WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:10.000 Acts chapter 19, verses 23 to 41, the way, the mob, and the rescue. The way, the mob, 00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:19.679 and the rescue. The book of Acts is the sequel to the Gospel of Luke, and so the Gospel of 00:00:19.679 --> 00:00:27.440 Luke has told us how the Lord Jesus was born into this world, lived, preached, healed, helped, 00:00:27.440 --> 00:00:36.320 ministered. Amen, he was condemned to death, he died, he was buried, amen, gloriously rose from 00:00:36.320 --> 00:00:42.359 the dead, showed himself to his disciples, left them the Great Commission, and then having completed 00:00:42.359 --> 00:00:49.719 his earthly mission, returned to his father in glory. The book of Acts is about what happened 00:00:49.719 --> 00:00:58.079 next, how that ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ continued after he ascended to the right hand 00:00:58.079 --> 00:01:06.640 of his father in heaven. He sent, as he promised, he sent his Holy Spirit onto his disciples, 00:01:06.640 --> 00:01:13.599 and at his command they were witnesses of the risen Jesus in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, 00:01:13.599 --> 00:01:20.759 and to the ends of the earth. The Word of God increased as they preached that word, it grew, 00:01:20.759 --> 00:01:28.919 and it bore fruit, and that fruit was in the large numbers of people across the world who 00:01:28.919 --> 00:01:37.519 sometimes thousands at a time believed and joined the Christian church. Now over recent weeks at 00:01:37.519 --> 00:01:41.799 St. Columbus we've been looking at different turning points along the way as the Gospel 00:01:41.799 --> 00:01:51.039 spread, as the witness to Jesus was given across that the world and the Word increased. So one of 00:01:51.039 --> 00:01:56.719 the things that we looked at was how for the first time someone who wasn't Jewish and wasn't a 00:01:56.719 --> 00:02:01.039 proselyte to the Jewish religion, who hadn't received circumcision, who hadn't become a Jew, 00:02:01.039 --> 00:02:08.560 Cornelius and all of his household came to faith and believed and were baptized as Christians. 00:02:08.560 --> 00:02:16.560 We've also looked at how the Gospel came to Athens, the place where all the great thinkers 00:02:16.560 --> 00:02:24.719 gave their ideas and how there was a clash between the Gospel message and the understandings of 00:02:24.719 --> 00:02:33.599 that time. And today we're looking at how the Gospel clashes with traditional culture and belief. 00:02:33.599 --> 00:02:45.359 There's a saying in Russian which goes like this, a holy place will never remain empty. And when we 00:02:45.359 --> 00:02:51.599 bring the Gospel to an individual and when we bring the Gospel to a culture or a people, 00:02:51.599 --> 00:02:58.719 we're never bringing it to an empty place. We're never bringing it to someone who doesn't believe 00:02:58.719 --> 00:03:05.840 anything or do anything or practice anything. We're always bringing that Gospel to a holy place 00:03:05.840 --> 00:03:12.280 which is already occupied. There's always something there already. There are beliefs, 00:03:12.280 --> 00:03:17.800 there are practices, there are customs, there are tradition, there's history, there's heritage. And 00:03:17.800 --> 00:03:24.719 so when the Gospel of Jesus Christ comes into the life of that individual or to the life of that 00:03:24.719 --> 00:03:33.120 people or culture, there's a clash with what I shall call vested interests, what's already there. 