Fake Magic Vs Real Messiah

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If you want to open your Bibles with me and turn while you remain standing to the book of Acts, we're going to go to Acts 19 and look at verses 11 through 20.
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The title of today's message is False Magic vs.
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Real Messiah.
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Acts 19 verse 11 says, And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them.
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Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.
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Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this, but the evil spirit answered them, Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you? And the man in whom was the evil spirit leapt on them, mastered all of them, and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.
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And this became known to all the residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks, and fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled.
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Also many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices, and a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all.
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And they counted the value of them and found it came to 50,000 pieces of silver.
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So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.
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Let's pray.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
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I pray now that as I seek to give an understanding of it and an application of it, that you would, by your grace, keep me from error.
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For I know, Lord, I am a fallible man, capable of preaching error, and I pray that you would keep me from that for the sake of your people and for the sake of my own conscience.
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I pray also, Lord, that as the word is preached, the believers would be instructed, corrected, and edified.
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And Lord, the unbelievers in the room, as there always are, I pray, Lord, that they would be confronted, convicted, and led to the foot of the cross, whereby they might look to the Savior and know eternal life.
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And it's in his name we pray.
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Amen.
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Many of you know that when I was in high school, I had a unique job.
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I was a strolling magician, and I worked for an entertainment company where I did magic shows at receptions and bar mitzvahs and all kinds of other events.
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One of the things I knew from the moment I began practicing magic was that it wasn't really magic.
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It was the art of illusion.
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It was intended to fool the senses.
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And it's interesting just how quickly and easily our senses can be fooled.
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But it wasn't really circumventing any of the natural laws of physics.
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No one really floats in a magic show.
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No one really gets cut in half.
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And no one really disappears.
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And this is why we call them magic tricks.
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Because we know deep down that even someone as grand as David Copperfield is really just doing something that is ultimately intended to fool the eye.
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But if you study the history of magic, you realize that there was a time when people used these tricks to deceive people into believing that they had special powers.
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There are also those who, in attempting to expand their abilities, have broken into what we would call the black arts or the dark arts.
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Those who have touched the demonic realm, as it were.
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And we know that demons are real because the Bible says that they're real.
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It's not something we have to wonder about.
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And we do know that there are people who make it their job or life ambition to dabble in demonic things.
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The Bible tells us about those people, too.
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It talks about necromancers and everything else.
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People who try to speak to the dead through demons.
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And there are people who claim the power to see the future, to exercise spirits, and to perform rituals which would allow them to speak to the dead.
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And such magicians can be seen going all the way back to the time of the Old Testament to the earliest books of Moses.
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Well, in our study today, we're going to see some men who believed that they had the power to invoke special spiritual power and to perform special miracles.
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But in their attempt to demonstrate their false magic, they learned that they are not to be compared, and they were not to be compared with the real Messiah.
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We're in Paul's third missionary journey.
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For those of you who have been with us throughout the study of Acts, you know we've gone verse by verse through many chapters now.
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And we've arrived now at chapter 19, and many things have happened.
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Paul had went to Macedonia, had gone down to Corinth, and after finishing in Corinth, went across to Ephesus, went back to Antioch, which was his home church, the church that sent him out, and now had departed Antioch again, had gone through the mainland of Asia Minor, back to Ephesus.
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And why did he go back to Ephesus? Well, they asked him to come back, and he said, If the Lord wills, I'll be back.
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So now he's come back to Ephesus.
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You remember last week we studied that when he came back to Ephesus, when he came into Ephesus, there were a group of about 12 men who met him who were disciples of John the Baptist, and after sharing the gospel of Jesus with them, explaining to them about the Holy Spirit, they were re-baptized, but this time into Jesus Christ.
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They were baptized into what we would call Christian baptism.
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And I didn't mention this last week, and I apologize.
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I hate to feel like I'm taking a step back, but I do want to mention this, because I think that that story is somewhat helpful on the question of re-baptism.
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There are people who ask me, sometimes they come and say, Pastor, should I be baptized? I was baptized before.
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My question is always the same, and it's based on really this text, is did you understand the gospel before? Were you a believer? And if they say no, I say, well, then I'm happy to baptize you upon your profession of faith.
