Acts 19:8

And he went into the synagogue and spoke boldly for the space of three months, disputing and persuading the things concerning the kingdom of God. But when diverse were hardened and believed not, but spoke evil of that way before the multitude, he departed from them, and separated the disciples, disputing daily in the school of one Tyrannus. 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. 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.

The kingdom Paul preached was not the earthly throne Israel expected, but a King who began to reign from a cross—and a word that still prevails.

Paul Returns to Ephesus

Paul is now on his third missionary journey. On his first journey, with Barnabas, he went into the region of Galatia and planted the churches there. On his second journey, beginning in Acts 16, he and Silas returned to strengthen those churches, and Paul desired to continue into Asia Minor. But God shut the door, so Paul went into Macedonia and down into the Greek region, planting churches in Philippi, Berea, and Thessalonica.

Now he has returned to that area of Asia Minor where he had first wanted to go. At the end of his second journey, Paul had gone into Ephesus and spoken in the synagogue, and the people begged him to stay and instruct them further. But he had an appointment in Jerusalem, likely to celebrate the Feast of Pentecost, and he said, "If the Lord wills, I will return." Now, in Acts 19, it was clearly God's will that Paul come back. He is once again in the synagogue, and the people there—the very ones who had pleaded for him months before—were likely looking forward to his return. For three months he boldly spoke, disputing and persuading concerning the kingdom of God.

The Long Expectation of a King

The Jews of the first century had a great expectation of the coming Messiah and His messianic rule. They long recognized the kingship of God. After Israel came out of Egypt and crossed the Red Sea, they praised God in Exodus 15, speaking of the forever reign of the Lord. So all the way back in Exodus there was an expectation that God would rule and reign over a kingdom forever.

Through Israel's history we see this anticipation for a king. In the days of Samuel, the people desired an earthly king to represent them, and so began the monarchy, which lasted for centuries but ultimately left a bad taste in their mouths, as earthly rulers tend to do. By the close of the Old Testament in Malachi, after many bad kings and a few good ones, there was a heightened expectation of a king who would rule and reign in righteousness. Isaiah 9:6 spoke of a child born, a son given, with the government upon His shoulders. Daniel 7 received a vision of a king who would rule forever.

By Paul's day, this expectation was at a fever pitch. They looked for a descendant of King David, since God had promised the king would come through David's line. But they were expecting an earthly kingdom—a Messiah who would restore Israel, cast off Roman oppression, and remove the emperors so that Israel would have a glorious day.

Jesus Preached the Kingdom

Imagine the anticipation when, after 400 years of prophetic silence, a prophet appeared in the wilderness of Judea preaching, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Multitudes came to John the Baptist asking, "Are you the Christ?" He told them no, but pointed to one coming who would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire.

Then Jesus arrived. In Matthew 4 He preached, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Mark 1:14 says that after John was put in prison, "Jesus came into Galilee preaching the good news of the kingdom of God." The bulk of His message centered on the kingdom, and excitement built—until He was crucified, and the people were deflated. In Luke 24, even His disciples, walking away from Jerusalem in despair, said, "We thought He had been the one to bring the kingdom."

Jesus said preaching the kingdom was the very purpose for which He came. In Luke 4, after a great day of healing and casting out demons, the crowds wanted to crown Him king in Jerusalem. But the next day He departed to a desert place, and when they sought Him He said, "I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also, for therefore am I sent." After His resurrection, Acts 1:3 tells us He continued speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God for forty days before ascending.

A Kingdom Not of This World

The disciples were so excited that on Jesus' last day on earth, on the Mount of Olives, they asked, "Will you now restore the kingdom to Israel?" Like nearly every Jew of their day, they completely misunderstood. They expected an earthly kingdom and the restoration of Israel.

Jesus had spent three years preaching kingdom parables—"the kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed seed," "like a man who had a vineyard," and so on. The concept of the kingdom of God, or kingdom of heaven (used interchangeably by Jesus), appears about a hundred times in the New Testament. Yet to Pontius Pilate, just before His crucifixion, Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then my followers would rise up and fight." And in Luke 17 He told His disciples, "The kingdom of God is within you."

This is the very thing Paul now preached in the synagogue at Ephesus—a King who began to rule and reign not from a throne but from a cross. He did not enter Jerusalem on a white stallion, but meek and lowly on a donkey, just as Zechariah foretold. But come He did, and establish His kingdom He has.

The Kingdom Now and Not Yet

The kingdom of God is a heavenly kingdom that will one day overtake the kingdoms of this world. Revelation 11:15 says, "The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever." Yet He has already begun to reign here and now in our lives, for the kingdom is within us. That is why Jesus instructed us to pray, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Jesus would not have taught us to pray that if He were not going to fulfill it.

