Acts 16:16-40
Before we read God’s word, let’s
pray together. Our Father, we thank you that
you show us how mighty you are in the scriptures. Lord, we’re
so filled with things from this world, we’re sometimes unimpressed. And so let your word do its work.
Show us your mighty power, your great love, and what we ought
to be and do in light of what you have done for us. Hear us
and help us now as we Turn to your eternal word, we pray in
the name of Christ, amen. Acts chapter 16, beginning at
verse 16, this is Luke writing, and the we is Paul, Silas, and
Timothy. As we were going to the place
of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination.
and brought her owners much gain by fortune-telling. She followed
Paul and us, crying out, these men are servants of the Most
High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation. And this
she kept doing for many days. Paul, having become greatly annoyed,
turned and said to the Spirit, I command you in the name of
Jesus Christ to come out of her. And it came out that very hour.
But when her owners saw that their hope of gain was gone,
they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace
before the rulers. And when they had brought them
to the magistrates, they said, these men are Jews and they are
disturbing our city. They advocate customs that are
not lawful for us as Romans to accept or practice. The crowd
joined in attacking them, and the magistrates tore the garments
off them and gave orders to beat them with rods. And when they
had inflicted many blows upon them, they drew them into the
prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely. Having received
this order, he put them into the inner prison, and fastened
their feet in the stocks. About midnight, Paul and Silas
were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were
listening to them. And suddenly there was a great
earthquake. So that the foundations of the prison were shaken and
immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s bonds were
unfastened. When the jailer woke and saw
that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about
to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But
Paul cried with a loud voice, do not harm yourself for we are
all here. And the jailer called for the
lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear, he fell down before
Paul and Silas. And he brought them out and said,
sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, believe in the
Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your household. And they spoke the word of the
Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them
the same hour of the night and washed their wounds. And he was
baptized at once, he and all his family. Then he brought them
up into his house and set food before them, and he rejoiced
along with his entire household that he had believed in God.
But when it was day, the magistrates sent the police, saying, Let
those men go. And the jailer reported these
words to Paul, saying, The magistrates have sent to let you go. Therefore,
come out now and go in peace. But Paul said to them, they have
beaten us publicly, uncondemned men who are Roman citizens and
have thrown us into prison. And do they now throw us out
secretly? No, let them come themselves
and take us out. The police reported these words
to the magistrates and they were afraid when they heard that they
were Roman citizens. So they came and apologized to
them and they took them out and asked them to leave the city.
They went out, out of the prison and visited Lydia. And when they
had seen the brothers, they encouraged them and departed. Amen. The word of the living God. Isn’t
it amazing to put those two passages side by side and see how God
works out his purposes in the Holy Scriptures? We know from
our little kids’ catechism who wrote the Bible. It was chosen
men who were inspired by the Holy Spirit. We know from Peter
who wrote the Bible. It was holy men of old who were
carried along to write the scriptures. They were carried along by the
Holy Spirit to write the scriptures, to set the things down that we
need to know for faith, what to believe, for life, how to
live, and for salvation, what we need to know to come to faith
in Jesus and receive the forgiveness of sins. And we know that Luke,
the beloved physician who we just picked up on our second
missionary journey through the Roman Empire, We know Luke, the
beloved physician, wrote the most New Testament content. Paul wrote the most books, 13,
but Luke wrote the most content. He wrote Luke and Acts. He wrote
them to Theophilus, a wealthy patron who provided most likely
the funds, the research time and the living that Luke would
have needed to take the time to write these things down. And
can’t you imagine Luke, wherever he was when he wrote this, he
said to himself, self, right? I’ve got to include the story
of the Python girl. I’ve got to include the story
of the great travail that Paul and Silas went through, the public
beating and humiliation and the night they spent in jail. when
they were praying and singing and God, through a quake, a shake
of the earth, opened the prison doors. He said, I’ve got to include
this, but we know ultimately whatever Luke wanted had to pass
the muster of the Holy Spirit. And aren’t we thankful to God
that we see a picture, a snapshot into the second missionary journey
where it brings us great encouragement. We live life in a fallen world. We live among a crooked and depraved
generation. We live among a culture that
is quickly in our Christian nation becoming post-Christian. And
we find in our passage a group of men, Paul and Timothy and
Silas and Luke, on a mission. And it’s a mission into hostile
territory, much like we find ourselves in today. You turn
on your headlines, you spin through the radio channels, you read
the headlines in the grocery store magazine racks. You hear
what people are chattering about at the health club or the neighborhood. Wherever it is you go in the
doctor’s office, you hear what’s on people’s minds and hearts.
