You're listening to audio from Faith Church, located on the north side of Indianapolis. If you'd like to check out more information about our church and ministry, you can find us at faithchurchindy.com. Now here's the teaching. Well, good morning. It's good to see each of you.

My name is Tom Waltz, one of the elders here at church. More importantly, I'm the husband of Dawn, who teaches the the middle school age group. It's a lot more impressive than me. Like Jenna, I'm a little bit discouraged at the length of this passage that we have before us, this morning. I have to confess that, I got a little bit of application myself on this on being careful what I wish for.

A couple months ago, I got up here and made some comment about the pastor's assigning to me a little summary passage that did not have any action in it. Well, we've got a lot of action today. So, we're not going to be able to look into all these details here, but hopefully, we can drive a lesson from this very interesting and historic story that Luke leaves us here in acts. So let's remind ourselves of where we are. Acts chapter 19, is a section of the book of acts where Luke gives us a few snapshots of what life was like when Paul and his missionary team went to Ephesus.

We saw that when Paul first showed up there, there was a group of 12 disciples of John the Baptist that weren't familiar with the Holy Spirit, and Paul worked with them, laid hands on them, and they received the spirit. And then we saw the spirit poured out again, at Ephesus, where Paul was doing these extraordinary works, these extraordinary signs and miracles of healing, and deliverance. And then last week, we saw how the church at Ephesus, the people of God at Ephesus were purified as, these these, temptations toward magic were confronted, in the 7 sons of Siva. And the church was delivered, from that magic, that paganism, and and burned books of of great value. And then we came to this summary statement that Jenna just read to us where Paul's getting a sense now.

He's been in in Ephesus for close to 3 years, coming up on 3 years, and he's getting the sense in his pioneering spirit that it's time to move on. The work's been accomplished, the seeds have been planted, and Paul setting his sights to Rome. And we might expect at this point that Luke's narrative would head off in that direction, and we'd we'd be beginning that that trip, that journey towards Rome. But instead, Luke takes what in our, new testaments are are, 21, 22 verses here, and goes into this very detailed story about a riot in Ephesus in which Paul really only shows up in in a little, a a short little snippet, a short little role. So what is it about this story, that that made Luke think it was so important that that he should include it in his very limited space.

Well, I think there's several reasons that Paul chose to do this. And this morning, I'm just going to focus on one of them for the sake of time. And I think that reason would be that Luke includes this story because it gives us a little snapshot, a little insight into what life was like for Paul and his team when they spent all these months in Ephesus. We've already seen that this was a time of great success. The the word of God flourished, the peep the the number of the people of God grew, they grew in their commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ.

The the work in Ephesus was off to a great start. But when we look at these little snippets of what life was like for Paul and his team, they didn't really experience it as great success. This was a time of great trial and trouble for Paul. He he actually writes a little bit later than this, a few months after this, that he thought he was going to die when he was, performing this this work of God in Ephesus. Things were so oppressive, so threatening.

25 years ago, Dawn and I moved from Minnesota to this area, Indianapolis. 20 years ago, I was, starting my 6th new job, in that initial 5 year period. We were here in Indianapolis. I was thriving, obviously. I remember saying to Don, you know, that we were I'm in the tech industry.

We were coming out of the dot dotcom bust, and and things were just not real healthy tech wise. And I remember saying that, Don, look, I I don't think this thing's going anywhere. It looks like they have funding for about 6 months. And so I'll take this job until something else comes along. Maybe we'll be able to make a better choice in the future, and I was so wrong.

I joined that little company, and we started adding customers more than we could handle, and they were bigger customers, and they were trying to do more and bigger things on our platform, and it was chaos. My family and I remember this as one of the more stressful times in our lives in in a lot of ways. I remember, and they will remember as well, a lot of family gatherings where we would go in for Christmas, Thanksgiving, whatever dinner, and I would immediately disappear into a back corner of the house, because the pager had gone off, or the phone had rang, and there was some emergency I had to go take care of, and Don would so very graciously cover for me and say something like, well, Tom's been called away, it's okay, go ahead and eat, he'll join us when we can when he can. Invariably, I I was horrible to live with. I probably still am, honestly.