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But if somebody comes to me and they say, well, I was a believer when I was baptized, I say, you don't need to be baptized again.
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If you knew Christ, and you were a saved person, and you were baptized, it's not necessary to keep doing that over and over and over.
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Baptism isn't a rite like communion that happens over and over again.
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We don't get baptized every week or every month or every year.
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I know people who do, because they believe they can lose their salvation.
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Because they believe they can lose their salvation, they're baptized several times in their lifetime, because they think they have to get it back.
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They have to re-earn that grace of justification.
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But it's not necessary.
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Once you're a believer, and you're baptized, that's a gift that's one time only necessary, unless, of course, you're baptized like mine.
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I was baptized at eight years old and wasn't a believer.
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I was baptized because I thought that's what people were supposed to do.
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I saw other people do it.
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It looked fun.
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Every little kid likes a pool.
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And so I went and got in the pool and got wet.
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And that's really all that spiritually happened to me that day.
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As I went in dry, I came out wet.
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But then later in my life, after coming to know the Lord, I realized I needed to receive a genuine Christian baptism.
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And I did.
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So again, I mean, that's taking a step back to last week.
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But I put it in my notes because I didn't want to forget it.
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Well, after this situation with these men, Paul continues his ministry in Ephesus, and he begins to try and teach in the synagogue, which was always his purpose, to the Jew first, and then to the Greeks.
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He went to the Jews.
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He tried to preach in the synagogue.
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And they wouldn't allow it.
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They fought with him.
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They argued with him.
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They spoke evil of the way.
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They were unwilling to hear what he had to say.
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And so Paul leaves there, and he goes to the hall of Tyrannus.
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We don't know who Tyrannus was, but I did mention this last week.
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That word is where we get the word tyrant.
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We don't know if that was his title or his nickname.
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He might have been one hard teacher, and he was the teacher tyrant.
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But either way, it was his hall.
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And Paul used that hall for two years as sort of like a mini seminary.
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And that would have been where Paul taught the gospel.
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It's interesting.
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I think John MacArthur made a good point.
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He said Paul didn't really have a programming scheme for evangelism.
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Paul just taught the gospel and made disciples, and disciples make disciples.
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And that's what he did.
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He made disciples, and those disciples went out and made disciples to the point that at the end of last week, it says the word of God was being spread everywhere.
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Because of what Paul was doing every day, going and preaching and teaching the word of God in the hall of Tyrannus.
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And that was multiplying in a godly way.
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So we come now to where we are today.
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Paul is in Ephesus.
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And again, reminding you about Ephesus, one of the most important things to understand is where Paul is, because we're about to see what happens with the sons of Sceva.
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And it really makes sense better if we understand what Ephesus was like.
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Ephesus was one of the most vibrant metropolises of the ancient world.
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It had its greatest claim to fame, according to the Smithsonian, is that it had the temple of the goddess Artemis, also known as Diana.
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It was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, and it was four times larger than the Parthenon in Athens.
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So this is a huge temple that is established for the goddess Artemis.
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And this was a place that was heavily influenced by the supernatural.
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In fact, Mark Roberts, in his writing on this, says that magic and superstition permeated Ephesian culture.
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And we even have some ancient writings that come out of this area of the world, what's called papyri, and that's where they took the papyrus reed and they would place it together and they would make paper, that's where we get the word paper from, and they would make paper and they would write on it.
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And some of the writings that come out of this particular period are called the magic writings, because they included spells and incantations and things that people would write out and would try to use for these magical seances or whatever they were doing.
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F.F.
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Bruce points out that there were several surviving magical papyri that were an attempt to pronounce the name of God.
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You remember the name Yahweh from the Old Testament? Yahweh in the Hebrew Yahweh? That name was not pronounced readily by the Jewish people.
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That was the sacred name and they felt like by saying it they took the chance of blaspheming the name of God, so they didn't go about saying it.
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So there was actually writings where mysticists would try to find out that name or try to come up with how to say it so they could use that name in their mystical incantations, because they thought it was somehow magical, because nobody wanted to say it.
