SANCTIFICATION OF THE EPHESIAN CHURCH 1-7. Apollos remains preaching in the great church at Corinth, the largest and most gifted of the age, the result of an eighteen months' protracted meeting held by Paul, Timothy, Silas and Luke. Happily, in the good providence of God, the great Apollos, now brig... [ Continue Reading ]
_“Did you receive the Holy Ghost, having believed? And they said, But we did not hear that the Holy Ghost is given.”_ Apollos, under the powerful preaching of John the Baptist, having learned that the Messiah will baptize with the Holy Ghost and fire, after He has consummated the atonement on Calvar... [ Continue Reading ]
_“And he said, Unto what then were you baptized? And they said, Unto the baptism of John.”_ This is a confirmation that Apollos was one of those mighty men, ushered forth by the ministry of John the Baptist and still preaching in his dispensation. Was not this a pity? Apollos was a few years behind... [ Continue Reading ]
Here we find that the baptism of John was a seal and confirmation of repentance. Do not forget that repentance and regeneration are inseparable. You may have much human repentance without regeneration; but God's repentance is always “unto life.”... [ Continue Reading ]
_“And hearing, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.”_ Here you see baptism repeated in the case of these Ephesian converts. Water baptism is a Jewish institution, constant and exceedingly prevalent since the days of Moses, symbolizing the work of the Spirit, as the bloody sacrifices the... [ Continue Reading ]
_“And Paul, laying hands on them, the Holy Ghost came on them, and they continued to speak with tongues and prophecy.”_ Conversion is indispensable to discipleship. Hence these disciples had been converted under the ministry of Apollos. Paul not only leads them didactically and ceremonially out of t... [ Continue Reading ]
A modern wiseacre would say, “Paul, there are five hundred thousand sinners going to hell in Ephesus; you had better preach straight to sinners to get them converted, and not waste your time preaching on sanctification.” Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, thought differently. So he start... [ Continue Reading ]
This Tyrannus, who received Paul and his meeting, after his expulsion from the synagogue, was evidently one of Paul's Jewish converts, keeping a private synagogue in the city.... [ Continue Reading ]
All Asia, both Jews and Greeks, during these memorable two years, because they enjoyed ample opportunity to hear the Word, are held responsible as if they did hear it, like the millions of this wicked world who live and die ignorant of the gospel, though held to account for it at the Judgment bar, a... [ Continue Reading ]
We see divine healing became an exceedingly prominent auxiliary of the spiritual work during the Pauline revival at Ephesus, so that diseases were removed and demons exorcised by the mere application of handkerchiefs and aprons, carried from the body of Paul and applied to the bodies of the persons... [ Continue Reading ]
The Jews always recognized demoniacal possessions and the feasibility of their ejectment by the power of Jehovah. It is very clear from the Scripture that the Jews availed themselves, ever and anon, of the superior power of their God to cast out devils.... [ Continue Reading ]
Here we see a case in which those Jewish exorcists [_i. e_., people gifted with the power of demoniacal ejectment, of course delegated by Jehovah], undertake to utilize the Christ of Paul in that way.... [ Continue Reading ]
_“The evil spirit responding said to them: Jesus I know and I am acquainted with Paul; but who are you?_... [ Continue Reading ]
_“And the man in whom the evil spirit was, leaping on them and prevailing against them both, overcame them, so that they fled naked and wounded from the house.”_ In this notable way the Holy Spirit utilized these unbelieving Jewish exorcists to glorify the Lord Jesus. God has in all ages permitted t... [ Continue Reading ]
The above mentioned tragedy gave great notoriety to the work.... [ Continue Reading ]
_“And many of those having believed, came confessing and renouncing their practices.”_... [ Continue Reading ]
Here we see the devil's preachers who had been converted to God under the preaching of Paul making a bon-fire of their valuable theological books, estimated at five thousand dollars. There are wagon-loads of books all over this country, expository of Dark Age creeds and vindicatory of the fallen sec... [ Continue Reading ]
It is now spring-time A. D. 57. Paul has been absent from Europe three years, traveling throughout Asia looking after the work. It is really imperative that he return to Europe, where much heresy and disorder have crept in during his absence. _“And when these things were fulfilled Paul purposed in s... [ Continue Reading ]
At this time he tarries in Ephesus till after the Passover, April 14, and writes the first Corinthian Epistle, sending on Timothy and Erastus to Macedonia to visit and preach to the churches, both north and south.... [ Continue Reading ]
_“If indeed Demetrius and the artificers along with him have an allegation against anyone, there are court-days and lawyers; let them implead one another.”_ Having thus warned and reasoned the case with them, and succeeded in tranquilizing the multitude.... [ Continue Reading ]
_“And saying these things he dismissed the church.”_ Where E. V. reads _“assembly,”_ the Greek has _ecclesia_, the word throughout the Bible translated “church.” Why do we have the word “church” used relative to this Ephesian mob? Because it is all right and used correctly, not the Church of God, bu... [ Continue Reading ]