But during this period, I was horrible to live with because every time we would go somewhere, whether it was to go watch some event that our kids were participating in, or to visit to family, or just to go pick up groceries, it seemed like every time we try to go anywhere together, I was always having to swing off to the side and and pull up to some McDonald's or fast food restaurant where they had free WiFi in those days and log in and put out some fire, and Don would just so sweetly and patiently wait in the car as you you can imagine. This this got old. I think this is a little bit like what Paul's life was and his team's life was in Ephesus. There were great successes, we've read about them, how the gospel, the good news penetrated deep into the hearts of the people of Ephesus and their province, Asia. And that there was also deep deep trouble and tribulation and trials and suffering during this period, as well as that success brought with it a great many challenges.

So when we open up this long story about about a riot, I think we're getting one glimpse into the kind of suffering and difficulties that Paul went through, and his team went through here at Ephesus. So let's let's dig in here a little bit and and see how this story flows and try to fill in a few of the details and the questions, address some of the questions that come to our mind as we read about a history, a point in history that's pretty different from our own times. So we'll start in, verse 23. This is acts chapter 19. In the black bible in the seat in front of you, this is page 1103.

And if you're using your scripture journal with us, for the book of acts, that's page 114. This is acts chapter 19 verse 23. About that time there arose no little disturbance concerning the way. For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines of Artemis brought no little business to the craftsman. These he gathered together with the workmen in similar trades and said, men, you know that from this business, we have our wealth.

And we see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned people away, a great many people, saying that gods made with hands are not gods. And there is danger, not only that this trait of ours may come into disrepute, but also that the temple that great goddess Artemis may be counted as nothing, and that she may even be deposed from her magnificence. She whom all Asia and the world worship. So who is this Artemis gal? Artemis was one of the goddesses in the Greek pantheon.

The Romans, had relabeled her as Diana. Artemis was a little bit unique, though. We're familiar with all the the awful behavior of the gods in the Greek and the Roman pantheons, but Artemis was actually a a little bit different than that. She was known as the goddess or she was the goddess of marriage and family. She was loving.

She was compassionate. She was chased. She was a virgin. She was beautiful, and she cared for the people that follow, that that worshiped her. She was even called savior.

Artemis would protect virgins that were waiting for marriage. She would protect women in childbirth. She would protect her father her followers from the awful whims of fate that would come in and disrupt and destroy life. Artemis welcomed in the stranger and the foreigner that could, were were welcome to come and rest and celebrate in her temple. Artemis was a god that tended to be worshiped through gifts of food and drink and incense rather than blood sacrifice.

She's actually when you look at pagan deities, Artemis is a fairly appealing god, Goddess, as far as that goes. And she's called she's regularly called throughout the Roman Empire, Artemis of the Ephesians because there was such a strong tie between Ephesus and Artemis. Part of that grew out of the fact that the Ephesians had been building and rebuilding temples to Artemis for 800 years now. And this current temple, they had built from funds that from their own funds of the city, unlike most of the temples in this time that were built by wealthy patrons. But are the people of Ephesus had a love and appreciation for Artemis, and they wanted to spend their own money.

They would not accept the money of wealthy donors. They wanted to to build this temple as an offering to the goddess that they so appreciated. And it was a huge temple. It was the biggest pagan temple in the empire at that time. It measured about 420 feet by 240 feet.

And Pastor Joey informed me that that's a little over twice the size of American football field, and I appreciated that insight. So this is a huge temple. There are 2 17 marble pillars that stood 60 feet tall and were 6 feet thick. It was an incredible facility with steps leading up to that platform on every side. And and people were welcome to come and worship Artemis here, but it wasn't just a place for worship, it was also the focus of that community.

The Temple of Artemis in Ephesus was known as one of the most secure banks in the Roman Empire. It wasn't insured by the FDIC, but it was insured by Artemis who protected anything that people came to store, to preserve there in the bank of Artemis. So there was a very deep tie between the people of Ephesus and Artemis, And it wasn't just that they built this temple and then went on about their life. The people the people of Ephesus were very intentional in their worship of their beloved deity, Artemis. Every, year during the spring, they would set aside a whole month to celebrate her where they would have kinda like our 5 100 festival.

