Evangelism—a Confrontation of Powers

Chapter 13 of the book of Acts. The last time we studied this book, we focused on the first three or four verses of chapter 13, and now I want to continue with the next eight chapters or so. The first event the apostle Paul and the apostle Barnabas encounter when they set out on their missionary journey. It says here: "So they, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus. And when they arrived in Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. They also had John as their assistant. And when they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos"—this is one of the cities of Cyprus—"they came upon a certain sorcerer, a Jewish false prophet named Bar-Jesus, who was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, an intelligent man. This man called for Barnabas and Saul and desired to hear the word of God, but Elymas opposed them." This same Bar-Jesus had another name, for that is how his name is translated: Elymas, Bar-Jesus, "seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith. Then Saul, who is also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him and said, ‘O you who are full of all deceit and all wickedness, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease perverting the straight ways of the Lord?’" Paul suddenly turned Pentecostal right then and there, didn’t he?

"And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is against you, and you shall be blind and not see the sun for a time." Immediately, darkness and gloom fell upon him, and he went around seeking someone to lead him by the hand. Then the proconsul, seeing what had happened, believed, amazed at the teaching of the Lord. What a beautiful passage, isn’t it? Look, we see something interesting here, don’t we? This is the first event recorded by the book of Acts from the apostle Paul’s first missionary journey. From this point through the last chapter of the book of Acts, what we are going to see are the various episodes from the apostle Paul’s different missionary journeys. From chapter 13 to 29, what we have is account after account of the various experiences the apostle Paul had on his journeys, when the Lord sent him to preach the gospel throughout the Greco-Roman Empire. And it is interesting that on this journey, the first things they encounter are these two: a great opportunity to preach the gospel and also great opposition to the preaching of that gospel. Notice that God leads Paul and Barnabas to meet a man who is absolutely strategic and important for the future proclamation of the gospel. He is an official of the Roman Empire; he is a bureaucrat, an imperial official who controls the entire geographical area around Paul and Barnabas.

If this person were converted, he could make many things easier wherever he has authority—this entire region of Cyprus. He is a key man who has contacts among the Romans and could be very useful for the proclamation of the gospel. In earlier chapters, we have seen that God led the disciples to strategic places to preach the gospel. He put them in contact with a Roman centurion, a captain in the Roman army, Cornelius, and it began to spread through the Roman army. Then He took Philip—you will remember, in a passage we also discussed—and miraculously led him to an encounter with a eunuch who was an official in the court of Queen Candace of Ethiopia. This man, who thirsted for God, received the word, the preaching of the gospel, and was baptized. Then he went back to his country of Ethiopia and preached the gospel there. In fact, as we know, today in Israel there is a very large Ethiopian community that is believed to have come from the preaching of this man whom Philip evangelized. And now we see something interesting: this Roman government official, Sergius Paulus, is hungry for God. He is a God-fearing man; he is a man who wants to listen. Like Cornelius in the account from a few weeks ago, he seems to have had a healthy fear of God. Who knows whether he had vaguely heard about this new figure named Jesus? And when he learned that Paul and Barnabas had arrived on his island, he immediately became interested and invited them to have a personal audience with him so that he could hear the word of God.

How interesting that these three individuals—the Ethiopian eunuch and this man—regardless of what was happening in the church, somehow already had the Holy Spirit working in their hearts. There was a stirring within them; there was a desire to hear from God. What God did was simply bring the message of the gospel together with hearts that were already prepared to receive God’s message. And that made me think that in our neighborhoods, our communities, and our cities, there are many people like Sergius Paulus who are eager to hear from God and are hungry for God, but they do not know how to come into contact with the gospel.

