Sunday, Aug 25, 2024 AM

Now let's go to the Lord together in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day, reminders of why we may live in joy and hope, why we may have peace that passes all understanding. We thank you for reminding us that the battle does belong to you, that you are our confidence and our strength, that our victory is in Christ, and I pray that as we spend time together hearing from your word that you would accomplish your work in us, that you would take up this truth, that you would so work it into our lives by your spirit, that there would be an amen in our lives, that we would be the amen on earth of your will that is declared from heaven, and all this to the glory of your name.

We pray these things for the sake of Jesus Christ, the one with whom you are well pleased. Amen. I invite you to open your Bibles today and turn to Acts 16. We'll be reading verses 16 through 19 and thinking about why demons are so annoying.

Paul gets rather annoyed, and for good reasons that we are going to think about today. Jesus, in his death and resurrection, has bound and plundered the strong man. In his reign and advance, we see in Acts 5, Acts 8, Acts 13, the devil's lies fail, demons are cast out, we find that magicians, sorcerers are put in their place, and that time and again the gospel of Jesus Christ advances against the most direct expressions of spiritual darkness, wherever those may be found.

And that is certainly the case in our passage here this morning. We find that when Jesus Christ gets involved, no longer are the nations possessed by Satan. They have been given as an inheritance to Christ, and He delivers and He saves.

And so He deserves the praise. He deserves the praise for the breadth and the depth of His feast. I invite you to stand with me if you are able. Let us read God's Word together. This is the Word of the Lord, the Word of our Lord Jesus Christ, by His Holy Spirit, through His servant Luke.

Acts 16, verse 16. Now it happened as we went to prayer, that a certain slave girl, possessed with a spirit of divination, met us, who brought her masters much profit by fortune-telling. This girl followed Paul and us and cried out, saying, These men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation.

And this she did for many days. But Paul, greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out that very hour. But when her masters saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to the authorities.

This is the Word of God. Praise be to God. You may be seated. What a great feast. What do we think makes for a great feast? Is it the vocation? Is it the food on the table? Is it the time of day? Or is it those who are there?

I'm thinking it's those who are there. Of course the food matters. Of course the time matters. The place matters. But really, isn't it the people who are there? You could be invited to the most scrumptious feast, the best time of day, the best location.

But if certain people are there, it's just not worth it. In the wisdom of Solomon, he says, when you're sitting at certain people's tables, put a knife to your throat. Don't eat any of that food. It matters who are there.

In Luke chapter 5, verses 29 through 32, Levi, the tax collector we know as Matthew, Levi gave Jesus a great feast in his own house. And there were a great number of tax collectors and others who sat down with him.

And their scribes and the Pharisees complained against his disciples saying, why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? Jesus answered and said to them, those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick.

I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. And not much has changed. Not much has changed as to who comes to the table, who comes to the feast. Luke is there. Lydia is there. Timothy is there.

There's a slave girl delivered from demon possession. Silas is there. The Philippian jailer we're going to read about in a moment. He's there with his household. Paul's there. All of them there at Christ's table.

You know what's not at Christ's table? First Corinthians 10 21 says, you cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot participate in, you cannot partake of the Lord's table and the table of demons.

So tax collectors and sinners, yes, but no demons. Repentant sinners, sinners who are saved, sinners who are transformed by the grace of God, but no demons. Paul's point there in First Corinthians 10 which we'll look at in a moment is that idolatry is not allowed.

False worship is not allowed at Christ's table. This is important for our passage because we read how this girl, this young girl who's possessed with a spirit of divination walks around and she's trailing Paul and Silas and just yelling out to anybody who will listen about how they've been sent by the most high God and they're proclaiming the way of salvation.

What's so bad about that? They've got their own unrequested free PA system, free advertising. She's obviously somebody who's well-known. She's a fixture there in Philippi. There's a robust business that she's involved with, so people know.

So what better than that? You have a local who's declaring for you free advertising, but it is demonic praise. It is the praise coming from demons. That's the problem. Demonic praise always muddles the message of Christ like a cacophony imposed upon a concerto.