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You know, it's a secret word, it's like a secret society word, and if we could find it out and we can apply it, then we can use it in our magical seances or whatever.
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F.F.
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Bruce goes on to say, The name of Jesus appears in a magical papyrus belonging to the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, which contains this, I adjure you by Jesus, the God of the Hebrews.
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That's how it's written.
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I adjure you by Jesus, the God of the Hebrews.
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It sounds kind of like what these guys say when they say, I adjure you by Jesus, by whom Paul preaches.
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See, they hear the name Jesus, they think Jesus is the God of the Hebrews, which he is, he's the second person of the Trinity, we know Jesus is God, but they see his name as something important.
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His name is something magical.
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His name is something that is to be able to be drawn out of, to use for powerful purposes.
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So this is the atmosphere of magic and the supernatural which is in play in our study today.
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This is what we're looking at as we begin here in verse 11.
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It says in verse 11, And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them, and evil spirits came out of them.
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Now, I want to mention something.
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The touching of cloths to receive healing is not unique to this passage in the New Testament.
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If you go back to the Gospels, you will see examples of people touching Jesus' garment and being healed.
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Probably the most famous example was the woman with the issue of blood.
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Remember, Jairus came to Jesus, says, my daughter is not well, come and heal her.
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So Jesus is on his way to heal this man's daughter, and another woman makes her way through the crowd and quietly comes up and pinches the hem of Jesus' garment and immediately the flow of blood that she had had for 12 years is immediately stopped.
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And she feels it.
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She realizes she's been healed.
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Jesus realized that power has gone out from me, turns around and says, who touched me? And we all know this situation.
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So there's a time in the New Testament outside of this where we see cloth being expressed as an avenue for God's power.
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But something to note here in this passage, we must not overlook it, and if you underline your Bible, I would underline one word in verse 11.
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It is the word extraordinary.
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In the King James it says special.
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In the New Living Translation it says unusual.
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And honestly, even though I don't use the New Living Translation a lot for study, I think that is a great translation of the Greek word because that is what it means.
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This miracle that is happening in the life of Paul and in the life of the Ephesian people was not normal.
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In fact, what's the definition of a miracle? The definition of a miracle is the suspension of natural law by God.
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He's the only one who can suspend natural law.
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So if someone has died, they stay dead unless God suspends natural law and He brings them to life.
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Right? That's what a miracle is.
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It's a miracle.
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Now there are things that are miraculous.
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Babies being born, that's miraculous.
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Someone being healed through medication, that's miraculous at times.
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But a miracle is the suspension of the natural law.
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When God sets water up as a heap on both sides of the Red Sea so that the people of Israel can walk through on dry land, that's not normal.
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That's a suspension of the normal.
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Because water doesn't stand up.
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You ever try to make water stand up? Go home and try it.
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Try to pile water on top of water.
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Guess what happens? It continues to fall down.
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You can't stack water on water.
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But the Bible says the water stood as a heap on both sides.
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A miracle is the suspension of the natural law by God for His purpose.
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Now, this text says it was an unusual miracle.
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Well, all miracles are unusual.
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All miracles are extraordinary.
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But this one is an extraordinary, extraordinary.
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It's an unusual, unusual.
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It's a special, special.
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Can I say it any more clear? I just think it's...
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Why would Luke go to the trouble of calling something a special miracle when all miracles are special? Because this one is special, special.
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We got it? I'm trying to make a point here because later I'm going to talk about those guys who sell you the $25 drop cloth and tell you to put it under your pillow and pray to it every night because that ain't normal.
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Okay? And this was not intended to be mimicked for all time.
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That's why I'm getting to what I'm getting to.
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Even this, in the time when apostolic miracles were commonplace, this is extraordinary, what's happening here.
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And as I said, as most anybody would probably realize, there is a modern practice where people take cloth and they pray over it or they dip it into olive oil or something and they put it in a bag and they send it to you.
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We're going to talk about that a little more later.
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But keep in mind that there are some signs that were considered apostolic in nature.
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They were not meant to be the norm for all time.
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In 2 Corinthians 12, verse 12, the apostle says this, The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience with signs and wonders and mighty works.
