SPEAKER_01: Welcome to DeSoto Hills Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_01: Our Sunday morning services are weekly at 9 and 10 30 a.m.
SPEAKER_01: You're listening to an audio recast of this past week's service.
SPEAKER_01: We hope you enjoy.
SPEAKER_01: God bless.
SPEAKER_00: Acts chapter 19, we'll begin reading in verse 21.
SPEAKER_00: You know, my driver's ed experience in high school was not a traditional driver's ed experience.
SPEAKER_00: Um the freshman football team we practiced during school, and so our period for taking driver's ed, we didn't have.
SPEAKER_00: But thank goodness our coach was also the driver's ed teacher.
SPEAKER_00: So what we did was just kind of hybrid after the after football season, he would teach the class, and we we would go to class when we would have been at practice, and then we just ran over into January and ran over into the spring semester.
SPEAKER_00: So as we got into the spring semester, I won't ever forget one day Coach Lyles came to me and tossed me a set of keys and said, Hey, I gotta go to Bill Williams Sporting Good and Tupelo, you're driving.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's go.
SPEAKER_00: So I got in the driver's ed car, and we're cruising down old Highway 6 headed to Tupelo.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you know exactly where I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_00: Cruising across Old Highway 6, headed to Tupelo.
SPEAKER_00: Coach Lyles was reading the paper.
SPEAKER_00: Um I was just driving right along, and um one thing about Old Highway 6 that you don't know if you've not traveled it is that it's it has hills.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm cruising right along, not gonna tell you how fast I was actually driving, because he was reading the paper.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't know.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm cruising on down the road and I topped one of those hills, and there was a car waiting to turn left.
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00: So I see him and I hit the brakes pretty good.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't lock them up, but I hit the brakes good, which made him drop the paper.
SPEAKER_00: Knew we couldn't turn left, so he just said, hit the shoulder.
SPEAKER_00: So I calmly passed that car on the shoulder of the road, calmly got back up on the road and just kept going.
SPEAKER_00: About a mile or two later, we were passing Pontiac Country Club, and Coach Lyle's the paper came down again.
SPEAKER_00: It was already back up, and he said, Huh.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Did that scare you?
SPEAKER_00: He's like, No, they're dredging the pool, they're dredging the pond at the country club.
SPEAKER_00: Didn't faze him at all.
SPEAKER_00: Point of this story is sometimes as we're driving down the road, there are disturbances in the way.
SPEAKER_00: As we are traveling the way following Jesus, sometimes there are disturbances in our way.
SPEAKER_00: As we turn to our passage today, what we're going to see is that Paul continued to bear witness to the kingdom of God even with a disturbance, a major disturbance in his way.
SPEAKER_00: And as we look at this and hear this message, hopefully we can see that and know that we are going to face disturbances as we follow Jesus too.
SPEAKER_00: But the challenge for us is to continue to bear witness, to be witnesses of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: So the question that we seek to answer then, if we know that he experienced witness experienced disturbances, hopefully we can look at his disturbance and understand some things that we might face and we might challenge.
SPEAKER_00: So the question we seek to answer is what disturbances arose in Paul's way?
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, as we see those, we can see some disturbances that we may face as well.
SPEAKER_00: Acts chapter 19, I'm going to invite you, if you are able, to stand with me as we give honor to the reading of God's word.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to begin in verse 21 and read down through verse 41.
SPEAKER_00: Now, after these events, Paul resolved in the Spirit to pass through Macedonia and Achaia and go to Jerusalem, saying, After I have been there, I must also see Rome.
SPEAKER_00: And having sent into Macedonia two of his helpers, Timothy and Erastus, he himself stayed in Asia for a while.
SPEAKER_00: About that time there arose no little disturbance concerning the way.
SPEAKER_00: For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the craftsman.
SPEAKER_00: These he gathered together with workmen in similar trades, and said, Men, you know that from this business we have our wealth.
SPEAKER_00: And you see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people, saying that gods made with hands are not gods.
SPEAKER_00: And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may become into disrepute, but also the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be counted as nothing, and that she may even be disposed from her magnificence, she whom all of Asia and the world worship.
SPEAKER_00: When they heard this, they were enraged and were crying out, Great is Artemis of the Ephesians.
SPEAKER_00: So the city was filled with confusion, and they rushed together into the theater, dragging with them Gaius and Aristocras, Macedonians, who were Paul's companions in travel.
