Sometimes you can find brand named goods for sale at very cheap prices. But when you look closer, and find out where they were made, you realise they are counterfeit - not the genuine articles. Imitations!
Let us learn about something that seemed to have been made in the right place, but it shouldn’t have been difficult to prove it was not genuine. Don’t you be fooled by imitations.
Serious trouble had erupted in Ephesus. The local manufacturers of statues and images had stirred up a massive protest demonstration against the apostle Paul and his friends. Paul had been teaching what the Great Creator God thought of all statues and images. (Romans 1:18-25.) “Man-made gods are no gods at all,” he had told them. (Acts 19:26. Psalm 135:15-18!)
But the people of Ephesus were proud of their great goddess called Artemis, and of her image. So, “the whole city was in uproar. The mob grabbed … Paul’s travelling companions … and rushed … into the theatre.” (verse 29.) Paul’s friends kept him from going before the crowd, because they knew his life would be in danger.
“For two hours the crowd shouted, ‘Great is Artemis of the Ephesians.’ The city clerk quietened the crowd. ‘Doesn’t all the world know that the city of Ephesus is the guardian of the temple of the great Artemis, and of her image, which fell from heaven?’” he said. (verses 34-35.)
Because of these claims he was declaring they needed no further proof that they were right!
He told them, “You ought to be quiet and not do anything rash. You have brought these men here, though they have neither robbed temples nor blasphemed our goddess." (verses 36-37.)
Of course Paul and his friends would not want to rob their temples, or interfere with their image! But they had had to tell them that the true God was not worshipped through images - even images that were supposed to have come down from heaven! God certainly would never send down any image, or message, from heaven to encourage worship that involves images. (Isaiah 44:8-20. Exodus 20:4-6.) Their sacred heavenly image did NOT prove that they had a genuine God-pleasing religion, instead it proved they were not out to please and obey God! The crowd contented themselves that they had a genuine goddess, and the meeting was dismissed.
“When the uproar had ended, Paul sent for the disciples and, after encouraging them, said goodbye and set out for Macedonia.” (Acts 20:1.)
I wonder could you have been as easily contented with counterfeit worship, to go on disobeying God by using images, as the crowd in Ephesus that day? Or, will you be like the small company of “believers”? Will you believe in Jesus Christ as your only Priest and Saviour, and be “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from Heaven …” (1stThessalonians 1:9-10.)
Read Acts chapter 19, verse 28 to chapter 20, verse 1.
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