The Word Made Plain

Guest (Male): Welcome to The Word Made Plain with Senior Pastor Tony Clark of Calvary Chapel Newport News in Virginia. Currently, Pastor Tony is teaching a study in the book of Acts. Please open your Bible to Luke chapter 20.

Tony Clark: You will never turn to God because you can't clean yourself up. If we could, then there was no need for Jesus to come and die on the cross. By the very fact that Jesus came and died on the cross for our sins shows that there is nothing we can do to clean ourselves up. The believers in Thessalonica and Ephesus turned to God first, then they had the power to turn from their idols and from the occult practices. Many of them who had practiced magic, notice, did they bring their books together and have a big yard sale? No. They brought all their books together and took them to an old bookstore? No. They brought their books and burned them in the sight of them all.

This is the true evidence that a person is truly saved. This is also a beautiful example of what Second Corinthians 5:17 says: "If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things are passed away," magic books, occult practices, idols, "and behold, all things become new." When we are a new creation in Christ Jesus, notice old things are passed away. No longer do I want to worship idols or practice magic nor do those things you once did. You are a new creation. You are born again. As born-again Christians, God gives us new desires, new wants, and a new perspective on life.

It is like being blind and suddenly God gives you sight. No one wants to go back to the old life of being blind, go back to living in darkness, and go about stumbling and staggering around in this world. No one wants to go back. I never heard of anyone who was blind and they received their sight and said, "I think I will go back to being blind." No one does that. Once you get sight, you don't want to go back to the old life of stammering and staggering around in the dark. What I love about this verse is how they burned these books, not allowing themselves to be tempted to go back to them. They didn't just put them on the shelf and let them sit there.

Satan would allow those books to call you back to dabble in them again. I just wonder if there is something in your life that you need to burn. Not necessarily physically, but maybe you do need to do it physically. Maybe you need to have an Acts 19:19 burn party. I almost entitled this message "Burn, Baby, Burn," but I would have been telling my age from the disco era. Maybe there are some books, some CDs, some social media chats, and the list goes on and on that need to be burned. Things that you used to have in your old life that need to be severed from your life. Burning them speaks of getting rid of them to the point where you can't go back to them again.

You might say, "Pastor Tony, you don't know. I spent a lot of money on these things. Are you saying that I can't sell them and try to get some of my money back?" First of all, I am not telling you to do anything. I am only telling you what the Ephesian believers did to outwardly show that a change had taken place in their lives. Secondly, why would you want someone to get a hold of that mess that had you in bondage, and for them to be in bondage themselves? And it can link back to you selling it to them. Why would you want that? Yes, you spent a lot of money on these things, but so did they.

When they counted up the value of them, it totaled 50,000 pieces of silver. What a staggering amount of money, showing how deeply involved they were in the occult. Matthew 6:21 says, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." So, 50,000 pieces of silver. The piece of silver referred to was the drachma. That was the Roman money. It is equivalent to the denarius, the Jews' money, which was equivalent to a day's wages. So they counted up all the books and it added up to 50,000 pieces of silver. If a drachma was a piece of silver that represented a day's wages, it was equivalent to 50,000 days' working, or equivalent to several millions of dollars in our money.

They were really involved in this sort of stuff. If you spent a lot of money on a movie collection, music, or whatever it is that was a critical part of your life, let it go. Don't worry about what you spent. It is spent. It is over, it is done. It is gone now. Let it go. Get rid of anything or anyone who would keep you connected to your old life of sin. Someone needs to hear this today. I say this because this is true salvation when we turn from these things. I am not talking about God but still seriously involved in these things.

That is what a lot of Americans are. We can talk that God talk. Before I was a Christian, I talked that God talk because I was brought up in the church. I wasn't a Christian, I just talked that talk. "The Lord is good, too blessed to be stressed." I got all these rhymes and things and talked the talk because I had been around church stuff, but I was no more saved than the man on the moon. I wasn't saved at all. There are a lot of people in America claiming to be Christians and they just added a little Jesus onto their sinful life. That is not what we're talking about. True Christianity is turning away from these things altogether. This is what we see the believers in Ephesus were doing, and they did it where everyone could see them.

Christianity is not to be done in secret like they practiced their magic. We sin in secret. This is why the parties are always jumping at night in dark. The Bible says men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. We want to do things in dark, in secret. Christianity is not to be done in secret. The only party that's happening in the daytime is a birthday party, a kid's birthday party at that. But you know the real parties don't happen until late because it's in the dark. Why do you think at parties we used to have those basement parties? It was dark with a little strobe light. It was dark, shining on those velvet posters we used to have that used to shine. I am showing my age. I'm sorry. Some of you don't even know what I'm talking about.

Christianity is not to be done in secret like they practiced their magic. Christianity is to be lived out so all can see Jesus in our lives. Our world today needs to see Jesus in us. I believe it is true today what John 12:21 says. A group of people came to Philip, one of the disciples of Jesus, and said, "Sir, we wish to see Jesus." The world today is screaming this to the church and saying, "We wish to see Jesus." You have heard me say this many times before: the world isn't turned off to Jesus, they are just turned off to our portrayal of Jesus. That is what they are turned off at.

