Witness to God's working

I Timothy 3: [15] But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.

Our task is to be the pillar and ground of the truth. I want you to understand that’s what we’re about. That’s what this pulpit’s been about since actually 1890. Do you realize this pulpit was put in our church building in Chicago in 1900, reminded Richard Jordan in his Sunday morning sermon.

The issue involved here is the truth of God’s Word being stood for and proclaimed. Shorewood rests on a foundation laid by the Apostle Paul.

The foundation and the structure of this building is not the church. The church is the saints; the people in the building. This building was originally built as a restaurant. The name of it was Chez Paul, meaning the house of Paul.

It got converted into a communications outfit, Lighthouse, where they were involved in media and spreading advertising around. Then we bought it and turned it back into a house of Paul, designed to be a lighthouse and spread the media, the Word around. So the building’s kind of gone full circle.

I had some friends who bought a dance hall and a saloon and turned it into a grace church. They told me that two years after they started the church they were still having people show up thinking it was the saloon. They actually started having Saturday night Bible study so people would come on Saturday night and wonder what was going on.

The building isn’t the issue; the issue is the people and the work of the ministry is to be the pillar and the ground of the truth.

A pillar holds something up; makes it solid. The ground gives stability under your feet so that’s it not tossed to and fro. The purpose of the local church in a community is to say that here's the living God, not the dead God . . .

The first thing you learn when you study Ephesians is that there was a great church at Ephesus; a universal religious system. “Great is Diana of Ephesus.” The queen of heaven, worshipped worldwide with all kind of religious artifacts, religious systems.

Timothy is at Ephesus when Paul writes him and says, “There’s that dead church out there. The church of a dead god, but you’re the church of the living God, the reality of life in Christ Jesus.” And you’re to uphold and put on display, and undergird, the truth as opposed to the lie program propagated by the world and the false religious system.

So, the No. 1 purpose of a local church is to be a local manifestation in a particular geographic area of the body of Christ; of the life of the church, the body of Christ, and it works together toward that end.

There’s God’s working and then there’s our witness to it.

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You can’t learn about what happened at Ephesus by looking at the Book of the Ephesians. Because things happened at Ephesus before Paul wrote the book.

I Timothy 1:3, for example, says, “As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine.”

Notice Timothy is in Ephesus ministering when he writes I Timothy. So, I Timothy is really written to Timothy about how to organize and make a local church function, but what local church is he specifically talking about? The church at Ephesus.

The purpose of the local church is to hold up the truth and to say, "It’s still here! It’s available! Here it is! Here’s the message of life and peace and forgiveness and joy and fulfillment and heaven and here’s the life of stability in Christ and here’s how that life functions and lives in you."

You notice how Paul says it? "The church of the living God." At Ephesus there was another church that was the opposite. Ephesus has been described as one of the three great cities of the Roman world. Rome was the great political, military center of the ancient world in Paul’s day.

Alexandria, Egypt, over in North Africa, was the cultural, educational center of the world. The great library of Alexandria—it was one of the seven wonders of the world.

On the road across Asia Minor into Europe set Ephesus. It was a capital of Ionia. It was on the western coast and it was sort of like Chicago.

It was a commercial crossroads. Not of the Midwest, but of that era, and it was an extremely important commercial center. It wasn’t but just a little ways from Corinth, which was south down in Greece.

Ephesus was also a religious center. In fact, you could say it was THE religious center of that era, for in Ephesus there was this Great Temple of Diana. It’s listed as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was sort of the Taj Mahal of the day.

It was a mega-church before there were mega-churches and it was a religious icon of the ancient world. It was into that city that Paul first ventured on his second apostolic ministry in Acts 18. He took Priscilla and Aquila with him. He left them and that’s when Apollos came along and they bring him into the way of grace more up to date.

Then Paul returned to Ephesus after he’d been in the churches of Galatia ministering, and in Acts 19:8 it says, "And he went into the synagogue and spake boldly for the space of three months, disputing and persuading the things concerning the kingdom of God."

That’s a fascinating passage. For three months, he goes into the synagogue and he disputes. Now, that’s Paul’s pattern in the Book of Acts. Notice here there’s a lot of things Paul’s doing that aren’t recorded in the Book of Acts.

The purpose of the Book of Acts it to tell you about the fall of Israel and God’s rightness in turning to the Gentiles through Paul’s ministry. He goes away from them, leaves them, and you see the public condemnation, as it were, of Israel’s rejection of Christ.

Over that two-year period where Paul separates himself and is preaching, "All they that are in Asia heard the word." Now, if all those in Asia heard, did they all come to Ephesus? They didn’t have TV, telephone, internet or radio. How in the world did he get it all over to Asia Minor?! That’s Turkey! How did you get it over there from Ephesus?!

