32The assembly was in confusion: Some were shouting one thing, some another. Most of the people did not even know why they were there. 33The Jews pushed Alexander to the front, and some of the crowd shouted instructions to him. He motioned for silence in order to make a defense before the people. 34But when they realized he was a Jew, they all shouted in unison for about two hours: “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”
35The city clerk quieted the crowd and said: “Men of Ephesus, doesn’t all the world know that the city of Ephesus is the guardian of the temple of the great Artemis and of her image, which fell from heaven? 36Therefore, since these facts are undeniable, you ought to be quiet and not do anything rash. 37You have brought these men here, though they have neither robbed temples nor blasphemed our goddess. 38If, then, Demetrius and his fellow craftsmen have a grievance against anybody, the courts are open and there are proconsuls. They can press charges. 39If there is anything further you want to bring up, it must be settled in a legal assembly. 40As it is, we are in danger of being charged with rioting because of today’s events. In that case we would not be able to account for this commotion, since there is no reason for it.” 41After he had said this, he dismissed the assembly. (Acts 19:23-41)
Before I go on, as I do a lot of the time (maybe most of the time), I’m going to review what led up to today’s passage; in this case, the first half of chapter 19.
At the beginning of chapter 19, the apostle Paul arrived back in Ephesus where he had already preached briefly in the synagogue and had promised to return if the Lord was willing. When he arrived, he found a few disciples. They apparently were believers in Jesus but had not heard of the Holy Spirit. Paul baptized them into the name of Jesus and put his hands on them and they began to prophesy and to speak in tongues, things that are done by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Then Paul taught and preached in the synagogue about the kingdom of God for a period of three months. He taught and preached until some of them began to oppose him. Then he began to teach in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. He continued teaching for a period of two years. As a result, all the people, both Jews and Greeks, in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord (and as today’s passage says, this eventually resulted in the riot in Ephesus).
God did many miracles, healings and deliverance from demons, through Paul. But when some Jewish exorcists, the seven sons of Sceva, tried casting out one demon from one man in the name of Jesus who Paul preached, all seven of them got severely beaten. The result was that fear spread throughout Ephesus and the name of Jesus was held in high respect. Many people repented and a number who had been practicing sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them. The scrolls were estimated to be worth around four million dollars. So now that your minds are refreshed, let’s go on to today’s passage.
The first verse of today’s passage, verse 23, says, “About that time there arose a great disturbance about the Way.” The disturbance, the riot, was about the Way. What is the Way? The Way is obviously Christianity—the Christian religion. The term ‘the Way’ is used to refer to the Christian religion throughout Acts. I don’t think we’ve talked about the significance of that name before. (At least I don’t think I have. Maybe Tom has.) But I’m going to say something about it now.
The first place the term ‘the Way’ is used in Acts is at the beginning of chapter 9: “Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem.” (Acts 9:1, 2) The Saul referred to in this verse is, of course, the apostle Paul. By the time Paul got to Damascus where he had been going to persecute those who belonged to the Way, he had met Jesus and had become blind. And, as it turned out, he was the one whom Jesus had chosen to take the Way to the Gentiles.
Why did God call what we refer to as the Christian religion or Christianity, ‘the Way’? The word translated way means road or path and in this case refers to a way of life. Do you remember that Priscilla and Aquila invited Apollos home with them and taught him the way of God more adequately? (Acts 18:26) It’s the same word. ‘The Way’ is the way of God. The Way is not just a religion in the sense of something you practice—a certain ritual, maybe—at certain times and that has no effect on what you do the rest of the time. It’s the way you live your entire life.
Jesus said, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Matt. 7:13, 14) The road is the way. It’s the same word. It’s the way of life, the way that leads to life. Broad is the way that leads to destruction. Narrow is the way that leads to life!
We sing the hymn “The Way of the Cross Leads Home”. The first line says, “I must needs go home by the way of the cross. There’s no other way but this.” Jesus says, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.” (Luke 9:23 –I think I quoted that last week, but we need to have “the way of the cross” in our minds and hearts continually.) The “What would Jesus do?” question of a few years back is something we need to ask ourselves about every activity we are thinking of engaging in, about every decision we make, both small and big. We need to live “What would Jesus do?” lives. (And by the way, what are you planning for this afternoon and evening? What would Jesus do?)
Finally, Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) The way to eternal life is through Jesus! Are we following the Way or are we just following a religious traditions? Are we following Jesus?
Well, the great disturbance that erupted in Ephesus was because of the Way. The Way is pretty radical.
Let’s look at verses 24 through 27 again. I’ll read them:
24A silversmith named Demetrius, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought in no little business for the craftsmen. 25He called them together, along with the workmen in related trades, and said: “Men, you know we receive a good income from this business. 26And you see and hear how this fellow Paul has convinced and led astray large numbers of people here in Ephesus and in practically the whole province of Asia. He says that man-made gods are no gods at all. 27There is danger not only that our trade will lose its good name, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be discredited, and the goddess herself, who is worshiped throughout the province of Asia and the world, will be robbed of her divine majesty.” (Acts 19:24-27)
A certain silversmith name Demetrius was concerned about the Way because he saw that it was starting to cut into his profits and the profits of the other silversmiths and people who made items connected to the worship of Artemis, a pagan goddess.