Let me tell you, nowadays, with so many means of communication—the internet, television, magazines, and newspapers—you would think there is no reason for people not to hear the gospel. I don’t know whether you could turn the microphone up a little. Can all of you in the back hear me? And I am mindful of it because sometimes the volume on the radio program drops a little and it cannot be heard well. But the point is, brothers and sisters, you would think, no, everyone hears the gospel; everyone has an opportunity. Let me tell you that in our cities, right now in this city of Boston, among the Latino community, for example, there are many people who have no contact with a Christian and no contact with a church. They want to receive the word of God. They are having marital problems and problems with their children, and they do not know how to get in touch with a Christian. That might seem impossible to believe, but it is true. Many people, for example, feel intimidated by the idea of entering an evangelical church. Put yourself in the place of someone who has never had the opportunity to go to an evangelical church. You know how threatening it is to contemplate the idea of walking through the doors and entering a place where nobody knows you, where you do not know what they are going to say to you, and where you have heard people say that Christians are crazy, that they are going to grab hold of you and immediately ask you for money, that they will not leave you alone for the rest of your life, that they will keep calling and bothering you. They do not receive the word. Like Sergius Paulus, they have a spiritual concern, but there is no way for them to come into contact with the word.

Where does their hope lie? In men and women like you and me, who can take the word into their neighborhoods and speak to those people. At our workplaces there are people who have a healthy interest in God. And do you know what is going to happen to those people? If, while having spiritual concerns, they do not receive the true gospel, the devil will send them people like Bar-Jesus to confuse them and give them a false gospel. One wonders what Bar-Jesus, this false prophet, was doing beside a serious and spiritual man like Sergius Paulus. I believe that it was precisely because of the spiritual concern he had in a pagan world. Bar-Jesus came offering him magic, false religion, and false contact with God, manipulating him as false prophets do with the word of God, and so forth.

In his ignorance, this man went after the first thing he found and took this Bar-Jesus as a spiritual adviser. And what this man did was give him false nourishment to soothe his thirst for the truth of God. That is what happens to so many people in this culture. They are hungry for God, but they do not want to come to an evangelical church, or they do not know how. The devil has filled them with lies about what evangelicals are. I assure you, brothers and sisters, that they have a healthy desire to know God out there. But whether because of the poor preaching of the gospel, the bad examples we Christians have set in so many ways, or the false Christianity that is so often preached—prosperity, manipulation, and the financial corruption found today in so much false preaching of the gospel—they do not want it because they think that is the gospel. And the devil provides them with a false religion through Buddhism, Hinduism, the New Age, and false forms of spirituality that satisfy their cultural sensibilities and their reasoning. Then they find themselves like Sergius Paulus, wanting God, but with this serpent there whispering to them.

Interestingly, Paul and Barnabas brought the Holy Spirit before this man. When they began preaching to him, since he himself had requested this meeting, what did Bar-Jesus do? He immediately began whispering to Sergius Paulus, "Do not believe them. That is a lie. That story about this man rising from the dead and being the only truth is a lie. There are many gods." And I imagine that while Paul and Barnabas preached to Sergius Paulus, this man was there contradicting them, placing obstacles in their way, preventing them from preaching the gospel freely and clearly, and trying to confuse this man who had a healthy fear of God. I believe, brothers and sisters, that if someone had been able to look behind the spiritual realm, he would have seen demons controlling Bar-Jesus, whispering to Bar-Jesus and using this demon-possessed man to prevent Sergius Paulus from hearing the gospel and being converted.

That is why, brothers and sisters, we need the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives. The Bible says that Paul was filled at that moment. He was able to discern what was happening, and, filled with the Holy Spirit, he rebuked the evil spirit that animated Bar-Jesus and essentially pronounced a word of curse and judgment upon this man, preventing him from getting his way. Brothers and sisters, one of the things I was thinking about during this time is that the same thing happens with the church of Jesus Christ. There are many people in the world today who have a desire. I think of the Latino community and the African American community. Our people have a healthy fear of God. They come from either a Catholic or an evangelical background, but they have Jesus, they respect Christianity, and they respect the church. Yet there are many cultural influences trying to intimidate and confuse them and to prevent the gospel from being preached. And we must be aware of that. There will be opposition to the church of Jesus Christ when it seeks to preach the gospel.