He taught them. He’s in the school of Tyrannus, having public meetings. Acts 20:34 says, "Yea, ye yourselves know, that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me."

You know what Paul’s saying? He says, "When I was there, I worked and made
my own living!" He’s a tent maker. Run back up to verse 20. So, he had public meetings in the school of Tyrannus (Acts 19). But also, he ran around and had house meetings. There’s this daily house ministry where he’s out teaching and preaching God’s word.

Verse 19 says, "And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have shewed you, and have taught you publickly, and from house to house."

There was a continuous opposition, by the way. If you want to read a strange passage, go to I Cor. 15:31-32: "I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily. If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for to morrow we die."

A beast could be a beast; the Romans did that. You know, put them in the den with the lions. But also, "beast" in the Bible can refer to men; people who are driven by their animal passions. There were people who didn’t like what Paul was preaching and went after them, and he had to contend with them and they were like ravenous beasts trying to consume him and destroy him.

That’s why when you go back to chapter 19, you read a verse like 23 ("And the same time there arose no small stir about that way") and you say, "Well, I can kind of understand that." He got the whole community fired up!

In fact, if you start in verse 11, it says, [11] And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul: [12] 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.

Man, you talk about a guy who’s got some power! I mean he just pulls a hanky out and goes ‘Whirr,’ and the diseases go! You got whackos on TV trying to do that right now, you know. You know what this was? This worked!

It gets more pointed in Acts 19:13: "Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth."

What’s the condition of Israel? Paul left them in the synagogue, went out to the Gentiles. What’s the condition of the people he’s abandoned? Here’s a picture of what Israel had become because of their rejection of Christ.

“Jesus we know, Paul we know, but who you, boy?!" They’re vagabond Jews. That’s who Israel becomes. Apostate Israel was just wandering homelessly with no land of their own. Vagabonds. They HAD a Promised Land, but they don’t have it now.

“Exorcists, dabbling with evil spirits, calling on the name of the Lord Jesus." I mean, they’re FALSE prophets! They got nothing to do with the Lord Jesus Christ! They’re a bunch of liars willing to do ANYTHING to make a profit.

And he says there’s false prophets and false priesthoods. And what happens? [15] And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?
[16] And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.’

I’d like to have seen that! But that’s the spiritual condition that Israel was in. And this is known; fear magnified.

You know what happened? Verse 10 says, "And this continued by the space of two years; so that all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks.
[11] And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul:’

You know what happens when the Jews are sent away and the judgment falls on them? There’s a blessing that goes to the Gentiles. What’s happening in Acts now? That’s what Luke’s recording? Was it just in doing it? Sure, they’re a bunch of vagabond extortionists claiming to be somebody they aren’t and God’s judgment fell on them.

The result was "many that believed came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds.
[19] 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 fifty thousand pieces of silver.
[20] So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.’

Somebody said in modern terms that’s about 5-6 million dollars. That dude that burned those rock records down there in Comiskey Park those years ago, he wasn’t doing anything new! He claimed to be setting the pace. He’s just copying this. They had a book-burning.

The French burned the Bibles. These guys were burning the devil’s books. You see the revival that’s coming? You see what’s happening? The whole pagan world is SHAKEN. Verse 20 says, "So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed."

That first word "so" in the verse is the important one to me. Because of the victories that were won for the preaching of the gospel of the grace of God, the Word of God grew and prevailed.

Now when that happened verse 23 says, "And the same time there arose no small stir about that way.
[24] For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, which made silver shrines for Diana, brought no small gain unto the craftsmen;’

Now, that was the first mega-church with worldwide impact. A false god, a dead god. By the way, you notice the silversmith is making shrines or aids to worship. Little idols. The craftsmanship that went into that; the beauty, the love the effort, the intelligence, the art. These were artisans.

The temple Diana. If you look at verses 34-35: [34] But when they knew that he was a Jew, all with one voice about the space of two hours cried out, Great is Diana of the Ephesians.

[35] And when the townclerk had appeased the people, he said, 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?

Jupiter’s in the heavens. Diana is just another name for the Queen of Heaven. if you go back to Jeremiah 44, you’ll find that the nation Israel was worshipping the Queen of Heaven when Israel was caught off into apostasy.

You go back to Judges 2 and you see Baal and Astarte; he’s the male god and she’s the female deity. All through there’s been that worship of the Queen of Heaven. Rome called her Venus, the Greeks called her Diana, Minerva, Juno. The Phoenicians called her Ashtoreth, the Syrians called her Astarte, the Egyptians called her Isis. Christians call her Mary.

Acts 19:37 says, "For ye have brought hither these men, which are neither robbers of churches, nor yet blasphemers of your goddess."

Notice that a bunch of heathens had their churches too. Pagans have churches just like we have churches. The pagans have temples just like Israel had temples. It’s a counterfeit of the real thing.