inside (Plan B)
- Destructive forces are coming from among the Leaders (Acts 20:28-30)
- There will be false teachers (2 Peter 2:1-2)
- Certain persons crept in unnoticed (Jude 3-4)
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Well, good morning everyone. I'm Dave Whitcomb. They keep calling me Dr. Whitcomb, which few people do. You can call me Dave.
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So I'm very excited to be here today and to be able to share some things out of God's Word.
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Now, I'm not a preacher. I'm a teacher. So I'm going to use a lectern and we'll have an outline.
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But what I want to talk about today is extremely important.
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And some of the things you're going to hear today you've never heard before.
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And I want you to study your Bible afterwards.
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I have a detailed outline so you can go back and see whether or not the things that we're discussing are true.
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Now, the other thing I want to point out is that the church that we're going to be studying over the next two weeks is the church in Ephesus.
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And this is one of the most amazing churches in the New Testament.
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It's amazing because of what happened at this church.
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And I'm going to be telling you a story of the church of Ephesus and how it rose to be one of the greatest churches ever and how it was attacked by Satan and almost destroyed.
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And so the lessons that we see from this church are very, in Ephesus are very applicable to the church that we have here.
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So if I can have the first slide, I hope they worked.
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Okay, so the Bible passages that we're going to be looking at are in three areas, and the first two are ones that we are going to be studying today. If you do not have a Bible, I want you to raise your hand and we'll bring Bibles that we have available in the back so that you can have one. If you already have one of the Bibles, we'll be looking at page 603 and 633.
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That is where the book of Ephesians and the book of Acts is located.
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And so we'll start in Acts chapter 19 and begin there.
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So the introduction tells us about the story that's given in Acts chapter 19 and Acts chapter 20 in Ephesus.
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And we're going to be taking an overview. We're not going to go in depth on verse by verse.
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We're going to take an overview and then you can study during the week to see whether or not the things that we talked about are accurate and all the other treasures that are hidden here.
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So if I can have the next slide.
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So this is the city of Ephesus and what you see in this map is the Mediterranean Sea and on the far right is where the the Holy Land and Israel is located with Jerusalem being the bottom right city and the arrows that you see in the little like purple and yellow things are the missionary journeys of Paul and And what the book of Acts does is tells us the acts of the apostles, what they did.
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And from about the middle of the book of Acts to the end, it tells us each of the cities that Paul visited and what he did there.
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And you can actually go through the book of Acts and trace out exactly where he went.
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And this Bible chart shows exactly where he went.
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What I've circled in yellow is Ephesus.
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And Ephesus was an incredibly important city.
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It was actually one of the largest cities in the Roman Empire at this time.
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It had almost 500,000 people that were living in this area.
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It had a history for being there for thousands of years.
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And it actually housed one of the seven great wonders of the world, which was a temple to the goddess Artemis, also known as Diana.
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It was massive, pure marble pillars, and it was the largest building that had ever been built to that time.
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It was indeed one of the seven great wonders of the world.
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It got destroyed because Ephesus is right in the middle of the battles between Greece and Syria, and so a lot of traffic went through there.
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And a new temple was built after the old one was destroyed that was even greater.
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It had 125 pure marble pillars that were over 60 feet tall.
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It was a massive area and it was dedicated to this goddess of fertility and of...
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It turned out to be an area of prostitution.
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They actually had a marble street that went from the city to this other thing and had a brothel that was built two stories high, a huge area that facilitated this effort.
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There was also an incredible trade where people from all over the world came to this area because it was in the middle of a trade route.
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And throughout the whole Roman Empire, all over that part of Europe and the Middle East, They've dug up artifacts that have come from this area that are artifacts that looks like statues of Diana.
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And so whatever was built there spread throughout the area.
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So it was a center of pagan worship.
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It was one of the most important cities for Rome because it dominated this whole area that was called Asia by the Romans, but is actually the area shown on this map.
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So that's where this is located.
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Now the last thing I want to point out here on this map is that Paul came through here twice.
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The first time is the purple, and we're going to be talking about the purple where he came from Corinth and went to Ephesus.