Demonic praise is not to be allowed, maintained, encouraged, desired, sought after. Many Christians may be tempted to feast upon the scraps from the enemy's table. Many Christians today are desperate for some reprieve from our accusers and so we will delight in any pittance of praise from those who are influenced by, led by, possessed by demons.

If we could just get somebody in power to say some slightly nice thing about Christians, then we'll just melt with affection. Why do we need that? Our communion with Christ so satisfies we need not a crumb from our foe.

I want to read through the passage twice in a sense of seeing what's there twice so we can find out why demons are so annoying, poor observations, why demons are annoying. They hijack the truth. They hijack the truth against Christians.

And then I want to go back through the passage again and make four four responses, show four responses concerning our holding to Christ in communion. Demons may hijack the truth but Christians are to hold to Christ.

That's what we are to observe in this passage. First of all, demons hijack truth. Spiritual warfare is about truth. It is not about territory. Some places seem dark because there's not a lot of Christians who live there or who are bold there, and there's a lack of light because there's not a lot of churches there, a lot of Christians there.

But it's not the place that is dark, it's the lack of the preaching of truth, the lack of people living in the light that makes those places dark. Spiritual warfare is about truth. It is not about territory.

In 2 Corinthians 10, verses 3 through 5, we read this, for though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. You know how fleshly wars are done. It's about territory. Verse 4, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, meaning fleshly, of the flesh, but mighty in God, for pulling down strongholds.

Stronghold sounds like a piece of territory. It sounds like there's a fortress out there, brick and mortar. But what does he mean? Pulling down strongholds, meaning what? Verse 5, casting down arguments, casting down arguments, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.

Spiritual warfare is about truth, not territory. The operations of the enemy are not focused on a great deal, exalted, meditated on a great deal in the scriptures, indicating that that should not be the primary focus of our Christian lives.

What we do find is that demons defile the image of God. They deceive the image of God. They destroy the image of God. Satan steals, kills, and destroys. We find that in Genesis 3, don't we? What was the contention in Genesis 3?

Was Satan trying, was he brandishing some sort of weapon as a snake? Was he flaring his fangs to scare Adam and Eve out of the garden to take over this territory that was so blessed and prosperous? No, it was about truth, about him hijacking the truth by trying to use a little bit of truth and mix it with a lot of lies and trying to tempt and to twist those who are made in the image of God into rebellion against God.

Demons are annoying because they hijack the truth for nefarious purposes. Notice the basic purpose in the text was to practice witchcraft. Verse 16, Now it happened that we, as we went to prayer, that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination met us who brought her master's most fortune by, much profit by fortune telling.

Demons hijack the truth in order to practice.

Witchcraft.

What a contrast. Paul and Barnabas going to prayer, probably going back out to the to the river where that group of Jewish women led by Lydia were meeting there on a regular basis for prayer. What a great place for the Christians to go and meet, especially, as we talked about last week, the Roman antipathy against Jews and Philippi being that Roman colony, not wanting any of the Jews to be publicly gathering in the city.

So they gather outside the city. They go out to the place of prayer and as they're going to prayer, there is this possessed girl used for divination and she is shouting. And Luke, being the doctor that he is, the physician that he is, very specific in his description of the girl's problem, he says she has a python spirit, in the Greek, python spirit, which means that she was of the oracle of Delphi.

In the region there was a Greek mythology and there was a cave and the mythology was that Apollo killed a giant snake and he became guardian of the underworld because there was access down into this grotto beneath and young girls were sent down to be priestesses and they would go down to this dark area and the story was they would come out possessed and they would talk in ecstatic gibberish.

Ecstatic gibberish that nobody could really understand except the the masters who owned the possessed girls and then they would translate what the gibberish was. They were called belly talkers because the guttural nonsense vomiting out of them.

But here she comes possessed and she's saying something that is legible in this case and she's crying out and saying, these men are the servants of the Most High God who the way of salvation over and over and over again.

Now the way in which they would run their business would be that they would use truth and true things because they're trying to sell this girl. They're trying to use this girl and sell her possession for profit and so they would try to say some true things to their clients to get them to believe that they had something here.

The demon possession itself probably involved her saying some true things in order to get people to buy in but mixed with a whole lot of false things. This is the way that Satan always works. An old preacher one time said that Satan would flood the Grand Canyon full of water of truth if he could just float one log of deception through.

