Riots

     Have you ever been in a riot?  They are full of people joined together in angry chaos.  Most people don't really know what they are angry about, but have allowed themselves to be worked up by the negative energy of other people.  Riots are dangerous.  They reveal an unwillingness to find another way to communicate because they are determined by hate.
     Demetrius was one of these people that did not want to find a compromise or a solution.  He wanted the people that followed "The Way" to be gone.  They were messing with his substancial income as an idol maker.  He wanted them all gone.  In response to people teaching freedom and peace, he got the city of Ephesus worked up to form a riot.
     If all accumulated in the theatre.  Two of Paul's traveling companions, Gaius and Aristarchus, were seized and taken there.  Paul's church would not allow him to go for his own safety.  They knew if he showed that he would be killed along with possibly any other Christian there.  He was their leader and friend, so they could not let him give the enemy exactly what he wanted.
     In the theatre the people were confused because many did not know why they have even been brought there.  There was shouting for two hours over how the city god, Artemis, was great.  Finally, the city clerk quieted the crowd.  He spoke to their pride of the city.  He pointed out how these men could not take that away even if they tried.  He diplomatically settled the riot and everyone went home.  That day, a non-believer used words to make peace.  God used the man who desired evil along with the non-Christian peacemaker to reveal Himself to an entire city.

Acts 19:23-41