Devotion Amid Distress – Acts 16:25-26

When Jacob was fleeing from his brother, he spent his first night away from home at a place called Luz.

He thought that he was all alone, but he wasn’t.

There was an innumberable company of angels there.

He renamed the spot Bethel,

Because he falsely assumed that this was more the house of God than any other place in the world.

When Elijah fled to Sinai, wanting to be alone with his depression, he wasn’t alone;

The Lord was there in the mighty wind, in the earthquake and in the still small voice.

When the servant of Elisha thought that he and his master were desperately alone with the army of the enemy ready to crush them; he was wrong.

When Daniel was cast into the lion’s den, he wasn’t alone, for the Lord Jesus was there too.

And when his 3 friends were tossed into the burning fiery furnace, there were 4 people in the flames.

We could go on and on with illustrations like this.

They not only remind us of the doctrine of the OMNIPRESENCE of the Lord,

But they also demonstrate that the omnipresent God CARES about the suffering of His servants.

The doctrine is not a cold, uncaring fact, but a very real part of the beneficent character of our Saviour.

In this brief message this evening I’d like to reiterate and reemphasize some of the details surrounding the incarceration of the Paul and Silas.

There are blessings and lessons for us all,

Because even though we may never spend a night in the stocks, or even in jail,

Except if the Lord return sometime early in 2005, we all will spend time in some sort of fiery furnace.

Isn’t it good to know that the Lord is already there to welcome you and to cool the flames?

Please notice with me that this event is all about extremes.

As we have seen Paul and Silas were VERY GOOD MEN.

I believe that Paul was an exceptional man, and probably would have been successful in the Jew’s religion.

But what can we say about Silas? Who knows?

Whether or not he, or they, would have made a name for themselves in history, WITHOUT Christ –

WITH the Lord Jesus, they were extraordinary men.

And they were carrying out the most important commission ever laid upon the shoulders of man.

Whether Philippi recognized it or not, those men had the potential of becoming the greatest benefactors in that city’s history.

And they were successful in their God-given task.

With the blessing and power of the Lord, they had seen the salvation of Lydia.

A church was beginning to grow there in town.

And whether anyone besides the damsel liked it or not, the missionaries had done the near impossible, in freeing that young lady from her demon-possession.

These two were GREAT men.

And part of that greatness can be seen in their reaction to their suffering.

“At midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them.”

God give ME the grace to respond to my problems half as well as they did.

Those were great men in a TERRIBLE PLACE.

Like Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, in Daniel 3,

The severity of their chastisement is difficult for me to understand.

As I said the other day, I have lived a sheltered life in a sheltered part of the world.

Maybe those beatings and the stocks were common practice in Rome two thousands years ago.

But it seems to me that they were treated very cruelly, even without considering the fact that they had done nothing wrong.

They were beaten and stocked because they were considered criminals.

The magistrates considered them equal to the thieves and murderers who were already in that jail.

What were their accommodations like that night?

Only our imaginations can tell us, because I can’t find any descriptions beyond the words of our Bibles.

This was the INNER PRISON, and you can be sure that it was much worse than the outer prison.

It was a dungeon of some sort, which makes me think that it was cold, dark and dank.

Even without their painful wounds, and without the torturous stocks, to spend a night in the inner prison at Philippi would have been awful.

Paul and Silas were good men in a terrible place AT MIDNIGHT.

Midnight is a unusual time for a prayer service; or is it?

Actually, the middle of the night is a very good time for prayer and even for praise.

First of course, our Lord doesn’t sleep, and any time is an acceptable time for prayer.

We are encouraged to come boldly before the throne of grace, so long as we come the Saviour’s Name.

We are never told to check the calendar or a chronometer.

The Lord doesn’t have a date-book or an appointment book as far as our invitations to prayer are concerned.

Have you ever thought much about Adam’s relationship to the Lord prior to the fall?

The pre-incarnate Lord Jesus came for a visit in the cool of the day.

What exactly was the time that they fellowshiped together;

We ASSUME that it was in the evening,

But could it have been later than that.

Was the evening the only time that the Lord came to fellowship with Adam?

That the Lord chose that part of the day must have been for the benefit of the humans.

And have you noticed that scripture doesn’t say that they met every evening; that too is an assumption.

I wonder whether or not Adam conversed with the Lord in prayer throughout the day.

Was Adam a prayerful man?

Midnight is a very suitable time for prayer, because the world and its allurements are asleep.

At that hour most of the distractions that draw our attention away from the Lord are covered with darkness and sleep.

For Paul and Silas, the darkness, the moans of other prisoners, and their own pains were perhaps the only things to draw their hearts away from the face of Christ.

