Seven men, the sons of the chief priest in Ephesus, had failed to exorcise a demonised man. Seeing Paul's authority over evil, they commanded the evil spirit to go 'in the Name of Jesus whom Paul preaches'. But the evil spirit spoke through the man's mouth, "Jesus I know, and Paul I know about, but who are you?" Then he overpowered all of them: they ran out of the house naked and bleeding (Acts 19:13-16).

It was a dramatic demonstration of the power of the devil. It also showed the futility of using a religious formula to control evil. But it also revealed that the evil spirits would submit to Jesus and to those He authorised. This caused great fear in a culture impregnated with witchcraft and sorcery, using divination and spells to bring people under their control (usually for money). Their evil power was exposed as being infinitely weaker than the power of Jesus.

By that time, many occultists had believed in the Lord Jesus. They joined the church, but kept their magic arts as a way of having power over people and as a source of income. The public humiliation of the religious brothers brought conviction of sin to the church. They now knew that they were working against Jesus when they invoked an evil power. It was dangerously wrong. So they repented, confessing their sin, and publicly bringing their scrolls to be burned. These 'books of spells' had been purchased at considerable expense (a total of 50,000 pieces of silver) from reputed occultists. But their owners now knew that they were worse than valueless; they were positively dangerous. And so the church was cleansed and able to grow more and more (Acts 5:11-14).

Is today's church as confused about evil? Not everywhere, but in many places occult powers and false teaching are still found hiding alongside authentic creeds. The culture of the world is always trying to re-shape the church to suit the kingdom of darkness. Phillips' translation of Romans 12:2 says, "Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity." Change is possible, and must happen. When sin is acknowledged and confessed, and God's people turn away from evil, the church will grow because 'Jesus is really Lord'. So, where have you allowed the devil to have a foothold (Ephesians 4:25-32)? Repent, confess and dismantle anything through which are you working against Jesus (1 John 1:9).