This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Clark
Wofford, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland,
County of Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Clark as he
continues teaching through God's Word.
They were convicted about the things they were reading, the
things they were studying, and they brought their books
together and they burned them as sight of all.
So all the people in Ephesus, there's a big deal going on
here. People are magnifying the Lord.
People are confessing their sins.
They're bringing all their garbage and they're pouring and
whatever it might be and they're going to burn it.
And it says they counted up the value of them and a total of
50,000 pieces of silver in today's money.
That could be between 1:00 and $5 million.
Imagine a community coming out in the open about all their
deepest secrets and hidden pleasures.
What if people were exposing all the porn they'd been looking at,
or all the books of a sexual nature that some had been
indulging in behind closed doors?
Well, this is what was happening in the city of Ephesus as Pastor
Clark is going to fill you in today.
There was true conviction happening in the hearts of these
people. Guess what, By taking an action
and moving away from sin, God was glorified.
Now here's Pastor Clark in the book of Acts Chapter 19 with
today's edition of Living Waters of Grace.
Paul's in this city that is predominantly Pagan.
There's very few Christians. There's not even a church at
this time. So visualize yourself.
Your friend of Paul, he wants to have some Bible studies.
He rented a facility from a guy that had some real estate that
wasn't using it at certain hours of the day, between 11:00 and
4:00 in the afternoon. And he invited people like us at
the time that were in the community to come and study the
Bible, study the word. Of course, it would have been
primarily the Old Testament Scriptures, but he was writing
letters. So he was using things that the
Holy Spirit had been giving him that were eventually codified in
what we call the day our Bible, 66 Books of the Bible.
So as he's teaching these people that the things of the Spirit,
people like you and me, we're sitting there and we're getting
changed. We're hearing the word.
So all these things are happening and they're learning.
And so they're going out from this Bible study every day.
Can you imagine being in a Bible?
It's one thing to be in a Bible study with me.
I ain't anywhere near Paul. OK, I'm lip syncing what Paul
wrote. This is all what he, you know,
Luke translated this and put it into this book, the book of the
Acts. But these these are the this is
the life of Paul, his ministry. But to be able to sit with an
apostle for six hours a day, five days a week for over almost
three years, he would be really grounded.
You'd really know what the Bible was all about, but not any of
that. They were going out and in the
power of the Holy Spirit. They were impacting the
community and the provinces around the area that Paul was
ministering in at the time and Acts.
So the purpose of the church and in our church to hear is to
explode on the outside so that people that don't know Jesus
begin to hear about him and want to know about him and they end
up maybe coming here to hear more about him.
OK, or or another Bible church, whatever.
And so this is impacting the whole known world at the time
the gospel was going out and the power of the Holy Spirit.
And so Paul, not any was preaching because the gospel in
and of itself is the power of God and the salvation to
everyone that believes, to the Jew 1st and also to the Greek.
So I don't need to have a miracle in front of me before
I'm a Christian to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of
the living God. The Holy Spirit does the miracle
in my heart to cause me to believe the message of the
gospel. And then when I believe that
message, then my life is dramatically transformed.
I'm saved, I become born again. I have new eyesight, I have new
vision, new passion, new desires and my my life is is brand new
and yours is too. When you come to faith in Christ
and that is the miracle of miracles.
You know of someone becoming born again, passing from death
to light, from darkness to light.
And now our followers of God as as opposed to followers of the
devil in his lies. And so not any though the
preaching at the time, but Jews require a sign, it said.
So signs are real important to the Jewish people.
The Greeks seeked after wisdom. Jews seek a sign.
So in order to authenticate the message that Paul is proclaiming
that Jesus is the Messiah to a predominantly Jewish population
at the time these miracles occurred.
And so these handkerchiefs and these weren't like things he was
blowing his nose on. These were sweat bands he put
around his head when he was doing his tent making.
The apron were the made out of leather.
And he used this to put his tools in whenever he was making
his living as he was preaching the gospel and and making tents.
And So what happened was I don't know who came up with the idea.
I know it wouldn't have been Paul.
He wouldn't have said we'll take this and put it on someone sick
and, and they'll be okay and they'll be healed.
No, that wasn't the way it worked.
Somehow the Spirit of God, this ended up getting some of this
stuff out into these different places.
And when it touched the bodies of some of these people, it says
that they were delivered from their sickness.
Diseases left them and, and, and not any of that evil spirits
went out from them automatically just by the touching of this
point of contact of a man who is highly anointed of God.
It wasn't anything in and of Paul.
It was Christ in Paul that enabled this to actually occur.
Now, you don't really read about this in any other part of the
Bible. You have to realize that the
miracles in the Bible started with Moses primarily, and then
they were Elijah and Elijah and then they were Jesus and the
apostles. Those were the three stages of
the ages of miracles in in church history and in the Bible.
