Why Did The Ephesians Burn Their Books?

Tom:

This is our Understanding the Scriptures segment, and Dave, I think it’s helpful to talk about all the things that we do, and some segments are maybe not interesting to our listeners and viewers out there as others but, hopefully, this is what we are about, understanding the scriptures, an currently going through the Book of Acts.We are in Acts Chapter 19, and we will pick up with Verse 17:“And this was known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified.And many that believed came, and confessed, and showed their deeds.”

Dave:

Well, Tom, “known to all the Jews and Greeks in Ephesus” well, they must have had a good communication system and the word spread, I don’t know how large Ephesus was at that time, quite a few thousand people, but this was an amazing thing that had happened.Somebody—these seven sons had gone in to try to cast out a demon in the name of Jesus whom Paul preaches, and the demon said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you guys, and just beat them up until they ran from him.Now I guess that news spread, it was a bit frightening.It put a little bit of the fear and solemnity in them that we’ve been saying is missing from the church today.But Tom, there is something—well, Tom, as you read Verse 18, “many that believed came and confessed, and showed their deeds.”So, there was a—back to the question wehad—there was some real repentance on the part of these people.There was conviction, this wasn’t just—believe on Jesus, He’ll do a lot for you, but they recognized that, and particularly this area of magic, and that was what these seven sons of Sceva, they were trying to use the name of Jesus with some kind of an “open sesame” or magic.

Tom:

Incantation.

Dave:

Right, and it doesn’t work, and that caused these people to realize, wait a minute, we’ve got all these books and all these formulas and we’ve been trying to do all this stuff, and that’s not going to work with God.And so, many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together and burned them before all men, and they counted the price of them and found it 50 thousand pieces of silver.You know, that’s practicing what you preach, that is real conviction Tom, because this is valuable stuff, they could have sold this.

Tom:

And Dave, it didn’t happen beforehand.Some people think, Oh, in order to come to Christ you need to really clean up your act, get yourself squared away, you know, do all these things.Once you are under the conviction of sin, and you become born again of the Spirit, this is your heart, these are the kinds of things that you do.You may not do them immediately, but as you grow in the faith, the Lord removes some things from your life, He changes your heart that way.

Dave:

Amen, and Tom, this is so contrary to what is happening today.You talk about the emerging church, they are burning candles, they are praying through icons, this is a form of magic.These people didn’t have to be told twice.The Spirit of God—see, that really bothers me about this whole movement, Tom.There seems to be no discernment, no understanding and no conviction of the Holy Spirit.These are brand new converts, and they immediately know.Wait a minute! You don’t come to God through some formula or through some object focusing on some object, this is something entirely different.This is through Jesus Christ who paid the penalty for our sins, and we have access through Him to God.You don’t need all this other paraphernalia. In fact it is all demonic, it’s wicked, it’s turning people away from Christ!

Tom:

It’s divination, Dave, and it’s condemned throughout the scriptures.

Dave:

And these people understood that immediately.

Tom:

Dave, I want to back up just a little.You know, in Verse 16, we go back to these sons of Sceva, and some people, reading through the Bible, they don’t believe in the reality of demons.These are devils, these are fallen angels, like it’s some kind of an evil, non-physical, but it’s just an attitude out there, or it’s certainly not individual entities or beings. What does it say?And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them and overcame them and prevailed against them.So, it wasn’t just as individuals, these were the demons working themselves through this individual.

Dave:

Tom, it’s like the man in the gospels had his legion of demons, remember?Jesus said:Tell me your name.Ourname is, legion, we are many.Not this guy—you couldn’t bind him with anything, fetters of iron, and he broke them.He wasn’t into body building, this wasn’t muscles, this guy may have been—this demon-possessed man may have been rather small, thin, who knows?It doesn’t say it was because of his stature or his muscular ability, how does he do this?This is demonic power, and it’s not the muscles of the guy, but it’s something, a power that is operating through this demon possessed man.

Tom:

Dave, I can remember back in the 70’s, late 60’s, early 70’s, the hallucinogenic drug was Angel Dust.

Dave:

Wow!

Tom:

You had reports from police, a little, puny guy, and they couldn’t handle him. They got six guys on him, they just could not handle.This has got to be demonic.

Dave:

Well, Tom, Sirhan Sirhan, you remember, who shot Robert F. Kennedy, and who by automatic writing wrote in his diary, RFK must die, must die, and they wrote a book by that name.I remember Rayford Johnson and Rosie Greer, a couple of big athletes, very strong guys who were the bodyguards of Kennedy at that time, and I remember—I think it was Rosie Greer who told me, We couldn’t handle this guy, and he was very small, obviously it was demonic.They said the look in his eyes, he was spaced out like he almost didn’t know what he was doing but he was doing it in response to a demonic command that he had been, by automatic writing, putting in his diary, which the police found, of course, afterwards in his room.He had been into magic, practicing it, mind power, and he came under the power of demons.Tom, that didn’t get into the papers, it took an investigative reporter to bring that out.

Tom:

But it’s a reality, Dave, as the scriptures testify, that’s my point here.We can say whatever we want, I mean, we can look at things that take place and we speculate about them certainly, but this is the Word of God, there is no speculation here.

Dave:

So I love the next verse, Verse 20:“So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.”The Word of God, that’s what it’s is all about, this is our authority, this is what we follow, this is what we feed upon.And getting back to psychotherapy. If people in the church, whatever their problems were, would follow that, feed on the Word of God and let the living Word of God, who is Jesus Christ, live His life through them, then they wouldn’t have these problems. And they wouldn’t be looking for help from secular sources, or a blending of the Bible in secular psychology.