00:03:33.120 --> 00:03:37.599 And there's plenty of examples throughout history about how that has happened and sometimes it's 00:03:37.599 --> 00:03:43.639 taken a very long time for the Gospel to actually penetrate through into a culture. Sometimes 00:03:43.639 --> 00:03:49.639 Christians have thought it's impossible, that we'll never get through. And there are missionaries who 00:03:49.639 --> 00:03:56.959 went to places such as Africa or China and saw very, very little fruit. But now we can see that in 00:03:56.959 --> 00:04:04.039 these places at least the Gospel is bearing fruit. And so this is an example from the Bible, 00:04:04.039 --> 00:04:10.279 from the very, very start of the Christian church about how this clash between the Gospel and these 00:04:10.279 --> 00:04:14.519 vested interests took place. And I want to consider it first of all under three headings, 00:04:14.520 --> 00:04:23.840 the way, the mob and the rescue. Now Ephesus was a success story. Ephesus was a place where the 00:04:23.840 --> 00:04:33.680 Gospel was successful. It all began rather inauspiciously with this maverick preacher called Apollos. Now 00:04:33.680 --> 00:04:39.400 it seems that he was a great speaker, he was a charismatic personality and the only problem was 00:04:39.399 --> 00:04:46.039 he was a little bit off message. He was basically telling people the message of John the Baptist 00:04:46.039 --> 00:04:53.079 along the lines of repent and get ready for the kingdom. So he knew about Jesus but only as an 00:04:53.079 --> 00:04:58.359 expectation and he didn't know that the Holy Spirit had been given. So the Ephesian church 00:04:58.359 --> 00:05:04.199 actually begins with Paul bringing these Old Testament believers into the New Testament. They 00:05:04.199 --> 00:05:09.959 receive the Holy Spirit and they're baptized. And so that's the beginning. Twelve disciples 00:05:09.959 --> 00:05:15.599 brought into the New Testament. The next stop was the synagogue. That was Paul's custom and he 00:05:15.599 --> 00:05:21.879 argued from the Old Testament that Jesus was the Christ. He did so for three months. Twelve 00:05:21.879 --> 00:05:27.039 Sabbaths or however many Sabbaths he would have gone into the synagogue and discussed and debated. 00:05:27.039 --> 00:05:33.360 And eventually the next stage is that the Christian disciples leave the synagogue and begin holding 00:05:33.360 --> 00:05:41.040 meetings in a hall. And this lasted for two years and the result Luke tells us was that all the 00:05:41.040 --> 00:05:48.199 residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord. Asia's the area around Ephesus. So you can imagine 00:05:48.199 --> 00:05:52.520 people might have come in for the market or they might have heard from someone else but the result 00:05:52.520 --> 00:05:59.000 was that this particular part of the Roman Empire was reached with the Gospel. And during this time 00:05:59.000 --> 00:06:05.959 as well as the teaching of Paul there were amazing miracles healing from sickness and 00:06:05.959 --> 00:06:12.279 deliverance from demonic oppression. And many believers leaving their occult past took the 00:06:12.279 --> 00:06:16.800 literature that they found unhelpful and was damaging for their spiritual life. And at great 00:06:16.800 --> 00:06:28.199 personal cost they got rid of it and Luke describes that event. Notice how in this passage the Gospel 00:06:28.199 --> 00:06:36.759 or the Christian church is described in an unusual way. It's described as the way. Now often in the 00:06:36.759 --> 00:06:43.480 Old Testament the way refers to the path of faith, obedience, salvation. Jesus had said I am the way, 00:06:43.480 --> 00:06:51.079 the truth and the life. But I want to particularly focus on connecting this phrase the way with what 00:06:51.079 --> 00:07:00.639 it says in verse 26. This Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people. The words 00:07:00.639 --> 00:07:08.360 turned away describe people changing direction and taking a different path. And in Ephesus the 00:07:08.360 --> 00:07:15.360 issue was that there were so many people taking this different Christian path. It was about numbers. 