Seven Sons and Seven Sisters (Spurious Christianity) – Acts 19:13-20

This morning, I’d like to build upon the foundation what we laid last Wednesday.

In that message, I tried to explain some of the background behind these eight verses.

We looked at the power and nature of demonism and sorcery,

but we also noticed that even these things brought glory to the Saviour.

We need to settle in our minds that the Lord is going to be glorified in His creation.

It doesn’t matter if we choose to sin against Him or we strive to magnify His name,

He is going to win the glory.

Therefore, we ought to dedicate our body & soul to directly and deliberately honoring & glorifying Him.

This may appear to be a Satan-controlled world,

and the Prince of the power of the air, may have his sway in many areas,

but Jehovah is still God.

Not only does the Lord make the WRATH of man and demon to praise Him, but He forces even the FOOLISHNESS of man to magnify His Name as well.

The reason that I return to this scripture might be summarized in a comment made by an old preacher.

In the course of a message on this text he said,

“These seven sons of Sceva had seven sisters, and all of them are alive and well today.”

That thought forced me to think about this passage allegorically.

What the preacher was suggesting was that this was not an ancient and isolate case.

In one way or another this scripture is being repeated all around us all the time.

And tragically, these verses may be played out even in our own little church.

What we have here is a corrupt form of human religion.

Our world today is filled with religion – 98% of which is contrary to the Bible and doomed to Hell.

And yet, the Lord will be glorified in it.

Let me show you what I mean.

First, these events were TRIGGERED by the GENUINE.

Verse 11 says, “And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul.”

I have no scriptural authority to say this:

But it’s likely that Paul had been used of the Lord to work miracles in many other cities before Ephesus.

But here we are specifically told that from Paul “were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons and the diseases departed from them and the evil spirits went out of them.”

And when Paul laid his hands on some of the people in Ephesus, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they prophesied and spoke in other tongues.

More importantly than this, there were dozens, if not hundreds of people, who were being converted to Christ through Paul’s preaching and ministry.

There were drunkards and addicts who were being instantly changed into sober, responsible people.

There were good-for-nothing, low-life husbands who were becoming loving, supportive, caring spouses.

There were adulterers confessing their sins, repenting before God, and by God’s grace were beginning to live pure and upright lives.

And there were hundreds of Satan worshippers,

who were burning their books of sorcery, who were melting down their silver shrines of the idol Diana,

and who were flocking to the school of Tyrannus to learn more of the one true and living God.

Towards all these positive events there were various kinds of reactions.

The priests of Diana were probably thinking that their lost members would eventually return.

They knew that their kind of religion had been around since the days of Nimrod.

They believed that this “Jesus business” was just a passing fad.

The manufacturers of those silver shrines reacted differently;

they were growing furious as their profits plummeted.

The synagogue of the Jews was in complete confusion, as more and more of their members were beginning to understand what their scriptures had been saying about Christ.

And people like these sons of Sceva, grew envious of Paul and his power over souls and over Satan.

Because God made man in His own Image –

Because man is a tri-part being: body, soul and spirit, there is within man a native longing for the Divine.

Satan was right in thinking that he could corrupt that longing for the Lord, if he could get man to sin.

Adam and Eve went from happily anticipating the visit of the Lord in the cool of the evening,

to a fearful dread of seeing Him once again.

The nature of their religion had drastically changed.

They passed their sin and this fear on to their children,

and today every baby born into this world is a sinner and at heart a rebel against the Lord.

But that native longing for something divine remains in us all.

And this explains all the perversions of the true worship of the Lord.

Not only are sinners constantly finding new ways to cover and corrupt their perverted opinions of God, but even proper worship, over time, often becomes defiled and debauched.

It’s a paradox: man wants religions, but hates the worship of Jehovah.

These sons of Sceva, saw the Lord’s true worship and a godly man’s proper service of Christ.

But rather than joining Paul in bowing before the cross, they devised their own way to corrupt the truth.

It wasn’t that they necessarily thought: “What can we do to corrupt the worship of the Lord.”

They simply did what came naturally to their sin-blackened hearts.

What they did was triggered by the genuine.

They were INTRIGUED by the SPIRITUAL.

Obviously, not everyone is on the same page when it comes to this subject, but there are millions, if not billions of people, who believe in and dabble in the unseen world.

Some of them openly worship Satan or call themselves Wiccans;

Some play with Ouija boards and tarot cards;

Others are drawn to demonic movies and stories, like moths to a flame;

For others, they think that it is opposite as they are fascinated by stories and accounts of angels;

Some do nothing more than read their horoscope every morning in the newspaper;

But all of these people, whether they know it or admit it, are intrigued by the unseen world – the spiritual.