And it’s a dark world. Is there hope? Can the gospel
break into this world that we live in? and provide salvation? And the answer, of course, is
yes. God made the world, God preserves the world, and God
can save the world. And he sent his church, he sent
his apostles, he sent us into the world to proclaim the goodness
of God through Jesus Christ to these lost folks. It’s Paul’s
duty, Silas’s duty, Timothy’s duty. Barnabas and John Mark
are doing it on the Isle of Cyprus while they are ministering in
Macedonia. It’s our calling as a church.
It’s our calling as individuals to speak of Christ, to witness
of the power of the goodness of God in Christ. And so we find
these men on a mission into hostile territory. Remember, the vision
was to go into Macedonia and minister there. They were hindered
from Asia and other places. And so they go and we find smooth
sailing across the sea. We find the wind at the backs
of the apostles as they go to the place of prayer and they
meet Lydia. And she has her heart opened
by God and receives the gospel. She goes to their home. She becomes
the great benefactor of the church at Philippi, not only opening
up her home, she opens up her heart and she opens up her finances. And for a very long time, we
know that it’s the church at Philippi that makes Paul’s third
and fourth and subsequent missionary journeys possible. But it’s a
very hostile environment. We know that Paul, because there’s
no synagogue, goes to the place of prayer. And the book of Acts
tells us that they spent some time in Philippi. And so here they are on the tail
end of their ministry. They’re now in hostile territory.
And we’ve got to understand what’s taking place. There’s this slave
girl. She’s owned by handlers. We consider
human trafficking nowadays, and you see back in those days, it
was something of a crisis. Then as well, she brought great
gain to those who owned her. She was called the Python Girl.
She was a soothsayer, a fortune teller. And it says she brought
great gain to those who owned her. And she would go about the
city, speaking of people’s fortunes, they would believe them. And
this was all part of their exhaustive and wide ranging pantheon of
gods connected to the Temple of Zeus, connected to the Oracle
at Delphi and other Roman pagan practices. This was big business,
big belief, and you don’t mess with it. And so Paul and Timothy
and Silas and Luke, they are men on a mission to share the
good news of Jesus, but they are in hostile territory. And
we’ve seen the wind at their backs, but now they will meet
opposition as they bear witness to the resurrection of the Lord
Jesus Christ in this hostile territory. It seems that Paul,
for many days, puts up with this girl’s persistent proclamation. These men are servants of the
Most High. These men are proclaiming to you the way of salvation. Now you would think that’s good
PR. You would think that’s positive,
right? Well, it says he became greatly
annoyed. You know, from time to time,
we’ll have a little noise in church. And the preacher will
get greatly annoyed. And he may say, whoever’s phone
is beeping, whoever’s whatever is buzzing, it’s time to cut
it out because it’s driving me crazy. And what happens when
you’ve got noises like that? The service goes on longer, right? Well, Paul here is greatly annoyed. And one day after three, four,
five, many days of this, he looks at the girl and with the command
of Christ says to the evil spirit, you understand she’s demon possessed.
He says to the evil spirit, come out of her. And at that hour,
the Bible tells us this spirit left her, but there’s trouble. She’s no longer a moneymaker.