God has purposes for our congregation, and I want to tell you, brothers and sisters, that as we try to do God’s work, we should not be surprised that the devil is also trying to sow weeds, trying to cause harm, trying to prevent the word of God from advancing, and placing obstacles in the way of the preaching of the gospel. That is why we must be filled with the conviction and power of God, because God wants to use us. He wants to use you so that every day you may take the gospel to people like Sergius Paulus, who need to hear the word of the Lord. And we cannot allow ourselves to be intimidated. We cannot allow ourselves to be gagged and silenced by an enemy who wants to make us lose the Lord’s bosom. We have the clear message. We have the answer to the needs of our community, and we must fill ourselves with courage, because many people will want to prevent you and me from proclaiming the truth, as happened with this man. The only thing we must clearly understand is this: many people have false religions of God, but we cannot blame them. Christian churches often adopt the attitude that people are difficult and do not want to receive the gospel. Brother, I have found that when we preach the gospel to people in a healthy, simple, and understandable way, people respond positively. People desire God, and sometimes we evangelicals place so many obstacles in the way of preaching and make it difficult for unbelievers to come to the ways of the Lord.

We must adopt a positive attitude toward unbelievers. We must believe that they will come to the gospel. We must believe that we have an appealing, winning message, a message that can reach their hearts. We must stop being afraid to speak to the unconverted about the Lord Jesus Christ. Sometimes we are greatly surprised when we preach to someone or invite that person to church and, expecting a refusal, hear the person say, "Oh yes, I want to go." This week, a brother who works delivering packages for UPS went to an American home to deliver a package. He knocked on the door, and a woman who looked depressed and gaunt opened it. He says that at the far end of the room there was another man, an older gentleman, sitting on a sofa with an equally depressed expression. He greeted the woman, and I do not know exactly how, but a conversation began. She told him that she was sick, depressed, and feeling sad, and said, "My husband here is in the same condition. He has been diagnosed with incurable cancer, and they have given him only a few months to live."

This brother, who is a man filled with God and with the Spirit, said to her, “Ma’am, would you like me to pray for you and for your husband?” And he said to the man, “Look, I cannot guarantee that you will be healed if I pray for you, but if you receive Christ as your Lord and Savior, whether you live or die, you will go to be with the Lord. Will you allow me to pray for you and your wife?” And he says that the man, as tears began to stream from his eyes, said to him, “Yes, pray for us.” This brother from the church prayed for this couple, prayed for healing, and asked them whether they both wanted to receive Christ, and they both said, “Yes, we want to receive Jesus.” And I believe that, like Philip, our brother left there and went on to his next encounter, blessed by that experience. The last thing this man said to our brother was, “If I die and go to heaven, for all eternity I will be thanking God for you; I will remember you in heaven.” How beautiful.

So, in spite of the devil, who wants to intimidate us and wants to undermine our conviction, we have a unique message. We must ask the Lord to give us courage and strength to preach the gospel in season and out of season, because there will be opposition. I will close with this example from my own life, which I experienced in this church. I am going to ask the musicians to come up here for a moment. I want to leave you with this illustration. This week there was a crime in Boston, and it was connected to families who attend our church. A young woman from the Dominican community was murdered by her boyfriend. I do not know whether you had the opportunity to see it on the news and in the newspapers. I knew this young woman when she was a little girl. The gospel was preached to her, but she persisted in a life of drugs, promiscuity, and bad company; and although several churches made an effort to lead her to salvation, she said no, that she had already given herself over to this, and that she knew that one day she was going to die violently. Just consider that confession.

She resisted the gospel, and I understand that her boyfriend, out of jealousy, shot her five times. This happened a few days ago, and this young woman died. The funeral home said no; this young woman was a leader. The devil deliberately tries to seize talented people and immediately tries to prevent them from coming to the gospel. Like Sergius Paulus, she knew many people. So many people wanted to come to her funeral that they could not hold it at the funeral home. I found out about the wake through people from this church, called them, and offered them our facilities here at Lion of Judah. They gratefully accepted. When I arrived on Wednesday night for the main service, her body was here. I found that the street outside was full of people who wanted to come in, and the church was already full. There were police officers outside. There was also a motorcycle gang that wanted to enter the church, leaving all their motorcycles outside. The place was packed with unbelievers. I saw young people caught up in drugs, alcoholism, and every kind of wayward life. God had brought them captive here to the church.

