Hello, my ‘Walking with Jesus’ friends,
Does something happen inside you when you see injustice, unfairness happening especially if it’s blatant and severe? How about when it happens to YOU? When you are on the receiving end of something totally unfair and it hurts you deeply?
Come with me friends and let’s join the crowd as witnesses of something almost beyond belief. Yesterday I left you in the city of Philippi in the region of Macedonia, about the year 50ad. Paul had just done something few if any people had seen. He had, with strong words, commanded an evil spirit to leave a slave girl who was harassing them.
Dr. Luke records what happened next: “When the owners of the slave girl realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities. They brought them before the magistrates and said, ‘These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice.” The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten with rods.” (Acts 16:19-22) Now that is what I call injustice, unfairness on steroids! It’s mob rule, it’s anarchy! But it’s real friends, and it happens every day in thousands of places around the world, and thousands of people suffer such injustices every day.
But the injustice wasn’t yet over. The record says: “After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. When he received these orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in stocks.” (Acts 16:23,24) This jailer took his orders very seriously. Wooden stocks were inescapable, especially if the prisoners’ hands were chained. This was treatment the most violent criminals deserved. No trial had been held, no witnesses called, no laws outlined which they had broken. Fear reigned that day in that part of the city of Philippi. If this man Paul and his friend had the power to control demonic forces, there was no time for a proper trial. For the safety of the people of this city, this threat needed to be contained and quickly. At least that’s what it appears the logic was on this day in Philippi. In his records, Dr. Luke does not tell us if he and Timothy were eyewitnesses, but I assume they were. For some reason they were not arrested at the same time, or at least they are not mentioned.
Perhaps Timothy and Luke stood back in the crowd watching, so they could determine how they might help in the future. Often in such situations prisoners were not fed or cared for unless family or friends came to the prison and brought them food or other things they might need. Even then it might require bribing the jailer to be sure what they brought actually arrived into the prison cell where the prisoners were held.
Everything was happening so fast, it appears no plans were made, for the very next thing Luke records for us is a miraculous midnight earthquake! “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.” What? Wait a minute, aren’t Paul and Silas deep in a dark dungeon, with their feet in stocks and their backs bleeding from having been terribly beaten with rods? Yes!
How does that happen friends? How does a person respond to barbaric injustice, unfairness, horrific persecution with prayer and singing deep in the dungeon shackled like an animal? It only happens by the power of God! The same power by which that slave girl had been set free from the demonic spirit which bound her.
As Paul sat bleeding in that dark, probably rat-infested prison cell, with likely the stench of urine penetrating his nostrils, I wonder if Paul thought back to the intense persecution against Christians which he had led in Jerusalem shortly after that historic Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit had come upon the 120 in the upper room and 3000 people had responded to Peter’s message and been baptized. That had led to a city-wide movement and finally the arrest and stoning execution of Stephen the deacon, over which Paul had stood as the execution overseer.
The summary statement of Paul’s actions then reads like this: “On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem…Godly men buried Stephen and mourned for him deeply. But Saul [Paul] began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison.” (Acts 8:1-3)
As Paul and Silas prayed, did Paul again pray repentance and ask God to protect and nurture the Christians in Jerusalem and elsewhere where they might be experiencing exactly what he and Silas were suffering through in Philippi? Evidently in their prayers, both Paul and Silas began to feel overwhelmed by the love of God for our broken world. Such love that He would send His Son Jesus to suffer similar horrific persecution, beatings and even crucifixion.
Did Paul and Silas begin to feel privileged to have been selected by God to bring the story of Jesus to Philippi and is that why they began to sing hymns and pray so that the other prisoners could hear them? Did Paul even begin sharing the story of Jesus and Paul’s own experience of forgiveness and transformation by the power and love of Jesus? Was Paul’s Gospel message and their songs of praise to God filling the entire prison, so every prisoner could hear, when suddenly the power of God was unleashed into that prison in an earth shaking way?
The record says: “Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once the prison doors flew open and everyone’s chains came loose. The jailer woke up and when he saw the prison doors open, the jailer drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted, ‘Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!” (Acts 16:26-28)
Now my friends I ask you… which is the greater evidence of the power of God: a slave girl freed by the power of God binding and casting out a demonic spirit which had held her; or by the power of God seen in Paul and Silas as they actually pray and sing hymns having been beaten and now bleeding being held in stocks in a prison; or the power of God seen in the earthquake which broke open the prison; or the power of God seen in Paul and Silas as they did NOT run out the broken prison doors, but remained where they were so they could share Jesus with the rest of the prisoners and the jailer?
Which is the greatest demonstration of the power of God that YOU have seen with your own eyes in your lifetime?
Once again let’s pause right here. Let your eyes accustom to the dim light of one little lantern in this huge dungeon. Do you see the dark cells, the filthy prisoners some of whom have likely not seen the light of day for a long time? Listen, do you hear Paul declaring the wonder of Jesus to these prisoners whose chains have fallen off, and the prison doors stand wide open, but they are enthralled by the good news of Jesus, so they sit and listen! That is the power of God my friends, have you experienced it?
I wonder if it was a song like the one, I’ve chosen today that Paul and Silas might have been singing that night in that prison? A song without instruments, but a song that invites us to celebrate and honor the One and Only all-powerful God! Let’s worship with this song and we’ll come right back tomorrow to find out what happened in this dark prison!
Today’s Scripture is Acts 16:19-28.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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