Now we're looking at witchcraft. Now we have a tendency in our world today to read the Bible and say, oh yeah boy they had a witchcraft problem back then boy and oh yeah our missionaries wow out there on the front lines and in the jungles of the Amazon and jungles of Africa boy they've got they've got a fight against that witchcraft don't they?

So glad we live in America where witchcraft is just not around right? As we've talked about here in years past witchcraft is the demonic appropriation of alternative authority. The demonic appropriation of alternate authority in which there is a grabbing hold of ideas that are not rooted in God, not rooted in Christ, not rooted in the scripture and trying to push forward lies that hijack truth in order to make some new reality.

Enchantment and sorcery and magic and divination and necromancy and soothsaying are all forbidden in the scripture and they're all being widely practiced today. When people take a word that we're all familiar with and then bring a new definition into it it's enchantment.

When people come up with a new word that never existed before to bring something new into existence that's called magic. When people take two things that ought never be mixed together and they mix them together that's called sorcery.

And do you know this is happening all the stinking time? They have parades for it. They have a month of it. They have celebration days for it. Witchcraft. Sourcing truth in God-denying, Christ-hating, spirit-blaspheming oracles.

That's witchcraft. Now Paul says there's no peace between witchcraft and the church. No peace between demons and Christ. No peace between idolatry and communion. First Corinthians 10 verse 14, therefore my beloved flee from idolatry.

That's how the apostle John ends first John, isn't it? Beloved flee from idolatry. What is idolatry but the misappropriation of worship. The attributing glory where there is none. Ascribing worth where there is none.

Declaring that this is a good thing and this is a righteous thing. This is a worthy thing when it obviously is not. The utilization of witchcraft to bolster idolatry is as common as one plus one equals two.

Therefore my beloved flee from idolatry. Verse 15, I speak as to wise men. Judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?

For we though many are one bread and one body. We all partake of that one bread. And he wants them to think about this. Observe Israel after the flesh. Think about the old covenant, how it worked. Are not those who eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?

What am I saying then? Think of the analogy. That an idol is anything or what is offered to idols is anything. Rather that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, listen, they sacrifice to demons and not to God.

And I do not want you to have fellowship with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the Lord's table and the table of demons. Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy?

Are we stronger than he? As a church, we ought not be craving, cultivating, looking for the praise of demons, to try to find approval amongst those who are demonically influenced, demonically led, demonically possessed and say, will you just please say something nice about us and rejoice that we are so well accepted Christians in a dark world.

There is just no fellowship there in communion. But demons hijack the truth to practice witchcraft. To practice witchcraft and to profit from weakness. Verse 16, we see that it is a young girl, a slave girl who is used.

The possession of a girl who is also a slave by demons being profited from by her masters. My first question is, where's her father? It's my first question. Where's her father? Where's her mother? Where are her brothers?

Where's the family?

Gone. Gone.

You know, there has to be the absence of a godly father for this to happen. There has to be a loss of the family. There's some sort of separation, some sort of death, some sort of failure, some sort of problem.

Where's your family? Here she is. He's a girl, young girl. She's a slave. She's weak. She's in a bad situation. She's possessed by a demon. She's being profited from. But you know what? Even though all of that, did you know that she's a sinner in need of a Savior?

She's not an innocent victim for whom Christ did not die because she's a victim so she's righteous by virtue of her oppression. Do you know she's still a sinner? She's still in need of a Savior. She still needs to have her sins forgiven.

She still needs it. She obviously needs to be delivered.

But she's weak.

And do you know who else is in need of even more forgiveness for even greater sins? The masters who own her and are using her.

But why are they using her?

Profiting, yes. Practicing their witchcraft. But look what happens. Demons hijack truth.

Why?

To problematize our witness. To make our witness as problematic as possible. Every single day she doggedly diverted the attention of the people by declaring that these are servants of the Most High God.

Is there any clarity in what she's saying? Or do the people in Philippi maybe think she's talking about Zeus? Oh wait, she's from the Oracle of Delphi. Maybe she's talking about Apollo. No clarity to what she's saying.