She’s no longer a soothsayer. She’s no longer a fortune teller. She’s now a believer in Jesus
Christ. She’s now freed of her sin and
her demon possession. She’s now freed from her chains
and her bondage to Satan. She no longer serves him. And
isn’t it interesting how sometimes Well, I shouldn’t say sometimes,
should I? It’s in every case. When we come to the gospel, when
we come to faith in Jesus, God takes our life that’s turned
upside down and he turns it right side up. But don’t we live in
an upside down world? And so living right side up in
an upside down world is strange. We may not make the money we
used to or have the friends we were accustomed to or the lifestyle
that we so enjoyed. And this is a good reminder here
to see that coming to faith in Jesus is messy. It changes our lives. It changes
our ways. It changes who we follow. And
this passage tells us of the hostility that came against Paul
and Silas. For whatever reason, it did not
come to Luke and Timothy, but it came to them and they were
seized. These are strong words in the
New Testament. They were seized and they were dragged and they
were presented before the city officials and before the magistrates.
Now this ought to be ringing bells in your head. Ding, ding,
ding. This sounds like, well, this has been about 20 years
since a certain man was seized and dragged and hauled in before
Pilate. And he was flogged and a crown of thorns placed on his
head, and he was taken outside the city and a cross affixed
to his body, and there he died the death of all deaths. And
what had Christ said to his disciples? The servant is not above the
master. The way of suffering is the way
of the Savior. And so the way of the Savior
for his disciples is the way of suffering. And yet we like
our cushy lives, don’t we? Lord, send me, but not there.
Lord, send me, but wait till the weather’s better. Lord, send
me, but, you know, fund it pretty good. We got to go to Africa,
you know, to do mission work, but in a Land Rover, right? Heaven forbid on a mule or something
primitive. The gospel goes into hostile
territory and it takes things that are upside down and it turns
them right side up. And so when they are hauled and
presented before the town magistrates, it’s kind of like we might see
on one of those 1970s movies. I know y’all have seen them,
you know, whooper snappers passing through town. You ain’t from
around here, are you, boy? Right? We’re going to put you
under the jail, not just in the jail, under the jail. And that’s
exactly what happens to Paul and Silas. They are publicly
beaten. Now you understand without going
into detail, this was something that could have led to death.
In fact, in a few verses, we’re going to see the Philippian jailer
binds up their wounds. And then later in Paul’s various
accounts of his life and ministry, he’s going to say how many times
he was beaten. How many times he was stoned
and how many times he was shipwrecked and how many times in the course
of his mission to proclaim Jesus, he was left for dead. So this
injustice is placed on Paul and on Silas, and they’re not only
publicly beaten, they’re taken to the jail and they are put
under the jail. They’re put in the inner cell. They are put in the stocks. And
about midnight, our passage says, these men were praying and singing.
I don’t know about you, but I would be moaning and crying and fussing
and fuming. Lord, what did I do to deserve
this? That’s how we are, isn’t it? But somehow in the grace
of God, he had so touched these men that they were praying. What were they praying for? We’re
not told, but I’m sure they were praying for Lydia. I’m sure they
were praying for all the people who over those many days of ministry
in Philippi had come to faith in Jesus. You can imagine their
preaching ministry out in public had brought people to faith,
but their discipleship ministry at Lydia’s house had grown people.
You find when Paul writes his letter to the Philippians, it’s
the mature church. It’s the good church. It’s the
church when ministers on Monday morning have the blues and they’re
looking for a place they might go and have greener grass. It’s
the church they all hit the button on. The preachers really do this,
you know, and say, I want to go there. Philippi was the good
church, the good job to get. And so you can imagine in their
prayers, Lord, we thank you for opening doors. Lord, we thank
you for Lydia. We thank you for the Python girl.
We thank you for this person and that person and so-and-so.
We pray for the strengthening of the church. Give them elders,
give them deacons, give them a preacher, feed them by the
word, nourish them through the sacraments. and give them a heart
to take the gospel farther into Europe so that the ends of the
earth hear of gospel, that you can imagine that. I bet they
prayed for their wounds, but probably last. These were, we
can imagine kingdom prayers and they sang hymns. They sang the
word of God. They sang the truth about God.
And as they were praising God at midnight, a great earthquake
came and it opened the cells, it loosened the shackles. There
was a song I remember singing in church when I was a kid. I
grew up with parents who were part of the Jesus movement. And
so we sang a lot of those Jesus movement songs. And don’t worry,
I’m not going to sing it. I’ll just say it. We sang a little
song that spoke of how the power of God open prison doors and
set the captives free. We sang songs about God being
with his people and opening up doors and creating opportunities
for the gospel, even when there was great opposition. And this
time in the jail cell seemed to be profitable for Paul and
for Silas, but it says of the other prisoners, they were listening.