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And the second time is in light green where he bypassed Ephesus and went to a city below called Miletus.
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And so those are the two cities that are going to be important, and we'll talk about that.
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So let's go to the next slide.
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Now the story picks up in Acts chapter 19.
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And so we're picking up sort of in the middle of Paul's journey.
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And he traveled from Greece over to Ephesus.
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And in verse 1 it says, "And it came about that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul, having passed through the upper country came to Ephesus and found some disciples. Now what kind of disciples were living at Ephesus? And it turns out that they were Jewish believers who had heard the message of John the Baptist, that the Messiah was coming, and they were dedicated, they wanted to see the Messiah.
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And Paul, in the next few verses, tells them his name is Jesus Christ. And he led Jews to the Lord. And as we look at the second point, is that beginning in verse 5, it says, "When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came in them, and they began speaking with tongues and prophesying. And there were about twelve men." So now we have a small nucleus of people who are believers who had been looking for the Messiah, they knew the Old Testament, and they were instructed in more depth exactly what God had done, what he had done through Jesus Christ and about salvation. Now the interesting thing is the Jews, when they heard the gospel and believed, started speaking in tongues. And what did that mean? If you go back and read Acts chapter 2 later on, we're not going to spend time here, what you see is that it was a sign to Jewish believers. The words that were spoken were not unintelligible to Jewish people. It was unintelligible to unbelievers and Gentiles. Because when the Jewish people at the Day of Pentecost, and that were all gathered in Jerusalem, when they heard the believer speaking, they understood exactly what was being said, and they recognized it was, it sounded like it was in their native language, and they understood exactly what was said. There were words praising God. It wasn't spreading the gospel, it was words of praise to God. They understood what it said, and they said, "What does it mean?" And Peter told them, "It means that a new time has coming as was prophesied in the Old Testament. And he told them about who Jesus was from the scriptures. And so the sign was to Jewish believers who were looking for the Messiah. But now that we have the scriptures and the word has gone out, there are no more tongues as was described here. So here was a sign to Jewish believers that confirmed something miraculous was happening and And it was the beginning of the church, and Paul begins the church here.
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Now, in verses 9 through 10, something very disturbing happened.
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And you know what? This happened over and over and over again.
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"But when some were becoming hardened and disobedient, speaking evil to the way before the multitude, He, meaning Paul, withdrew from them and took away the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus.
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And this took place for two years, so that all who lived in Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.
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So that church started in a school, perhaps much like this.
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The difference was that Paul taught there daily for an additional two years.
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Can you imagine having the Apostle Paul as your teacher for two years?
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Now, at Harvest, we don't have this facility to teach daily for two years, but we have something equivalent.
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We have home groups with people who study the Word.
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And we saw that there's a home group on Wednesday that the pastor's teaching.
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And I teach one in the Oakland area and Shadyside on Tuesdays.
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And there are other ones as well.
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So you have the opportunity to get into the Word and to be taught almost daily and understand exactly what the Bible is about and what it means to you.
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Now, as we go on and look at verses 17 through 20, we'll see what happened.
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And so there's a description that we'll skip over about some conflict that happened, but it really drew attention to the power of the word and to the authority that God had given through Paul.
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And in verse 17, this miraculous event where a holy, where an evil spirit was in a man and Paul came up 'cause other people couldn't throw this demon out.
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And Paul, when he came up, the demon said, we know Paul and he was thrown out of, and this man had the demon thrown out of him.
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In verse 17 it says, "And this became known to all, both Jews and Greeks, who lived in Ephesus. And the fear of the Lord fell on them, and the name of the Lord was magnified. Many also of those who had believed kept coming, confessing and disclosing their practices. And many of those who practiced magic brought about their books together and began burning them in the sight of all, and it to be 50,000 pieces of silver. So we see is that the effect of the word was so powerful that people's lives were changed and they were committed to the gospel and to the teaching of Paul. And as we saw that the word spread throughout all that area of Asia, everyone heard of the Word of the Lord and what had happened at that point. The importance is that the name of Jesus was magnified.