They would have events. They would have competitions. They would have music concerts where they would come together and celebrate their unity and their allegiance to Artemis, and it was all capped off by a huge parade, a processional that would go through the town, stopping at the altars in the shrines along the way to sing and pray and encourage each other in their worship of Artemis, and then close it off with a community meal together. This kind of worship was a regular pattern in the life of as Ephesus as what was their religion, and what was their commerce, and what was their family life, and what was their civic life, their political life, it was all bundled together under Artemis, and she was at the core of it. I think if we would envision, taking our 5 100 festival and all of our sports teams, and if we would take all of our cultural venues and events, and if we would take all of our financial institutions, and if we would take all of our patriotism with their flags, and our monuments, and our museums, and we would bundle these things all together in a unified whole that we were all embracing together, we would begin to have some sense of what it was to be a member of this city of Ephesus, and how central Artemis was at the core of it.

I think I experienced this a little bit. When Dawn and I were first married, we moved to Northern Virginia, which was about, oh, an hour away from Baltimore, and that was the very year that the Baltimore Colts slipped out of Baltimore in the middle of the night and moved to Indianapolis, and I made the mistake one time of wearing an Indianapolis Colts hat. Big mistake, a lot of passion around that, and that's the kind of passion that people had about Artemis in the city of Ephesus. So it's understandable when we read this story about Demetrius, understandable when we read this story about Demetrius getting pretty worked up, with these contrary thoughts that Paul is is bringing to society and deciding we need to do something about this. It's a threat to our goddess and by the way, it's a threat to our income as well, which brings us to next step of the story.

Demetrius has made this accusation, what's going to come of it. Verse 28. When they heard this, they were enraged and were crying out, great is Artemis of the Ephesians. So the city was filled with the confusion and they rushed together into the theater dragging with him Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians who were Paul's companions in travel. But when Paul wished to go in among the crowd, the disciples would not let him.

And even some of the Asiarchs who were friends of his sent to him and urged him not to venture into the theater. Now some cried one thing and some another for the assembly was in confusion and most of them did not even know why they had come together. Some of the crowd prompted Alexander whom the Jews had put forward and Alexander motioning with his hand, wanted to make a defense to the crowd. But when they recognize that he was a Jew, for about 2 hours, they all cried out with one voice, great is Artemis of the Ephesians. I have a slide here of Ephesus in the the current day, and we'll see if we can put that up.

Now after the first service, which probably should have been part 1 of this sermon, and this could have been part 2, but that's not the way we're working this out, you didn't wanna come twice. After the first service, Anne Forbes came up to me and she said, I've been to Ephesus, and this picture really doesn't do it justice. So, you know, I'll admit that. But you do see the big theater in the center there? The size of that is pretty comparable to one of our major baseball league stadiums.

That stadium, that theater at this time would hold somewhere between 2025,000 people. So if you could see individuals standing in there, you might be able to appreciate this the size a little bit more. And then you see that street running off to the left. That's Harbor Street. It ran between what was the the busy harbor at Ephesus up to the theater.

It was about a third of a mile long, and it it's a big street. It's huge. This is one of the only three streets in the Roman Empire that was actually illuminated at night. It was 32 feet wide, and then on each side of it, there was a colonnade with with a covered area. And it was in that colonnade that the craftsmen would set up shop and sell their wares.

So when we read about Demetrius, we're reading about craftsmen that were working along that very wide marble street. And so Demetrius and his crafts, he gets his guild all worked up about this, and they decide they need to do something about it, and they start shouting out one of the slogans of the city, great as Artemis of the Ephesians. The city hears the people in the the close confines of the city, they hear all this commotion going on, and and they're kind of naturally, you know, that's the way we are. We go by an accident on the road. We gotta go check it out.

