Acts 19:13-16

Chapter 71

Prayer

Almighty God, surely this is thy day, and thou art in this place, and the gate of heaven is not far from our hand. The brightness of the sun is thine; the living air blows from the hills of heaven, and the calm day is a pledge of still deeper rest. This is the day which the Lord hath made hast thou not made all days? Were they not all rounded by thyself into the completeness of their beauty? Yet is there upon this day some touch more wonderful, some sign more tender, and about it there breathes an atmosphere unlike all other. We know this day amongst all the seven. It stands alone, yet is the friend of all; none may aspire to its sublimity of memory, though all may be touched by the grace of its history. We would that all our time might receive from this sacred day some touch that shall lift it up into nobler responsibility and honour. Thou hast led us through the week, and brought us to see the beginning of another. May we know the meaning of all these beginnings in life. Thou hast jewelled our time with new chances. Thou dost make every day a new possibility, every week a fresh opportunity, every year another time for doing better than before. May we understand this providence of time; may we know the meaning of the succession of days. We bless thee for the black night-river into which we can throw all that was evil in the day gone. We come with psalms yea, with shoutings and raptures before thee, because thy gentleness hath made us great. Thou hast withheld nothing from us. Thou hast delighted in our souls. We have been as a garden of precious flowers unto thee, which thou hast watched and tended and watered with dew and warmed with special fire. Thou hast cared for us with wondrous care. When we put our life together and see its true shape, it is a temple not made with hands; it is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes. When we thought we saw the place of ruin, thou didst clothe the wilderness with choice flowers. When we said, "This river will surely swallow us up," behold, thou didst strike it with a rod, and the waters parted, and we went through on soft golden sand. Thou hast beaten down mountains for us, and made our foes into friends, and caused our persecutors to become our helpers. We will not burn incense unto ourselves, but wave the censer of a thankful heart before thyself Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, from whom all good things come. We would remember our sin were not our hearts filled beforehand with the Cross. We cannot see the blackness through the sacrificial blood. We hide ourselves in the Cross. Rock of Ages, let us hide ourselves in thee. Pity us. Lift us up from the lowest dust. Show the miracle of grace triumphing over the rebellion of sin, and may we in the Cross of Christ find the answer to our hearts' guilt and the despair of conscience. Thou knowest what we need, every one of us, down to the least child whose only song is laughter, and whose only prayer is wonder. We want so much, but it is all as nothing to thee. Feed us with the bread of heaven. Lead us into all truth. Give us the royal heart that takes in the prodigal and prays for him as if he were already at home. Take away from us all anti-Christ, all bigotry, littleness, exclusiveness, self-idolatrousness, and may we stand in the love of God as shown in the Cross of Christ, and carry up the whole world as the object of the salvation that is in Christ Jesus. Destroy our love of opinion. Utterly drive out of us the notion that we are to be saved by notions. Help us to slay our views and thoughts, our conceptions and theories, and to abandon the base idolatry which kneels to its own inventions. Help us to know nothing but Christ and him crucified not to know him with explanations, but without them, by the wondrous insight of the heart. The Lord dry our tears; make our knees strong, and our hands skilful, and make our eyes clear and far-sighted. The Lord reconstruct our manhood, and make us like Jesus Christ through and through. We have friends at home who cannot come to thy house because they are sick. Thou wilt visit them, and make the house a church, and bring to the heart memories and hopes and joys full of heaven's own tender grace. We have friends for whom we dare not pray if Christ had not died. Find them out, and as a shepherd layeth the strayed lamb on his shoulder and bringeth it home, do thou bring by the sweet compulsion of grace every wanderer to thine own table. The Lord hear us; heighten the heavens above us, and make the earth greener, and work in us all the wondrousness of a conscious immortality, until there shall be in our life no sin, no sorrow, no night, no death, and may our life be as the New Jerusalem, which lieth four-square, the length being as the breadth. Amen.

Act 19:13-16

13. But certain also of the strolling [itinerant] Jews, exorcists, took upon them to name over them which had the evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, I adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth.

14. And there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, a chief priest [? head of one of the twenty-four courses of the Levitical priesthood], which did this.

15. And the evil spirit answered and said unto them, Jesus I know [recognize], and Paul I know; but who [what sort] are ye?

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

Seven Sons of Sceva

IN considering these circumstances we must call to mind what had been done in the city of Ephesus, the capital of Asia. A great spiritual revolution had taken place. Paul had been resident in Ephesus, more or less, for two years. At first he found the twelve disciples of Apollos utterly without Christian knowledge beyond the introductory baptism of John. Under Paul's ministry the Holy Ghost had been poured out, and from that time great interest was felt in the whole subject of spiritual influence. From time immemorial superstition has grown in Ephesus, and to add one superstition to another came quite easy to the sophisticated minds of the Asiatics. Christianity was another department of magic. It seemed to succeed well in the hands of Paul and his colleagues, and it might be worth while to incorporate it with Ephesian mysteries. At all events, the men who had practised exorcism, or the art of casting out, were willing to try it, and the trial is related in this passage.

