Dealing in Danger

This was a tough passage to tag with a title

A lot of catch-phrases went through my head...but didn’t stick

What did stick was the danger when the ungodly attempt to dabble in the things of God without knowledge of God

In this passage, we find some people who thought they could command the power of God, using something of a magic formula “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims....” It didn’t work out so well for them

We will begin with the power of Paul, discuss the pretense of the pretenders, and finish with the Product of Providence

We will do some running application as we go, them move into some final thoughts and challenges

The Power of Paul

We start by taking note of the source of the power

God was doing extraordinary miracles...

All the great things Paul did or said was traced back to the power of God, the Glory of God, or the purpose of God

We have a similar event earlier in Acts: Peter’s shadow falling on people...and they were healed

Outside the book of Acts, we do not have Biblical tracking on any miracle of any other Apostles

There may be some things attributed to them in various extra-biblical writings, but nothing we are going to hang onto

We have some account from post-apostolic times—the Apostolic Fathers—of similar events

Some of these are very well attested

Citing the passage, people used this concept and attributed healing to articles that had belonged to, or had been handled by certain “saints”

HOWEVER, it was observed by some writers of that time, and somewhat later, that the attention was not directed toward God, but away from Him to the object or the departed “saint”

From this, the tradition of attributing healing power to relics from saints came into being

This practice seems to have become somewhat idolatrous, with the outright worship of “relics” or of the saints themselves

This tradition continues yet among some groups

This begs for a discussion of the concept of saint

Yes, we’re going down a rabbit hole for a few seconds

What is a Saint?

In NT usage, the word is always the same: hagios, meaning holy one

It applies to all believers

In Revelation, it leans into those specifically who remained true under the pressure of persecution

Over the course of time, it came to mean the next generations of martyrs and then more toward specific people

Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary Saints

Little wonder then that the early church considered witnesses who were martyred for their testimonies to be saints. In fact, soon these saints were accorded special honor and then even worship. Unfortunately, the term “saints” came to be applied only to such special people.

To be Biblically correct, the term applies to all who are believers in Christ

Yes, most of us will refer to St. Peter, St. John… even St. Francis or Augustine...but the we MUST understand that these terms are somewhat arbitrarily applied

NOT chasing that rabbit further this morning

In more modern times, a modified version of this—healing from relics—began, with highly public preachers sending handkerchiefs—or small bit of cloth—which they had touched to their followers

This appears to have been largely a fundraising gimmick

It began with the pentecostal movement of the early 1920’s, spilled into radio, TV, and then internet…

We might argue that is within this that the health and wealth gospel—not a gospel at all—was born

There were many reported healings throughout all of this

Without totally calling bogus on all of it, we can say most, if not all of it is at least highly suspect

However we look at it, worship of anything other than God himself is idolatry

The Pretense of the Pretenders

We have what might be understood as a generic group, and a specific group, or two separate groups

It would appear that both were using the same formulaic means

The are call exorcists—the underlying word being exorkitztes

This shares the same root word as adjure in our text, horkitzo

The exorcist is one who puts someone—in this case, some spirit—under oath, or under the penalty of some deity to do or not do something specific

It would be done with some sort of incantation, maybe akin to “casting a spell”

Itinerant Exorcists

There is quite a bit of history on this group

Exorcising spirits was not an uncommon thing among the Jewish nation and exorcists were well documented in the pre-christian period

They used incantations to conduct exorcisms

Here, they had apparently, after seeing God’s power displayed through Paul, added the name of Jesus to the command incantation they were using

We are not given any result of what this group had—whether or not they had been successful or not

Sons of Sceva

Here, we have a recorded result

Maybe we can call this a sub-group of the other, but some think these men were local to Ephesus—a reasonable thought—not among the itinerant exorcists

Interestingly, Sceva is Roman-sounding name, not at all among traditional Jewish names

There is no record of a priest by that name and the question of “why is a high priest in Ephesus?” is a valid one

Scholars suggest that it could have been customary, or something of tradition, to call a highly respected religious figure a priest and that Sceva and his sons were well-known for their exorcisms

These men, apparently as a group, attempted such an exorcism and it didn’t go well at all—beaten bloodied and naked, they fled—the demoniac appears to have triumphed over their attempt

The Major Problem

The text tells us they were invoking the name of Jesus “whom Paul proclaims

They had no right to use the name of Jesus as they had no relationship with Him!