Judy told me on Thursday about a co-worker of hers, whose son was tragically killed a while ago.

The other day a friend of that lady gave her a gift in an effort to comfort and bless her.

It was a $60.00 gift certificate to a seance, so that this grieving mother could talk to her son.

My friends, demonism, Satanism and spiritism pervades our society – all human societies.

Ephesus had long been a hot-bed of superstition and Satanism.

In verse 35, the Ephesian town clerk tried to calm an angry mob with the accurate observation:

“Ye men of Ephesus, what man is there that knoweth not how that the city of the Ephesians is a worshipper of the great goddess Diana, and of the image which fell down from Jupiter?”

I know that it’s not politically correct to say so, but the worship of “the great goddess Diana” was nothing more than bowing before Satan.

The whole panoply of Greek and Roman gods was encouraged by the Devil to keep the people of those nations away from Jehovah.

Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, animism, Mormonism, Catholicism and even Judaism, are nothing but cheap imitations of what Paul was doing there in Ephesus.

Yes, and even atheism and humanism are counterfeits of true religion;

Instead of Jehovah, those confused and sinful people worship themselves.

These sons of Sceva were caught up in the world of the unseen.

They made their day-to-day living either casting out demons or pretending to do so.

They were spiritual cousins of SIMON MAGUS of Acts 8:

“There was a certain man (in Samaria), called Simon, which beforetime in the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one:

To whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, This man is the great power of God.

And to him they had regard, because that of long time he had bewitched them with sorceries.”

The Greek word translated “sorceries” is “mageia” ( mag-i’-ah ).

Simon bedazzled the people of Samaria with his Satanic magic.

I wonder what other gifts that these seven sons of Sceva had to share with the people of Ephesus.

Not only they themselves, but the people who hired them, were fascinated and fearful of the unseen world of spirits and demons.

But rather than sending them to Paul and to the Saviour before Whom all spirits must bow, they went on in their imitation of true.

They were actually worshipping and serving the spirits that they feared.

Much of false religion is FUELED by APPETITE.

By this I mean that the craftsmen of Ephesus were ready to go to war against the Lord Jesus, because through that trade they had their wealth.

Their false religion put food on their tables, and probably even put fancy chariots in their garages.

And it appears that those vagabond Jews made their living by their particular brand of sorceries and by exorcizing demons.

In addition to financial reasons, false religion is fed and encouraged by other kinds of human appetite.

What was the primary reason that the priests of the Jews so hated John the Baptist?

There was nothing that John was preaching or doing which was contrary to the scriptures.

He was preaching the Word of God and pointing out that he was the voice in the wilderness, preparing the way for the coming Messiah.

But what irked the priests back in Jerusalem, was that the common people were listening to John.

They were flocking to the wilderness and gathering at the Jordan to be baptized by the Baptist.

And in the mean time those priests were losing their influence over the people.

Plus John was actually accusing them of sin & religious corruption, just as Jeremiah & Elijah had done.

And then came the Lord Jesus.

Sure the priests eventually charged Christ with blasphemy, because He claimed to be the Son of God.

But once again, their first concern was that people were being converted, and they were losing their control over them

I wouldn’t accuse the High Priests, Caiaphas and Annas, of being greedy for wealth,

although they probably didn’t lack for much,

but they had an appetite for religious power,

And that was what fueled their false religion.

But of course, underlying it all is the lust that Satan has for the office of the Lord.

The Archangel, formerly known as Lucifer, wants to sit upon the throne of God in the side of the north.

He wants to be like God.

It’s his wicked appetite which drives all the false religion of this world.

Of course, one of the primary problems with all this false religion is that

People are UNLEARNED in the TRUTH.

The priests of Jerusalem should have seen to it that the road to the Jordan was paved, with cool-aide and espresso stands every few miles along the way.

What John was preaching was the truth.

And when the Lord Jesus came along, He not only preached the truth, He was, and still is, the Truth.

Like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathaea, instead of opposing Christ, those priests should have embraced Him.

Part of the problem with false religion is that it misses the mark – it misses the point.

Let’s give these seven men the benefit of the doubt,

and say that their only desire was to be a blessing to this demon-possessed man.

Let’s say that they were independently wealthy, and they never charged for their exorcizing services.

Let’s say that they firmly believed that the world would be a better place if demons could be eradicated.

If they could have been 100% successful, but they had nothing more than this to offer, their lives and efforts would have been totally wasted.

But someone says, didn’t Paul and Peter exorcize demons?

Yes they did.

And didn’t the Lord Jesus cast out more demons than all of His Apostles combined? Probably so.