Even the Jews of Ephesus were tainted by this superstition. As we see from the 14th verse "there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, and chief of the priests," which "took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus." We must not dismiss the men as impostors. They were deluded, but not necessarily wicked. They wanted to do a good work, and so far we must credit them with a good motive. You and I are most concerned in finding out the modern meaning and present-day force of the narrative. A wonderful testimony the more wonderful because unconscious is here borne to the power of Christianity. Such testimony is of high corroborative value. The outsiders had been looking on, wondering how the new magic would act. They said nothing about it, but when occasion served they endeavoured to practise it; and so much to the world's testimony, unconscious or reluctant, to the potent power of Christian action. The Ephesians did not say, "This argument is cumulative, cogent, and unanswerable, therefore we yield our intellectual citadel to the holy siege." They uttered no words, but looking on they saw wonder after wonder, and when the Apostles were not there they tried to conjure according to the apostolic necromancy, as they regarded it. That is being done today. If Paul had failed, the Ephesians never would have tried the new art. When the seven sons of the chief of the priests tried to repeat the processes of Paul they unconsciously certified to the practical influence which Paul had exercised in Ephesus.

The thirteenth verse sums up a large mass of evidence; it is a condensed history of Christian triumph. The Ephesian necromancers and exorcists had seen the most stubborn of the devils dragged out of their heart-caves. For years they had been trying to silence this evil spirit and that, and the evil spirit had mocked them, chattering back in broken speech the boldest words of a timid audacity. But in this instance the most reluctant and stubborn of the spirits had been dispossessed, and the Ephesians, without saying to Paul, "You are right and we will follow you," tried to turn Paul's art into a department of Ephesian mystery. Much is expected of Christians today, as much was expected of Paul in his time. Never did the public arise and say to Christ, "You really must be excused if you cannot cast out this one particular devil." They expected him to cleanse the very hell of the heart. There must be no break-down; there must be no saying, "Hitherto thy power can go, and no further." He must walk through the very centre of the burning hell, and work miracles where miracle had never before been worked. It is exactly so with Christians today. They are expected to keep the whole ten commandments and to add all other possible commandments to them, and if they fail to touch the very uppermost line in the heights of virtue there are men at the foot cruel enough to chide them for failure, to mock their prayers, and turn their aspiration into reproaches. Necromancers may fail in their momentary trick, but Christians must be kept up to the mark. Christians are never allowed to tamper with law, pureness, commandment, moral authority, Divine or human exaction they are scourged to the mark. What is the meaning of this? Rightly understood, it is the sublimest tribute which can be borne to the moral nobleness of Christian faith. They who would but laugh a careless laugh over a necromancer will denounce bitterly any Christian heart that fails to give in its life the Amen to its own prayer.

Add to that thought the one which arises in connection with the endeavour of the seven sons of Sceva to cast out evil spirits. Wherein did they fail? They failed at every point. They came into the ministry in a wrong way; and that is always an explanation of failure of the worst kind. How did they come into the ministry in a wrong way? The answer is given in the thirteenth verse. "They took upon them," that is the explanation. When men take the ministry "upon them" it fails in the last outcome in their hands. No man must go to war in this battle on his own account or at his own charges. This ministry is not something which a man may elect in preference to something else. The ministry is nothing if it is not a burden, a necessity, a fire in the bones, a spectre that will not let a man sleep at midnight till he has given his answer in a vow to serve it. There are those who would tell us that if we give our ministers better incomes we shall have better men. God forbid. Such teaching is the ruin of true ministry. When a man begins to calculate that he can have so much in the ministry and so much out of it he is not called to the ministry. This is a vocation, not a profession; this is an inspiration, not a calculation.

They the seven sons of Sceva knew nothing about the Name with which they conjured. Instead of saying, "We adjure you by Jesus Christ whom we love," they said, "We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth." The sacred influence will not pass through such negative or non-conducting connections. That is one of the noblest tributes that can be paid to the dignity and heavenliness of Christianity. It will not have anything to do with any other thought; it will not be incorporated; it will stand by itself and by itself alone. There are many persons who would be glad to amalgamate Christianity with something else. But Christianity will not be amalgamated. This is new cloth that will be put upon an old garment without making the rent worn. This is new wine that will be put into old bottles without utterly tearing them to pieces. Christianity will not mix. Christianity will not consent to be part of an eclectic philosophy, saying, "You can add a little of me to a little of Aristotle and other great teachers and inventors of ethical systems." Christianity wants the world to itself. It would be more popular if it were more neighbourly. If it could sit down with other philosophies and confer with them upon equal terms it might receive a little caressing and a little patronage and a more immediate recognition. But no; it must cleanse the house, drive out all revelry, and reign alone. Can we wonder that it is not the popular religion? The wonder would be if it were.