There's less than 100 miracles codified or quantified in detail
where we can read and study them tells us and John Jesus did many
other miracles that there wouldn't have been enough books
in the world to contain everything he did.
But God felt that it was necessary to give us enough
indication that he does work within the miraculous realm.
Now today I could RIP part of my sweater off here If you had a
headache and and tell you to put it on your forehead, nothing's
going to happen. These charlatans on TV that sell
these things and tell you to send money in and they prayed
for them and and they soak their sweat in them.
If you send 50 bucks and they'll send you this cloth.
I mean, it's just nothing but con artists and RIP off.
This happened one time and you know, and other times, if you
read church history documents from way back in the early days,
there has been miracles that occurred that there was no
explanation for. People have laid hands on me and
prayed for me. And when I've been sick or
having a problem and I've done the same thing for other people,
and sometimes God shows up and brings healing and other times,
OK, you take the medicine, right?
That's just the way it is. I prefer to get the healing and
not take the medicine. But you know, if I got to take
the medicine, I take the medicine.
And you do too. But there's nothing wrong with
seeking God for a touch supernaturally.
There was a true story and I saw the movie and I read the history
and it was authenticated that this guy, Nectarius was his name
and he was a very godly, monastic kind of guy, praying
all the time, a very holy man, very saintly man.
And Mickey Rourke, the guy played in that movie, that
boxing movie, he played the part of this drunk coal miner that
was living at the time that Nectarius was living on this
particular island. And he somehow, I think he had a
drinking problem and he fell off a Cliff and paralyzed himself.
So he's in bed and he can't move.
And Victarius is in bed with prostate cancer.
And this is what always fascinated me.
Here's Paul. Able to do miracles, right?
People getting healed, delivered.
Paul had a physical affliction, the thorn in the flesh.
He asked God three times to take it from him.
He didn't like RIP off his shirt and put it on his wherever it
was hurting and to say, OK, make it happen.
He had to suffer it. And then the Lord said, hey, I'm
not going to answer the prayer. My strength is made perfect in
your weakness at the power of Christ would rest upon you.
So Paul had to deal with the illness and the affliction that
he had. Everybody's going to die of
something. Even after Lazarus was raised
from a dead miraculously, guess what?
He eventually died physically. We all have to die physically.
But so anyway, this, this nectarious guy, he's laying in
bed and and Mickey Rourke, the actor, he's laying there.
Why would God allow me to have this problem?
I can't move. What good am I going to be to my
wife and my kids? I can't make a living.
He's depressed, he's complaining and nectarious just sort of
laying there in agony and pain. He just smiles as well.
Maybe God will surprise you. That's all he said.
Well, this is wild. So Nectarious dies, they come
in, the nurses are taking the shirt and everything off.
They throw the shirt on the bed to the guy, Mickey Rourke, the
actor laying there in the bed. And within several minutes he's
completely healed and he's able to walk.
His body's restored. Now.
You can't re enact the stuff you you can't figure it out.
I mean, even when Jesus did healing, they were always
different. Sometimes he'd spit on the, the
dirt and get the mud and rub it in someone's eyes or some other
time a woman would touch the hem of his garment.
I, I all I know is that God is able to do the miraculous and we
can pray and ask him to do that. And sometimes we experience
that, but there's no guarantee. There's no man.
You can go to some woman that it's a holy person to ask him to
pray. And just because it's them,
they're going to be able to do something for you.
It's only the Lord, and He does everything after the counsel of
his own will, even the gifts of the Spirit.
He gives them out severally as He wills.
The idea of faith healers is not biblical, but the the idea of
the gift of healing is biblical. But even the people that have
been used by God to pray for people and their health, and
there's been evidence of maybe a higher percentage of people
being healed doesn't mean that everybody's going to get healed.
But anyway, this this instance of this occurring in here was to
get the attention of these Jewish people.
And it did in verse 13, and some of the itinerant Jewish exorcist
took it upon themselves to call in the name of the Lord Jesus
over those who had evil spirits, saying we exercise you by the
Jesus whom Paul preaches. Also there were seven sons of
Skiva, a Jewish chief priest who did so.
So these Jewish people at the time, unbelievers, had some kind
of capacity because they did believe in the God of Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob. So there was some anointing
authority in their lives and I guess they had experiences at
times where they were used and God worked through them to
deliver people from demonic possession or oppression.
But their minds are thinking and they're not even believers yet.
Well, like Paul prays in Jesus name and there's, there's
miracles that occur. So let's try this.
Let's see if it works for us. Well, well, first of all, it's,
it's humorous here. What's going to happen because
these, these sons of the, the Jewish chief priests thought
that maybe they could make some new kind of ministry going on
here. And, and it says in verse 15,
the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus, I know and Paul, I
know, but who are you? Boy, that's scary, huh?
They're in the house with this demonic person, the spirit.
