When the power of God is present in the court of the proconsul, when the gospel is proclaimed, the devil tries his best to shut things down. Elymas speaks against the faith; he ridicules the message: what power can there come from a King who died? But Christ is King. His power is greater than that of the devil or any other spiritual being. He is the Creator; he is the ruler of heaven and earth and his plans will not be stopped. His gospel will go to the ends of the earth; the mouth of Elymas is stopped.
As Christians, we know this to be true from experience. Looking back on our lives, we can testify to God’s work in our hearts and minds. We can testify that Christ has arrested our affections and won our devotion through his love. The foolishness of the cross is a foolishness by which we have been changed. And so we are confident that God will use that same message to keep building his church today.
Our plans may not all come to fruition. The response we see from people may be more in line with that of Elymas than Sergius Paulus. Opposition rather than conversion. Lots of effort with little reward. Nevertheless, we persevere with our plans to minister God’s Word; we make new plans to do so because we know that faith comes by hearing the good news about Jesus and that this is the means which our King is using to build his church to the ends of the world.
1 Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.