I even talk to my atheist friend all the time. He says, "I don't have a problem with Jesus. What I know about Jesus, yeah." He is turned off by the church, our demonstration of Jesus, our representation of Jesus. That is what the world is turned off at. The world is screaming to us the church and saying, "We wish to see Jesus," because what we're seeing now, that's not Jesus. When they see us doing everything they are doing, talking like they are talking with the colorful four-letter words with them, when they see us on the weekends partying like a rock star, they are confused and say the church is full of hypocrites. And I would say you are definitely right.

Many people think that a hypocrite is a Christian that is doing sinful things. Yeah, to a certain degree, but not really. Hypocrite was the Greek word *hypokritēs*. It meant an actor. It was the actors who used to act on stage and they used to wear a mask. The mask with exaggerated expressions on them so the people in the back can see the emotion that they were trying to act out. A hypocrite is not a Christian at all, they're just wearing the mask of one. Then when they get home or they leave the church, they take the mask off. So a hypocrite is not even a Christian, just wearing the mask of one.

There are many who call themselves Christians and you just got a mask on because it is not who you are. As soon as you leave here you take the mask off because everybody's a Christian sitting in here. I wouldn't be here if I wasn't a Christian. No, you are here for all kinds of reasons. There are many reasons that brought you here. When the world looks at us and sees us doing what they are doing, talking like they're talking, partying in the club right along with them, when they see us at the bar drinking just like them, when they see us doing all that kind of stuff, surely when they say the church is full of hypocrites, don't get in your feelings about that because it's true. There should be a difference.

The world is screaming to the church today, "We wish to see Jesus." The Ephesians burned everything, or the main thing that dominated their lives, and it was very costly to them and they didn't care. There is a cost to be a follower of Jesus Christ. For many Christians around the world, it is costing them their lives. So what if it is a collection of things you once found pleasure in? Let it go. Who cares? There are people dying for the name of Jesus and you're worried about a movie collection or a music collection? There are people dying for Jesus Christ. There's a cost in following Jesus Christ. I know we don't see that here in America, that cost, but there is a cost in following Jesus Christ.

If you want the word of God to prevail or to grow in your life, you too must burn the junk. Whatever that is in your life: deleting certain apps that are getting you into trouble, deleting certain social media outlets that have you doing or participating or looking at evil things. Or if you look at your life and maybe you are burned out on Bible study, burned out on prayer, burned out on spiritual things, chances are you need to burn something up. When my appetite is dull, when I'm not interested in spiritual things the way I once was, when I find worship a drag, it is time to hit the brakes and cry out to God.

Evaluate my life spiritually and have an Acts 19:19 burn party. I pray, "Lord, show me what needs to be burned in my life that is robbing me of my appetite for spiritual things. Lord, am I filling up on the junk food of the world, the empty calories of the mind, the Twinkies of the spirit? Lord, give me the strength to burn these things and turn away from this junk so I can have an appetite for the meat of the word of God and the things of God." This is a great prayer for all of us to pray. If you look at your life right now and you can care less about spiritual things, you hear that there's a prayer meeting and that's the last place you want to be, I can tell you now, you need an Acts 19:19 party.

There is something that needs to be burned up because it is robbing you. You have been pigging out on the junk food of this world and now you have no appetite for that which is nutritious spiritually. I'm looking at many of you here and you know that that's you. Maybe you hear, you are just here out of habit and say, "Well, I don't want to feel guilty for not going today, so I'm just going to come so I can appease my guilty conscience." But you are not here strictly for Jesus. You're not here to worship the King of kings because he's worthy of worship. You are here for whatever reason. When you care more about the scores on TV than about the word of God, when you can quote stats and can't quote Bible verses, when you are so sold out that it's all about your team, are you a fan of Christ?

Fan is short for fanatic. Burning just signifies not being able to go back, severing that relationship with that thing. When you burn something, it is done. I don't care if it is some ribs or some meat on the grill. When it is burned, it is done. Toss it. I don't know what that is for you. That is between you and the Lord. I am not here to try to play Holy Spirit in your life, but you know you have no appetite for the things of God, and there is a reason for that. Search your own heart whether you're truly saved or not. If you were to die today, would you know that you are going to heaven? No one is a Christian their whole life. You should be able to say, "This was my life before Christ. Christ came in it. This is my life now."

August 26, 1985, I had an encounter with God. He brought my sin before my face, how it was exceedingly sinful, and I confessed my sin before a holy God. He forgave me and came in my life and my life has not been the same since. We are talking about thirty some-odd years ago, and my life has never been the same. Old things were truly passed away. This potty mouth that I had, old things are passed away and behold all things have become new. If you can't say that you repented of your sin and you have accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior and your life is different, we are going to give you an opportunity that you can be born again today. Where old things are truly passed away, behold all things will become new in your life.

He will give you new desires, new wants. He will enable you to see things from a different perspective. You won't want those old things. That's why they're passed away. You won't do it with regrets. You are doing it because you are new in Christ Jesus, and this is what you want to do. Are you born again today? Not just in word, but are you born again in deed and in truth? Are you born again in your life? Jesus said unless you're born again, you can't see the kingdom. We are going to give you an opportunity to make sure that you're right with God today because we don't want you to leave out these doors and something can happen and you're standing before God. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word, for this opportunity. I pray right now that you would save souls and you would change lives.

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