They may have been comfortable...and apparently had no problem with other forms of incantations...but this demon refused to acknowledge their authority to invoke the name of our Lord

A Couple Conclusions

There is no OT reports of these itinerant exorcists

There were certainly situations in which the OT prophets overcame demonic influence—Elijah on Mt. Carmel would be an example—but it was not an exorcism

However, since there was a history of exorcists and exorcisms, we must conclude that at least some of these exorcists had some degree of success

If and only if so, there was a supernatural power behind it...and we have no indication that the OT Law had any provisions for it

Therefore, it was NOT God’s power as it is inconsistent with the rest of Scripture

Since the sons of Sceva had their attempt go terribly wrong, and they were both verbally and physically abused, we conclude that in this case, God chose to make a statement, and use it for His glory

Though the practice of exorcism would continue—and still does, it seems to have hit a brick wall in Ephesus

And so we see...

The Product of Providence

The beat-down of sons of Sceva got wide-spread attention

The Name of Jesus was Extolled

The underlying word meaning to make great, or magnify

Open Confession of Sin

..by the new believers who had not yet given up their previous pagan practice of magic

Here we have magic being called out as sinful

Not a matter of the art of illusion, prestidigitation, and other so-called magic tricks

This a matter of occultic practice—delving into the works of Satan and his realm, could involve use of spells or even drugs, engaging in sorcery

Cutting Ties with their Pasts

They burned their books, quite a substantial sacrifice in repentance

If, as scholars suggest, that each piece of silver was a days wage, and there were 250 working days in a year (probably not a 5 day work week), that’s about 200 years worth of labor for a common man

Or 2 years worth of wages for 100 men

This is a visible statement of repentance, exemplifying giving up things that would lead to sin

Once again, the point is God and His glory, in this case the NAME OF JESUS being extolled

WITFM?

Displaying God’s Power

Don’t go looking for to heal anyone by touching, or sending a touched item

Can and does God still heal by touch? Certainly He CAN; but honest healings of this nature are difficult to come by

Does He still heal by passing on articles? I remain unconvinced

We can, however, and should, display His power in how we live our lives

Some of us may preach, others teach, others write...not all of us can do those things

All of us can display the marks of a Christian in how we live our lives...showing the fruit of the Spirit from Gal 5:

...love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control...

Exhibiting these traits when everything around us would say we have a right not to...

Pretense of Relationship

The sons of Sceva presumed upon the power of one they did not know

How many among us invoke the name of God and claim some interaction with Him though they do not know Him

As Paul wrote: 2 Tim 3 5

2 Timothy 3:5 ESV

...having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.

We see this play out directly or indirectly

We see many people flock to preachers of false gospels; misdirected worship

Producing Fruit

We reference the words of Jesus, harshly spoken to the Pharisees in Matt3 8

Matthew 3:8 ESV

Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

That would begin with confession: agreeing with God that our actions are sinful

Then changing our path

The morning’s text deals with magic, the occult...

There is a needed warning for us here

There are still believers who dabble in such things

Horoscopes—yeah...them; Tarot cards...those too; seances, Ouija boards, fortune telling, new-age/new thought practices—it’s all occultic

There are two sources of supernatural power, demonic and divine; Scripture shows us what the divine looks like...and calls other sin

There were, as we understand the text, other sins for which the people fell under conviction, that’s the only one specified in the text and it’s the one we’re specifically calling out this morning

If God has used this text this morning to get your attention, bringing to mind any other sin this morning, now is the time to repent of that sin and take an action to separate yourself from it

The Ephesians burned their connections to their past sin

What will God have you destroy this morning