00:07:15.360 --> 00:07:22.080 A great many people were walking in this new Christian way. So the first thing is the way, 00:07:22.080 --> 00:07:30.199 the success of the Gospel in Ephesus. The second thing is the mob because not everyone was so 00:07:30.199 --> 00:07:37.600 pleased about the success of the Gospel in Ephesus. And in particular a group of craftsmen led by 00:07:37.600 --> 00:07:46.879 someone called Demetrius. First of all he and his colleagues made their living by manufacturing 00:07:46.879 --> 00:07:53.920 works of religious art and veneration, the silver shrines of Artemis. And they didn't want to lose 00:07:53.920 --> 00:08:01.640 their livelihood. But for them it wasn't just about their own self-interest or at least that was their 00:08:01.639 --> 00:08:10.199 story. Verse 27, but also that the temple of the great Artemis may be counted as nothing and that 00:08:10.199 --> 00:08:20.000 she may even be deposed from her magnificence, she whom all Asia and the world worship. It wasn't 00:08:20.000 --> 00:08:27.479 just about lost livelihood. It was about lost greatness. The lost greatness of the goddess, 00:08:27.480 --> 00:08:34.960 the lost greatness of her image, her temple and her city. That was what it was about for these 00:08:34.960 --> 00:08:43.920 craftsmen. Artemis, Latin Diana, was the goddess of hunting, the forest, moon, archery and often 00:08:43.920 --> 00:08:49.960 these goddesses would have all sorts of different overlapping responsibilities if you like. 00:08:49.960 --> 00:08:57.600 Paradoxically also she became a representative both of virginity and of childbirth. Her temple at 00:08:57.600 --> 00:09:04.120 Ephesus was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. You can imagine the Acropolis in 00:09:04.120 --> 00:09:09.639 Athens that you'll remember. It looked something like that. And here's a quote from someone 00:09:09.639 --> 00:09:15.960 contemporary describing seeing this temple in Ephesus. I have set eyes on the wall of lofty 00:09:15.960 --> 00:09:22.560 Babylon on which is a road for chariots and the statue of Zeus by the Alpheus and the hanging 00:09:22.560 --> 00:09:27.840 gardens and the colossus of the sun and the huge labor of the high pyramids and the vast tomb 00:09:27.840 --> 00:09:35.720 of Mausolus. But when I saw the house of Artemis that mounted to the clouds those other marvels 00:09:35.720 --> 00:09:43.800 lost their brilliancy and I said, low apart from Olympus the sun never looked on ought so grand. 00:09:43.799 --> 00:09:51.959 The craftsmen were concerned that this temple would end up empty, lose its greatness and its 00:09:51.959 --> 00:10:00.199 prestige and it was all Paul's fault. It was also a rock that had fallen from the sky and was 00:10:00.199 --> 00:10:09.679 alleged to represent some of the attributes of this goddess. Compare verses 10 and 26 and 27 00:10:09.679 --> 00:10:16.599 just to get what their concerns were. Verse 10 is earlier than the chapter that we read. It's just 00:10:16.599 --> 00:10:22.719 describing Paul's ministry. This continued for two years so that all the residents of Asia heard 00:10:22.719 --> 00:10:31.479 the word of the Lord both Jews and Greeks. Verse 26. And you see and hear that not only in Ephesus 00:10:31.479 --> 00:10:37.039 but in almost all of Asia this Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people saying that 00:10:37.039 --> 00:10:44.000 God's made with hands are not God's. And then verse 27. And there is a danger not only that this 00:10:44.000 --> 00:10:49.159 trade of ours may come into dispute but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be 00:10:49.159 --> 00:10:55.439 counted as nothing and that she may even be disposed from her magnificence. She whom all Asia 00:10:55.439 --> 00:11:03.079 and the world worship. I want to draw your attention just to this phrase all Asia. This is about 00:11:03.080 --> 00:11:10.560 people. This is about popularity. This is about what Russians would call rating. The popularity of 00:11:10.560 --> 00:11:17.879 the church, the Christian gospel and the popularity of the cult of Artemis. That's where this conflict 00:11:17.879 --> 00:11:25.080 is happening. Paul is drawing people away from the cult of Artemis. And so the craftsmen initiate 00:11:25.080 --> 00:11:34.360 this disturbance. They begin shouting and their indignation spreads. Soon the whole city is up 00:11:34.360 --> 00:11:40.680 in arms and they rush together to the city theater. I think we might call it stadium just to get an 00:11:40.680 --> 00:11:48.840 idea of the size of it. Dragging culprits with