God is the ruler of this kingdom, and His rule right now is over all who willingly subject themselves to Him as Lord. God is not a tyrant or dictator forcing His rule on people; He desires that we willingly submit to Him. By grace through faith we become part of His kingdom. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom." To Nicodemus He said, "You must be born again or you shall not see the kingdom of God." It is not entered like a physical city, but by grace, through faith, because of the work of God.

Living as Citizens of the Kingdom

If you have willingly subjected yourself to the lordship of Christ, then you are a subject of the kingdom, and you should live according to the culture of that kingdom. The culture of the kingdom mirrors the nature of its King. So if we want to know how to live as citizens, we must get to know the King through His word. That is why we are so dedicated to the word of God at Calvary Chapel—we want to know what our God is like, so that we can be good ambassadors.

Church history has often been a bad example of this. Study the Crusades and you will see men using the name of God to force His rule and reign here on earth—not for good. He will one day come and establish His earthly kingdom, as Revelation shows. But here and now His kingdom moves forward by grace, by power, and by the proclamation of the gospel—not by sword or spear or tank or airplane. Jesus promised in Matthew 16 that the gates of hell will not prevail against it. We are to be those preaching the gospel of the kingdom.

When the Gospel Is Rejected

As we proclaim the King, not everyone will receive Him. Verse 9 says, "When diverse were hardened and believed not, but spoke evil of the way before the multitude, he departed from them and separated the disciples." The Jews were focused on an earthly, powerful king who would destroy their enemies, and they were intensely patriotic—far more than any conservative American. When Paul preached that Israel was not going to be the kingdom, they could not fathom it. The good news was not good news to them.

Their unbelief turned into active force. They did not keep quiet; they stood up before everyone and said, "Don't listen to this man." And what did Paul do? He departed from them. As we've seen before, Paul knew when to leave. He recognized that God has sovereignly given man free choice, and he allowed it.

I confess I am sometimes tempted to force the gospel down people's throats when they don't want to hear it, but that is not the example of Scripture or the teaching of Jesus. Our earthly kingdom mindset says, "You will submit." This is important: Islam's focus is to bring about its kingdom by the sword. God's plan for His kingdom is not that way. When someone rejects the gospel, we recognize their free choice—but, as Paul and Jesus did, we let them know what that rejection means. They are standing in opposition to a kingdom that will not be shaken, as enemies against the King of kings, and He will destroy them, because His kingdom will not be stopped. That is the only alternative to submission.

Two Years in the School of Tyrannus

Paul took the disciples who were following the truth and daily taught in the school of Tyrannus. Some manuscripts indicate he reasoned there from eleven in the morning until four in the afternoon—likely the hot hours when the hall was available. For two years, five hours a day, this cost Paul both time and treasure. In the morning hours he worked at his trade as a tentmaker, then taught in the afternoon.

Verse 10 says this continued for two years, "so that all they that dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks." The door God had once shut was now wide open. People came from cities all around Asia Minor. It is very probable that the seven churches of Asia Minor—Sardis, Smyrna, Philadelphia, Laodicea, and the rest of Revelation 2 and 3—were planted during this period, not by Paul traveling to them, but by others who heard at the school and carried the gospel out.

Notice it says all in Asia heard the word—not that all believed. They considered the claims of Christ; some received and others did not.

The Gospel of the King, Not Our Story

It is important to recognize what Paul was preaching: the kingdom of God, the gospel of the King and His kingdom—not himself. Paul did at times use his personal story; in Acts 24 he recounts his conversion on the road to Damascus. But primarily his message centered on the King.

This instructs us, because in our day evangelism often centers more on our personal testimony than on the gospel of Jesus. We start with who we were before Christ and how we came to faith, and we often leave it there—talking only about our experience without clearly declaring the gospel of the kingdom. A personal testimony is good, but it should not be the only thing we share, because the common response is, "I'm so glad that works for you. I have something different." You never see that response in Acts. Either people flatly rejected the message or they tried to run Paul out of town—because the message was politically incorrect.

So what is the gospel? There is a King who has a kingdom, and you are outside of it because of your rebellion against His law. He stands against you, and His kingdom will one day come and He will judge. But He has an open-door policy—amnesty in His kingdom. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father but by me." He told Nicodemus, "You must be born again if you would see the kingdom of God." If you stand in opposition to the King, you will be destroyed when He comes in glory—and He will. The world does not like that story. You may have come on Memorial Day weekend expecting only encouragement, and I'm sorry—but the gospel of the kingdom is a matter of great importance, not of opinion.