She's just yelling it out over and over again and being distracting and diverting. And she doesn't even say the way of salvation as the translation says. It's a way of salvation in the original. Can you imagine that?

There's no clarity about which God she's declaring. And there's no clarity as to the uniqueness of salvation in Jesus Christ. She's just simply saying these are servants of the Most High God who knows who that is.

And they proclaim to you a way of salvation. Now is that helpful or harmful? That's not clarifying the witness of Paul. That is problematizing the witness of these missionaries. Even if somebody agreed with her and said, oh, okay, thanks for the information.

Now there comes a problem. Because now they're saying, well, I guess we have to go to the Oracle of Delphi to find out about this way of salvation. Because it's coming from one of those belly talkers.

We know what she's all about. We don't need even truthful praise of demons. Jesus shut down legion. Remember legion? The Gadarene demoniac could not be restrained by chains, lived amongst the tombs. And Jesus confronted him and he said, name is legion for we are many.

Declaring who Jesus was and Jesus shut him down. No, we're not going to, no, be quiet. We don't need even truthful praise of demons. We don't need truthful praise from the demonically possessed, the demonically influenced, the demons who lie and lie and lie and hijack the truth in order to twist the truth.

We do not need praises from Hindus or Mormons or Wokies or Islamists or Jews. We don't need praises from the cults. We don't need praises from false religions. We don't need praises from people who reject Christ.

The synagogues of Satan hijack the truth in order to defile and to insert idolatry. If a Muslim says some nice thing about Jesus, your heart ought not to melt with warmth, but you automatically should recognize the idolatry of who they actually mean when they say Jesus and recognize a sinner in need of a savior and not an ally.

When a Mormon says, oh, we believe exactly the same way, note that you're dealing with the demonic. They're saying things that were inspired by demons. Don't agree with them. We don't need that affirmation.

We don't need that agreement. We don't need that praise. We don't need to mix truth with lies. This is what demons do in order to legitimize their perverting and accursed messages. And notice what else happens in verse 18, when Paul, greatly annoyed, turned and said to the Spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.

And he came out that very hour. But look what happens. But when her master saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul in silence and dragged him into the marketplace to the authorities. So demons hijack the truth in order to provoke men's wrath.

Later on in Acts 17, the Christians get accused of saying there's another king, not Caesar, but there's another king named Jesus, and they're turning the world upside down. Well, you know what?

That's true.

That was very true. But they're hijacking truth in order to provoke men to wrath. The pressing of the conflict into a confrontation is what results in violent persecution. The wrath of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.

But boy, is it effective to those who are enslaved to the fear of man and ensnared to the fear of death. Those who fear man and death are very motivated when the wrath of man gets stirred up. They begin to change their ways, change their policies, change their decisions.

They fear man. They fear death. So this is why demons are so annoying. They hijack the truth in order to practice witchcraft, profit from weakness, problematize their weakness, and provoke men to wrath.

So what should we do? We should hold fast to Christ. We should hold fast to Christ. We should recognize the perversion of what goes on. In verse 16, this is not a good thing that she's possessed by this spirit of divination and doing fortune-telling or soothsaying, as it is also translated.

Recognize the perversion. Really, honestly, why would we desire demonic praise? Why do we listen so hard, so hard for any nice thing said in political conventions? Please say something nice about Christians, please, please, please.

After you finish your prayer to that demon, could you please say something nice about Christians, please?

Why?

Let us tune our ear to the approval of our Lord. Does He express His delight with us here at His table? I mean, shouldn't the bride seek the pleasure of the bridegroom? Too often in the name of cultural sensitivity and academic respectability and political expediency and social credibility, we cultivate the praise of demonic origins.

There's just no meat in demon fish worth spitting out the bones. Recognize the perversion. We don't need it. And then regard the possessed. Look at this girl. And remember that she's not an innocent, righteous victim of oppression.

She is a sinner in need of a Savior, and she needs that Savior. She doesn't need a system. Her deliverance is not going to come through a system. It's going to come through the Savior, and that's all.

And also remember that the obviously possessed, the obviously demonically influenced are not the only so. In 2 Corinthians 11, 13 through 15, we read about some who are false apostles, who are deceitful workers, who transform themselves into apostles of Christ.