them. Paul's companions Gaius and Aristarchus are 00:11:48.840 --> 00:11:54.920 hauled before the mob. Alexander may actually not have been a Christian. Maybe he was simply a 00:11:54.919 --> 00:12:02.039 representative of the synagogue. But his attempt to give a defense is shouted down. And at one 00:12:02.039 --> 00:12:10.399 stage for two whole hours the whole stadium is just shouting this slogan. Great is Artemis of the 00:12:10.399 --> 00:12:21.120 Ephesians. Great is Artemis of the Ephesians. All a bit fraught. Now if this modern day, sorry if 00:12:21.120 --> 00:12:27.960 this disturbance in the first century seems quite distant. How might this be expressed in our own 00:12:27.960 --> 00:12:39.200 time? There's a Russian phrase that you might recognize. A talk show. And it's a particular 00:12:39.200 --> 00:12:45.799 common thing on television in Britain and in Russia and other countries where a way of shaping 00:12:45.799 --> 00:12:53.679 public opinion is to have a discussion led by the presenter. Various people are involved. Usually 00:12:53.679 --> 00:12:59.759 there's the pseudo expert. Usually there's a distraught mother at some point involved in this 00:12:59.759 --> 00:13:06.599 discussion. And then particular individuals are introduced as hate figures expressing the views 00:13:06.599 --> 00:13:13.159 that should be vilified and rejected. This is the modern day mob, the disturbances we might 00:13:13.159 --> 00:13:18.439 experience in our own life. And in this sort of atmosphere of course the gospel is blocked by 00:13:18.439 --> 00:13:25.959 the noise of chanting and shouting whether it's in a stadium or whether it's on a contemporary 00:13:25.959 --> 00:13:31.879 talk show. So the second thing is the mob. The way, the success of the gospel and the mob is the way 00:13:31.879 --> 00:13:40.480 in which the gospel is blocked out by this noise. And so the third part of this situation is the 00:13:40.480 --> 00:13:48.560 rescue. How is the situation diffused? What a key figure in this is the town clerk. He seems to be 00:13:48.560 --> 00:13:56.399 the one who was able to quieten down this huge crowd and talk down the mob. He starts actually 00:13:56.399 --> 00:14:03.320 by reaffirming all of the beliefs of the crowd. He reaffirms the goddess Artemis, the sacred stone 00:14:03.320 --> 00:14:10.680 and Ephesus as the guardian city of her cult. He's actually not challenging what they believe. But 00:14:10.680 --> 00:14:16.640 he does appeal first of all to the Christians circumspectured. How careful Christians were in 00:14:16.640 --> 00:14:26.240 that situation as they brought the gospel to that culture. He says the Christians are neither 00:14:26.240 --> 00:14:32.440 sacrilegious or blasphemous of our goddess. And I imagine that he would have been right. The 00:14:32.440 --> 00:14:37.120 Christians would have been very careful as they preach the gospel, not to be unnecessarily 00:14:37.120 --> 00:14:44.880 inflammatory, not to offend sensitivities, not to say things that would be unhelpful. The Christians 00:14:44.880 --> 00:14:53.160 had been tolerant and respectful. And that went in their favor. The town clerk also appeals to the 00:14:53.160 --> 00:14:58.920 law. He says that there are legal challenges that can be used, legal channels that can be used, if 00:14:58.919 --> 00:15:04.199 indeed there is any case to be made against the Christians. Otherwise there was a risk that the 00:15:04.199 --> 00:15:12.039 residents of Ephesus would be charged with public disorder. Now as I read these verses, a lot of 00:15:12.039 --> 00:15:18.199 it seems very familiar to the situation in which we live. It's all too easy to offend religious 00:15:18.199 --> 00:15:23.839 sensitivities and national pride. It's all too easy to be on the receiving end of the sort of 00:15:23.840 --> 00:15:31.639 aggression that we can see in this passage. And in this situation it's very important to be able to, 00:15:31.639 --> 00:15:38.639 not only to think about what we're saying, but how we're saying it, to be able to see good in the 00:15:38.639 --> 00:15:45.920 surrounding culture