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When we talk about the apostolic age, we're talking about a particular time in history where I believe, and many people would agree, that there was a specific anointing and a specific type of power that these men had that wasn't meant to be exercised all through the history of the church.
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Things like the gifts of tongues, things like the gift of healing miraculously by touching someone or commanding that they be healed was for the apostolic time.
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And it was the signs, according to 2 Corinthians 12, verse 12, of an apostle.
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This is how someone knew that someone was an apostle.
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And of course, Paul was.
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But you can imagine how, in a place that is filled with the supernatural, you see a guy who cloths that he's used to tie around his head while he's making tents or aprons that he's put around his body to keep the sweat off of him while he's making tents.
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He sets that apron down, he turns around to get him a Coca-Cola, and he goes back and his apron's gone.
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That's a little exaggeration, they didn't have Coca-Cola, but you know what I'm saying, he turns around and there goes the apron because somebody grabbed it and took it, and they're going to lay it on their sick mother so that mom can be healed, right? And it's working! But amazingly, in verse 11, it says God was doing this.
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Paul wasn't doing this.
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Paul wasn't putting these in sandwich bags and sending them out two by two.
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People would take these things and go do this.
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This wasn't Paul's doing.
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God was doing this.
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But you've got to think of how it looked from all the other people.
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They're seeing this happen.
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This guy is a magician's magician.
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Even stuff that touches him has magical powers.
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So as a result, there were some guys who liked the idea of having magic powers, and they had exercised some magical influence in their community.
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They see what Paul is able to do, and they want to ride the train of success.
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So it says in verse 13, "...then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists..." By the way, this is the only place in the Bible the word exorcist is used, and it's not in a good way.
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Exorcism is not one of the gifts of the Spirit that we find when we read the outlining of the gifts of the Spirit.
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It's certainly not something that is a normal thing that Christians ought to be.
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I've seen people before who identify themselves as exorcists.
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Normally they're in the Catholic Church, but there are outside the Catholic Church people who identify themselves as exorcists.
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This is the only time we see the word, and these guys are not biblically sound guys.
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It says, "...there were some itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaimed." See, they didn't even know who Jesus was.
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They thought Jesus was Abracadabra or Hocus Pocus.
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He was just a special word, a special name that could be called out to be used.
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"...seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this, but the evil spirit answered them and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?" Now, I have the same question.
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Who are you? We really don't know a lot about these guys.
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We don't know much about Sceva except his name and that he was a Jewish high priest.
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Some scholars say that it was actually not that he was the high priest, but that he was part of the high priestly family.
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Perhaps he himself knew the sacred name and was able to pronounce the sacred name, and because of his ability to pronounce that sacred name, maybe that's why he was held in such high esteem by the magicians, because he in some way had through his high priestly family come to know that name and was able to express it.
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And so people thought of him as somewhat of a high authority in magical arts.
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And here comes his sons.
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We don't know anything about them save the fact that there were seven of them, and all of them were practicing exorcisms.
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They would go and pretend to have the ability to exercise spirits or to cast spirits out.
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And they decide to use Jesus' name to exercise a spirit.
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Keep in mind, these men are not Christians.
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I don't think any of you thought they were, but just in case there's a confusion, this isn't a group of Christians going around using the name of Christ.
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These are not followers of Christ.
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These are not people who believe in Christ.
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These are people who heard the name of Jesus and thought it was a magic trick.
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It was a potion or an incantation.
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I can use this name.
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So they tried it.
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Verse 16, And the man in whom the evil spirit, in whom was the evil spirit, leapt on them, mastered all of them, overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.
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Now, I've got to tell you, that had to have been the beating of a lifetime.
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I mean, because I've been whipped before, but I ain't never been whipped naked.
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I mean, to the point that my clothes were gone.
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This guy whipped these guys hard.
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And it's one guy against seven.
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That's like a Bruce Lee movie.
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But you think about the fact that demon possession often did imbibe someone with certain particular strengths and powers.
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Think about the demoniac at the Gerasenes where Jesus went across, or to the Gadarenes, rather, where Jesus went across.
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What did it say of that man who was living among the tombs? They would bind him with chains and he would do what? He would break the chains.
