Exorcising Exorcists

Date: 2024-01-14

Audience: Grass Valley ONLINE and in person

Title: Exorcising Exorcists

Text: Acts 19:11-20

Proposition: God is greater than any other power

Purpose: Trust in God

Introduction

Grace and peace to you!

-Illustration

I once got into a discussion with another pastor about the place for violence in a Christian’s response to the world. I took the position that Jesus telling us to put down our weapons, to love our neighbors and our enemies, and to only do good to those who do evil to us means that we are not to use violence in any way. That was the belief of the church for centuries and it should be the position we hold to in all things now. He held that all the stuff Jesus taught was okay up to a point, but once the line is crossed, we have license to harm those we believe are doing us or those we care about harm.

Two quick notes: First, Jesus loves and treasures both of us, and second, the message today isn’t about which one of us is right, or at least, the fact that I’m right isn’t what is important about it…

As we went back and forth about the idea that there can be any kind of redemptive violence, he got pretty worked up after I’d pointed out that even the Old Testament includes stories where people in hopeless-seeming situations turned to God instead of violence and he cared for them and even protected them. He said, “That stuff may all be fine in Bible stories, but here in the real world, if someone is threatening my family, I’m going to do all I can to take them out!”

Wait… In the real world? We were both pastors! Supposedly the truths of those Bible stories ARE the real world. If we believe in the God we say we believe in, and if we believe that he arranged the whole Jesus thing as a way to show us that it is possible to live the way he created us to live and love the way he asked us to love, then those stories ARE the real world and anything that tells us they are less than that or that they aren’t enough of a guide is a fraud.

The Word of God isn’t intended to be an amusement we can set aside when we want to behave in a way contrary to what it teaches. It’s more of a guide to thinking about how we can live to the higher standard, exhibiting greater love, building stronger bonds of community with one another and with ALL of our brothers and sisters who God created to live in this cosmos with us.

It's supposed to point us to trusting that the Creator of everything is greater than any of the things that were created, no matter how we decide to use them.

-Reference to text

Today we’re going to look at a piece of the book of Acts, in chapter 19. It’s a weird and humorous story, kind of, but it also tells us that we aren’t the only members in God’s family who have trouble just trusting him rather than trying to make the world conform to our wishes.

-Proposition

But if it is true that God is greater than any other power, why don’t we just trust in God rather than trying to control or BE God?

-Transition Sentence

In sharing this particular story the way he does in Acts, Luke is trying to encourage us to simply trust in God.

Body

-Main Point #1: Miracles are about surrender (vv11-12)

-Reference to point

For many of the early believers, miracles happened when they surrendered people and situations to God. Sometimes with results that I suspect they never would have guessed possible.

-Reference to verse(s) Acts 19:11-12

11 God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, 12 so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them. [1]

-Discussion

That’s crazy, right?

-context

We’ve seen this kind of thing before, sort of. There were times where Jesus told someone to do something, and as they did it a miracle happened. It was never really about the SOMETHING, it was always about the faith they put in Jesus. Like when he told a group of men with leprosy to go show themselves to the priest as if they were healed and as they went, they realized they were healed. Or when he rubbed mud into a blind man’s eyes and told him to go wash, and when he did, the man realized he could see.

-word study

Here we have Paul preaching every day about the power and teaching of Jesus, and some of those who hear about this are so sure that Paul really was a man who was filled with the Holy Spirit Jesus had promised that they though they’d like to take something from him to that family member or friend who couldn’t come hear him speak. Maybe as a memento, maybe because they hoped some of that Jesus-power might cling to things that this agent of Jesus had been in contact with. So they grabbed the sweat rags Paul used to keep perspiration from running into his eyes while he worked or spoke. Or they snagged an apron he wore while working. They may have asked for them – Paul was the kind of guy who would give stuff to people who needed it – but I think, given what was taken, it’s more likely people are casually picking this stuff up while Paul’s busy speaking. “Oooh, sweat rag! Let me get THAT baby home!”