How much modern meaning there is in the expression, "We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth." There was no doubt about the subject of Paul's preaching. If you asked the seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, whom Paul preached, they would answer you instantaneously and without qualification, "He preached one Jesus." This is a tribute to the honesty and consistency of Paul. Here is a certificate signed by seven unexpected but trustworthy signatories. We are urged today to preach the Christ whom the Puritans preached. That exhortation is not without deep meaning; but a man may stand in the pulpit and say to his hearers, "I adjure you to serve the Christ whom the Puritans preached," and his hearers will return the answer of indifference or the reply of mockery. A minister may go further and say, "I adjure you, by the Christ whom the Apostles preached, to save yourselves," and the word would have no power; the powder might blaze, but there would be no ball to take effect. A man might go even further and say to nineteenth-century hearers, "I adjure you, by the Christ of the New Testament, to believe," and the nineteenth century would know nothing about such a Christ. What then is the secret of force? How is the Christian man to suit his age and arrest it? By preaching the Christ whom his own heart knows and loves not by preaching a Christ whom somebody else once preached with great effect, but the Christ known to him, loved by him, so that he can at any moment stand up and say, "Once I was blind, now I see, and a Man called Christ opened mine eyes, and it is to my Christ that I call you." Paul uses an expression which some persons cannot think is in the New Testament. He uses the expression, "My gospel." Every man has his own conception of God, his own hold of the Gospel, his own reading of truth, and he must preach that. If I have to preach a Christ whom another man preached I have to commit a lesson to memory and to be very careful lest I stumble in the verbal recitation; but if I preach a Christ born in my own heart, the hope of glory, living with me day by day, talking to me on the road, watching me whilst I sleep, meeting me in new converse when I awake, showing me the mystery of sin and the greater mystery of grace; if I have communion with him, deep, loving, ardent fellowship then I can preach without learning a lesson, my whole life must break into argumentative eloquence, and men must be constrained to say, "He has been with Jesus and learned of him." O Church of the Living God! do not refer the nineteenth century to books written in the seventeenth, or even the first, century, except as incidental illustrations and corroborative testimonies. The only Christ any age can listen to is the Christ which the preacher himself knows, loves, and serves.

The answer returned by the evil spirit is the answer which every age will return to professional necromancers and moralists. "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 leaped on them, and overcome them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded." Exactly what every ministry is doing that adjures or conjures in a secondary way. The answer of the spirits was argumentative; so is the answer of the spirits today. The answer of the spirits was violent; and the answer of the spirits is violent in every age, when they are charged or appealed to by unauthorized assailants. These seven sons of Sceva are living today. Here is one of them. A man who indulges himself in some way and then seeks to exorcise the spirit of intemperance in others. He gratifies every appetite, never cuts with a knife right into the indulgence which pleases him; but looking over his own indulgence, as over foaming wine, he bids some other man be self-controlled. What wonder if the drunkards of the land should throw back in the face of the Church its calls to sobriety? They are mocking calls. He only has power over his age in this direction who says, "I should like to drink this to take this; I could take so much and let it alone, but for your sake I set it down. Now be sober!" That man is not preaching a total abstinence which somebody else practises, but a self-control which he has imposed upon his own appetite. The seven sons of Sceva have seven sisters, and the whole fourteen of them are living today. They are living, for example, in that person who reproves worldliness and practises religious vanity. If the Christian is not consistent with his own principles, what wonder that the nineteenth century should laugh at his preaching? It is quite right. O evil spirit, if I might speak to thee, black, damned thing, go on, mock the preachers, mock the Christian assemblies, twit them with their inconsistencies and vanities and follies, never let them alone! O hell, be the ally of Christ! There is a religious worldliness as well as a worldliness that does not debase the name of religion by calling it in as a qualification. Shall we who have a beam in our eyes be preaching about the mote that is in the eyes of other men. You will hurl the ten commandments at the head without effect if you do not go along with them. The world can laugh even at Christian theology when marked out in abstract propositions, but when Christian theology is incarnated in personal godliness, individual holiness, when the Christ that is preached is not only a historical Christ but also a living, present, and personally-known Christ, the age will begin to wonder, and there is a wonder which may end in prayer.