The temple of Artemis, according to what I have read, was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was a real tourist attraction in Ephesus. If people stopped worshipping Artemis, business in general would suffer in Ephesus. Demetrius who was presumably a leader among the silversmiths called a meeting to discuss the problem.
Demetrius was first of all concerned that their source of much profit would disappear. And I suspect that, really, he was not concerned that Artemis would not be pleased to lose her position of respect, but that Ephesus would lose its ability to attract people from all over the province of Asia. So, what can we learn and how does this passage apply to us in this day and age?
Well, first of all, these people were making a business out of a religion. (I’ve heard L. Ron Hubbard, who founded the Scientology religion, quoted many times as having said, “If you want to get rich, start a religion.” I don’t know whether he really said that or not, but I’ve heard that the Scientology organization takes in lots of money.) The worship of Atemis and Scientology are false religions. But in Jesus’s day, the vendors and money changers at the temple in Jerusalem made a pretty good profit providing sacrifices for people to offer to the true and living God. (And I’ve also read somewhere that the animals that people bought to be sacrificed didn’t actually get sacrificed but were returned to the vendors to be sold again to someone else.)
One of the goals of Christian churches and organization these days is to ‘grow’. I get sales pitches for various ‘resources’ that will help me “grow my church”. Well, it’s certainly valid to want the gospel to spread. We are commanded to spread the gospel. But while we plant and we water and it’s God who makes it grow. (1 Cor. 3:5) All these salesmen make it sound like a business and I don’t like it. I doubt that Jesus likes it either. (And I’m not suggesting that we don’t make use of any of the resources. It’s just the sales approach that sounds ungodly. Churches and Christian organizations shouldn’t sound like businesses. The apostle Paul went to great lengths to make sure that, although there was nothing wrong with being supported financially while doing Christian work, he was not making a business of preaching the gospel.)
What else can we learn from verses 24 through 27? Demetrius said that Artemis would be robbed of her divine majesty. Well, probably it was her ‘divine majesty’ that resulted in profits for the silversmiths and related workers. Her divine majesty, in fact, was the divine majesty of the statue that was supposed to represent the goddess herself.
But, here’s something I do know—something that I know for sure. There is nothing that can rob our God, the God whose way we follow of his divine majesty. His divine majesty is far, far above the divine majesty of any statue that men have made. He made the heavens and the earth and everything in them. “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being.” (Act 17:24-28a)
Now let’s look at verses 28 through 31:
28When they heard this, they were furious and began shouting: “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” 29Soon the whole city was in an uproar. The people seized Gaius and Aristarchus, Paul’s traveling companions from Macedonia, and rushed as one man into the theater. 30Paul wanted to appear before the crowd, but the disciples would not let him. 31Even some of the officials of the province, friends of Paul, sent him a message begging him not to venture into the theater. (Acts 19:28-31)
From this point on the reaction was not rational. The disturbance spread from the silversmiths and craftsmen to the entire city.
The theater where they rushed Paul’s traveling companions Gaius and Aristarchus was almost certainly an outdoor amphitheater, not a closed building like we are used to thinking of. Luke doesn’t tell us about it here in Acts, but at some point Paul says that he fought wild beasts in Ephesus. (1 Cor. 15:32) That may be what they had in mind for Gaius and Aristarchus—to make them fight wild beasts. Paul wanted to go and speak to the crowd, himself, but was dissuaded. He probably would have been killed. Even some of the province officials told him not to go. (There are times when we are called by God to be bold in the face of danger—maybe even to give up out lives—because that’s God’s will. But it’s not God’s will for us to test him by doing something dangerous that he has not called us to do. In that case it would be foolish. Pride leads to bad decisions like that.
Let’s look at verses 32 through 34:
32The assembly was in confusion: Some were shouting one thing, some another. Most of the people did not even know why they were there. 33The Jews pushed Alexander to the front, and some of the crowd shouted instructions to him. He motioned for silence in order to make a defense before the people. 34But when they realized he was a Jew, they all shouted in unison for about two hours: “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” (Acts 19:32-34)
They were in confusion. They were all shouting. Most of the people did not even know why they were there! And they wound up shouting, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” for two hours. What would cause such a thing? What if I told you to shout “Great are the Ohio State Buckeyes” for two hours? Would you do it? Would you even be able to do it?! What causes these kinds of things? What causes mob reactions?
I can tell you that it is not God. God is not a God of disorder, but of peace. (1 Cor. 14:33) But Satan is the god of disorder. He’s the god of every kind of strife and contention and trouble. He is a liar and a murderer. His goal is destruction of all that God has created. These people were not worshippers of God but of Artemis, a pagan goddess.