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Because of that demonic spirit that filled him and somehow was imbibing him with power to do things that were extraordinary.
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And so here this guy is in this house and he's filled with a demon.
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We don't know what's happening.
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Maybe he's doing all kinds of demonic yelling and screaming.
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And these seven guys go in and I adjure you by the name of Jesus whom Paul preaches.
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And the demons know who Jesus is.
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As James tells us, even the demons tremble at the name of Jesus.
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They know who Jesus is.
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And they've heard of Paul.
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But I don't know you.
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And I ain't afraid of you.
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Because you don't know Jesus.
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Tells us a little something there.
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People throw the name of Jesus around a lot.
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And often they don't know him.
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It's a dangerous thing to do.
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Brian Borgman said this.
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He's a pastor I listen to a lot.
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He said, I don't know if they have history DVDs in heaven, but if there's a DVD of this, I want to see it.
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He said, what an interesting thing to see these guys go in and try to evoke a name that they don't really possess.
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Because Jesus isn't a magic trick, guys.
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He's not some kind of glass filled with power that you just go dip out of.
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Jesus is a man.
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He's a person.
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He is God the Son.
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And it's believing in him, not just using his name, is what matters.
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And verse 17 tells us, And this became known to all the residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks, and fear fell upon them all.
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Well, wouldn't it fall upon you? If there's a guy in a house and seven people go in to exorcise his demons and they come running out beaten, bloodied, and naked? Yeah, that would make it into the Ephesian Gazette.
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That would make it in the news.
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And the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled.
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Also, many of those who were now believers came confessing and divulging their practices.
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See, now they realize their magic isn't real.
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Now they realize that there's something about Paul that they don't have.
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And they can't just use the name of Jesus to somehow manipulate it out.
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And I think that what's important here, it says in verse 18, And many of those who were now believers came confessing and divulging their practices.
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See, these were believers that were still holding on to some of their sinful practices.
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They didn't yet realize, or maybe had not yet repented of, those things in their life that needed to be put out.
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And it says, And a number of those who practiced magical arts brought their books together, and they burned them in the sight of all, and they counted the value of them and found that it came to 50,000 pieces of silver.
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That's a lot of money.
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That's a lot.
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That's a bonfire.
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They're burning these magical papyrus books.
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They're burning them to demonstrate their repentance.
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And so the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.
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And by the way, that word prevail there is interesting, because if you go back up to verse 16, it says that the demoniac prevailed over the men.
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Well, now it says the word of God prevailed in the land.
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It's the same word.
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I just think Luke is using it in a sort of a dual way.
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You've got the demoniac is going to overcome the unbelievers, but the word of God is going to do even more to prevail in the land.
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So what do we learn today? What is our application to make of this passage? There's a lot that we could learn, but there's three things that I want you to take away from this by way of application.
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If you have your binder or your bulletin, you'll notice on the back I've given you some blanks to fill in if you want to do that.
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How do we apply this? First thing, we need to understand that mimicking a biblical narrative does not make an action biblical.
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Mimicking a biblical narrative does not make an action biblical.
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Now I'm going to get back to the thing about the prayer cloths.
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There's a lot of people who talk about the healing value of prayer cloths, and obviously they make their appeal to this passage number one of all.
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It should be noted right away that the passage never calls these prayer cloths, just in case we missed that, calls them aprons and essentially rags.
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The cloths used in this passage were normal work wear for Paul.
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These were not things that he took and cut into squares and anointed them with prayer or dipped them in olive oil.
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The first modern use of a prayer cloth was by the Mormons, not by Orthodox Christians.
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And as the practice faded in Mormonism, it grew in the Pentecostal church, and it can even now be found in the Roman Catholic church.
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Sometimes the cloths are anointed in oil or in the sweat of those who pray over them.
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Now the question becomes, are prayer cloths biblical? Well, it is not necessarily wrong to give someone something as a reminder that you're praying for them.
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But if you read this story, that is not what Paul was doing.
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He did not distribute his sweaty garments for the purpose of healing.
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The text says that they were brought to the sick and the sick were healed, but the idea of distributing them for that purpose is not found in the text.
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The most dangerous thing today is that prayer cloths have become a commodity in Christian television and radio.