I would imagine the jailer knew who these two were. He probably
had sent somebody, find out who these two are. I want to know
what I got in my jail. And you understand from the drawing
of the sword, it was life for life. You lose your prisoners,
you lose your life. These were his prisoners in his
custody. And the night of singing, the
night of prayer surely told them all kinds of things that they
needed to know about these men. And so when the prison doors
were opened and all of the prisoners still there, you can imagine
Paul’s leadership. Men stay here, prisoners stay
here. I have something important to tell you, something to say.
And after an earthquake, which would have been common in that
area in those days, but nevertheless, a supernatural sort of event,
a shaking of the earth that opened people’s eyes to greater things. Oh, we’ll stay and listen. And
then the jailer comes with the lights and he bows before these
two men and his first response, what must I do to be saved? It seems the wind is at Paul
and Silas’ back again, a whole household. Here’s the gospel,
a whole household comes to faith in Jesus, a whole household brought
into covenant relationship with Almighty God. And what a great
blessing that was. It says in our passage, it was
midnight when the prison doors opened. And after some commotion
and goings on, Paul and Silas end up at the jailer’s house.
Food is set before them, but you can imagine they’re out at
the fountain. And as the jailer is cleansing their backs from
the wounds, from the stripes of those rods they bore for the
sake of the cause of Christ, this man was also forever washed
in the waters of baptism. He and his household were baptized
and brought into fellowship, brought into communion with the
people of God. They’re part of our body of Christ, the greater
body of Christ. What a special moment and event
that would have been. But the opposition still continues. You can imagine the scuttlebutt
goes back and forth between the jail and the town hall and it’s
early morning hours. Get those two men out of town.
And so they come. Hey, we’re sorry. We messed up. Go in peace. Go in peace. Hold
on a minute, Paul says. You have shamed Roman citizens. You have beaten and punished
and jailed uncondemned men. But I think really what he’s
saying here is you have condemned the gospel, which has brought
peace to many in this town. Can you imagine that little church
trying to continue in that hostel of a town? If Paul had not said,
hold on, wait a minute, you have, you have done this. You come
throw us out of town. And so the magistrates come,
they come afraid, they come and apologize. They come and usher
them out of town. They stop and they meet with
Lydia and the church and encourage them. You know that kind of news
has reached. And so these are men on a mission
who meet opposition, yet Christ, the center of their mission,
keeps them moving forward. And we have to stop and think
for a moment of our little church, our little spheres of influence
as families and individuals in this world. Oh, it’s dark. Oh,
it’s a crooked and depraved generation. No, God was at work through Daniel.
God is at work through Paul and Silas. He’s at work in this place
and he’s at work in each of our lives. It may not be perfect.
It may not be mass numbers. We may not be the next Billy
Graham or whatever imaginations we have, but God will use us.
And we should never lose heart in light of opposition. Jesus
said that would come. But what can oppose God? What
can oppose the mighty power that spoke and put this world into
existence? What can oppose the power that
raises Lazarus or even Jesus Christ from the dead? Not a thing
can oppose. And so we ought to leave this
place today strengthened in our faith, our belief in God, but
encouraged that as we walk out of these doors into this dark
world, we do not go in our own strength, but we are sent with
God’s blessing. And he promises that his gospel will be made
known to the ends of the earth. Let’s do pray together. Our Lord,
we thank you that our own weakness, our own inability, our own lack
of skills or words, but most of all, The power of Satan and
the power of wickedness, wicked men in this world cannot overcome
the gospel, the gospel saving power and the God, your gospel
plan to save people to the ends of the earth. So give us confidence
now. Give us strength and hope as we go in your great name.
We pray that you would bless us as we are sent into this world. In the name of Christ, our savior.
Amen. We want to respond to God’s goodness by standing and singing
number 455, and can it be that I should gain.