In Acts 19, if you look at verse number 1, the Bible says this,
And it came to pass that while Apollos was at Corinth,
Paul, having passed through the upper coast, came to Ephesus and finding certain disciples.
And it goes on to the story.
I want you to notice that we are jumping into one of Paul's missionary journeys.
And Paul, of course, would go into these cities and he would try to do missions work and evangelistic work.
And here we see him coming to the city of Ephesus.
And, of course, we know that he ended up establishing a church in Ephesus.
We've got the epistle written to the Ephesians where it's Paul giving instruction to the church in Ephesus.
And I want you to notice there's a lot of just kind of stories that are found in this chapter, very interesting chapter.
But I want you to notice how the chapter ends.
If you go down to verse number 35, the Bible says this,
And when the town clerk had appeased the people,
When the town clerk had appeased the people, he said,
Ye men of Ephesus, what man is there that knoweth not how that the city of the Ephesians is a worshiper of the great goddess Diana,
and of the image which fell down from Jupiter?
And by the way, that's considered one of the great ancient landmarks of the world.
Verse 36,
Seeing then that these things cannot be spoken against, ye ought to be quiet and to do nothing rashly.
For ye have brought hither these men, which are neither robbers of churches, nor yet blasphemers of your goddess.
Wherefore, if Demetrius and the craftmen, which are with him, have matter against any man, the law is open, and there are deputies.
Let them plead one another.
But if ye inquire anything concerning other matters, it shall be determined in a lawful assembly.
Now here we have the town clerk and he's literally trying to disperse a group that has gathered together
because there's been a huge protest against the ministry of the apostle Paul.
Notice verse 40,
For we are in danger to be called in question of this day's uproar.
And I want you to notice that word uproar there.
He says, We are in question for this day's uproar, there being no cause whereby we may give an account for this concourse.
And that word means this gathering or this assembly.
Look at verse 41,
And when he had thus spoken, he dismissed the assembly.
Here's what I like about Acts chapter 19 is that when Acts 19 begins in verse 1,
we have the apostle Paul entering into the city of Ephesus.
And when Acts 19 ends at the end of the chapter, we have the whole city in an uproar.
We have the whole city in chaos.
We have the whole city just persecuting him and persecuting his followers.
And here's what you need to understand.
This idea of Paul or New Testament Christians or first century Christians causing an uproar is a theme that we find through the New Testament.
I'll show you a couple of verses in the book of Acts.
If you can go back to, actually go to Acts chapter 21.
Acts chapter 21, you're there in Acts 19.
Go to Acts 21.
And of course, you remember that the Lord Jesus Christ caused a bunch of uproar.
And there was one final uproar that led to his crucifixion where the people, the mob turned on him.
And they had him crucified.
And they had the city officials, the Roman officials put him to death.
Notice Acts 21 and verse 30, the Bible says this.
And I want you to just notice these words.
And all the city was moved.
Acts chapter 21 verse 30.
And all the city was moved.
And the people ran together and they took Paul and drew him out of the temple.
And forthwith the doors were shut.
And as they went about to kill him, tidings came unto the chief captain of the band.
Notice what it says.
That all Jerusalem was in an uproar.
Here we have another example where Paul and his ministry and his preaching and his presence had caused an uproar.
And here we have the captain of the band, a Roman soldier coming and rescuing him from this mob.
From this uproar.
Go to Acts chapter 17.
Look at verse number 4.
And again, we could look at a lot of passages.
I'll just show you a couple.
Acts chapter 17.
Look at verse 4.
Acts chapter 17 and verse 4, the Bible says this.
And some of them believed and consorted with Paul and Silas.
And of the devout Greeks, a great multitude.
And of the chief women, not a few.
I love that wording.
He goes in there and he's starting getting people saved.
You say, how many people saved?
A great multitude.
And of the chief women, not a few.
Look at verse 5.
But the Jews which believed not moved with envy took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort and gathered a company.
Don't miss these words.
And set all the city on an uproar.
I want you to notice that when you study the book of Acts and when you study New Testament first century Christianity,
they did not have this attitude that we need to just go along to get along.
We need to just exist and try to not cause problems and try to not cause issues and try to not get any attention.
In fact, the opposite was true.
Everywhere Jesus went, everywhere Paul went,
everywhere New Testament Christians went, they were causing an uproar in the cities that they were ministering in.
Look at verse 6.
And when they found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying.
Notice what they said.
We take this as a compliment.
We use this verse as a compliment of New Testament Christianity.
But this is not how the verse was given.
These words were not given as a compliment to the Apostle Paul and his ministry.
They are saying, these are people in an uproar.
These are people at a protest.
These are people that are upset and they're crying.
These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also.
See, they would look at these New Testament Christians and say, these people are troublemakers.
These people are trying to shake things up.
These people are causing an uproar.
These people are trying to cause problems.
The choir this morning sang about turning the tide.
And you know what we need in America?
We need to turn the tide.
You say, how are you going to do that?
Well, you know what?
I believe, and it is my position, it is my belief, and we can see it from the Word of God,
that we need New Testament Christianity to get back to causing some uproar.
You say, what do you mean by that?
I'm saying we need to cause a ruckus.
I'm saying we need to challenge the status quo.
I'm saying we need to disturb the ballots a little bit.
I'm saying, I'm trying to think of as many.
I wrote down some analogies here.
We need to make a stink.
We need to rock the boat.
We need to upset the apple cart.
We need to stir things up.
Do you understand what I'm saying?
