I'll read from the 53rd chapter of the book of Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 53. Verse 1 says, Who hath believed
our report? To whom is the arm of the Lord
revealed? For he shall grow up before him
as a tender plant, as a root out of dry ground. He hath no
form nor comeliness And when we shall see him, there is no
beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected
of men, a man of sorrows acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it
were, our faces from him. He was despised, and we esteemed
him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs,
carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten
of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgression. He was bruised for our iniquities,
and the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes
we are healed. And in this next verse, verse
6, the first word is all. All we, not all they or not all
them, but it says all we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his
own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the
slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened
not his mouth. He was taken from prison and
from judgment, and who shall declare his generation? For he
was cut off out of the land of the living, for the transgression
of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the
wicked and with the rich in his death. Because he had done no
violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased
the Lord to bruise him. He hath put him to grief, when
thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin. He shall see his seed,
he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall
prosper in his hands. He shall see the travail of his
soul, and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a
portion with the great and he shall divide the spoil with the
strong, because he hath poured out his soul unto death. He was
numbered with the transgressors, and he bared the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors. As believers we should never be ashamed of
the glorious gospel that our Lord Jesus Christ has demonstrated
in his life. God himself has committed to
us who are believers to proclaim to lost sinners And I'll tell you why. Because
it's the only means that God will use to call out his people
unto himself, is the glorious gospel of the Lord Jesus. Everything is secondary when
it comes to the preaching of the gospel. and foremost, and
will always be that way. And so it's our blessed privilege
and pleasure to be preachers, each one of us, of the gospel
of the Lord Jesus. His righteousness is the only
righteousness that he will accept. He won't accept our righteousness. Our righteousness is as filthy
rags. The only righteousness is the
righteousness of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Let's take our Bibles and turn
to the book of Acts, chapter 16. Before we begin, let's have a
word of prayer. Our Father, this evening we ask
You in the name of the Lord Jesus to bless this Word. Lord, this coming together and
assembling ourselves together to hear the glorious gospel,
everything else means nothing. Pray that You would help us. Lord, as we set forth the Word. Blessed we pray that Word to
the calling out of Your sheep and the settling and comforting
of Your people. For Christ's sake. Amen. I'd like to deal with verses
19 I would like to go into verse 25, and Lord willing, next time,
start in verse 25 again and come back. But I have entitled this
message, Imprisoned by Sovereign Grace. Almighty God calls men and women
to be parts of his body. God Almighty has a place for
all people. He calls some to be evangelists,
some to be pastors, teachers. He calls some apostles. After those apostles, there weren't
any more. They'll put that title on their
name. There's no more apostles. Qualifications of apostle prohibits
anyone from being an apostle now. You had to be physically
taught the gospel. Those that heard him is what
the Scripture says in Hebrews. But he calls some to be evangelists. And that's what Paul and now
Silas were doing. They were going and preaching
wherever the Lord raised up a place, wherever God made an opportunity.
That's what happened. They'd go and where the Lord
opened a door, the Lord blessed it. They'd preach and wasn't
trying anything else. Like Brother Scott said, wasn't
doing anything else. Preaching of the gospel. and
have all the little parties and gimmicks and preach the gospel. If God Almighty is going to save
a man, He's going to save a man through the preaching of the
gospel. Well, Paul and Silas were in Macedonia, and they were
there because that was the only place that the Lord would let
them go. He didn't leave it up to them to decide where they
were going to go. The providence of God dictates. The steps of a good man are ordered
by the Lord. That's what Scripture says. They
that are led by the Spirit, those are the sons of God. You are where you are tonight
by God's sovereign grace. You may think, well, I just decided
to come to church tonight Well, you decided because He brought
you. He works all things after the counsel of His own will. Well, these men were in Macedonia. In fact, they were in a place
called Philippi. And there was a woman, we looked
at time before last, that was possessed of a devil. She came and started following
Paul and Silas, knew where they were, stalked them, and started
proclaiming, these men are the preachers of the Most High God. They show unto us the way of
salvation. And though what she was saying
was so, she was a real distraction. Paul wasn't going to have a distraction. He stopped and he commanded that
demon to come out of her. And it did. And after having
exorcised that demon from that slave girl, he made her owners mad. was an income to them. And this
moneymaker of these false religious hucksters was taken away. And what they did, it made them
so mad. God Almighty allowed these men
to do exactly what they wanted to do. And God Almighty was accomplishing
His purpose. The end result was going to be,
and we'll look at this in a minute, and I'll just start and we'll
just see how it happened. God Almighty had an object of
mercy, of His mercy, who was a jailer, a Philippian jailer. was going to get that Philippian
jailer under the sound of the gospel. And whatever means God
was pleased to do it, that was God's right, God's prerogative. But what he did was, when that
demon-possessed girl started preaching what she was doing,
She had elevated herself to a position that was to be held only by those
that God had sent. God didn't call her to preach.
