REDEEMED

Eltham Baptist Church 2nd Sept Septt 2012

No. 387

"Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. This girl followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved. She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so troubled that he turned around and said to the spirit, In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her! At that moment the spirit left her. When the owners of the slave girl realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities. They brought them before the magistrates and said, These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice. Acts 16:16-21

The subject that we speak on in our second week of 'Self Denial' is redemption. In the 16th chapter of Acts this next portion of scripture speaks about a demon possessed slave girl who Paul eventually delivered of an evil spirit. One of the primary meanings of redemption is to be set free from slavery by buying a person back. Redemption means : to buy back : repurchase : to get or win back : to free from distresses or harm:: to free from captivity by payment of ransom : to extricate from or help to overcome something detrimental : to release from blame or debt : clear : to free from the consequences of sin : to change for the better : reform. One of the best illustrations I have heard on the subject is about a little boy who built a sailboat. He built the sail and had it all fixed up, tarred and painted. He took it to the lake and pushed it in hoping it would sail. Sure enough a wisp of breeze filled the little sail and it billowed and went rippling along the waves. Suddenly before the little boy knew it, the boat was out of his reach, even though he waded in fast and tried to grab it. As he watched it float away, he hoped maybe the breeze would shift and it would come sailing back to him. Instead he watched it go farther and farther until it was gone. When he went home crying, his mother asked, "What's wrong, didn't it work?" And he said, "It worked too well." Sometime later, the little boy was downtown and walked past a second hand store. There in the window he saw the boat. It was unmistakably his, so he went in and said to the proprietor, "That's my boat." He walked to the window, picked it up and started to leave with it. The owner of the shop said, "Wait a minute, Sonny. That's my boat. I bought it from someone." The boy said, "No, it's my boat. I made it. See." And he showed him the little scratches and the marks where he hammered and filed. The man said, "I'm sorry, Sonny. If you want it, you have to buy it." The poor little guy didn't have any money, but he worked hard and saved his pennies. Finally, one day he had enough money. He went in and bought the little boat. As he left the store holding the boat close to him, he was heard saying, "You're my boat. You're twice my boat. First you're my boat 'cause I made you and second you're my boat 'cause I bought you!" If you ever think that you aren't worth much and if you think you're cheap, just remember what God thinks of you. He thinks you're His. Twice His. First you're His because He made you. And second you're His because He bought you on the cross. He paid a price to redeem you. So let go of your stress to God's care, and let go of your sins to God's cross. This girl in Acts 16 was a slave to her masters and they didn't want her to be free spiritually or physically as they made money out of her. Even today all around the world, evil men and women are making money out of human trafficking and all kinds of slavery from sweat shops, coffee plantations, child labour, prostitution, diamond mining, and drug trafficking etc. Someone once said that the most powerful force in the world is money and the love of it, which I would say is true. People sell their souls for money, sacrificing their families to get it, killing people for it and even Christians disobey God because of it. Did you know that Jesus spoke more on money than He did about heaven in the scriptures? And I can see why. If God has control of your money then He has control of you. Always make sure that the love of money doesn't have a grip on you and make sure you give God that which is rightfully His. Remember God can only multiply the seed that you sow . This slave girl followed Paul and Silas for a few days as they walked to the place of prayer, constantly shouting out to everyone that these men had the way to salvation, which was the truth. Just because she had a demon doesn't mean that everything she speaks is evil and wrong. Satan uses things like this to bait people. He uses half truths and interesting facts to lure people into his

web. You will find that those who get interested in UFO's and ghosts soon find themselves mixed up in 'New Age' teaching which proclaims that Jesus isn't the only way to heaven. They don't deny Jesus, they just say He's not the only way. Nostradamus may have got some of his predictions right but he wasn't a 'born again' Christian, yet so many people including Christians think that everything he said was like holy scripture. It's by their fruit you shall know them. Look at the life style of a so called 'prophet' to see if it lines up with the life of Christ. So many of these religious cults today have leaders who say much about the end of the world and end time predictions yet they sleep with their women followers and extort money out of people.
"By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles?" Matthew 7:16

Just because the Mayan Calendar ends in December 2012 doesn't mean that they are right. Did they follow the teachings of Christ or even the Old Testament? Last I heard they were sacrificing humans on top of their temples, including Children. If the world doesn't end this year in December, will the followers of this sort of rubbish stop believing it? These sort of people also lean toward conspiracy theories which in turn led into religious teachings that the Bible isn't true. This includes the Judas Gospels and the Davinci code which makes out that one of the disciples was a woman and the wife of Jesus. When you think of it, Davinci came onto the scene 600 years after the Last Supper, how could he know who was sitting at the table with Jesus other than what was written in scripture. He was also meant to be a homosexual which can cloud your views. I remember when I wasn't a Christian going to a fortune teller and its interesting to note what she told me. Id always had a longing for the super natural and even used to send away for magic tricks by post when I was a child. At various times I went to a fortune teller, attended a sance, and tried to contact the dead, maybe to find some answers to the meaning of life. You will marry a quiet girl one day, said the woman as she looked into her crystal ball. I see you live in a two storied house, and one day you will live amongst dark skinned people in another land. All she said was very accurate. I was in fact in Auckland at that time, and lived in a two storied house in Sandringham, which isnt that common as most places are single storied houses. I did marry a quiet girl in Rhodesia called Bernice, and stayed in Africa amongst dark skinned people for over 20 years. Little did I realise the danger of consulting fortune tellers and where it can lead you eventually. I became more and more interested in this sort of thing and it nearly destroyed me, but by the grace of God.
Deuteronomy 18:10-13 "There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you. You shall be blameless before the Lord your God,"

God is not pleased with those who practise all forms of divination, for its a counterfeit of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. We should not read horoscopes or study the signs of the Zodiac either, for they are also the works of darkness, the thin edge of the wedge that leads to bigger evils. Say your loved one died and you had the opportunity of going to a sance to speak with them. If you agree to horoscopes you most likely would agree with speaking to the dead. People who are into divination and fortune telling seem to have a gift in this area, for not everyone gets into this sort of stuff do they? I think that they were gifted at birth with a sensitive side that leans them towards the supernatural which God would love to use in the prophetic. The trouble is that Satan tempted them into accepting His power instead of the Holy Spirit's. Another interesting point is that Paul did not rebuke the demon on the first day that the girl spoke. If it were you or I we would most likely have had something to say on the first day she opened her mouth. Paul didn't rush in for he was clearly led by the Holy Spirit. Jesus was like this too for He only did what the Father told Him to do, no more and no less.
Jesus gave them this answer: "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. John 5:19

This slave girl was set free from the power of Satan to tell fortunes, and could possibly have become a follower of Christ which is the ultimate freedom. She was redeemed.

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