And these things might have intensified their prayers rather than hindered them.

Despite the hour and the conditions, that was a REMARKABLE PRAYER SERVICE.

And as proper prayer services are, it was a blend of prayer and praise.

“At midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them.”

Which of those aspects had pre-eminence?

Was it PRAYERFUL PRAISE, or was it JOYFUL PRAYER?

Or were their requests and their thanksgiving equally emphasized – as it should be?

Remember that they had a strange congregation around them as they prayed.

Oh, they might not have been able to see them, but there were other prisoners in the area.

In fact there might have even been others with them in their inner prison cell.

Whether they were right beside them or somewhere in cells above them, the other prisoners didn’t deter these Christians from worshiping their God.

I’m sure that you have detected my discomfort when we have visitors on Wednesday nights.

I prefer the way that we divide into twos and threes for our time of prayer,

But when we have visitors, I worry about how they might react to that, especially if they are lost,

So usually I just lead you in group prayer.

But I’m not embarrassed about that.

And I’m sure that Paul and Silas were not embarrassed about praying before the other prisoners.

And they weren’t embarrassed before God about their peculiar posture.

They weren’t standing with their heads bowed as they prayed.

They weren’t on their knees or on their faces.

And yet the Lord heard them.

The Lord isn’t as interested in our posture as some people seem to think.

For what sort of things do you think that they PRAISED the Lord?

For the salvation of Lydia and for the deliverance of the damsel?

For their own salvation?

For the little nucleus of people that they had gathered?

For the Lord’s leadership in bringing them to Philippi?

Did they praise the Lord for their suffering, or at least for the opportunity to suffer for the Lord Who had suffered so much for their redemption?

No matter how much pain we are in, there are always things for which the Christian should be filled with thanksgiving and praise.

And about what they did they PRAY?

Were they praying for the city and the hundreds or thousands of lost souls there?

Were they praying for a multitude of conversions?

Were they praying for their fellow prisoners?

Did they pray for personal deliverance?

Or for the opportunity to explain to the magistrates the story of God’s marvelous saving grace?

This was an extraordinary prayer service.

And it produced in UNBELIEVABLE RESULTS.

“And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one’s bands were loosed.”

In that earthquake there was proof of the DIVINE PRESENCE.

As fundamental Baptists we know intellectually that the Lord is everywhere present at once.

We know that we can never travel so far that the we are off the Lord’s radar.

We know that we cannot get so deep in sin or the problems of life that the Lord can’t reach us.

Jacob may not have known that when he first went to Bethel, but Paul and Silas certainly did.

And in that earthquake there was a demonstration of the OMNIPOTENT POWER of God.

Not only does the Lord have control over the elements, but over hearts as well.

How was it that every man’s bands were loosed, but there isn’t any record of a single injury?

That was the omnipotence of God.

And how was it that every man’s bands were loosed, but there weren’t any prisoners running loose?

Was it that all the stocks were broken and the chains were freed from the walls, but none of the cell doors were damaged enough to let anyone escape?

Were they so terrified that they were paralyzed?

Were they so entranced by the worship of God’s warriors that they decided to stick around for more?

Did Paul and Silas encourage everyone to stay where they were, and they obeyed?

Was it that somehow the Lord so corralled the hearts of the other prisoners that they simply chose not to flee?

In that earthquake we see the presence and the power of the Almighty.

This was a completely controlled quake.

Was there any loss of life outside the walls of the prison?

If so it was by the will of God.

Did the owners of the slave girl, perish in the quake?

Were these tremors felt throughout Macedonia, Greece and Asia?

Were there dozens of after-shocks just to keep everyone in line?

Were the magistrates as terrified as the jailer?

In addition to the omnipotence of God, I think that we probably also see the INDIGNATION of the Lord.

I know that the Lord doesn’t have human emotions,

But does He get “angry” at the mistreatment of his servants?

I think that in this earthquake we see the VINDICATION of the ministry of the missionaries.

What they did in helping the young lady was not sin and not contrary to the law.

What they were preaching was obviously scriptural and God-pleasing.

The blessings that they brought to the city should have been received with joy, but it wasn’t.

And the fact that they were jailed was obviously completely out of place, because the Lord released them.

This midnight worship service was blessed by the Lord.

This devotion in the midst of their distress was time well spent.

And the ULTIMATE RESULT in the salvation of the jailer and his family, made the missionaries’ pain a pleasure.

We are not going to study the jailer tonight.

We will come back to him next Sunday.

But of course, what happened to him was a result of the midnight prayer meeting too.

If we had more prayer meetings like Paul and Silas prayer meeting, we might see more jailers saved by the grace of God.