-explanation

And they take these things to whoever they wanted to give it to help them and, probably to the surprise of everyone, they find that those who are sick become well and those who they thought to be possessed by some malevolent outside being seem to have been freed of that influence.

-Illustration

Stories of miraculous healing often leave us moderns skeptical or uncertain of what we should think, but even the kind of healing we see and know about can seem impossible and unexpected at times.

I sometimes talk about the daughter of friends of ours who was struck down by a strep infection. One minute she was a happy and healthy little girl and then she was in a coma in the hospital. We prayed for days for God to do a great miracle, expecting that her eyes would open and her infectious laugh would ring out and joy would be restored to her family. But that didn’t happen. After a week, life support was turned off and her last breath left her lifeless body behind. But her organs went to a number of other people who needed miracles. Several others received sudden and unexpected healing. I’m not saying that I think the one makes up for the other or that the loss of this child is something to celebrate, but I am saying that miracles are about surrendering to the possible and that, for those people in Ephesus during those years Paul was there, that meant sometimes bringing even a discarded sweat rag along with the story of Jesus brought a new kind of hope and life that they wouldn’t have had otherwise.

-Supporting Scripture

Back in Acts 5 we saw something similar, when people would drag their sick loved ones out so that the shadow of one of the apostles would touch them. The faith that Jesus could work through his people was so great that there were healings and unclean spirits were dispelled, setting many free.

-summary of point

Miracles seem to happen when people surrender their control to God and allow his power to work in their lives.

-tie in to proposition

It’s when they recognize that God is greater than any other power…

-tie in to purpose

…and they put their trust in God instead of continuing to try to fix things on their own.

-Transition Sentence

Which, so often, is the opposite of what we do, isn’t it?

Main Point #2: Magic is about control (vv13-16)

We usually try to make things go the way WE want them to go, forcing circumstances and situations and any involved parties to follow our directions, to toe our lines, to jump when we tell them to.

-Reference to point

That’s why magic has always been so popular. Magic is about control. The promise of magic is that it can be used to control the uncontrollable. And in Ephesus, magic was a power that many people trusted in and tried to master.

It was thought that if you used the right words of power or performed the right rituals, using the right ingredients, in the right way, that you could force the natural, the supernatural, and even the gods to do what you commanded. Secret names could bind supernatural spirits or regular people to your will or cause the universe to change somehow so that an illness could be broken or banished. In the same way, people of that time believed that spirits animated many things and that there were other unseen beings, helpful spirits and desecrating demons, which could somehow insert themselves into humans and bring them great power or great harm.

The secrets used to command the world in this way were carefully kept in scrolls and books of hidden knowledge, jealously guarded by those who practiced magic professionally. Exposing occult secrets could mean breaking the spells which relied on that secret or it could mean opponents would realize how to defend against the powers of the charm.

Ephesus was the center of the known world for magical practices during the time of the Acts. There were so many magicians and dealers in charms and formulas and spells there that any written magical knowledge were called “Ephesian writings,” and every magician and miracle worker was given great respect by the people in that culture.

Writings from that time, both in the Bible and from Greek and Roman sources, show that the people of the day weren’t just a bunch of superstitious primitives, the way we so often think they must have been. They divided the world into the supernatural and the natural and believed that magic could bridge the gaps of our understanding of how things work and can be made to do our bidding. You know, the same way we treat science now. In fact, just like we try to let good science overrule bad science, they would discredit magicians whose incantations and inscriptions failed to work by burning their books and papers in the public square to shame them.

And even though magicians would often uses bits and pieces of many religious ceremonies to create their rituals, including using names they thought would add power or control to their spells, it was recognized that miracle workers, like Jesus and his early followers, often didn’t involve themselves with any of those things. But that didn’t keep people from incorporating those miracle stories into their own efforts to control the world.

-Reference to verse(s) Acts19:13-14

13 Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed. They would say, “In the name of the Jesus whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out.” 14 Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this.[2]

-Discussion

This follows the logic of magical thinking! Jesus was reputed to have driven out evil spirits, so why not call on his name to try to do the same?