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This brought, did not bring attention to Paul and his followers, it brought attention to Jesus and it was a powerful witness. Now just of interest to me, 50,000 pieces of silver, it turns out a year's wage was about 250 pieces of silver, so that is equal to 200 years of annual salary, or more than five million dollars. So that's a lot of stuff that a lot of people brought and burned publicly, and there was a complete change in that city. The impact was unbelievable of a small church beginning with 12 people within a couple years. That is a great church. It's a church where the word is going out and having an impact on people's life and it rocked the entire city. But as you remember from the map, Paul didn't stop there. He had other churches and other things and he moved on to other places. Now Paul did not abandon the people in Ephesus and just move on, he sent them a letter to help them understand how to live the Christian life. And it's one of the most important letters in the New Testament to understand these principles. So let's move forward to the book of Ephesus that is on page 633. Now this book is pretty amazing and what I'd like you to do is to look at Ephesians chapter 1 and the end of Ephesians chapter 6 and just hold up the pages because I want you to see that even though this is an amazing part of the scriptures and has so much in it, it's only a few pages long. It's amazing to see what's in there and we're going to do a brief overview but it's just actually a pretty short little letter but thousands of books have been written about this and it's been studied by millions of people for 2,000 years and still we haven't gotten to the bottom of it and completely understood the implications of this book. And here, the new church at Ephesus received this letter. Now I'm going to quickly go through the entire book and give you an idea of the types of things that are in it. And this is outlined in your handout. So under point two, Paul sent a letter recognized as God's Word, and it's called Ephesians. In chapter one, we're going to begin by just looking at one verse, and that's verse three. It said, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Now it goes on and it talks about how God the Father was involved in your salvation. It talks about how Jesus Christ paid the price for your salvation. It talks about the Holy Spirit sealing you in God's family.
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But it goes through in sequential detail and it turns out God has blessed us in over 30 ways. And if you study this, there are 30 things that happened at time of salvation that God's done for you. There's so much that we learn from studying chapter 1. But I'd like to move to chapter 2. Chapter 2, it also says something that was very important both for the Jews and the Gentiles who lived in the city of Ephesus. Now, beginning in verse 11, it talks about how the Jews who have had all the spiritual blessings and all the teaching, everything that God has poured out through the Jews to spread around the world, was now being brought together with the Gentiles. The Gentiles who had nothing, now we're going receive everything. And this is as they were united into a new body called the church. Now the church began on the day of Pentecost and we mentioned that when I spoke of Acts chapter 2. Did you know that Pentecost is actually one of the major Jewish ceremonies and gatherings and as I mentioned when I spoke of tongues. People came from all over the world to be in the city of Jerusalem during the Day of Pentecost. And they had just a very important series of things that occurred. But the highlight was when the priest got up in front of the congregation and he had two loaves of bread. And the loaves of bread were lifted and brought together as a unified sacrifice to God. Did you know the Jews didn't know what the two loaves stood for? For thousands of years in their history as they worshipped on the day of Pentecost, they were bringing these two loaves together and what we find out in the church it is the Jews and the Gentiles together that become a unified people of one body that provide a sacrifice of praise and service to our God and Father. So every time we think of Pentecost, the beginning of the church, it begins by having the Jews and Gentiles united. It points this out as we see in verse 16 of chapter 2. It talks about how there had been a disagreement and competition between the Jews and the Gentiles, but the purpose was that, he says, he might reconcile them both, both the Jews and Gentiles, into one body to God through the cross, having put to death the enmity. This is exactly what happened. They were brought together. And as we go on to verse 19, it says that you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the Saints and are of God's household." The people in Ephesus recognized that now they were brought into God's family, they were part of the history, they were spiritual children of Abraham. All the blessings that God promised they could benefit from through being united through Christ into one body. This is very important for them to know. Chapter 3 goes on and describes how this was such an important event and that Paul was given the privilege of explaining this. But what happens is that it's not just the external, it's the internal as well. So look at chapter 3 and verse 16. It says that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his spirit in the inner man. It's not just external blessings, it is the Holy Spirit working inside of each person in the inner man.
