When Things Get Tough – Acts 16:19-34

Do you think that Paul and Silas were in the will of God when they went to Philippi?

Were they doing the will of the Lord when they ordered the demon to depart from the soothsayer?

Was there any sin involved in invoking Jesus’ name to free that woman from her demon?

Some might argue that they were depriving some men of their only means of income,

But if their income was derived by sin, it was no sin to lawfully cut off that income.

Can you detect ANY sin in the lives of the missionaries from what we read in Acts 16?

Had they really broken any of the laws of the Romans?

The woman’s owners might have made that charge,

But I’m not sure that they could not make that charge stick.

Nevertheless, Paul and Silas were arrested for disturbing the peace.

Not only can’t I see any sin in the missionaries,

But I would have to say that they were smack-dab in the middle of the Lord’s will.

Yet am I correct in thinking that it was God’s intention to permit His servants to be abused like this?

As painful as it might sound to some people, God wanted them right where they were.

God’s will included this arrest, this beating and being locked into those tortuous stocks.

The earthquake, their freedom, and the salvation of the jailer all force me to say that this was all ordained by the Lord. Amen?

No matter what you and I might think about the situation, Paul and Silas had no problem praising God through it all.

Apparently THEY believed that it was the Lord’s will that they be arrested, beaten and incarcerated.

And apparently they believed that somehow good was going to come out of their suffering.

If nothing else, they were going to magnify God’s name in that awful place, even if they died there.

They couldn’t sleep because of their pain, so they redeemed the time by praying and praising.

I have to confess a bit of confusion as I read both verses 22 and 23.

The beating in verse 22 is clearly talking about being beaten with rods,

But the word “stripes” in verse 23 suggests a whipping.

Verse 33 says that the repentant jailer washed the stripes, as if they were open wounds.

In either case I think that it’s safe to say that I would not enjoy either one.

And if the wounds were open, then there was the potential of infection if they weren’t treated.

Then when they were stuck in that dungeon, you can be sure that the accommodations were horrible.

There could even have been bugs or other vermin that attacked their bloody sores.

These poor servants of God didn’t know what would face them in the morning,

But it didn’t matter, because they were satisfied with knowing that the Lord was in control.

I can’t say that any of us have ever endured a night more miserable than theirs that night.

And again, it wasn’t because of any kind of sin on their part.

What can we learn about the Christian reaction to “undeserved” suffering from all this?

I don’t know that we honestly say that ANY of our suffering is ever completely undeserved.

It might be that the specific pain of any specific moment was not caused by anything that we have done, but generally speaking, as sinners, we deserve anything and every that we get in the way of suffering.

There has been only one Sufferer, and one suffering, that was truly undeserved.

The Lord Jesus suffered and died entirely for the sake of others – not Himself.

But as sinners it could be argued that we always deserve whatever evil comes our way.

What can Paul and Silas teach us about the Christian response to suffering?

First I suppose is a lesson about NOT RUNNING from it.

Initially you might think that there is no way that I can glean that lesson from this chapter.

There was no way for the missionaries to escape arrest or to minimize their suffering.

It was completely beyond their control.

But is that so?

When Paul was later arrested in Jerusalem for disturbing the peace, the circumstances were similar.

In that case he was simply worshiping the Lord and trying to help others in their worship.

But the Jewish crowd recognized him and assumed that he had brought Gentiles into their Temple.

In order to preserve the peace, Roman soldiers pulled Paul from the murderous mob,

“And as they bound him with thongs, Paul said unto the centurion that stood by,

Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned?”

On that occasion, Paul declared himself to be a Roman citizen and spared himself from being flogged.

Have you ever wondered why Paul used his Roman citizenship in that case but not in this?

I have thought about it many times, but never came up with a satisfactory answer before this week.

It may been that in this case he didn’t know he could use his citizenship in that way.

But that just doesn’t seem logical to me.

It might have been that in the heat of the moment, it just didn’t occur to him to plead his citizenship.

I suppose that could have been the case, but again, it doesn’t seem that reasonable.

And then another thing could have been that Paul planned to embarrass those magistrates later.

He might have hidden his citizenship so that after he was beaten he could bring down the government for illegally mistreating a Roman citizen.

He might have been preparing himself for a lawsuit against the city.

That notion might be common Christian thinking in the 21^st century, but it is wicked.

That kind of thinking wouldn’t find lodging in the heart of Paul even for a moment.

As I was thinking about this the other day another thought occurred to me:

Paul and Silas were BOTH arrested.

We don’t know very much about Silas, except that he first met Paul down there in Jerusalem.

I wonder if Silas didn’t have the same citizenship as Paul.

It makes me wonder if Paul didn’t try to save himself because he didn’t want to leave his brother to face this Roman wrath alone?

Do you suppose that he said, “If they are going to beat you, Brother Silas, then they are going to have to beat me as well”?

If this last idea is correct, Paul might have felt that it was wrong to avoid the trouble which was coming.

Sometimes we just have to admit that IT IS THE LORD’S WILL that I be in this predicament.

When Solomon dedicated the first temple he correctly said,

“The Heaven of Heavens cannot contain thee, and this little shed isn’t going to do it either.”

I believe that the Bible teaches the omnipresence of the Lord.

I believe that if we took a submarine into the bottom of the Marianas Trench, the Lord would be there.

I believe that if were on board that rocket that was fired the other day to fly into deep space, no matter how far we traveled we’d never leave the Lord’s presence.

God is in the forest and within the tree, even though you might not necessarily see Him there.

God is at the beach and on the ski slopes just as much as He is here at church.

But that doesn’t mean that you find God by swooshing or shreding down the slopes.

The Lord has said, “Ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.”

That means that we have no business making up our own rules of seeking or worshiping.