Idols are nothing, the apostle Paul says, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God. (1 Cor. 10:19, 29) Behind the idols that pagans worship, are demons. The Ephesians were worshipping demons! Satan causes these kinds of mob reactions and violence. (I said a while ago that the God of creation doesn’t need anyone to defend him. The Muslims say that they worship the God of creation. But I’ve noticed that—and I’m not saying that all Muslims are violent—most of them don’t seem to be—but it seems to be that frequently, when someone says something insulting about Islam or about their prophet Mohamed, a fatwa is issued calling for the death of that person. The true God of creation doesn’t need anyone to punish those who reject him!)
Demons are real and pagan worship is dangerous and destructive. The sorcerers figured that out in last weeks part of chapter 19. They burned four million dollars worth of scrolls to get rid of them from the face of the earth! They could have sold them, but apparently didn’t want to pass off the evil on someone else, so they chose to destroy them.
I have a daughter-in-law that many years ago became interested in some sort of New Age type of teaching. She bought some books by a particular author, I can’t remember who. It seemed to her to be innocent enough and she thought it would be neat to have a ‘spirit guide’. But one day she was pinned to the floor by some entity sitting on her. When she was released, she got up, gathered up the books and threw them in the dumpster. I really believed God rescued her from destruction. All these occult things are very dangerous.
Demetrius and his friends made money from people’s superstition. Psychics make money from superstition. Psychics used to represent themselves as having some inherent supernatural power to gain knowledge about the future and about hidden things. Now a lot of them just say that they have spirits that tell them what to say. Many are probably just frauds. But in any case, it’s not from God. It’s evil.
When my mother was young, she went to a fortune teller with a friend. She said that it was just a lark. But she struggled with what the fortune teller told her most of her life. I really think that a demon was attacking her from time to time. When she was old, she finally said, “Well, I guess the fortune teller was wrong.” I think after that she was free.
I know of another woman who, when she was considering divorce, was advised by her mother to consult a psychic. Her husband told her that that would be crazy. (I thought, “God says he hates divorce. Why would you go to the devil for advice on whether to divorce or not?”) She went to the psychic anyway. I don’t remember all the psychic told her. I think some of it was negative about her husband. But part of it was that she would divorce and would remarry, and that she would have a son in five years. She did divorce and did remarry, but she had a daughter. (Two out of three’s not bad? According to the Law of Moses, the Psychic should have been stoned.)
Now let’s look at verses 35 through 41:
35The city clerk quieted the crowd and said: “Men of Ephesus, doesn’t all the world know that the city of Ephesus is the guardian of the temple of the great Artemis and of her image, which fell from heaven? 36Therefore, since these facts are undeniable, you ought to be quiet and not do anything rash. 37You have brought these men here, though they have neither robbed temples nor blasphemed our goddess. 38If, then, Demetrius and his fellow craftsmen have a grievance against anybody, the courts are open and there are proconsuls. They can press charges. 39If there is anything further you want to bring up, it must be settled in a legal assembly. 40As it is, we are in danger of being charged with rioting because of today’s events. In that case we would not be able to account for this commotion, since there is no reason for it.” 41After he had said this, he dismissed the assembly. (Acts 19:35-41)
The city clerk reasoned with the crowd (the crowd that had been shouting, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians,” for two hours) and they quieted down. Then he told them to go home and they went home. Maybe they had just worn themselves out. But I really suspect that the power of God’s Holy Spirit was at work here and that he broke Satan’s grip on this mob and rescued them for the sake of the Christians.
So, watch out for the devil. Beware of innocent sounding idea’s that sound like they are promising something that is physically impossible. (There used to be an ad on WRFD, a Christian radio station, that promised that you could be taught to read at least 25,000 words per minute and maybe much faster by just scanning a book down the space between each pair of pages. You would be able to read a book in five minutes or less and recall everything you had read years later. It was called “photo-reading”. Before you started to learn, you had to do a little transcendental meditation.)
Speaking of Christian radio stations (this is a side topic), there was a bill in congress that would have effectively shut down all Christian radio stations. It failed, but is likely to pass next year. The bill was an attempt to establish what’s called “the fairness doctrine” as law. If you think congress would never outlaw Christian broadcasting, think again. Thirty years ago the fairness doctrine was in effect and had been in effect for many years. It was not a law but an FCC regulation. It required that, in any controversial question, radio stations had to give equal time to both sides of the issue. It would not have been possible for radio stations to give equal time to Christian broadcasting and to, for example, the atheists or to anyone else wanted to oppose Christian teaching. So there was no Christian broadcasting. If you wanted your Sunday church service to be broadcast, you had to pay for it as you would have had to pay for an ad. So when this bill comes up again, let your congressman know. (They were going to outlaw home-schooling in the ‘90’s, but when everybody called in, they dropped the matter. The issue was publicized on Christian radio, by the way.)
Well, in conclusion, it may look like the devil is winning, but Jesus has the ultimate victory. God is almighty.
13For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
15He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. (Colossians 1:13-20)
Praise the Lord. Amen!
[prayer]