Almighty God calls men to preach. I suffer not, Paul said, a woman
to teach or usurp the authority over a man. Now, these women
that are standing up and saying God has called them to preach,
they haven't. God hasn't called them to preach. Not according
to His Word, He hasn't. And this distraction that was
being evidenced, Paul stopped it. And it did. It made them
mad. Verse 19 to 21 says, ìWhen her
masters saw that the hope of their gains were gone, they caught
Paul and Silas, drew them into the marketplace under the rulers,
and brought them to the magistrates, saying, ìThese men, being Jews,
do exceedingly trouble our city, and teach customs which are not
lawful for us to receive, neither to observe, being Romans." Now,
the bottom line was this. The love of money was the root of
this evil right here. that was exercised of that demon. That was the means. Paul did
that which was right. He did that which was right.
This woman that was following them and shouting all of these
things right here, no, it wasn't going to be tolerated. Paul did
the right thing. But the love of money, the love
of money, The Scripture says. You think about this. If somebody
would say, what do you think is the root of all evil? Where does all evil, sin, where
does it spring from? I've got to think about that.
The love of money. And not just silver and gold.
Not just the coins, the bills. The care of this world. Positions,
possessions, power. Whenever Almighty God has not
given a man or a woman a heart for Christ, things, mess and
stuff, usually in time, is going to manifest itself to be to the
neglect of worship. That's what the parable of the
sower said. The care of this world choked
it out. You watch and see if this is
not so. I'm telling you, the older I
get, the more that I truly think, I'm aware, that I truly see that
over time what will happen is If God hasn't kept a man, kept
a woman, things, the care of this world chokes it out. Things that weren't so apparent
at first become more apparent. And things become more important
than worshiping God. to bring immediate judgment on
these preachers. The masters of this woman labeled
these men to be troublemakers. That's what they said. These
men, they are troublemakers. They exceedingly trouble our
city and teach customs. They are preaching things. It's
just not lawful for us to hear. They're disturbing us. You know,
as long as everything just doesn't ruffle the water, it's okay. But whenever Almighty God comes
in and men preach the gospel of God's free grace, and God
Almighty is set forth to be God, God is God, and not men or God
or what men consider to be God, then men raise up and say, now
wait a minute, that right there is just a custom, that's a preaching,
a teaching that we're not going to have. These men are proclaiming
an unprescribed message. I want you to turn to Jeremiah
5.30. Jeremiah 5.30. Jeremiah 5, verses 30 and 31,
the Scripture says a wonderful or an astonishing filthiness,
a wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land. The
prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their
means And my people, now this is not talking about that word.
Actually, I looked it up because as soon as I read it, I wondered.
I said, I wonder what that means when the Lord says, my people.
It means the nation. It's not those that have been
called out of darkness and given a heart for Christ and love the
gospel of free grace. It's not those because those
are kept by the power of God unto salvation. Not those. But
the nation, is what the word is, loved to have it so. And
what will you do in the end thereof? Men hear the message of God's
free and sovereign grace. You know what I'm talking about
when I say that. That message that sets forth
that Almighty God is God in salvation, that God chose a people, Christ
redeemed only those people, laid down my life for the sheep, and
that the Spirit of God calls out those people, and only those
that were chosen in Christ, baptized in Him, placed in Him before
the foundation of the world, that God in an everlasting covenant
of free grace adopted them, justified them, purposed to not charge
them with their guilt, looked to Christ as the surety, slain
the Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world, ever before the
face of Almighty God, God Almighty is going to save. Now, that's
the message of this Bible, that God is going to be merciful and
graceful to whom He will. Now, when someone comes and begins
to preach that, as long as men are given the idea, you know,
You're all basically good people. There's some good in all men.
God's got a wonderful plan for you. And all of that stuff that
is unscriptural, when someone comes and stands up, Paul and
Silas didn't back up. And while they were preaching,
this woman comes up and Paul casts a demon out of her. And
these fellows lost their money. And they said, these men are
preaching some things that we don't want to hear. We don't
want to listen. It was contrary to what we're
in agreement with. It's not comfortable to us. What
do you mean I'm a sinner? I got an uncle one time that
got mad at a sovereign grace preacher. And he said, I'm not
going to hear that man anymore. He called me a sinner. Well, Christ said, I came to
seek and to save that which is law. I came to save sinners.