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The people of Ephesus needed to know that, they needed to be reminded that this was happening with them. Chapter 4 goes on and talks about what does it mean to part of the body. This is one of the most important chapters in the Bible that talk about what a body is. Look down on verses, in chapter 4, beginning in verse 11. It says that he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers. So these are special gifts he gave to build up the church. Now what we learn is the Apostles were the and in chapter 2 and 3 it talks about how the Apostles are the foundation of the church. But once the foundation is built, you don't need to build the foundation anymore, and the role of the Apostles has ceased. There were some prophets. Those were people that were given special insight into the church so that they could explain what happened until the scriptures were written. It says there are some evangelists, and those who go out and preach the gospel so that others are saved. And I do not have the gift of evangelism, but some of you probably do. And he gave some as pastors, and we have people here who are pastors. Those are those who are very good at leading one-on-one and helping to nurture and protect and strengthen people, and I don't have the gifts of a pastor. And some teachers, and you know what? I recognize that my gift is I don't have the gift of an apostle. I can't perform any miracles at all.
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I don't have the gift of evangelism. I don't have the gift of a pastor.
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But I do have the gift of teaching, and that it's actually what my job is.
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I've spent my entire career teaching at a university to graduate students and medical students, but I enjoy studying and I enjoy putting things together and teaching, And that's really what my gift is.
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But what is the purpose within the church?
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Well, it says here in verse 12, "The purpose of all of these is for the equipping of the saints for work of service to the building up of the body of Christ." Did you know that?
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The church is not about the pastors and teachers.
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It's not.
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That's not the purpose of the church.
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The purpose of those people are to help you in your ministry.
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Every one of you has a ministry, and the purpose of the teachers, and the evangelists, and the pastors are to help you.
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That's what they're for.
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And as we look at this a little bit further, it explains this in more detail.
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It says in verse 15 that speaking the truth in love, "We are to grow up in all aspects unto Him who is even the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies according to the proper working of each individual part." Now who's the individual parts? You are. Every person is a part and each person has to function in the church and they have to be connected to each other or you can't function. Now I studied medicine and physiology and what we study is how all the pieces work together. That's otherwise the body doesn't work. They don't work independently but it says here that Christ is the head of the church, and so all the information comes from Christ to the body.
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And so each part has to work together to cause the growth of the body for building up itself in love.
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Now, what is love?
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Love is unconditional care and giving for other people.
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It is self-sacrifice for the benefit of others, and that is the critical part of the church.
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Well, that wasn't enough because the people at Ephesus wanted to know, "How do we live?
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How do we put this into action?" And in chapter 5, he tells us, look at chapter 5, verses 1 and 2.
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"Therefore, be imitators of God as dear children, and walk in love just as Christ loved you and gave himself up for you as an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.
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So you know what your example is?
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Christ, you have to live like Christ did in love and sacrifice and service to others.
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Well, how do you do that?
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We don't know how to do that.
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And that's why I put another reference down, 1 Corinthians chapter four, verses 16 and 17, you can look up a little bit later.
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Paul said to the Corinthians, "You have to live in a way that Christ did.
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But in case you don't know how to do that, I'm sending you Timothy who knows how I live because I'm following Christ." So Christ is example, I show you how to follow Christ.
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Timothy learned from me and you learn from Timothy.
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Did you know that we're gonna maybe at a future time look at 1st Timothy chapter 3 and it talks about leadership in the church. And you know what it takes to be a leader? It's nothing about education. It's people within the congregation that everyone recognizes knows how to follow Christ. And if somebody, they're called elders and deacons, and if somebody doesn't know what to do but they want to follow Christ, here's an example of someone who who has walked before you that knows how to do it.
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Furthermore, from the middle of chapter 4 to halfway through chapter 6, it gives you examples of every area and stage in life, and what to do, how to behave, how to think, how to interact with others, what your attitude should be, and how to bring glory to God.
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The people in Ephesus needed to know, and Paul gave them these details.
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Last, in chapter 6.
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This is the scary part.
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In chapter 6 and verse 13, it says, "Therefore take up the full armor of God." Now, why do you need armor?
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It's because there's going to be conflict.
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"That you may be able to resist in the evil day." And did you know there's going to be evil days?