SPEAKER_00: But when Paul wished to go in among the crowd, the disciples would not let him, and even some of the Asiarchs who were friends of his sent him and were urging him not to venture into the theater.
SPEAKER_00: Now some cried out one thing, some another, for the assembly was in confusion, and most of them did not know why they had come together.
SPEAKER_00: Some of the crowd prompted Alexander, whom the Jews had put forward, and Alexander, motioning with his hand, wanted to make a defense to the crowd, but when they recognized he was a Jew for about two hours, they cried out with one voice, Great is Artemis of the Ephesians.
SPEAKER_00: And when the town clerk had quieted the crowd, he said, Men of Ephesus, who is there who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is temple keeper of the great Artemis, and of the sacred stone that fell from the sky?
SPEAKER_00: Seeing then that these things cannot be denied, you ought to be quiet and do nothing rash, for you have brought these men here who are neither sacrilegious nor blasphemers of our goddess.
SPEAKER_00: If therefore Demetrius and the craftsmen with him have to have a complaint against anyone, the courts are open, and there are pro counsels, let them bring charges against one another.
SPEAKER_00: But if you seek anything further, it shall be settled in a regular in the regular assembly.
SPEAKER_00: For we really are in danger of being charged with rioting today, since there is no cause that we can give to justify this commotion.
SPEAKER_00: And when he had said these things, he dismissed the assembly.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_00: God, we thank you for your word, and we pray now that as we explore your word together, God, you will remove disturbances in our way.
SPEAKER_00: Father, and we will seek you.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, it's in your name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: May be seated.
SPEAKER_00: So see what beginning this passage, what is happening here.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is in Ephesus and he desires to go back to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: But if you look at a map, Ephesus is about here and Jerusalem is over here, but Paul didn't want to take the direct route.
SPEAKER_00: What he wanted to do was travel back up this way into Macedonia and make the long trip around to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: And then when he got to Jerusalem, he wanted to go way over here to Rome.
SPEAKER_00: And you think, why would he not travel more direct paths?
SPEAKER_00: What is he doing?
SPEAKER_00: And I think there's three things we see in what Paul is doing here.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, he is traveling back to churches that have been started and established to follow up with them.
SPEAKER_00: We call this discipleship.
SPEAKER_00: You see, Paul wasn't just about, hey, having people come and telling people about Jesus and them believing in him and then him saying, good luck from here.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all figure it out.
SPEAKER_00: And that's not what Paul did.
SPEAKER_00: He always went back to places to where the gospel had been shared and where people believed and followed up with him to encourage them in discipleships and to encourage them to continue on this way that they are in.
SPEAKER_00: Not only do we see that, we also find out that Paul is trying to carry a monetary gift.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to go back to Jerusalem to carry a monetary gift that has been collected throughout the churches in Asia.
SPEAKER_00: One thing Paul is doing here is teaching the church that we are the church no matter our background.
SPEAKER_00: See, you have these Gentiles in churches who have collected money to send back to the church in Jerusalem, which was mostly a Jewish church.
SPEAKER_00: He is sending them back there to take care of each other.
SPEAKER_00: What he is teaching us here is look, as the church, we are supposed to help each other out.
SPEAKER_00: We are supposed to take care of each other.
SPEAKER_00: We are supposed to be concerned and show concern and share concern for each other.
SPEAKER_00: So we see Paul doing that.
SPEAKER_00: That's why he wants to go back to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: But then we see Paul wanting to go to Rome.
SPEAKER_00: The reason he's wanting to go back to Rome is because what Jesus said way back in Acts chapter 1, verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to go to Rome to continue to share the gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Paul has seen the way, and he is following the way of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But what we find is disturbances along the way.
SPEAKER_00: So again, we'll remind ourselves of the question: what are those disturbances that Paul finds in the way?
SPEAKER_00: Well, we are introduced in verse 23 to a guy named, or verse 24, to a guy named Demetrius.
SPEAKER_00: Demetrius was a silversmith there in Ephesus.
SPEAKER_00: He made little silver idols of the goddess Artemis, and he would make these idols and sell them.
SPEAKER_00: And what happens is Demetrius starts this coercion campaign against Paul.
SPEAKER_00: He begins to coerce people.
SPEAKER_00: And he begins with just other silversmiths.
SPEAKER_00: And we know his motivation here is greed.
SPEAKER_00: He is concerned that money is going to be taken out of his pocket.