But please recall the scripture that we read earlier from Luke 11:

“When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out.

And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished.

Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first.”

It was never the specific purpose of the Lord Jesus to make this world a better place.

It was not the ministry of Jesus, or Paul, or Peter, to make people better.

Paul was not given the ability merely to heal the sick or to cast out demons.

These things were given to him as signs, to prove to people that he came with the authority of Heaven.

Acts 19 is like a huge suspension bridge with one support out in the middle of bay.

Everything else is supported on these three huge columns.

Verse 11 – “God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul.”

Verse 17 – “The name of the Lord Jesus was magnified.”

And verse 20 – “So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.”

The focus of our lives should be toward the Word of God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Any religion which promotes or condones sin, as most of the Greek religions did, is a false religion.

Any religion which brings Christ down from His lofty height, as does Judaism and Catholicism, is a heretical religion.

Any religion which emphasizes duties and responsibilities which are not outlined in the Word of God is a false religion.

In John 4 the Lord Jesus talked with a woman from Samaria – the same place where Simon the Sorcerer foisted his magic upon superstitious people.

The woman brought up the fact that there were differences between the religion of the Jews and the religion of Samaria.

She said, “Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.

Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.

Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.

But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.

God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things.

Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he.”

This pretty well summarizes what Paul was doing in Ephesus: he was introducing people to the Messiah.

As we pointed out on Wednesday, these sons of Sceva tried to meld the truth into their theological errors.

They tried to use the Lord Jesus like a magic wand;

They tried to use the Name of the Lord as if it was an incantation;

but the Lord would not be used.

“Evil spirit, ‘we adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth’ to come out of this man.”

And of course the demon laughed in their faces.

It was not because Christ has no authority over evil spirits, but because these men had no access to that authority of Christ.

And that is my fifth point: false religion is UNSUPPORTED by divine AUTHORITY.

Verse 13 makes a telling statement:

“Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, TOOK UPON THEM to call over them … the name of the Lord Jesus.”

They TOOK UPON THEMSELVES the authority to do whatever they chose to do.

Another of the critical questions of religion involves authority – or the lack of PROPER authority.

There is only one Being in all the universe with the divine right to regulate human worship.

And He is not IN the universe, but OVER it.

No man has the right to start a church, a religion, a form of worship, or a cult. Period.

No man has the right to blend truth and error.

No man has the right to declare himself God’s vicar on earth.

No man has the right to proscribe or demand this offering or that sacrifice.

Worship is the sole domain of Jehovah, the Creator of Heaven and earth.

Turn to John 10:1 and let’s read down to verse 12.

I would hate to be the wolf when this shepherd catches up to him.

The Lord hates false religion and the hirelings that hawk it.

And that leads me to my last point: False religion is DOOMED by commandment of the LORD.

How smart is the average demon?

Some might say that it would have to be pretty stupid to take sides against the Lord.

But it might be argued that when Lucifer and the demons first rebelled, they hadn’t been around very long.

Now, at least 6,000 years have passed, and they know a little more than they once did.

They have certainly learned that there are some things that they can do and some things that they can’t.

And this particular demon knew that these seven men were powerless against him.

This exorcism was doomed to fail, because no mere man has any power or authority over a demon.

And these men’s spiritual impotence was just the beginning.

In addition to powerlessness before this evil spirit,

whatever their heritage, religion, personal strength or wisdom,

they had nothing with which to please the Lord.

If we don’t come to the Lord on the Lord’s terms, we can’t come before Him at all.

If we don’t serve the Lord according to the direction of His Word, then our service is in vain.

I would hope that these men eventually became aware of their precarious spiritual condition.

They certainly didn’t have anything with which to answer or solve the human problem of sin.

And this the great tragedy about false religion.

It boils down for a false salvation.

It diverts the sinner’s attention from sin – to demons; to addictions, to social problems, to family problems, and to a hundred other things.

And false religion turns sinners’s eyes away from Christ Jesus to a hundred other imitation saviours.

Ephesus needed Christ;

and that demon-possessed man needed Christ,

just as Post Falls, Rathdrum and Spokane need Christ.

If our eyes are drawn to the former virgin Mary instead of Christ, then the Devil’s work has been done.

If our eyes are drawn from the blood-stained cross, to our blood-covered hands then the Devil is pleased.

I’m not saying that people don’t need to be demon-free,

But more important than that is that they need to be born again.

Is salvation your need this morning?

Then look past your sins and look past the demons and take a look at the Lord Jesus Christ.

See him there on the cross, pouring out His life’s blood as an atonement for your sin.

Put your trust in Him and let Him exorcize your demons and your guilt.

Cast aside your sin-corrupted religion.

Repent before God and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.