Right? So the people of Ephesus are the same way, they hear all this commotion, and and they go gathering towards the center of the city, toward the theater where they normally met when they had an assembly of the the city, And Demetrius and his buddies, they can't find Paul, presumably, so they do run across a couple unfortunate traveling companions of of his. And so they grab him and they drag him into the theater, and the whole city's coming together in a big mob. And so you have this riot forming, and you wonder what in the world is going to happen now. This the language that that Luke is using here is very similar to the language that he used when he began describing what happened to Steven in Acts chapter 17.

There's a mob that's out of control, they grab Steven, pull him before an assembly, and he ends up being stoned by that mob. And so, we have a feeling that that things are going to get ugly here with Paul and these two traveling companions of Paul that have been grabbed. So, Paul, ever the optimist, you know, here's a crowd, here's an audience, you know, we should do something with it. So Paul has this idea, well, let's, you know, let me go in there, I'll talk to him, you know, surely share some aspect of the gospel and the disciples say, wait a second, Paul, you know, they restrain him no doubt recognizing it would be a futile attempt, then it was probably dangerous. And then we have this other interesting reference to these Asiarchs.

Who are these people? Well, the Asiarchs were the the top government officials in the province of Asia that Ephesus was the capital city over. So these Asiarchs are very high place people, they were selected from the upper class, they were wealthy, they were influential, they're very significant, and here we see they're called friends of Paul. How could that be? Some people thought, well, maybe they were disciples, but probably not.

Probably what's going on here is that these these asiarchs, these these very important government officials that would serve for a year and then maintain this this title, they were probably sponsors of Paul. Paul came to Ephesus as a freeborn Roman citizen, so he would have some access to these individuals whose responsibility it was to maintain good relationships with Rome. And not only that, Paul became a well known speaker, perhaps philosophers. He was teaching in the lecture hall each day as as Pastor Joey has shared with us. And it was very typical for people of this high rank to come in and and act as sponsors or patrons for someone like Paul, who's giving lectures.

Think of it when you go to a concert, or perhaps a seminar or a convention, and you know how there's always placards and recognitions for the patrons that have come and supported it and made this kind of event possible. It was very similar in Paul's day. There were these these patrons, these wealthy individuals would do their civic duty and support what they thought was encouraging and helpful for the citizens. Now, when you're a patron, you're not hoping for controversy. Right?

You don't want to become associated with with someone that's a lightning rod, you don't want your name to be associated with some guy that's causing a riot. And so these Asiarchs recognize the difficulty of this situation, and they probably have gone into action behind the scenes, and one of the points of that action is to send this urgent message to Paul. Paul, don't go out there to that theater. It's the last thing they want to blow this controversy up further. Well, meanwhile, back in the theater, things are only getting uglier.

There's a Jew there that the Jewish community pick out and, you know, wouldn't you like to to draw this straw? Get up in front of that crowd and and give it a fence. So likely, we don't get a whole lot of detail here, but is going to get up and try to separate the Jewish community from the Christian community, so that if there's any bad fallout that comes out of this this riot, you know, we don't want it affecting us, you know, make sure it's focused on those Christian people, not on us. But when this Alexander stands up and and tries to give a defense, and and the people recognize, oh, it's another one of these monotheists that that think you can't create gods by your hands. You know, they they are not at all interested in hearing what he has to say, and so it's kinda like social media.

They've got something to say, they mount a huge council, cancel culture here against this Alexander, and then they break into this unified chant, great is Artemis of the Ephesians. It's a slogan that you'll find all over the ancient ruins of Ephesus, and they chant it for 2 hours. That leads us to the last section in our reading, which is Luke chapter 19 verse 35. We see the foreshadowing that bad things are coming here. But this is the way that the riot ends.

And when the town clerk had quieted the crowd, he said, men of Ephesus, who is there who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is temple keeper of the great Artemis, and the sacred stone that fell from the sky? Seeing then that these things cannot be denied, you ought to be quiet and do nothing rash. For you have brought these men here who are neither sacrilege or blasphemers of our goddess. If therefore Demetrius and the craftsman with him have a complaint against anyone, the courts are open and there is there are pro councils with governors of the of the province. Let them bring charges against one another, but if they seek anything further, it shall be settled in the regular assembly.