They think they're going to have an overcoming experience here
and these demon demons going to be cast out.
And this is what happens in verse 16.
Then the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them,
overpowered them and prevailed against them so that they fled
out of that house naked and wounded.
Wouldn't that be something? One guy, the strength of this
person possessed by the devil was able to whoop 7 grown
healthy young men and not any beat them up and tear their
clothes off and and have them running out humiliated by what
it was they tried to do. The devil's always trying to
replicate or duplicate the miraculous.
We remember Moses with the rod and throw it down it turns into
a snake. Well, God allowed that to happen
when the magicians were able to replicate certain degrees of
those miracles, right? And so that's because there's a
miracle that occurs, doesn't mean it's the Lord.
The devil comes with lying signs and wonders, a matter of fact,
in the last days when the Antichrist comes on the scene
and the false prophet, they'll be all kind of miraculous.
That will be occurring like we've never, ever experienced.
And there'll be a lot of people thinking that he's the Christ
and he'll be the Antichrist. And so this became known in
verse 17 both to all the Jews and the Greeks dwelling in
Ephesus, and fear fell on all of them.
So we're in Greensburg here. It's in the newspaper.
Channel 4 News is down there interviewing.
We are all aware that something spectacular happened and scary.
And so we know there's problems in Greensburg.
There's demonic activity, there's demonic activity
everywhere. There's satanic powers, there's
a Oak Hall, there's astrology, there's false religion, there's
all these kind of things that are happening in the day and age
that we live. And these are the things that
bind people into immoral lifestyles.
Someone doesn't this one day wake up and say, well, I think
I'm going to, I'm a guy, so I think I want to have some sex
with a guy. I mean, that's that is demonic.
It's not real. It's not, I don't care what any
psychologist or what any kind of secular humanists or what
they're trying to tell us in government now and all these
things, these things are not normal.
Matter of fact, Roman Empire fell because of the this
promiscuity and this increased atmosphere of gay and lesbian
lifestyle and abortion that eventually that nation was
destroyed. And we are this close right now
with testing God with what it is we're doing as a culture and
people saying good is evil and evil is good.
And we as Christians need This is why like we need to get out
of the building, have conversations.
We don't need to condemn people. We don't hate people.
We need to love them enough to tell them, hey, what you're
doing is sin and your sin will cause you to eventually be in
hell. That's the bottom line.
Now, I hope I'm not hurting anybody's feelings here today.
But if you're living in a lifestyle that is not God's will
and, and in his word, you're going to suffer consequences.
You already are. The amount of people who are
taking their lives that have tried this transgenderism and
all this crazy stuff out there, sex changes and all this, it is
unbelievable. You got to do the research, the
statistics, and you know, and it isn't unloving.
It's loving to tell people the truth.
It's unloving to just say, well, it's OK, That's whatever you
want to do, go ahead and do it. And so Paul wasn't that kind of
guy. And nor are we these kind of
people that this ignore these issues of sin today, even in our
own time and our own culture. And So what happened was they're
they're afraid now that the beginning of wisdom is the fear
of the Lord and depart from evil.
That tells us in Proverbs, you're really catching on when
you begin to fear the consequences of your sin.
You don't play around with it anymore.
You don't justify, you don't say, well, that's OK, and
everybody's doing it. No big deal.
It's a big deal. It's a big, big deal.
And So what happened was these people are are are starting to
get frightened. And whenever you have an
encounter with God to such a degree over your sin, and you
know you have one or two choices to make, you either continue in
your sin and you perish, or you get right with God and you
repent and you leave your sin. And this began to cause such a a
move of God's spirit. And the city of Ephesus, it says
that fear fell on them all and the name of the Lord Jesus was
magnified. That's what we need to have
happen today. At the name of Jesus, every knee
will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord to the glory of God the Father.
There is no other name given among men under heaven by which
we can be saved or must be saved.
Jesus is the truth. He's the way, the truth the
life. No man comes to the Father but
through him. And so Jesus was magnified.
He said if he be lifted up, he will draw all men to himself.
Pray for Pastor Lewis and myself that when we preach the Word,
we're preaching the Word with the name Jesus involved in the
Word. Because the Bible without Jesus
is just a bunch of words, but the Bible with Jesus can turn
the world upside down. And this is what was happening
here. Now we'll read.
Many are intimidated now they're fearful.
And many who had believed came confessing and telling their
deeds. Can you imagine Calvary today?
Some of you guys are getting saved.
Hey, I'm not leaving today until I tell you what God's delivered
me from before I came here today, I was sleeping around
with every, every woman I could find or whatever.
I was chasing some guy down the street or some woman says, well,
I'm sleeping with all the different girls out there in the
community, you know, and the Lord convicted me and I couldn't
live that way anymore and I repented.
And I want to tell you guys what Jesus did for me, right?