And no wonder, Paul says, for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light, and therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness whose end will be according to their works.

So the obviously possessed are not the only so. Regard them as sinners in need of a Savior. That should be the approach. That should be the focus. We should fear Christ, not man. Jesus is the one who saves.

Guess who's at the table?

The guy who once introduced himself to Jesus as legion, for we are many.

He's at the table.

You know who's at the table? Mary Magdalene, who was once possessed by seven demons.

She's at the table.

Why?

Because of the Savior. Because of the Savior. He saves. He delivers. He forgives. He puts people into their right mind. Clothes them with His righteousness. I say this because we need to remember that if we look at sinners only as victims, and we put them into some new category, some sort of new category that's never existed in all the scriptures, in all of redemptive history, some new category undoubtedly brought about by magic, and say, well, they're just this sinless, righteous victim.

We dehumanize them. We no longer treat them as those made in the image of God, responsible for their creator. And we also leave them in a demonic-influenced, demonic-possessed state without a Savior.

Oh, you young man think that you're a girl, and you want to pursue this life full of lies and trouble. Well, what you need is pharmakia, Greek word for sorcery. Pharmakia will help you. And since you feel this way and think this way, we're not going to say anything against you because we're going to be acting unloving.

In other words, we won't have the praise of demons if we say anything. No, there's a Savior. All kinds of people are saved. All kinds of people are brought to the table, whom others would isolate off by themselves and never offer them salvation or help, people that we might be tempted to give up on and never approach.

Jesus saves. Jesus transforms. Jesus puts people into their right minds, and He clothes them.

Praise God.

And we must rebuke the praise of demons. So Paul, he rebukes the Spirit and says, you know, you be quiet. It's enough of that. He rebukes that praise. He rebukes the Spirit, says we're not going to have it anymore, and he clings to the name of Christ at the same time.

That's very important. He's not using the name of Jesus Christ as a superstitious power word, okay? Sons of Sceva tried that, and they lost that little conflict later on in the Book of Acts. Jesus is not a superstitious power word to be used in certain scenarios.

Paul is clinging to Christ. He's praising Christ. He's declaring the authority of Jesus Christ. He doesn't need Apollo. He doesn't need the python spirit. Doesn't need this divination to bring any credence to his message at all.

We are not to be hungry for the praise of men. Let us be in communion with our Savior. Let us know His estimation of us. Let us value His estimation of us. Throughout the New Testament, we hear time and again that being justified by the righteousness of Jesus Christ, being welcomed to the face of God, we are free to live in all manner of ways that are pleasing to the Lord, pleasing to Christ, pleasing to God.

Don't we want that?

Don't we want to know that He's pleased with us? Isn't that the praise we should seek? And finally, in verse 19, when the masters work with the magistrates to get Paul and Silas in trouble, we can immediately gear up.

Boy, these furious slavers and these feckless magistrates, these are our enemies.

Fight, fight, fight.

No, remember the principalities. Remember the principalities and powers. Remember that these furious slavers and these feckless magistrates are sinners in need of a Savior. And the hope is that there's a seat saved for them.

The hope is that they repent of their sins and turn to Christ like that jailer who was on board with the whole thing until God saved him. Remember that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood. Ephesians 6, verse 10.

Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand. And then he lifts the armor of Christ Himself from Isaiah. So put on Christ and fight against the principalities and powers.

Put on Christ, commune with Christ, have your confidence in Christ, wear His armor. So demons are annoying because they hijack the truth. But Christians should hold to Christ and we should quiet demonic praise and we should quench our desire for approval by communing well with Christ, which is why we are here this morning.

So let's pray. Father, we thank You for the time that You've given to us in Your Word. Thank You for reminding us that we don't need some sort of outside spiritual authentication, that Christ is sufficient, that Your Word is sufficient, that You have given us Your Holy Spirit.

So we don't need anything else to authenticate. We have You. You've given us Your Son, Jesus Christ. You've given us Your Holy Spirit. You've given us Your Word. So please help us to find our satisfaction and our confidence in You.

And we pray these things for Christ's sake.

Amen.