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And they were coming to this church, and having done everything to stand.
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So in the battle, it's not he who puts on his armor, it's the person that stands at the end and takes it off.
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That's the one who the victor is.
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If you look up at the beginning of this, verse 10, it says, Finally, be strong in the Lord.
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What does it mean to be strong?
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You may not feel physically strong, but what does it mean to be strong?
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And it doesn't tell you exactly how it says be strong.
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So if there is a difficult time or conflict, you are to be strong, but it's not in your own strength.
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It's in the strength of his might.
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And Paul goes on and describes what is the full armor of God.
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How do you be prepared when the evil day is coming?
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And can I tell you something?
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We're gonna see that Paul saw the evil days were coming in the church of Ephesus.
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And you know what?
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Evil days are coming to this church.
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There's gonna be major conflict in this church.
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And you know why?
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Because wherever God's working, Satan's working.
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Did you know that?
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That is the history of the world.
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Well, in addition to teaching for almost three years and for sending the book of Ephesus, Paul also sent Timothy to help.
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And we're going to look at Timothy next week because I never would have sent Timothy and it was a disaster.
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Let's move back to the book of Ephesus, excuse me, the book of Acts.
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And I want to pick up the story because what we see is Satan attacks.
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Satan attacks.
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You know what? We are not unaware of his schemes.
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There's two ways that he attacks, and the first one is from the outside.
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And so let's just pick up back in Acts chapter 19, page 603 again.
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And in verse 23 to 27, we learn about a guy named Demetrius.
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It says in verse 23, "About that time there arose no small disturbance concerning the Way." Now, the Way in my Bible is capitalized, because it's the Way of salvation.
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It is the way of God, the whole counsel of God in the church.
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And there was no small disturbance.
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It says, "For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Artemis, was bringing no little business to the craftsmen.
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And he gathered them together with the workmen of similar trades and said to you, "Men, you know that our prosperity depends on this business." And you see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away a considerable number of people, saying that gods made with hands are no gods at all.
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And there's not only danger of this trade of ours falling into disrepute, But also the temple of the great God Artemis has been regarded as worthless, and shame whom all of Asia and all the world worship should even be dethroned from her magnificence." So the first thing he points out is, "Hey, we're losing money off of this." As I told you, throughout all of the Roman Empire, these shrines have been found everywhere.
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That was a big business, very big business, and suddenly everybody turns away and they're burning their books. You know, five million dollars worth of books being burned in the entire area of Asia, hearing about the word and a considerable number of people turning away and changing their lives and living a life that's honoring to God. That's bad business, if you're in the wrong business. And so what he does, he stirs them up and he's not saying, Well, people say, "Well, business isn't so good. We don't feel so bad." But you know what? It also affected their lifestyle.
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They liked the prostitutes. They didn't have a two-story building.
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They liked the lifestyle. They liked the sin that was part of that pagan culture.
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Many people whose hearts were hardened did not like what was happening.
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They did not like the light shown on them. They did not like to be seen as evil.
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And it got to the point where they couldn't stand it anymore.
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As we continue to read here in verses 28 and 29, "When they heard this, they were filled with rage, and they began crying out, saying, 'Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!' And the city was filled with confusion, and they rushed with one account into the theater, and they dragged along Artemis and Aristocarius, Paul's traveling companions from Macedonia, and they started a riot running through the church, through the city, and gathering up people, and they were about ready to destroy everybody associated with the church in a massive riot.
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But you know what? God protected them.
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And it's fascinating to see what happened. In verse 34, it says, "But they pulled out a man when they recognized that he was a Jew." "A single outcry arose from all of them, as they lasted for about two hours, 'Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!'" In verse 35, "And when, after quieting the multitude, the town clerk said to them, 'Men of Ephesus, what man here is there that does not know that the city of Ephesus is the guardian of the temple of the great Artemis, and the image which fell down from heaven?
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since then, these are undisputable facts, you have to keep calm and do nothing about it." And goes on to say, "If there's a problem and there's been a loss of money through cheating, then you can take it to the courts." Now this is amazing because what God did is use the government to protect the church.
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There's a very important passage in Romans chapter 13.
