And this became known to all the residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks. And fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled. Also many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices. And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the value of them and found it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily. Acts 19:17-20

The humiliation of the seven sons of Sceva served God’s greater purpose. It wasn’t merely to shame those men—though it did do that. It was to strike fear in the hearts of those who saw and heard what happened.

Remember when we pointed out that God did miracles to validate those He called to speak for Him? In this case God ordained the humiliation of the false exorcists to draw even more attention to the trustworthiness of the Apostles and their message of Christ and the gospel.

As commentator, Adam Clark noted: “The name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. They saw that there was a sovereign power in the name of Jesus, which could not be imitated by these lying exorcists: they therefore reverenced the name of the Lord Jesus, and despised those pretenders.”

The fear of God became so pronounced that people involved in the occult renounced their demonic practices (v18-19). And the Word of the Lord was exalted (v.20)!