Although God may be in Delphi, we wouldn’t be able to worship Him the temple of Apollos

Nevertheless, if God wants to find you in a cave on the side of Mt. Sinai, He will.

The Lord can make the Garden of Gethsemane a sacred place,

He can sanctify even Golgotha itself.

And if Paul and Silas are chained to the walls of a Philippian jail, they will not be forsaken by the Lord.

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me;

Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:

Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.”

An hospital room can be the Lord’s temple.

And the bamboo-walled cell that held Adoniram Judson was an holy place, too.

The sandbar where five Auca indian missionaries spilt their blood for Christ was an holy place.

And so was the lake shore where we baptized a few of you folk.

When Joseph was unjustly imprisoned in Egypt, his cell became the Lord’s palace.

And Joseph readily acknowledged to his brethren, “The Lord brought me here for your sakes.”

The throne upon which Joseph later sat as he distributed the grain of Egypt was no more the place of God than his prison cell.

And the jail in Philippi was the Lord’s temple as well.

When you are brought to a place of pain or trial, say to yourself, “The Lord has brought me here.

This is His place.”

Even if it is the direct result of your sin, you might still be able to say that.

And in the case of Paul and Silas, they could say, “The Lord has a purpose in our being here.

We are going to make the most out of this prison.”

Then we need to look for THE LORD’S GRACE to sustain us in that place.

Do you believe that the Bible teaches the eternal security of the soul?

Do you believe that you are a child of God and you cannot be disinherited because of the promise of God?

Do you believe that the covenant in which you have been made a part is secure?

Is the Holy Spirit the seal of your salvation and earnest of your inheritance?

Is there anything that has separated you and your God?

Can death, or life, or angels, or principalities, or powers, or things present, or things to come?

Can height or depth, or any other creature separate you from the love of God?

Then what about tribulation, or distress, persecution, famine, poverty, peril or sword?

These were things that Paul and Silas were enduring in Philippi,

But no matter what men or Satan could do against them,

The bond between the missionaries and the Lord could not be broken.

And the bond between the Lord and you can’t be broken either.

Some people suggest that the Lord’s promises only apply to the Christian’s soul. Is that so?

Was Job, in the midst of his pain and loneliness, only SPIRITUALLY protected?

Wasn’t Satan limited in the things that he could do to the man?

And wasn’t Job eventually brought out of his loathsome disease and painful poverty?

Wasn’t his outward life eventually filled with all the joy and peace that it earlier possessed?

When Jacob was being tormented and judged by his father-in-law, he was miserable.

And much of his trouble was caused by his own sinfulness.

Nevertheless, the Lord protected him and delivered him.

He was kept by the power of God, and he was given the Lord’s grace.

And when Jacob returned home he expected to face the wrath of his older brother, but once again the Lord keep Jacob and blessed him.

Let’s say that you, as a Christian, have chosen the pathway of some sin.

Maybe you’ve started a business that runs on fraud.

There is no question about its wickedness.

If you do not confess, repent, and shut down that business, you should be excluded from this church.

Without repentance, you should be treated as a heathen.

But does this sin of yours break the covenant that you have with God through Christ?

If there is a covenant of salvation then it cannot be broken.

Perhaps you should investigate whether you really have a part in that covenant, but that is a different question.

Yes, the Lord would forgive you, and you could even be restored to full church-membership

But on the other hand, does that covenant spare you from time in jail for your crime?

Even if you joined Martha Stewart in prison, the Lord will not forsake you.

And what makes you think that the Lord has forsaken your sick room, or the mortuary?

Many times, weak Children of God want to think that the Lord has forsaken them.

They need to open our eyes and their hearts to recognize that the Lord is there.

That is what Paul and Silas did.

We also need to learn with Paul how to turn our SUFFERING INTO BLESSINGS: teach me, Lord.

Did Jacob learn anything while in Padan-Aram with his father-in-law?

Did Joseph learn anything while serving as a prison slave to other prisoners?

Did Job learn anything sitting upon the ash heap with dust and dirt covering his open sores?

Not only did these three men learn, but so have millions of Bible students who have studied their lives.

Can the Lord turn MY suffering into something that might be a blessing to someone?

Paul’s Philippian jail sentence resulted in the salvation of the jailor and his family.

If those missionaries had not suffered in this way, this story might not have ended this way.

They may have never met, if they hadn’t met in this official relationship.

And if those missionaries had not tried to praise and serve God in the midst of their suffering, it might not have ended this way either.

They earned the right to be heard as Christian, not because they suffered,

But because they suffered as Christians and were praising the Lord as best they could.

No matter what we suffer, we need to remember that the Lord has ordained, or approved, that suffering.

And the Lord has the authority and power to keep us in the midst of our suffering.

If we will permit Him, the Lord will make that suffering into a blessing to our selves and to others.

We also need FAITH to ask the Lord to BRING US OUT of our sufferings

There is nothing wrong with asking the Lord for deliverance.

Even if the pain we are enduring is due to our sin, we can still humbly and repentantly ask.

Sometimes we have not, because we ask not.

And many times we ask not because we don’t have the faith to ask.

Jacob’s problems were on a schedule, and they didn’t end until the calendar ran out.

Joseph’s problems extended indefinitely, until a forgetful servant remembered his kindness.

The length of time that Job suffered is a matter of conjecture.

Paul’s and Silas’ problems, in this case, lasted only a matter of hours.

How often do we read the word “deliver” as we skim through the Book of Psalms?

In times of trouble, when the going gets tough, ask the Lord for deliverance.

I have it on good authority that you shall be delivered if you are a child of God.

And who knows you may be delivered before the sun rises tomorrow

In affliction we need to learn to say:

I am here by God’s authority, in His keeping, under His trial, during His time, and for His glory

You shall be delivered.