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You know what? Every government is given its authority from God.
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And the purpose of the government is to suppress evil and to encourage good.
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And the agents of the government are appointed by God for that purpose.
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Now, sometimes they're better and sometimes they're not.
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But we are to support the government and pray for the government because the government protects God's work.
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Doesn't always happen, but that is a principle that we see, and certainly our freedom to worship is protected by the government.
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And we need to pray for our leaders that this important principle is not lost.
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And certainly here's an example here of where that happened.
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Now, this plan of Satan in this outward attack started good and ended poorly.
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But you know what? He didn't give up. And he never gives up.
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And we know that even now in parts of the world like Somalia and Northeast Africa and other places, he is using people to attack Christians and kill them. And we know that's happening.
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There's a magazine, we get "Voices of the Martyrs" that just outlines all the horrible things that are happening to Christians.
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But you know what? It strengthens the church.
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But I'm gonna tell you something that's even more worse more insidious and has a tremendous impact and it continues even today Now let's look in Acts chapter 20 Now I'm gonna just pick up in verse 17 and 18 Because Paul had left and he kind of circled back and it says from Miletus He sent to Ephesus So you remember I showed you the picture on the map where Ephesus was in the middle of the circle and Miletus was right below it?
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So Miletus was at Port City and Paul came in there and called the elders of the church to all come down from Ephesus so they could have a little retreat.
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And they came down and met Paul and he reminded them, he said, "You know yourselves from the first day that I set foot in Asia, how I spent, I was with you the whole time." And he goes on and explains his ministry.
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Now he talked about all the happy things that happened, but now I'm going to show you a prophetic word from Paul about what was going to happen that is terrifying.
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And his answer is unexpected and really strange.
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In verse 27, again Paul says, "I did not shrink from declaring you the whole purpose of God." Now let's look at verses 28 through 30. He says, "Be on your guard for yourselves and for the whole flock from which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd the church." Now this is kind of an interesting thing because he called the elders who were overseers and pastors or shepherds which is the word pastor. So these individuals were all elders but they had different roles as overseers, teachers, and pastors within the church. But this is the leadership of the church. He says again in verse 28, "The Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd the church of God which he has purchased with his own blood." It is Jesus' church, he is the head. Verse 29, "I know that after my departure Savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock." Okay?
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Here's the worst part, verse 30, "And from among your own selves, men will arise speaking perverse things to draw away disciples from their selves." False teachers are going to come into the church and they were already there, and they were among the elders that Paul had brought down to speak. It's like Jesus when he was in the upper room and said to the disciples, "One of you will betray me." They didn't all turn to Judas and say, "Well, he's obviously the only one dressed in black, it's him. They said, "No, is it I?" Nobody knew who it was.
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Judas was so trusted that he was the treasurer for the whole group. He was the most trusted person of the twelve disciples, yet Jesus himself said, "You know, one of you is a devil." And nobody could tell who it was. But eventually it came out in a time of crisis. And so nobody knew who it was, but they knew that there was infiltration among them.
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So Paul gives them an answer in verse 31.
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It says, "Therefore, be on the alert. Remember that night and day for a period of three years, I did not cease to admonish each one of you with tears." And here's the answer.
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"Now I commend you to God in the word of His grace." That was his advice.
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Who were they? I want to know who they were.
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I want to know how to find out who they are and how to oppose them.
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I want to know how to get rid of them. I want to take action.
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But you know what he said?
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God and His Word is sufficient.
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If you know God and His Word, you will be protected and the church will be protected from savage wolves against innocent sheep.
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How does that happen?
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Well, I'm going to talk about that next week.
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But what I'd like to point out now is that Paul is not the only person that knew that Satan's plan was to deceive, to confuse, to infiltrate, to bring heretical doctrines in to destroy the church.
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Did you know that Peter, in his second epistle, that was one of the main things that he warned about?
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If you turn to 2 Peter chapter 2, which is on page 259, Peter at the end of chapter 1 talks about how the holy scriptures are given by the inspiration of God.