and to use it as a platform for talking about the gospel. And it's also very 00:15:45.920 --> 00:15:53.720 important for Christians to enjoy the protection which God gives through the law. That's a theme 00:15:53.720 --> 00:15:58.800 throughout the book of Acts, that the Christian church was not opposed to the Roman Empire and 00:15:58.800 --> 00:16:05.720 wasn't opposed to the legal order that was in place. And in many occasions the Roman Empire came to 00:16:05.720 --> 00:16:12.879 the rescue of the church against the sort of mob rule that we see here. And so when he said these 00:16:12.879 --> 00:16:20.560 things he dismissed the assembly, the way, the mob and the rescue, the way in which that situation 00:16:20.559 --> 00:16:27.279 was resolved. Now let's think about this a little bit more. What is this all about? It's all about 00:16:27.279 --> 00:16:34.039 how the gospel will clash with whatever is already there, that these vested interests. Now some of 00:16:34.039 --> 00:16:39.879 these vested interests are pretty self-serving. The money to be made from servicing anything from 00:16:39.879 --> 00:16:48.879 religious observance to outright sin. I remember when we visited Turkey I had an opportunity to 00:16:48.879 --> 00:16:58.080 travel to Jerusalem just for 24 hours on the plane. And so all of the tourists in Jerusalem with me 00:16:58.080 --> 00:17:07.000 were Russians and so the tour guide who was Turkish knew his audience. And he said, when you're in 00:17:07.000 --> 00:17:11.920 Turkey you'll have plenty of opportunity to buy some brilliant fur coats that will be useful for 00:17:11.920 --> 00:17:19.000 you in Russia. But why instead of that why don't you buy one of these icons? That will be much 00:17:19.000 --> 00:17:24.480 better for your health and it will bless your whole family. An icon is something that's bought to 00:17:24.480 --> 00:17:32.160 bless you your whole life through. And he was selling these items of religious observance and 00:17:32.160 --> 00:17:40.240 obviously there was a certain self-serving aspect to that. There are more blatant examples, casinos, 00:17:40.240 --> 00:17:46.039 massage parlours, adult internet content, multinational companies supplying anything from 00:17:46.039 --> 00:17:51.880 cigarettes to alcohol. All of these can be vested interests that are threatened by the gospel. I 00:17:51.880 --> 00:17:59.480 think it was C.S. Lewis who said, a man with an addiction has low sales resistance. So there can 00:17:59.480 --> 00:18:05.759 be self-serving vested interests. There can also be religious indignation. A particular culture 00:18:05.759 --> 00:18:11.480 has a set of plausibility structures, things that make sense and are obvious to them even though 00:18:11.480 --> 00:18:19.119 an outsider might just be bemused by these beliefs. But in Ephesus it was Artemis, it was her 00:18:19.119 --> 00:18:24.879 temple, it was the sacred stone that fell from the sky. All of these were self-evident to those 00:18:24.879 --> 00:18:31.400 who believed them. This goddess must be given the Jew veneration she deserves and a great many 00:18:31.400 --> 00:18:38.000 people were being persuaded to withhold their worship from her diverting it to another God. 00:18:38.000 --> 00:18:45.320 And related to this there can be a strong sense of local identity and pride. That's also a vested 00:18:45.320 --> 00:18:52.240 interest. This was Artemis of the Ephesians, of the Ephesians. Although she was venerated in 00:18:52.240 --> 00:19:00.960 other cities this was an instance of national pride, of national identity. Not to worship her is in 00:19:00.960 --> 00:19:07.160 some way disrespectful to the city of Ephesus. It's to be less than patriotic. And all of this is 00:19:07.160 --> 00:19:14.120 summed up in this slogan that they were chanting, great is Artemis of the Ephesians. There can be 00:19:14.120 --> 00:19:20.920 many examples of this sort of phenomenon of these vested interests blocking the Gospel. And sometimes 00:19:20.920 --> 00:19:27.039 they can even be apparently Christian. So how does the Gospel actually threaten and challenge 