I was not the pastor officiating because a large part of her family attends another church, but they had told me that they wanted me to share a few words. You know that, for me, “a few words” is dangerous, don’t you? So when I arrived here for the service and saw this entire sea of unbelievers, and young people who, I believe, had probably never entered a church and, I believe, would never enter one again, I struggled greatly within myself. That is why I speak to you about the opposition in our culture that seeks to drown out the Father’s word, because there are voices today—for example, regarding our young people. Our young people are captive to the devil, to drugs, promiscuity, crime, and violence. Our young people are killing one another. This very week, three or four more young people died here in the city of Boston. The violence is terrible. Our youth is lost. Our community, which I say is a community that has a healthy fear of God, is not receiving the gospel. Now, do you know which voices do reach those people? The voices of Bar-Jesus. Look, the Boston Public Health Department does not want us evangelicals to preach about sexual abstinence. What they want is for us to preach about condoms and what they call responsible sex.

Look, try preaching responsible sex to a seventeen-year-old whose hormones are coming out of his ears. They do not understand that. All they want us to talk to them about is birth control. That is all. They do not want to provide money for young people to be taught that they must restrain their sexual appetites, because they say that is impossible. That is what the Massachusetts Department of Public Health does. Websites tell young people that homosexuality and lesbianism are fine, that this is merely one more option among the many different options available to them. From the time they are very small, our children are taught about homosexuality, so-called responsible sex, and lesbianism. The health department and the United States government itself are preaching this diabolical gospel that keeps our young people chained to the devil. They prevent the church from preaching to these young people. When we say that homosexuality is wrong, that lesbianism is wrong, and that promiscuity should not be practiced, they tell us that we are narrow-minded. They say that we must allow that to be preached in our schools. And that is what is leading our young people. The mental and physical health departments are full—flooded with families whom the devil is devouring alive—and they try to muzzle the church so that it will not preach the only hope, which is Christ Jesus.

And then, when we try to preach, as I say, they try to muzzle us; as with Paul and Barnabas, they try to fill us with fear. When these young people were here, I stood here at the front and saw what was happening—that this was a unique opportunity to preach the gospel. Do you know what my struggle was? Sometimes we pastors preach and people do not know what is going on inside us. I asked myself, “Lord…” First, I knew that city officials had come because it was a high-profile case, and I knew that I was not the principal pastor, although I was the host because this was our church. But I did not want to take control of the gathering either. I was afraid that people might think I was taking advantage of these people who were fragile here that day, who felt fragile because of the death, and that I was exploiting that to manipulate them. My mind is very conscious of the pressures of this culture, and one struggles. The more involved one becomes with the world out there, the more one struggles with those voices out there. I believe we must become involved.

There are many people who say, “You are fanatics. God is a God of many different ways, and you are narrow-minded.” They accuse us of being fanatics. But you know, as I struggled and saw these young people bound by the devil, I said, “How can I fail to proclaim Christ in a situation like this?” And God gave me the power and strength to preach to them about the God who says, “I am the door; whoever enters through me will be saved.” I spoke to them about how Christ says, “The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy, but I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” And I said to these young people, “The devil wants you to end up as Alessa did, or to spend your entire lives going around the same thing and, in the end, in your old age, to wind up drug-addicted and alcoholic, begging for quarters in the streets, human wreckage. Yet Christ says, ‘I have come that they may have life.’” And I challenged them. I said, “Look, Christ is the only hope you have of being freed from drugs, alcohol, crime, and promiscuity. Receive Jesus.” I told them, “Look, this may be the only opportunity I have to speak to you, and I do not want to waste it.” I forgot that there were Hispanics here and spoke to them in English because I wanted to address them specifically. I wanted them to hear the clear preaching of the gospel.

I know that some people were upset, but brothers and sisters, we cannot stop preaching the gospel. Woe to us, the Word says, if we stop preaching the only hope that our young people have. The voices of Elymas will be trying to muzzle us. Things will get worse every day. More and more people will turn against the gospel, and we will have to summon our courage and say, “We will preach the truth of the gospel, no matter who says otherwise.” That is why we must be filled with the power of God. We must be a Pentecostal people. That is why, spiritually speaking, we must eat red meat so that we will be filled with the strength of God. The devil wants to weaken the people of God, fill us with doubt, fill us with fear, intimidate us, and water down the gospel so that we will not clearly preach Christ, who is the source of life and salvation for the community. Our community out there needs a church. It needs men and women who are passionate and convinced of the gospel we have received. Let the devil wag his tail; we do not care. Let them call us fanatics; it does not matter. We must preach the Word of God clearly—undiluted and unadulterated—the clear Word we have received from God.