God's Authenticating Miracles

As proof of this message, verse 11 says God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul, so that handkerchiefs and aprons—even his sweat rags—were brought from his body to the sick, and diseases departed and evil spirits went out. Circle the word God. It was God who did these miracles, not Paul, and Paul's sweat was nothing special. God worked through the instrument that happened to be Paul.

Miracles are not abnormal in Acts, but Luke highlights these as extraordinary. This was the first time under apostolic ministry that God used an article of clothing to bring healing or deliverance. The only other time we see this is in the Gospels, when the woman with the issue of blood touched the hem of Jesus' garment and power went out of Him. God's primary purpose for miracles is not to ease human suffering—if it were, He would ease suffering all the time. Their primary role in Scripture is to authenticate the message. In John's Gospel there are seven miracles and seven "I am" statements: "I am the bread of life," proven by feeding the multitudes; "I am the light of the world," proven by giving a blind man sight. The miracles proved who He was. So too here, the miracles authenticated Paul's apostolic ministry.

The False Power: The Sons of Sceva

Verse 13 introduces certain vagabond Jewish exorcists who tried to call over those with evil spirits, "We adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches." Among them were seven sons of Sceva, said to be a chief priest. This is amazing: the Jews of Ephesus had rejected Paul and wanted nothing to do with his Jesus, yet they were willing to fraudulently use His name.

There was a clear recognition of the spiritual realm in the first century. Jewish exorcists commonly cast out demons by invoking a name greater than the demon's, and they decided to add the powerful name of Jesus to their method. But there is no record of any Jewish chief priest named Sceva—he was a fraud through and through. The evil spirit answered, "Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you?" At that moment I imagine Sceva and his boys turned white. The man with the evil spirit leaped on them and overcame them, so they fled out of the house naked and wounded. The seven sons of Sceva became the seven streakers of Sceva.

The result: fear fell on all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. The risen Jesus is shown powerful over disease, over devils, and now over deceptive swindlers. There will always be those who try to use the power and name of God while refusing to submit to His lordship. I once flipped past an infomercial of a man asking for a "suggested donation" for prayer cloths he had anointed—cons and frauds. The proof of a swindler is that his "miraculous" points to himself; every true miracle in Scripture directs attention to God and magnifies Him.

The Word of God Prevails

Verse 18 says many who believed came and confessed and showed their deeds, and many who had used curious arts brought their books together and burned them before all men, counting the price at fifty thousand pieces of silver. "So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed." When Paul went to Athens he met intellectual idolatry; in Corinth, immoral idolatry; in Ephesus, occultic idolatry. The new believers recognized their dark arts as wicked, brought them to the city square, and burned them publicly. They believed, confessed their sins, and repented—and it cost them dearly. Fifty thousand days' wages is millions of dollars. Yet they gladly submitted to the lordship of Christ because they recognized He was greater and worthy to be served.

In this passage God's word prevailed over diseases, over devils, over deceivers, and over the dark practices of Ephesus. God's word prevails. That means we can trust its power. Many today say preaching doesn't work in our postmodern world—that we need new methods, that we cannot talk about sin, wrath, hell, judgment, or repentance, and that we must keep the message under twenty minutes. But I say the word of God prevails. If it was good enough for Jesus and good enough for Paul, it is good enough for us. Perhaps we should simply continue to preach the word, instant in season and out of season.

Ambassadors of the Kingdom

I believe this is what we need in our day. Study revival, and you will see that the preaching of the word of God always accompanies it. Prayer, confession, and repentance are important, but the preaching of God's word is central to His moving—and not just from pulpits, but from every believer declaring the gospel of the King and His kingdom. There are over 300,000 Christian churches in America, yet there is a famine of the word of God. May we be those who carry it, knowing it will not return void.

Paul calls us ambassadors—those sent with a message. Billy Graham once asked an ambassador what his job was, and the man answered, "To go on behalf of the United States to other nations and make friends." We are ambassadors of Christ, sent from heaven into this world, carrying the message of the kingdom and making friends. Prophetically, the kingdom will come. Until that day, we pray, "Thy kingdom come."

Closing Prayer

Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Father, we pray that your kingdom would come. But before you come to rule and reign in your kingdom, would you rule and reign in my heart and in my life? Lord, that I would be a clear and true ambassador of you wherever I go and whatever I do. Would you shine through me and through my brothers and sisters, that we would be ambassadors of you. Thank you for revealing your nature and character, that we might know what your kingdom is all about. Help us to declare it plainly to all we come in contact with. For we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.