SPEAKER_00: And so he begins and he goes to these other silversmiths, and then he begins and gets other tradesmen similar to his who, because of the message of the gospel that Paul is sharing, and because people are coming to know Jesus through this gospel message, what he begins to do is to appeal to those people and get them and he coerces them against Paul.
SPEAKER_00: Now, we understand that he is using greed here.
SPEAKER_00: And while that is definitely a temptation in our society today, the enemy doesn't always just use one thing.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he could tempt us with lots of things.
SPEAKER_00: Pride, jealousy, lust, all kinds of things that the enemy can use to tempt us and to coerce us against the gospel, or to coerce society against the gospel, to create a disturbance along the way.
SPEAKER_00: We must be aware of these disturbances.
SPEAKER_00: And so what he does here is he works, he he appeals to that greed first, but then he moves on, and this coercion tactic, it it grows and it grows.
SPEAKER_00: And what he says, look, first he starts with just greed and then he moves on to their religion.
SPEAKER_00: He says, before you know it, what he's going to do is turn the world against our great goddess Artemis.
SPEAKER_00: And she is going to fall, and we can't let that happen.
SPEAKER_00: And he is appealing.
SPEAKER_00: He is coercing them that Paul is out to go against their religion.
SPEAKER_00: Is Paul?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's not lying to them.
SPEAKER_00: That is what Paul is doing.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he is preaching Jesus Christ, and Jesus is the way.
SPEAKER_00: Remember just a few weeks back when he was in Athens and he began to tell at the Areopagus about there is one God, the creator of the world.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he is teaching that.
SPEAKER_00: Then Demetrius moves on from religion to patriotism.
SPEAKER_00: He says, this is something that we hold in all of Asia.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is turning people against it.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, what Demetrius is doing is using a little bit of a lie or a little bit of the truth.
SPEAKER_00: And he is coercing people against the gospel message.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, that is going to be a disturbance that we are going to face.
SPEAKER_00: People are going to say about the gospel lots of things.
SPEAKER_00: We are closed-minded.
SPEAKER_00: We are bigoted.
SPEAKER_00: How can you say there is only one God?
SPEAKER_00: How can you belittle people?
SPEAKER_00: We're going to hear all kinds of things against the gospel message.
SPEAKER_00: And then people, people, because here's the thing: people are set in their ways, and when we bring change to them, that change causes them.
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times this change, according to Metrius, it was a change of greed.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't want to lose this money from his pockets.
SPEAKER_00: But if it's pride, the change can be that pride is taken away from us.
SPEAKER_00: If it is ambition that can be taken away from us, there's lots of things that the world doesn't want to see.
SPEAKER_00: And so they create these disturbances along the way, these disturbances of coercion.
SPEAKER_00: Second, we see confusion.
SPEAKER_00: Twice in the next few verses, from verses 28 to verse 34, twice it talks about confusion.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 29, it says, So the city was filled with confusion, and they rushed together into the theater, dragging them with Gaius and Aristocus, Macedonians, who were Paul's companions in travel.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 32 it says again, Now some cried out one thing, some another, for the assembly was in confusion, and most of them did not know why they had come together.
SPEAKER_00: Now this is this is catch this picture.
SPEAKER_00: Some were shouting one thing, some were shouting completely another thing.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't even know what they were shouting because there was confusion.
SPEAKER_00: It reminds me of one time when my brother and I shared a bedroom and we were we were asleep one night and Clay walks in his sleep.
SPEAKER_00: Not only that, he has nightmares in his sleep, which can create quite the eventful night.
SPEAKER_00: One night he woke up in the middle of the night trying to kill a snake in our bed.
SPEAKER_00: He wakes up screaming, yelling, just pounding the bed, and I here I am.
SPEAKER_00: I'm scared he's gonna pound me.
SPEAKER_00: So I start screaming too, and they come back and say, What happened?
SPEAKER_00: What's going on?
SPEAKER_00: I said, Clay started yelling, so I started yelling.
SPEAKER_00: I just don't know what's happening.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what's going on.
SPEAKER_00: It was confusion.
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of what we see happening here in Ephesus.
SPEAKER_00: They don't even know why they're rioting, they don't even know what's going on.
SPEAKER_00: There's just so much confusion that has been brought on by this coercion tactics of Demetrius.
SPEAKER_00: And so they're just yelling, and things have become out of control.
SPEAKER_00: They become, in their confusion, they become angry, and so they they drag some of Paul's friends into the theater.
SPEAKER_00: And when Paul seeks to go into the fray to help out, they they discourage him.
SPEAKER_00: They won't let him go in there.