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holy men were driven to write exactly God's Word, and so that the Word of God is pure, it is accurate, it is complete, and it is ours. But in chapter 2 verse 1 he says, "But false prophets also arose among the people," speaking of the Old Testament, they had true prophets and false prophets. As a matter of fact, at the time of Jeremiah, all the prophets were false.
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All of them were saying that God is gonna prosper our country and God is gonna raise up Israel and God's gonna get rid of the Babylonians that were on the march and he's gonna save us, all of them.
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And you know what God told Jeremiah?
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He says, "The city's about to be destroyed.
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"In fact, the sword is already at the throat.
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"It's gonna be complete destruction "and there will be no salvation." And you know what Jeremiah's response was?
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Why are you lying to the people by telling them that there's safety when in fact, the sword is at the throat?
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And you know what God's response was?
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Those prophets aren't mine.
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They're not my prophets.
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They say they are.
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They're dressed with the right robes.
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They're in the right places as part of the prophets of Israel, but they're not his prophets.
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And they're speaking lies.
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So false prophets arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you.
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There will be false teachers among you, secretly introducing destructive heresies, planting doubt, questioning doctrines, questioning God's Word, saying, "Well, maybe that doesn't really apply." Even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.
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And many, many, many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be maligned." And you know what I have to say to that?
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"Boy, isn't that church history?
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Has that ever come to be true?
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Haven't we seen entire denominations destroyed?
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Entire Christianity brought into disrepute because of false teaching which led people to do the wrong thing.
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How do you defend yourself against this?
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How do you know if somebody's teaching false or truth?
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What do you do?
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What should the church do?
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Where we can't even tell by looking around who's a false teacher and who's a true teacher.
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As a matter of fact, Satan himself doesn't go around with a red suit and horns.
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He masquerades as an angel of light and his ministers also masquerade as ministers of light.
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Lastly, in Jude, who is one of Jesus' brothers, in the last book of the Bible before Revelation, so on page 622, gives a stern warning.
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In verse three, he says, "Beloved, while I was making every effort to write to you "about our common salvation, "I felt it necessary to write to you, "appealing you to contend earnestly for the faith." Who is he writing to?
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Well, it says in verse 1, "Jude, a bondservant of Jesus and a brother of James, to those who are called." If you're a Christian, you are called. If you're a Christian, you are called.
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If you're a Christian, you are called. And that goes to you.
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You are to contend earnestly for the faith in whatever capacity God has given you.
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And why should you contend earnestly for the faith?
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which was once for all delivered to the saints in verse 4, "For certain people have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out of this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of God into lasciviousness and deny our Lord, our Master and Lord Jesus Christ." So what have we learned today?
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What have we learned today? What we see is a church in a town of Ephesus, an influential city, that was a center of pagan worship, where Paul began teaching in a small school daily. But as people came to know the Lord, something happened.
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What was it? Paul was in Ephesus, but it turned out that the people took the word throughout all of that area called Asia. It wasn't Paul going out, it was the people that heard the word, evangelized, and told everyone about this way through Jesus Christ. That's really highlighted again in back in our main passage in Acts about how this happened. The second thing we learned, let's go to the next one.
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In Acts 19, 20, it talks about how the Word was prevailing, and if all this good was happening, why was there a conflict? Why was there a problem?
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It's because not everyone wants the gospel. They love money, they love their lifestyle, they love other things, and there will be opposition to God's Word.
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And we see that Satan is leading the attack both from the outside in, but in a more sinister way from the inside out.
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So this church that within three years had had a impact over the whole known world, where miraculous things had happened, was protected by the government, was going to be attacked from the inside, from their own leaders.
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And we'll see next week that the entire church was almost completely destroyed.
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That Paul knew it was coming. He just said, "Well, you know, God be with you. Here's your Bible." And left.
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And then when things got desperate, he sent them the worst possible choice that I could have imagined.
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He said, "Here, you try to handle this mess." And it was a disaster.
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But you know what? That's not the end of the story.
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And if you come back next week, we'll finish talking about this and understand how God's ways work.
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how he builds the church, but how he preserves it, and how people can be protected from destruction.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Acts 19-20, Ephesians, 1 & 2 Timothy
Breakout Questions:
Pray for one another.