-context

If we needed more proof of how deeply magical thinking had embedded itself into the culture of the people of Ephesus, here we have seven sons of a high-ranking Jewish priest bringing magic into their practices. That kind of attempt to manipulate the world was expressly forbidden by the Mosaic Covenant they were supposed to be living under. They should have been trusting in God, not using magic to try to control spiritual things.

-word study

Notice what these guys are saying and thing about it for a second. “In the name of the Jesus whom Paul preaches…” Okay, so we know they aren’t believers in or Followers of the Way, because that’s not how someone who knows anything about Jesus would talk, is it?

-explanation

They obviously think that Jesus is the power and it’s his name that is doing the work. But the power of Jesus was the power of the Holy Spirit. And the helper that he promised to all those who followed him is that same helper – God’s Holy Spirit. Acts is the story of how the Holy Spirit is working in the church. Luke is making sure we recognize that these guys don’t get it, they haven’t tried to understand it, they don’t know Jesus, they don’t believe, and they don’t have the Holy Spirit in their lives.

-Illustration

Does that sound like a crazy thing for them to do?

Just mouthing religious words in hopes that something will happen the way you want to it?

When I was a kid, I thought that God wouldn’t hear our prayers if we didn’t say, “In Jesus name, Amen,” at the end.

That’s what people in my church experience always said!

As I got older and learned more, I heard where Jesus said that whatever we ask for in his name, God will do. That’s why we end prayers by saying that “In Jesus’ name” thing, right? We are trying to compel God to do what we want by throwing the name of Jesus at him!

When I first heard that, I was right on it. “God, I’d like a million dollars and a DeLorean. In Jesus name….”

I was so disappointed when neither of those things materialized!

Last week, I heard from someone who had asked for prayers about a relative of theirs who was sick and in medical care. They messaged to say that “Your prayers are working! So-and-so is doing better and coming home! Keep it up!”

They think that prayers are working because the result they were hoping for seems to be the one that is happening. What if their loved one was still sick? Or if the illness had overwhelmed their body and they had died? Would that mean that our prayers hadn’t worked?

Why do we treat prayers like a magic incantation? If miracles come from surrender and magic is about control, then the way we pray is often WAY more about magic than about hoping for a miracle, isn’t it?

One of the most helpful things anyone ever told me about prayer is that sometimes God says yes, sometimes no, and sometimes “ask again later.” That kind of makes God sound like a magic 8 ball, and I think there’s really a lot more to it that that, but if I get on that rabbit trail we may never get back to our story.

So what happened when these guys tried to exorcise a demon using the name of Jesus as a word of power instead of trusting in God’s power? We aren’t really told if they’d had any success with this approach or not, but we do know that one day they came across some kind of spirit that saw through what they were trying to do.

-Supporting Scripture Acts 19:15-16

15 One day the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know about, but who are you?” 16 Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding. [3]

-Summary of point

Magic is about trying to exert control over the uncontrollable.

-tie in to proposition

But God is greater than any other power!

-tie in to purpose

Why not put your trust in God instead of words of power or your own efforts to manipulate spiritual things to get the result you are hoping for?

-Transition Sentence

What happened to these seven – no, let’s include the poor guy trapped by a demonic spirit too – these eight guys became a message to others that they needed to make a choice between belief and unbelief.

Main Point #3: Trust is about living empowered (vv17-20)

-Reference to point

Trusting in God is the only way to live an empowered life instead of one where you are trying to wrest power from God.

-Reference to verse(s)

Let’s see what happened after the demon exorcised the exorcists, leaving them scrambling naked through the streets.

17 When this became known to the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus, they were all seized with fear, and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honor. 18 Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed what they had done. 19 A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas. 20 In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power. [4]

-Discussion

-context

-word study

The word “fear” here is both the right and the wrong word.

It is translated from the Greek word Luke is using, which is phobos. It means something like reverence or respect. If you are kayaking in the ocean and a humpback whale surfaces near you, you’re going to be feeling a lot of phobos! To be near something so much bigger and more powerful than you is… Awesome. Frightening, but probably not terrifying. Any fear is from the realization of how insignificant your greatest peak of strength is compared to even a casual flip of the tail of the giant beside you.