For we really are in danger of being charged with rioting today since there is no cause that we can give to justify this commotion. And when they had said these things when he had said these things, he dismissed the assembly. So who is this town clerk guy? Kinda sounds like a low level sort of bureaucrat, doesn't it? Someone that probably, you know, he's back in the bowels of some government building and he he draws the short straw.

But actually, this town clerk is like we would think of a mayor in our city. He is the top city official, and he's called the clerk because one of his primary responsibilities was to call these kind of meetings in that very theater to bring together the the assembly of the citizens from Ephesus and conduct city business. So when this town clerk steps out on stage, that crowd and all their commotion would at least recognize, hey, this is the guy that's in charge of these kind of assemblies, and so they give him some respect, and he's able to to to to, bring things under control and give a a kind of impressive, meaningful defense of Paul. What what this town clerk actually does is he turns the tables. You notice that?

Early in our story, we saw that Demetrius was claiming that there was a big problem in their city, and that problem was Paul, who was making this outrageous statement that god's created with hands were not really gods. And what the town clerk does is say, no. You know, Paul's not the problem here. Actually, the problem here is you guys, causing this big disturbance, this this mob coming together. That's the real threat to our life here in Ephesus.

If there's one thing that the Romans wanted in their empire, that was a wonderfully well or well ordered peaceful environment. That's that's how the empire thrived. And so the the Romans were not too comfortable with the way the Greeks, these free Greek cities govern themselves. They didn't like this idea of democracy. And when things would get out of control in one of these free cities, the Romans were known to come in and take those freedoms of assembly away.

And so the town clerk is making a legitimate, warning, giving a legitimate warning here. These people are in danger of losing their freedom because of this riot, because of this behavior. And so the the town clerk brings the the riot under control and dismisses the people, and they go on their way. And basically, this is how Paul's time in Ephesus ends. What do we do with this story?

I think it's it's pretty interesting to to to hear the cries of this mob in in Ephesus. The the notion that gods we create with our hands aren't really gods. I mean, is that really that controversial? But these this mob, these craftsmen, they wanted nothing to do with that. They wouldn't even consider it.

They they cried out against it for for 2 hours, but in spite of that, within a couple 100 years, this beautiful temple and this prosperous city of Ephesus was in ruins. It it was rubble. I I wish we could identify with the heroes in the story, but I at least identify more with a mob in this sense. I have a very deep recognition that within my heart, there's a pretty significant hole, a pretty significant void. There's a recognition that I have that that there is something missing in life that I cannot provide for myself.

That there's some lack of meaning and purpose and significance that I just cannot find within myself. We I think we all in the in the quiet moments of life have a have a sense, an awareness of that need or that emptiness, and we we with all our might attempt to fashion gods of our own hands and fill that void. We'll make gods of our technology, we'll make gods of our careers, gods of our education, gods of our status, gods of our family, our possessions, gods of our leisure, and we take all these things and we try to cram it into that hole in our heart and reach satisfaction and purpose and meaning. And yet, after all that effort, after all that shouting, after all that assurance to one another that everything's good, we're doing it the way it needs to be be done. All is well.

In spite of all that, we still have that nagging realization that there's something missing. That hole that we sense in our heart, that's not an enemy to be squelched. That hole in our heart is a signpost pointing us down the road and telling us there is something more to be discovered in life. There is there is there is a need that must be met outside of us. And so in the quiet of this morning as we worship and meditate together, I would ask you to feel that need, that emptiness in your heart and recognize it rather than hide from it.

And then here with me the sweet, sweet invitation of our lord Jesus Christ when he says to us, come unto me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and you will find rest to your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Pray with me. Father, we confess that so often we get busy in life.

We have good intentions, we have important things, to do. We have wonderful pursuits, but so often, we became come so obsessed with these things that we go through whole hours and days where we have forgotten you. We give you little thought. So we thank you for this story that reminds us that no matter how busy we are, no matter how loud we choose to to shout, We confess before you this morning that it is you that we need and desire and ask that you in this coming days weeks would meet us in this need. Thank you for your love, your comfort, and your rest.

Amen.