We must proclaim that Word. You must summon your courage. In the name of the Lord, ask God to give you courage to speak to your colleagues at work, in your neighborhood, to your family, and to your boss. Of course, you can do it wisely; we must be wise as well. But we must also be bold in the name of the Lord. And when the devil tries to fill you with fear, say as Paul did, “May the Lord rebuke you.” We must pray for our community so that the devil will withdraw, because Satan is fighting for souls. The Bible says that before plundering a strong man’s house, he must first be bound. And the church of Christ must intercede; it must pray. We must wage spiritual warfare. With one hand we bind the devil through our prayers; with the other hand we preach the gospel and command Satan, “Release the souls!” We must command the devil, “Release the souls of this community!” because God brings a harvest, but first we must bind the strong man, and we must wage spiritual warfare. We must be warrior men and women. Brother and sister, we must stop playing games now. Things are getting intense, but God wants to give us a great harvest.

When I preached the gospel to these young people—and perhaps some of you were here—I issued a call in the name of the Lord: “God wants to set you free. God wants you, by faith, to begin something and align yourselves with the power of Christ—the blood of Jesus, which alone can protect your heads and which alone can protect you from the devil.” And I dared to say to them, “Raise your hands if you want to receive Jesus this afternoon.” Brothers and sisters, dozens of young people and adults raised their hands that afternoon and received Jesus.

I know that throughout that process God will continue leading them, because many times a confrontation of power is necessary. Christ says that when we open the door to Him, He enters. I know that for many young people a spiritual confrontation took place there, and God is now going to lead them where He needs to lead them. But something was broken, and that is what we must do: give people a clear choice. Look, choose between the power of darkness that wants to destroy you and the power of the gospel that wants to redeem you. That is how you must preach to people, because that is the way it is. It is a power struggle between the devil, who wants to keep souls bound so that God will not use them—so that God will not use their talents, as He used Sergius Paulus’s, to allow the gospel to spread—and the power of Jesus, who wants to give life to our community. Like Paul and Barnabas, you have the answer. Become an evangelist.

Let us stand. I am going to ask the Lord to fill us with courage to proclaim the gospel. I want to declare over you a fresh anointing to be an evangelist, a proclaimer of the Word. Identify three, four, or five people in your family or in your neighborhood. When you get home, write their names on a piece of paper so that you can pray for them. Begin praying for those lives. Bind the devil in those lives. How many people do you know who do not have the Lord? Make a list of people and begin to pray for God to open doors, for God to open their hearts, and begin sharing the gospel with them. Ask them to give you the opportunity to invite them to church, and tell them, “Look, I am going to take you to my church so that you can hear the Word of God.” In this day and age, we must make it clear to people that what they are doing is not merely coming to church to play at listening to the gospel. What they are doing is choosing between life and death, choosing between darkness and light, choosing between slavery and freedom, choosing between the devil, who wants to steal, kill, and destroy their souls, and the benevolent rule of Jesus, who has come so that we may have life, and have it abundantly.

Raise your hand and receive a fresh anointing from the Lord right now. Father, I declare my church to be an evangelistic church, a church passionate about the gospel, a church that does not draw back, a church profoundly conscious of its calling to be a proclaimer of the gospel. Father, I proclaim an evangelistic anointing over them. We declare a harvest of souls, Lord; we declare that many of the people who were preached to this week will come to a full knowledge of Jesus, and we claim their lives for the gospel even now. We open the doors of this church so that multitudes may come in to receive the gospel, and we ask, Lord, that You fill our hearts with courage and a sense of urgency to proclaim Jesus as Lord and Savior of humanity. Pour out Your gifts, perform wonders, Lord, give us authority to unleash the movement of the Holy Spirit, so that, just as with Paul and Barnabas, people may see a gospel proclaimed and also bathed in the power of the presence of God. Thank You, Lord. We receive a new anointing to evangelize the souls of this community, and we thank You for those who are to come to the gospel. Thank You, in Jesus’ name, amen.