Sermon Tone Analysis

Well, good evening family!

It is good to see you all here at the Midweek service.

Pastor Clark & Sally say there hello’s, they miss you all, and they are fine, and will be back this Sunday Lord willing.

For those of you who don’t know me my name is Anthony I am the High School Pastor, I’ve been attending the barn here for quite some time now.

And I am super excited for tonight and man, it is truly humbling to here with you all, I do not take this for granted one bit.

Well, let’s get right into our study for today.

if you have your bibles open to the book of Acts, Acts 16.

Review & Overview

1.

The Book of Acts Review

In Acts 9 Paul was on the road of Damascus on his way to persecute and attack the church.

Jesus presents Himself in a really bright light - And Paul submits to Him and calls Him Lord.

Paul goes to the Church in Jerusalem, though the church was hesitant at first, but Barnabas brings him into the fold.

Barnabas & Paul head out to the mission field and began to preach the Gospel and as a result churches began to form everywhere they went.

Then they go back to Jerusalem where they started and after a little while Paul goes back to the mission field for his 2nd Missionary journey.

And what we have here in Acts 16, We are following Paul on his 2nd missionary journey and so far there are several things that has happened pertaining to Paul’s second missionary journey.

The motive behind the Journey - To see how the churches they planted on the first missionary journey were doing.

Conflict between Paul & Barnabas - Mark

New Recruit - Timothy

God’s Guidance - Paul encounters the Holy Spirit

2. Current Study’s Overview

So that brings us to Vs. 16 and we want to continue to look at Paul’s Visit in Macedonia, which is eastern Europe.

The title of today’s message is: The Unseen Battle, spiritual warfare in the lives of the belivers.

If your taking notes today there 3 things that involves the Spiritual Warfare that Paul encounters here:

Spiritual Warfare Involves a Spiritual Enemy Vs. 16-18

Spiritual Warfare Involves a Physical Attack Vs. 19-24

Spiritual Warfare Involves a Divine Deliverance Vs. 25-34

1. Spiritual Warfare Involves a Spiritual Enemy Vs. 16-18

1.1 When It Happened Vs. 16a

When did this happen?

When they went to Prayer...

APPLICATION: This is typically when the enemy likes to strike like a snake, the snake creeps, and the moment we begin to do something spiritual, when we stop to pray, or read His word, or commune with God, distractions come.

APPLICATION: And I’ve noticed that in my own personal life, the distractions typically come when I want too spend time with God.

APPLICATION: The moment I want to read my Bible or take a few moments to talk to God in prayer, my phone starts to blow up, everyone has an urgent question that needs to be answered or something.

APPLICATION: The reason is because prayer is EXTREMELY important - and satan knows it so he does anything and everything he can to keep us from talking to Jesus.

ILLUSTRATION: According to a study done by Microsoft, they said from the year 2000 to the year 2013 the average attention span of an adult has dropped from 12 second to 8 seconds.

And you know what they said?

The average attention span is of a gold fish is 9 seconds!

ILLUSTRATION: They said that the rising popularity of smartphones, mobile data, messaging apps, and social media is the cause behind falling attention rates.

ILLUSTRATION: Since we now have access to this content anywhere and at any time, it’s become rough for us to focus on one subject.

Now amplify that with spiritual warfare?

The enemy does not want you to spend time with God.

we have to be vigilant we have to gird up the loins of our minds we can’t give into these distractions.

1. Spiritual Warfare Involves a Spiritual Enemy Vs. 16-18

1.2 What Actually Happened Vs. 16-18a

The Spirit of Divination Vs. 16b - So what happened?

A demon possessed slave girl met them…

And as we read about this girl we learn a little bit about her, the first thing we learn is that she was possessed by a specific demon, or spirit...

Now this is interesting to me because the Greek word for divination is puthon, it’s only used here in the entire bible and we can almost speak it into english, Python.

Now, it’s important to understand some cultural context here.

In Greek mythology, the goddess Hera sent this python (kinda like a god or titan) a massive snake to kill specific people.

But one day Apollo aka the god of prophecy the son of zeus came and killed this python.

He later made his own temple on the very ground the python was killed.

In Greek mythology, this happened in the city called Delphi in ancient Greece and thats where apollos’ massive sacred temple was at.

And in this temple was a person called an oracle who would live there and the government would always seek the council of that Oracle.

In addition, in this temple there was a chamber (sometimes in like a basement type setting) where the temples’ priestesses, women who were called pythones, they would go in this chamber and tradition tells us that in the chamber these priestesses would inhale the gases that would come from the buried body of the python serpent.

And these gases would give the pythonesses the power of prophecy.

And my speculation, take this for a grain of salt.

But when I hear that story I look at it with a biblical perspective and when I hear this story that gasses are coming from below where a snake lies.

I think what it really was, was satanic spirits coming from below and into these pythonesses to possess them.

So it could very well be that this slave girl was a priestess or pythoness of the temple of the false god apollo.

But at the end of the day she was demon possessed.

And what a contrast to the previous section where Paul encounters the Holy Spirit.

The second thing we learn about this girl is that she brought a lot of money to her masters by fortune-telling, look at..

Profit By Fortune-telling Vs. 16c - So people would come to see the slave girl and she would tell them things.

Perhaps by some weird ritual, I don’t really know.

But here is the point, it was the demon in her who was giving her the answers!

APPLICATION: You know, I want to tell you guys that demons have lived for ages, thousands of years and have seen many things.

So they can tell you facts about your life about your past that nobody else knows.

And unfortunately, people who do not know the truth of what the Bible says become deceived and led astray.

Turn with me to...

We have to be careful what we believe and what we listen to and who we listen too.

We should be listening to the Holy Spirit, to God, and His Holy Bible.

We have the Word of God that tests and judges anything that comes our way.

The third thing we learn about this girl is...

1. Spiritual Warfare Involves a Spiritual Enemy Vs. 16-18

What She Said Vs. 17-18a - Now there are different views as to what is going on here.

Some say that this slave girl was right in what she was shouting, what she was saying was accurate.

Here in verse 18 Paul became annoyed by this slave girl because he was bothered by the uncontrolled manner she proclaimed this truth.

And that her proclaiming this truth was profiting her owners.

I get that and I understand that and im cool with that.

So on the surface level it seems like she was helping out Paul in preaching the way of Salvation.

But I am not 100% convinced, I believe the Truth is that she was NOT helping Paul, why?

Because what she was actually proclaiming was that Jesus was “A” way of salvation, one of many ways.

I believe this because of the grammar...

There, at the end of Vs. 17 the word “the” is not in the greek manuscripts.

There is no definite article, the word that emphasizes the subject.

APPLICATION: This is important because we live in a world that says there are many ways to heaven, many truths, all roads lead us to heaven.

And that is Greek for bananas!

So far from the truth!

ILLUSTRATION: EXPLAIN HOW ALL RELIGIONS ARE FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT.

If all roads lead to heaven then the cross was a waste of time, Jesus suffered and died for no reason and the Gospel is just news, NOT Good News.

APPLICATION: And Church listen, and maybe your not a Christian, let me be very clear.

There is only One Way for salvation, The Only Way to go to heaven is by faith in Jesus Christ!

Amen!?

Why because we will never be perfect, you cant ask a judge just to forgive you.

1. Spiritual Warfare Involves a Spiritual Enemy Vs. 16-18

1.3 Paul’s Reaction to the Spiritual Warfare Vs. 18b

So Paul got really annoyed, but did you notice NOT at the slave girl?

It said he turned to the spirit.

If you remember the story about the greek mythology of this spirit python, he would possess girls and speak through them.