00:19:27.039 --> 00:19:33.000 these vested interests? Now our passage doesn't say an awful lot but look at verse 26. These are the 00:19:33.000 --> 00:19:42.039 words presumably of Paul or possibly a paraphrase of what Paul said. Gods made with hands are not 00:19:42.039 --> 00:19:50.079 gods. Gods made with hands are not gods. Now this ties into for example what it says in 1 Thessalonians, 00:19:50.079 --> 00:19:56.879 the summary of the Gospel in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 verses 9 and 10. You turned to God from 00:19:56.880 --> 00:20:03.680 idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his Son from heaven whom he raised from the 00:20:03.680 --> 00:20:10.920 dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come. That's Paul's summary of his Gospel to a 00:20:10.920 --> 00:20:19.120 particular audience in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 verses 9 and 10. And so the Gospel isn't actually 00:20:19.120 --> 00:20:25.800 about our spiritual search or our expression of our religious devotion. It isn't about tradition 00:20:25.799 --> 00:20:31.839 and heritage, culture and history. All of these things do have their value and place but it's 00:20:31.839 --> 00:20:39.319 important to recognize that they are subject to God's Word. And whether we physically fashion an 00:20:39.319 --> 00:20:49.000 idol or we imagine the object of our worship to be what we feel he or she or it should be, 00:20:49.000 --> 00:20:56.960 whether we do either of these things, these are not gods. These are not gods. They come from 00:20:56.960 --> 00:21:04.359 inside our own imagination. And in the midst of all this, the Gospel is about the true and living 00:21:04.359 --> 00:21:14.880 God and about his Son Jesus. The Gospel calls us to turn and to wait. The Gospel is about the real 00:21:14.880 --> 00:21:20.160 God, the Creator of the universe, the one to whom we are answerable, the source of all moral 00:21:20.160 --> 00:21:26.960 values and meaning, the one who alone is worthy to be the object of our worship. And the only way 00:21:26.960 --> 00:21:34.280 we can know God is by his Word, by revelation, by him revealing himself to us and by us accepting 00:21:34.280 --> 00:21:42.440 that revelation. And that will cut across our existing values and beliefs, whether they're 00:21:42.440 --> 00:21:48.160 personal to us or whether they're part of our national, historical and cultural heritage. There's 00:21:48.160 --> 00:21:53.720 much that can be reaffirmed. There are many good things in our cultures but there will be aspects 00:21:53.720 --> 00:21:59.039 of our history and our heritage, our beliefs, our practices, our traditions, our customs that will 00:21:59.039 --> 00:22:08.120 be at odds with God's revelation. Gods made with hands are not gods. So what does all this mean 00:22:08.119 --> 00:22:16.839 in practice? I'd like to draw three implications, applications for us, commands. And the first 00:22:16.839 --> 00:22:21.959 of these is simply that we would recognize that there's going to be a clash, there's going to be a 00:22:21.959 --> 00:22:27.319 confrontation, that the encounter between us and God's Word is going to involve us accepting and 00:22:27.319 --> 00:22:34.399 submitting and repenting and changing and turning both for us and for those to whom we bring the 00:22:34.400 --> 00:22:43.000 gospel. It will at times come down to a choice to cling to the greatness of handmade gods or to 00:22:43.000 --> 00:22:51.120 embrace the way. We will in one way or another face that choice. Secondly, the second implication, 00:22:51.120 --> 00:22:57.600 and without denying the first point, is that there are always ways and means of showing respect 00:22:57.599 --> 00:23:05.679 and tolerance and avoiding unnecessary offence. It was Paul's friends in the government who 00:23:05.679 --> 00:23:12.319 prevented him from addressing the mob in the stadium. The Christians had avoided sacrilege 00:23:12.319 --> 00:23:19.679 and blasphemy. And also if we look at what the craftsmen say about Paul's evangelistic technique, 00:23:19.680 --> 