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False teachers sell their prayer cloths.
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They sell them with the promise of healing.
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If you would just donate $25 to our work of ministry, you will get this two-cent piece of cloth.
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It's a heck of a markup.
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And you take this two-cent piece of cloth, and you lay it on your forehead, or you put it under your pillow, and it'll heal you.
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And those desperate for a cure, those desperate for healing, will pay whatever the price.
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$25, $50, $100, sometimes thousands.
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Oh, if just Benny Hinn would pray for me.
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Well, I can't get him to pray for me, but he'll send me a cloth that he prayed over, and that'll be it.
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One man said, if you buy the green cloth, you'll get financial prosperity.
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And if you call these guys out, they'll say, we're just doing what Paul did.
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No, you're not.
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No healing in Scripture was ever purchased.
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Just because there's something in the Bible doesn't mean it's meant to be emulated.
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Just look at the life of David.
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Just because something's there doesn't mean we ought to do it too.
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Don't go walking around on your porch looking for somebody taking a bath.
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Talking to David.
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You understand what I'm saying? If we say, well, it's in the Bible, so it's meant to be mimicked, that's not always the case.
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And this particular situation, the text itself says this was extraordinary, even for the day when miracles were commonplace in the church.
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This was not normal.
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Just because someone's doing something similar to what's in the Bible doesn't make the action biblical.
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Please keep that in mind when you hear these people on television, and you hear these people on the radio, and you hear these people calling you, give us your money and we'll give you this trinket of prayer.
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You don't need it.
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You know what the Bible says to do when you're sick? It says come and ask the elders of the church to pray for you.
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It doesn't say call and get a special piece of cloth sent to you.
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It's not biblical, folks.
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It's just not biblical.
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Number two, invoking the name of Christ does not always make an action Christian.
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As much as mimicking a biblical narrative doesn't always make something biblical, invoking the name of Christ doesn't make something Christian.
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Think about the sons of Sceva.
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They used Jesus' name.
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And that reminds me so much of today how people go about shouting Jesus' name in any circumstance.
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They act as if Jesus' name is some form of incantation.
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And beloved, I have to tell you something.
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There is power in the name of Jesus, but it's not the power of a magical spell.
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Saying in the name of Jesus is not the same as saying Alakazam or Hocus Pocus.
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When we invoke the name of Jesus Christ, we are not invoking a name.
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We're invoking a person.
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We're not chanting a title name.
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We're calling upon our God.
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These men knew the name, but they didn't know the God.
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And the name was to no effect.
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There's a lot of mystical chanting that goes on in the church.
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People don't realize it.
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You know what Jesus said about that? He says, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do who think that they will be heard for their many words.
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Don't just sit there and heap up phrases.
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And you say, what are you talking about, Pastor? I'm pleading the blood.
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I'm pleading the blood.
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What does that even mean? What are you talking about? Buy his stripes.
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Buy his stripes.
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It's not an incantation.
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It's not meant to be used that way.
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The Bible is not a book of sorcery.
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People say in Jesus' name sometimes makes me want to gag because they're using it as if it were a trick.
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Jesus' name is not meant to be used as a potion or a spell.
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Never be encouraged to chant mindlessly.
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Jesus says that's wrong.
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He said that's what the Gentiles do.
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They think they're going to be heard because they say something over and over and over.
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And that ain't how it works.
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I'm sorry, I get a little frustrated at false teaching.
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I do.
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People who say these things and do these things.
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The buy his stripes thing drives me nuts.
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Because buy his stripes we are healed is a reference to our healing from the power of sin.
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It is not referencing physical healing.
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And yet every time I see somebody who is sick, somebody comes up and says buy his stripes you're healed.
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Buy his stripes you're healed.
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Buy his stripes.
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And they'll keep saying it.
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It's not what it means.
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And using it that way is wrong.
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Sorry.
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It really is frustrating.
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Third and finally.
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Move on.
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Removing sinful binds can indicate a heart of genuine repentance.
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Removing sinful binds can indicate a heart of genuine repentance.
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The Bible teaches that genuine salvation is always accompanied by genuine repentance.