If you ever have a testimony, let me know.
Because the more we hear what the Lord's done, the more he's
glorified and the more people here they say, well, maybe he
could do that for me. People are trapped in sin.
People don't just decide one day that they want to be immoral.
They start becoming immoral and then they're trapped.
They don't know how to stop being immoral.
And they're they're in bondage and they're under the influence
of the devil and says. And so these people, they're
confessing and telling their deeds.
Also, many of those who had practiced magic brought their
books together and burned them in the sight of all.
Now, I've been a student of all kind of religions my whole life,
and I was into Buddhism for a while and I was into, you know,
reading whatever was esoteric or ocaldic, and I didn't even know
what I was doing at the time. It just fascinated me.
What makes the world go round and why is this happened?
Why is that? And how far is the sky going?
And what's truth? You know, until I came to know
Christ, I had no idea what truth was.
So I have a bunch of books. And there are a lot of them are
in my garage now in a box. This, I don't know.
What am I going to do with them? Maybe we should have a bonfire
this summer somewhere. I'll bring my old books and you
bring yours too, you know. But anyway, this is what was
happening here, right? They were convicted about the
things they were reading, the things they were studying, and
they brought their books together and they burned them.
A sight of all. So all the people in Ephesus,
there's a big deal going on here.
People are magnifying the Lord. People are confessing their
sins. They're bringing all their
garbage and they're porn and whatever it might be, and
they're going to burn it. And it says they counted up the
value of them and a total of 50,000 pieces of silver in the
days money. That could be between 1:00 and
$5,000,000. I read back and that day that
silver was worth about $10,000, which is a lot of money.
It was enough for 150 people to make their livelihood for a
whole year. That's how much was destroyed in
this in this fire. And as a result of that, what
happened? It says the word of the Lord
grew mightily and prevailed. So we have a calm church here
today. Usually I'm a calm pastor
because a lot of you fall asleep when I teach.
Hey, so you have a very nice voice.
You know what a day my voice is a little bit more, you know,
whatever you know, I don't know, but you know, you're not falling
asleep today as much as you normally do.
It's not that the message is any better, but the the text is
better because we're reading about the Lord being magnified
and and so as a result of the word, the message in the gospel
is growing mightily. It's prevailing in the world.
It's prevailing in the community.
I find that as the Lord move in a small Pagan city, Ephesus at
the time, with 95% and 98% of the people being unbelievers,
all the sudden this one guy with some friends, the whole city is
being turned upside down. So you and I might say, well,
we're in a hopeless situation. We got a Pagan government, we
got legislators or you know, sanctioning immorality.
We, you know, they, they're doing this, they're doing, who
cares what they do? We need to be doing what we're
supposed to do. And if we do what we're supposed
to do, we're not like bad mouthing people and putting them
down or judging them. I mean, I'm no better than
anybody else, but I know someone who's better than all of us.
And his names Jesus. And he can save you from your
sin. You got to repent.
You got to turn. You got to turn to Jesus.
And So what happens is when a city begins to do that and a
community begins to do that, then all of a sudden we are salt
and light. You know, we begin to impact and
counter balance or counter attack all this movement toward
this godless world. Like I think the problem with
the church and Christians in general was we don't think we
can do anything anymore. So we don't vote, or we don't
witness, or we don't pray, or we don't intercede.
There's all these options in the Bible of things that we can do
as God's people that can begin to turn things the other way.
And throughout the ages of time, God's work with the remnant of
people who have been open to the Spirit of God that he could work
in to turn things in a different direction again.
And if we were ever at a point in our time and our history and
our nation and our own lives and in our own churches as
evangelicals, we need this movement of God.
We need this freshness of God's Spirit.
We need people to be raised up in the church with ministries
and giftings and callings and abilities to let it all out and
give it all for Jesus now. Amen.
I mean, what are we waiting for? Thanks for joining us on this
journey through Acts. On today's edition of Living
Waters of Grace, Pastor Clark shares that one of the most
remarkable things about the book of Acts is how it shows the
disciples transformation. The followers of Jesus we meet
here are very different from the often confused and fearful
disciples in the Gospels. After Jesus's death and
resurrection, and especially through the power of the Holy
Spirit, the apostles experienced a profound change in their
hearts and boldness. Their faith became unwavering,
and they moved forward with courage to spread the gospel
despite opposition and hardship. Acts reminds us that the same
Spirit who empowered them is at work in US today, shaping our
hearts and giving us strength to live boldly for Christ.
Living Waters of Grace is a ministry of Calvary Chapel
Westmoreland. If you're in the Greensburg, PA
area, we invite you to join us this Sunday at 10:30 AM at 400 E
Pittsburgh St. Unit 6B.
Visit calvarychapelonline.com For more information where you
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We're so grateful that you joined us today in Acts.
TuneIn again soon for another edition of Living Waters of
Grace.