00:23:28.880 how is it that Paul got people into the church? And it says that Paul persuaded. And in that word 00:23:28.880 --> 00:23:38.720 is the use of truth, the avoidance of subterfuge or trying to whip up a crowd or gather people 00:23:38.720 --> 00:23:43.880 into the church using all sorts of techniques. Paul simply persuaded. He was confident that the 00:23:43.880 --> 00:23:50.000 truth would be able to win over the hearts and minds of people. And so the second application 00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:55.840 from this passage is for us to always be thinking, how is it I can show more respect? How is it I 00:23:55.840 --> 00:24:01.280 can show more recognition of what is already there whilst recognizing that the gospel will 00:24:01.280 --> 00:24:08.960 clash with these vested interests? And thirdly, there is also legal recourse. Sometimes it will 00:24:08.960 --> 00:24:16.240 involve actively Christians standing up for their rights and being willing to do so also 00:24:16.240 --> 00:24:21.640 through courts of law. But also it's about enjoying the legal protection that we're given by God 00:24:21.640 --> 00:24:29.279 through the state, even through those who are not Christians. The town clerk appealing to common 00:24:29.279 --> 00:24:36.640 sense and the rule of law. These are ways in which God shows his vengeance and uses his defense, 00:24:36.640 --> 00:24:47.320 even when the church is defenseless. So the way, the mob and the rescue, the gospel, God's word, 00:24:47.320 --> 00:24:53.440 his revelation will clash with our preconceived ideas and in part with our religious and cultural 00:24:53.440 --> 00:25:01.480 heritage. It is inevitable. God's made with hands are not God's. But God's word can get through. 00:25:01.480 --> 00:25:07.960 It did get through in Ephesus. This situation was resolved. And what it requires of us is for us 00:25:07.960 --> 00:25:14.720 to recognize the authority of his word, to be respectful and persuasive and to use the legal 00:25:14.720 --> 00:25:22.019 protection that God provides for his people. When he had said these things, he dismissed the 00:25:22.019 --> 00:25:40.119 assembly. Amen. Let's pray together. Our Father, we give you thanks for the Lord Jesus Christ. We 00:25:40.119 --> 00:25:45.119 give you thanks for the gospel and we give you thanks for the spread of the gospel that we see 00:25:45.119 --> 00:25:50.279 beginning in the book of Acts and continuing to our day. Lord, we thank you for the fact that the 00:25:50.279 --> 00:25:55.559 gospel has won our hearts and whether it was through our parents or whether it was through a 00:25:55.559 --> 00:26:02.319 Christian friend or however it was that you brought that gospel to us and we were able to accept it, 00:26:02.319 --> 00:26:10.200 that you have done that in our lives and we've been able to start on this way to follow your 00:26:10.200 --> 00:26:18.279 Son in this world. Lord, we pray that as the gospel encounters the sort of clash that we see in 00:26:18.279 --> 00:26:26.039 this passage that you would help us to be, find guidance from your word, to find confidence in 00:26:26.039 --> 00:26:31.559 your word. We thank you for the resolution of this situation here and many times throughout history 00:26:31.559 --> 00:26:38.399 how these clashes have not been the end of the road for the Christian church. We pray for your 00:26:38.399 --> 00:26:44.440 protection for churches across the world that face opposition similar to what's described in this 00:26:44.440 --> 00:26:51.799 passage. We pray for ourselves as Christians to recognize the reality of this clash and not to be 00:26:53.400 --> 00:26:59.400 overawed by that and to accept it. We pray that you would teach us to be respectful and tolerant 00:26:59.400 --> 00:27:05.400 and persuasive and we pray that we would enjoy that protection that you provide and you also 00:27:05.400 --> 00:27:11.080 provide through the legal institutions and the state. We thank you for all these things and we 00:27:11.079 --> 00:27:16.359 pray for the progress of the gospel in our day in Jesus' name. Amen.