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I know people who say you don't have to repent to be saved.
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The Bible doesn't know of any saved persons that did not repent.
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Repentance means to turn from sin.
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Of course somebody says well does that mean we're going to be perfect? No.
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But it does mean that we recognize our sin.
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We look at it the way God looks at it.
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And we seek to turn from it.
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What do we see the people in this passage do? When they realize what their sin was, what did they do? Burn the books.
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They didn't have a big garage sale.
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And say well there's a lot of money in these magic books.
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Let's sell them and give the money to Paul's ministry.
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It's 50,000 pieces of silver.
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No.
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They said these books are leading people to hell.
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We need them gone.
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And they put them in the pyre and they burned them up.
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Years ago it was not uncommon that people would rid themselves of ungodly things when they got saved.
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How many of you guys ever did a CD burning? Maybe not.
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Maybe when you were younger.
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Maybe burned some magazines or burned something from your life that you knew wasn't godly.
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And you didn't want to just pass it on to somebody else.
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So you got rid of it.
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Threw it in the trash maybe.
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But you know what we do today? I'm not saying we ought to go set fire to everything.
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But you know what we do today though? Instead of setting fire to stuff.
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Instead of getting rid of stuff.
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Instead of separating ourselves from stuff.
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You know what we do? We sanitize the unholy.
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Instead of ridding ourselves of the things that encourage our flesh.
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We often find ways to Christianize them.
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These people were surrounded by books that encouraged them to continue their wickedness.
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And you know what they did? They got rid of them.
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They didn't try to sanitize them.
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They didn't try to harmonize them with their faith.
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They simply cut them off.
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You know what that reminds me of? As I was reading this text, I thought about Jesus' words.
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In Matthew 5, 29, Jesus says, If your right eye causes you to sin, do what? Pluck it out and throw it away.
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It is better to lose one of your members than your whole body to be thrown into hell.
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He said, If your right hand causes you to sin, what do you do? Cut it off.
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It is better to go into heaven without your hand than it is to have your whole body thrown into hell.
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And I don't think Jesus was telling us to go mutilate ourselves.
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I don't think a bunch of Christians should be walking around without hands or without eyes.
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I believe the statement is hyperbolic.
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Telling us, in essence, whatever it is in our life that causes us to sin.
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Cut it out.
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And I would ask this question.
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I've had to ask myself this question.
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Again, the pastor has to preach to himself before he can preach to anyone else.
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And this is a tough question.
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This is a question I've had to deal with this week.
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Are there things in my life that are avenues for the flesh that I keep seeing myself returning to for sinful gratification regularly that I need to just cut off? And I would say, ask yourself that question.
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Because if you go back to verse 18, these were believers.
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And they realized something in their life was amiss.
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And when they realized it, they got rid of it.
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They didn't sanitize it.
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They didn't Christianize it.
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They burned it.
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Beloved, is there something in your life that you need to repent of? Is there something in your life that needs to be cut off? Today may be the day.
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The thought that we should take away from this message is simple.
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We don't need magic cloths or magic incantations.
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What we need is to repent and trust Jesus.
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If we know Christ, we can look at our lives and say, Okay, I know Christ.
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I trust in Him.
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What do I need to repent of? What in my life is not in line with His will? And be honest.
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And if I know not Christ, then that's the question of the day.
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Why not? What is keeping you? What in your life has kept you so bound that you won't bow the knee and trust Him as Savior? He's not a magician.
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He's not an exorcist.
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He's not a sorcerer.
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He is the Lord.
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And He commands all men everywhere to repent.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank You for Your Word.
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I thank You for the truth of the Word.
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I pray that as a body that there would be a spirit of repentance that would overcome us.
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For believers, Lord, that we would look into our lives, those things that need to be jettisoned, and we would jettison them.
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And Father, for those who are here who know not Christ, who have not bowed the knee, I pray that You would give them saving grace today, that they would call upon the name of the Lord and be saved, and that through that their life would flow out living water.
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And we thank You, Father.
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We thank You for the promise of salvation to all who will believe.
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And we pray now, as we move into our time of communion, that there would be a time of self-reflection over us all.
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In Jesus' name, Amen.