Can good come out of Evil?

Acts 19:15-20

Have you ever ask; can good come out of evil?  My first thought is that good always prevails over evil, but often in the middle of evil attacking in our family, our place of worship, our government, our schools, we lose heart.  We forget that God is above our main street, and we lose heart because, we cannot see what He is doing because of the large building blocking our view.  And it is going to take all the faith you have to trust God, that He has never lost sight of you, not even when you are hiding in the shadows of those big buildings hoping that evil will not see you, your God has not lost sight of you, and you are under His care.

Often, when God is showing Himself strong in a believer’s life others who may have ministry responsibility may feel left out or they may become envious and out of that heart attitude comes all kinds of evil.  This is such an account of the seven sons of the high priest, the sons of Sceva.  First, we see God using Paul’s earthsuit in power of both speech but also in the healing and the driving out of evil spirits, and the high priest and his sons we not for the moment the center of the Jewish life.  Now when you are dad has been the top dog of the community and some new guy is getting all the acclaim, it can cause jealousy, or in their case, the sons of Sceva, in that they were itinerant Jewish exorcists who must have traveled to drive out evil spirits.  But under whose authority did the sons of Sceva operate, in that we have no record of them summiting to or receiving anything from Jesus Christ.  In my Holman Study Bible, page 901 we have this note: “Itinerant Jewish exorcists: attempted to use Jesus’ name to command evil spirits.  Ancient magic traditions often involved the invocation of divine names.”

Now if you are one of those coming to Paul and you see these guys trying to get part of the action, before you get emotionally involved stop and pray that God will show Himself strong and that His name will be praised.  We have the consequences trivially using the name of Jesus, the evil spirit in the man answer in this way “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?”  And then the man with the evil spirit leaped on them and beat all of them and they ran from the house naked.  Now naked in public was a big no, no, since Jews shunned nudity.  So good came out of evil, yes but now the rest of the story.

The rest of the story by doctor Luke: “And this became known to all the residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks. And fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled. Also many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices. And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the value of them and found it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.” (Acts 19:17-20 ESV)

If your main street is very dark at this hour and it seems like the lights will never return, and you hunker down in some corner, remember; “For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? (1 John 5:4-5 ESV)

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice