Article August 22, 1908 Issue

"BUT WHO ARE YE?"

WILLARD S. MATTOX

It is related in the nineteenth chapter of Acts that Paul's teaching was followed by a great influx of light, a spiritual revelation. It is said of some of his students that the Holy Ghost came upon them." Paul was at Ephesus when he had a peculiar experience. His success in arousing the dormant thought of both his Jewish and his Gentile audiences, his success in healing, through the understanding of Jesus' teaching, had hitherto brought him persecution. He had been mobbed, stoned, flogged, and jailed. There was hardly a phase of human hatred and murderous revenge with which he was not familiar. His doctrines had been resisted by the materialists, by the professional theologians, by all who profited through the continued ignorance of the masses. But in Ephesus he had a new experience. The phrase, "Imitation is the sincerest flattery," had not yet been coined, but Paul saw it exemplified. The record of what happened is instructive and interesting. It reads thus:—

"Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth. And there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, and chief of the priests, which did so. And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye? And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. And this was known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. And many that believed came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds."

It may be that the opponents of the new-born Church of Christ realized how futile were their efforts to check its growth. They had tried ridicule and abuse; they had threatened openly and plotted secretly. They had sought the personal removal of all of the principal figures in the new religious movement, but to no purpose, and their campaign of hatred resulted in the very state of affairs they did not wish to bring about, for it is written, "So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed." Something else must be tried, some other remedy for this increasingly popular religion of Christ must be found; and so certain exorcists "took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus."

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