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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Jonathan Zirkle

Jesus Who?

Dear Lord, I ask that you would send your Holy Spirit to be with us today.

Lord, please set me aside and speak through me.

Lord, I pray that we will be impressed with the plan of salvation that you have for us.

The title of my sermon this morning is Jesus Who?

Turn, if you will, with Turn, if you will, with me to Acts 19.

It's 1 that, I don't know, just sort of caught my attention.

Acts 19, and we're going to start in verse 13.

And it says this, just so you know where this is at, I believe that this is in Ephesus, And it says this, Paul preacheth.

And there were 7 sons and 1 Siva, a Jew, and a chief of the priests, which did also.

And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know and Paul I know, But who are ye?

And the man in whom the evil spirit was leapt on them and overcame them and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.

Obviously there's something going on here, something's not right.

These Jewish exorcists, they're not, they're not somehow connected to Christ.

There's another passage, let's see that this is a real problem and it's not a problem just with these Jewish vagabonds.

If you turn to Matthew 7 and we'll look at verse 21.

Christ is talking about what will happen at the end.

And He says, Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.

But he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name?

And in thy name have cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works.

And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you.

Depart from me, you workers of iniquity." So this is a problem with the Jewish vagabonds, but this is a problem obviously throughout time, because it says many, many will come and they will have used the name of Jesus, but Jesus will tell them depart from me, I never knew you.

Let's think back to what was happening with those Jewish vagabonds.

You know when I thought about that, Paul had just been there.

He was in the area and you think about Paul, what nationality was he?

And let me see, he was like traveling around with what, a lot of stuff?

Was this guy a wealthy guy, lived in a big fancy house?

Look at that same chapter, Acts 19, and we're gonna look at just a couple verses before this.

And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul, so that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them." Wow, I mean that's some power.

I mean isn't Paul doing the same thing, And he really looks the same.

Well, it's good to continue on and finish reading the story and we'll be able to tell directly from the story.

Remember we've just had the vagabonds there.

But look at the effect that this has upon the people there.

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.

When it didn't work, it was still the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified.

It says this, "...and many that believed came and confessed and showed their deeds.

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 50000 pieces of silver.

So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed." And that's the key I believe to knowing what's going on and what's the difference between Paul the vagabond and these Jews.

Because they came and they gave up these books.

These are people that knew curious arts and they burned their books.

You know, spiritualism goes back to the very beginning.

It goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden.

You can recall Eve talking to the serpent, and we won't take the time to go there because we know it so well, but in Genesis 3 verse 4 it says, And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die.

This is the kernel of spiritualism, and it starts from day 1 in the Garden of Eden.

This lie has continued on from the very beginning and it continues on today.

It continues on because there's a theology behind it and that theology is a theology of dualism.

And what it says is that there's a body and an immortal soul.

And we know that that is not true, that is a lie, but it's this dualism that's very interesting and it has effect upon the way we all think, and we'll be talking about that as we continue.

Spiritualism plays a role all the way to the very end, actually to the days we're living in today.

Turn with me in your Bible to Revelation 16.

I hope you brought your Bible, I'm going to be going through a lot of texts today.

If you go to Revelation 16, there's a really interesting passage here.

Looking, starting with verses, we'll just look at verse 13 and 14.

And I saw 3 unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet.

Well, I hope you're all good students of prophecy because I'm not going to take the time to explain all of this, but you have the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet.

And hopefully, you all know what they represent.

Paganism, the papal system, false Protestantism.

And you look what comes out of their mouth is the frog.

They all have the same thing come out of their mouth.

And look here, 14, for they are the spirits of devils.

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Jesus Who?

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