This is what the believers in Ephesus are feeling when they realize that even the greatest name linked to power that they know and believe in has no power compared to the real supernatural world. When they see that those exorcists were really taking the name of the Lord in vain…

-explanation

So, recognizing that they were fools to be continuing to try to use magic to change the world when they were already agents of the Most High who had created that world, they brought their books and scrolls and charms and other magic debris and burned it.

Do you remember why I said people burned books of magic in those days? It was because they were substandard. It’s because the knowledge in them wasn’t effective. It was because they realized there was something better and they wanted that instead.

-Illustration

Do you remember the name Kyle MacDonald? A couple of years back he had a red paperclip and he put a post up on Craig’s List trying to trade it for something better. A pair of women in Vancouver traded him a pen that looks like a fish. He then swapped the fish pen for a handmade doorknob, traded the doorknob for a camp stove, then the stove for a 100-watt generator.

He exchanged the generator for an empty keg and a beer sign, then traded those for a snowmobile. That was handed over for an afternoon with rock star Alice Cooper, which traded for a rare KISS snow globe, and that went to actor-director Corbin Bernsen for a part in a movie.

I guess Corbin collects snow globes.

And finally, the town of Kipling, Saskatoon offered a farmhouse in exchange for the role in the movie.

Do you think Kyle misses the red paper clip?

Probably about as much as these folks from Ephesus miss the books of magic they traded in so they could embrace their trust in God. When you get something so much better, there are no regrets.

-Supporting Scripture

Jesus once told a story about a man who discovered a treasure in a field. When he realized what it was, he went and sold everything that he had to be able to buy that field. When you are getting something so much better, what hold does any of that old junk have on you? You are empowered by the better to dispose of anything keeping you from getting it.

-summary of point

Trusting God is empowering and frees you from entanglements you don’t need or, truthfully, even want.

-tie in to proposition

God is greater than any other power, greater than anything in his creation, seen or unseen.

-tie in to purpose

So let all that other stuff go! Put your trust in God, not in your own desires or the ways of the world.

-Transition Sentence

You’ll find that you’ll never want to trade back.

Conclusion

-Summary of points

So, to sum up, Miracles are about surrender while magic is about control. Trusting God is really the only way to be empowered in this world!

-Reference to proposition

God is greater than any other power or person or situation.

-Reference to original illustration (if possible)

Remember that argument my friend and I were having? What it came down to was this: I said we can and should trust God in all things, even when it is hard or frightening, because this world and everything in it were created by and belong to God. My friend said that there is a point beyond which he can not and will not and doesn’t plan to trust in God.

-Purpose (Application)

I said then and say now that we all need to realize that trusting in God is all that matters and that when we do so we can face any challenge or threat or situation knowing that he is with us, his Holy Spirit is in us, and that the example of Jesus can lead us through whatever it is and on to eternal life in the Kingdom of God.

-Altar Call

And now that I’ve put that to you, I’m going to let you decide what you want to do with it. I think that, for most of us, trusting God is something we learn how to do a little at a time. But until we make that decision to try to go all in, until we bring out our books of magic and add them to the burn pile, until we decide that we are going to try to trust God in all things, not just in the things that go the way we want them to, I don’t think we are really very effective as Followers of the Way. How can we say that it is important to Follow Jesus if we will only do so when he goes our way instead of us going his?

For the believers in Ephesus, there was a change that happened after this event. We are told that after this the Word of the Lord spread and grew in power. Their faith was so strong and so visible that it drew others in.

I want that for us.

And all it takes is a little trust in the power of the Holy Spirit.

In Jesus name, amen.

[1] The New International Version. Zondervan, 2011, p. Ac 19:11–12. [2] The New International Version. Zondervan, 2011, p. Ac 19:13–14. [3] The New International Version. Zondervan, 2011, p. Ac 19:15–16. [4] The New International Version. Zondervan, 2011, p. Ac 19:17–20.