LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1977, Page 103

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104 BLACK CENTENNIAL SERMON

while it was day. But if the signs of progress and
“success” were his only reasons for staying and
laboring at Ephesus, the text would lose much of its
inspirational elements. Paul said, in other words: “I am
going to stay because at this time I have some strong
opposition.”

The Book of Acts records the opposition from
Demetrius the silversmith. Demetrius had concluded
that success of the Christian religion would mean
bankruptcy for his thriving business. He made silver
statues of the goddess Diana. It was a common practice
for the converted Christian to destroy his statues of
Diana and to purchase no more of them. Demetrius
made this fact perfectly clear to the others in his trade.
He made a long speech calculated to incite a riot. The
whole city of Ephesus was soon in an uproar. The Bible
says that they were furiously angry. Gaius and
Aristarchus, two traveling companions of St. Paul,
were dragged into the theater. The crowd was ready to
execute them without trial. They shouted for two full
hours the chorus: “Great is Diana of the Ephesians!”
We are told that Paul was trying to go down to the
theater but was forcibly restrained by other Christians.
Fortunately for Gaius and Aristarchus the town clerk
was able to restore order and to remind the people of
how the city established justice.

It is understood that Christianity did actually
triumph over Diana worship. But this came about at a
great cost in the death of martyrs. Christian tombs and
Christian churches have been discovered that date
from the second to the fifth centuries. Crosses were
discovered everywhere. A stele of white marble has
been found with four sunken panels. One of these
pictures a lion rushing upon a man, and the man is
defending himself with a club. In the third panel the
man is seen lying beaten beneath the lion. It is believed
that this represents a Christian martyr. Christians
were often thrown to the lions at the end of a
gladiatorial show.

Paul said that he was going to stay at Ephesus
because he was experiencing some significant success
and that there was some strong opposition. Paul saw
the Lord testing His followers in this opposition. He
also saw that the severity of this testing would leave
only the strong as survivors. He knew that the fervor of
their commitment to Christ Jesus would stagger the
imaginations of the people in Ephesus, or as the youth
like to use the expression today, it would simply “blow
their minds.” Paul knew that the blood of the martyrs
would become the seed of the church.

Paul had confidence in his message: “Neither is
there salvation in any other, for there is none other
name under heaven, given among men, whereby we
must be saved.” He was bold and proud to say: “I am
not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power
of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth.”
There were not many persons who had had the glorious
experiences of the apostle. He had seen and talked with
the Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus. He had had
numerous out-of-body experiences, having been taken
up to the seventh heaven, there hearing things which
were impossible for man to utter. In the face of such

withering persecutions and executions as were found in
Ephesus, he felt that a veteran of the cross was needed
to lead the mission in this place. He was going to stay
because he could say from experience: “I know whom I
have believed and am persuaded that He is able to
preserve that which I have committed unto Him
against that day.” “For I am persuaded that neither life
nor death, nor angels, nor principalities . . . nor life, nor
death ... shall be able to separate me from the love of
God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.” Yes, it was not
just the joy of success which moved the apostle to stay
at that post. It was also his faith that the power of
Christ could triumph over all adversities. He felt that
God had left him in the world for such a time as this. So
he was going to stay right there. He had to be
physically restrained from going into the arena at the
height of the riot. He was a man who apparently
learned his stubbornness from the Germans; or did the
Germans copy their stubbornness from the apostle?
Could this be one of the contributing causes that so
many Lutheran churches carry the title in loving
memory of St. Paul?

Paul possessed that unique quality of total commit-
ment. “If I must die on the battlefield, I'll go on in His
name!” The words of this hymn could have been a
descriptive motto for the honorable apostle. Such
commitment is contagious. Martin Luther King once
said: “Until one has found something for which he is
willing to die, he is not fit to live.” Jesus Christ, our
Savior, said: “He who saves his life shall lose it, but he
who loses his life for My sake shall find it.” In Christ
Paul had found his life. Whether his commitment to the
Master called for his life or his death, it didn’t really
matter. It is through such strong commitment that the
Holy Spirit works, and the kingdoms of this world
become the kingdom of our God and of His Christ.
Christ Jesus dethroned Diana of Ephesus, and the
commitment of these men had much to do with that
victory.

It is amazing to see how even today the Lord tries us
and tests our faith. He sets before us wide doors of
opportunity for expanding His kingdom, but as in days
of old the work is beset with difficulties and outright
opposition. As a Lutheran church, a white denomina-
tion working in the Black community, in a society
which is divided along racial lines, it becomes most
difficult sometimes to be effective. It is not difficult for a
white suburban congregation to start a welcome wagon
for new residents in the white suburban ghetto, but for
the traditional white Lutheran congregation on the
edge of the black ghetto to establish a welcome wagon
to greet the first Black residents in the changing
community, this could be very difficult and outright
dangerous.

But then there comes a time that we must realize
that God has passed the torch of freedom to us in our
generation. Can we afford to avoid the dangers and
also to get the work done? There comes a time that we
must ask ourselves the serious questions embodied in
the hymn by Isaac Watts:

Am | a soldier of the Cross,
A follower of the Lamb,