SPEAKER_00: And then you see this man named Alexander who was a Jew.
SPEAKER_00: It tells us he he gets up and he tries to quiet the crowd.
SPEAKER_00: But when they we don't know why he was put forward, we don't know if he was a city official.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know if the Jews put him forward to try to separate them from Paul.
SPEAKER_00: We're not real sure, but but here's what happens when he gets up and starts speaking, all they do for two hours is scream, Great is Artemis of the Ephesians.
SPEAKER_00: For two hours.
SPEAKER_00: So in their confusion, they close their minds, not willing to listen to reason or rationale or anything.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, confusion is definitely a disturbance in the way.
SPEAKER_00: Our world is confused about Jesus and what he can bring.
SPEAKER_00: Our world is confused about the gospel message.
SPEAKER_00: But finally this morning, what we need to see is God is in control.
SPEAKER_00: The city clerk, who would have been a mayoral figure, stands up and he does quiet the crowd.
SPEAKER_00: Like what Tony Merida has to say about this when he said, On this occasion, God used the city clerk, the chief administrative officer, to prevent this ordeal from turning into a violent riot.
SPEAKER_00: God was in control.
SPEAKER_00: And what we see here is that God can use people who don't even know that God's using them.
SPEAKER_00: Why was he able to quiet the crowd?
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_00: Alexander couldn't, we don't know what it was.
SPEAKER_00: I'm becoming more and more convinced that God uses this clerk, and it had to come from something way more powerful than the clerk to quiet the crowd.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think it was the clerk who did it.
SPEAKER_00: The clerk speaking to me would be like when you go to that football game and your team is in a championship game or in a big game, and it comes down and you're about to win, and you see people hanging on the side, ready to jump onto the field.
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_00: They're ready to jump on the field, and somebody on the loudspeaker comes on and says, just a reminder, please do not enter the field after the game.
SPEAKER_00: All right, do you know what fan is short for?
SPEAKER_00: Fanatic.
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna take more than somebody on the loudspeaker to stop the crowd.
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna take something more powerful.
SPEAKER_00: What I'm telling you is it is something more powerful at work here than the clerk to quiet the crowd.
SPEAKER_00: God is at work, it's not the clerk.
SPEAKER_00: And honestly, we see that the crowd is not in control of things.
SPEAKER_00: We see God is.
SPEAKER_00: So as disturbances come along the way for us, as disturbs disturbances rise up as things come, and these are just a couple of examples.
SPEAKER_00: As things come along the way, what we need to be reminded of and what we need to know is that God is in control.
SPEAKER_00: Again, Tony Marita sums up like this.
SPEAKER_00: This story shows how we advance the kingdom of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It's not by weapons, force, or violence.
SPEAKER_00: Paul preaches the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: People get converted, they renounce sin and idolatry, and by the power of the Spirit, the whole social order is impacted.
SPEAKER_00: Don't underestimate the power of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: He is exalting Christ in cities filled with idols.
SPEAKER_00: What are we to do with this message?
SPEAKER_00: Here's the challenge.
SPEAKER_00: Be witnesses of the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: Tell people about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: This morning.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, if you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, if you don't know this Christ that we're talking about, who is able to remove disturbances, or even if he doesn't remove them, to be in control of every situation where disturbances arise, today you can know him.
SPEAKER_00: He came, he lived, he died, he arose so that you may have life.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't know him, as we stand and sing, we invite you to come.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe this morning, and here's one of my great fears is while disturbances can come from outside the church, may they never come from inside.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe this morning, if you recognize that there are disturbances in your life that you You have caused, that you have brought on.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe this morning you need to repent.
SPEAKER_00: Come and kneel at this altar and cry out to God.
SPEAKER_00: As we stand and sing, we invite you to do that.
SPEAKER_00: However, God is moving in your life.
SPEAKER_00: As we stand and sing this hymn of invitation, we invite you to come.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_00: God, you are good.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for this day.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for all you've done for us.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for how you are moving among us.
SPEAKER_00: But God, we recognize that there can be disturbances along the way.
SPEAKER_00: God, as we meet those disturbances, may we do like Paul and like these believers.
SPEAKER_00: And just trust in you.
SPEAKER_00: Trust that you are in control.
SPEAKER_00: May we be witnesses to the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: We love you.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, it's in your name that we pray.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for listening to this week's sermon.
SPEAKER_01: If you have any questions for our pastor, feel free to reach out at DeSoto Hills.com.