New Testament Christianity would come into a city.
Paul would walk into a city and he'd walk out of that city after the city was made an uproar,
after the city was made to protest, after the city.
He went in places and he just kind of rocked the boat a little bit.
And the question today is why do we as New Testament believers believe,
or maybe we should ask this question, how can we as New Testament believers rock the boat,
cause a ruckus, cause an uproar in our cities today?
And here, please understand this.
There's a right and a wrong way to do this.
There are some churches out there that they cause all sorts of uproar,
but they do them in ways that are not biblical and in ways that are not scriptural.
Look, I'm not talking about going and protesting somebody's funeral.
Are you for the military industrial complex?
I'm not for the military industrial complex.
I don't ever see the apostle Paul protesting anything.
I don't ever see the apostle Paul walking into somebody's funeral
and talking about how they ought to protest that funeral.
I'm not talking about walking into other religious buildings
and having some sort of a protest or whatever.
But we will find and we do find that in the Bible,
in the Bible we find this pattern of the apostle Paul,
how he biblically and how he scripturally caused an uproar.
I'm preaching this morning on the subject of causing an uproar.
I want you to notice what the apostle Paul did.
Go back to Acts chapter 19, that's our text for this morning, Acts chapter 19.
I see in this chapter three steps that the apostle Paul took to cause an uproar.
I'd encourage you to write these down on the back of your course of the week.
There's a place for you to write some notes down.
Maybe you can write these down and you say, why would you preach this sermon?
Well, number one, just to remind our church, Verity Baptist Church,
what we're trying to do and what we're trying to accomplish.
But you know, I'm also hoping that we can influence some other churches.
There are some Baptists who are watching online right now
and they agree with us and they believe what we believe
and they like this preaching but they're just in the closet.
They're not really sure what they should be doing.
I'm trying to give them an instructional sermon this morning,
what it is that they need to do.
We've got some young men sitting in this auditorium right now
that are hoping that one day they'll be able to be ordained and go into the ministry
and they'll be able to go into the city and start a church there.
And I want to give those young men just some instructions, some steps
as to what it is that they should be accomplishing today.
We're talking about causing an uproar.
You say, how do we do it?
Well, number one, causing an uproar will require saturating our community
with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Causing an uproar begins with soul winning and it begins with mass evangelism.
It begins with saturating our community with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I love this theme that's also found in the book of Acts of the Apostle Paul.
You say, what did he do in Ephesus?
What did he do in Ephesus that ended with an uproar, that ended with a protest,
that ended with these problems?
Notice verse number eight.
I'd like you to notice these things.
We're talking about saturating our city,
saturating our community with the gospel of Christ.
You say, how do we do that?
Well, first of all, he was confrontational with the gospel.
Notice verse eight.
And he went into the synagogue and notice these words, speak boldly.
Say, how do you know you're filled with the Spirit of God when you speak boldly?
You say, how can we cause an uproar in our city?
How can we cause an uproar in Sacramento?
How can we cause an uproar back in the town that I came from?
Hey, you ought to have a goal of saturating your community in your city with the gospel of Christ.
You say, how do I do that?
You do it through confrontational soul winning.
You do it by taking it to them.
You say, when you say confrontational, what do you mean?
I'm not talking about contentious.
I'm not talking about being mean and ugly and angry out there when we're preaching the gospel.
You say, what do you mean by confrontational?
I mean, we're on the offense.
We're taking it to them.
I'm pretty sure I read these words somewhere in the New Testament.
Go, go ye therefore, go preach the gospel.
Hey, we're supposed to go.
We're supposed to confront them.
He went into the synagogue.
And what did he do?
He spake boldly.
That's why the apostle Paul would pray that utterance may be given unto me.
That I may open my mouth boldly to make note the mystery of the gospel of Christ.
Notice verse 9.
But when the divers were hardened to believe not, but spake evil of that way before the multitude,
he departed from them and separated the disciples, disputing daily, notice, in the school of one Tyrannus.
I want you to notice, Paul preached the gospel.
Paul preached the gospel wherever they'd let him preach the gospel.
He went everywhere.
He went anywhere and everywhere.
Why?
Because he was on the offense.
Why?
Because he had confrontational soul in him.
But I want you to notice, not only was he confrontational with the gospel, he also contended for the gospel.
Notice verse 8 again.
And he went into the synagogue and spake boldly for the space of three months.
Notice these words.
Disputing.
What does that mean?
That means to refute and to argue against.
Disputing and persuading.
What does persuade mean?
To convince or to win over.
He went out disputing and persuading the things concerning the kingdom of God.
Notice verse 9.
When thy verse were hardened and believed not, but spake evil of that way before the multitude, he departed from them and separated the disciples.
Notice these words.
Disputing daily.
I love that.
Disputing daily in the school of one Tyrannus.
Doesn't the Bible say, Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints?
Again, I'm not talking about being contentious, but I'm talking about contending for the faith, defending for the faith.
We ought to be kind when we're out soul winning and we're talking to lost people.
Look, when we knock on someone's door, we are uninvited guests.
I don't believe in going out there and being ugly and being nasty and being rude.
But look, it is our job to confront them and it is our job to contend with them in regards to the gospel.
And we can do that in a kind way.
I'm not talking about spending hours with a heretic.
The Bible says a man that is in heretic after the first and second admonition, reject.
I'm not talking about getting into some egotistical debate.
But if you can talk to someone and you can help somebody and you can dispute and you can persuade somebody, you ought to take the time to do it.