Sinners. Man, I heard you say, brother
Scott, a sinner. That's a precious thing. A sinner. Why? Because there are so few
of them. Oh, they're there. They just don't know it. These
men weren't sinners. As far as they were concerned,
Paul and Silas were the troublemakers, the sinners. And the Scripture
says in verse 22, "...the multitude rose up together against them,
and the magistrates ran off their clothes and commanded to beat
them." Now, this incident that was referred to in 1 Thessalonians
2.2, Paul says, But even after that, we had suffered before
and were shamefully entreated, as you know, at Philippi. We
were bold in our God to speak unto you the gospel of God with
much contention, with much conflict. Now, I've said this before. Turn over to Matthew 5 while
I'm making this statement. Matthew chapter 5. I really, deep down inside, I
don't cherish, I'm not looking for someone to not like me. I really think I'd like for people
to like me. I want to be nice and I want
to be pleasant and I want to be agreeable as much as I possibly
can be. But there comes a point where
there's no negotiation. straddling the fence. Either
the message of the gospel of God, the gospel of free grace,
either that's the message by which Almighty God is going to
use to call out His own, or it's not. And to avoid contention,
to avoid contention for the sake of someone, say, just liking
me, is dishonorable before Almighty God. It's to say to Him in my
heart and outwardly, your message is not worthy to be preached
or to be stood upon or be contended for or something. Paul said that
we were shamefully treated here. They beat us. They did exactly
what they wanted to do, and Almighty God in absolute justice is going
to deal with all acts of rebellion against him, either in a substitute
or in that person. One of the two. Now, I understand
that, you know, Paul the Apostle was the one that held the coats
of the men that stoned Stephen. That was Paul. And God called
him out of darkness. Taught him what he had done.
He knew what he had done. Paul brought that up two or three
times in the Scriptures. But these men right here, they
were shamefully entreating these men. Paul said, but we were bold
in our God to preach unto you the gospel of God with much contention. I've said this before. I don't
need to just hound on it, but I'm going to tell you. Those
of you here, I've said this before too, I wouldn't embarrass Brother
Scott for anything. But you thank God. You that are
here, that have been here for years, you thank the Lord that
God raised up a man and gave him a heart to stand and to be
firm and to preach and not just get to a point where he said,
well, it's just not worth it anymore. That takes a miracle
of God's grace for God to give a man a heart and to stay. These
men right here, this really happened. Do you understand what I'm saying?
This is not a fairy tale. This actually happened. These
men got beat. These magistrates stripped their
clothes off and beat them out there in the street, out in the
middle of everybody, just in front of everybody, and humiliated
them, humanly speaking, and then threw them in jail. Matthew 5,
verse 10-12. The Scripture says, blessed are
they which are persecuted. Now, if you're persecuted for
something that you've done wrong, there's no honor, no glory in
that. We're getting just exactly. That's what that thief on the
cross said. We're getting what we deserve. We earned this. But he said, Blessed are they
which are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom
of heaven. Blessed are ye when men shall revile you. Now you
think, man, I tell you, I hate it if somebody is angry
with me, but There's no deviating on this. There's no gray areas. This is the way it is. In fact,
a preacher of the gospel wants to be more clear than he even
sees himself being. I want to make sure. Well, Scott,
I want people to understand what I'm talking about. I mean it. I may be redundant, I may go
over it and may use five Scriptures when I could have used two, but
I want you to understand. I don't want there to be any
area where, now what was he talking about? I don't want to be like
that. I want to set forth the truth. Blessed are ye when men
shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil
against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice! and be exceedingly glad,
for great is your reward in heaven. For so persecuted they the prophets
which were before you." God's preachers are not looking for
a fight. They're not going out looking
for one. They're looking to honor their Lord. That's what they're
looking for. They're not looking for trouble. But they don't back
up from it either. It's so. This is the message. I'm convinced this is the only
message that's got any promise to it whatsoever. I've said before,
the Lord has promised, my Word is not going to return void.
It's going to accomplish the purpose for which I've sent it.
Now, men will despise it, and then they'll reject it, and I
understand that. It doesn't change anything. There
may be one of God's sheep here tonight that God has not called
out. Maybe He has yet to call one out. I don't know. But I
can tell you this, whether He calls one out of darkness, whether
He comforts His people, whatever He does, His Word is so. And
it's worthy to be preached. These men were beaten and whipped
because of what they preached. The multitude rose up rent off
their clothes, commanded them. They laid some stripes on them,
the Scripture says, many stripes on them. They cast them into
the prison, charging the jailer to keep them safely, who having
received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison and
made their feet fast in the stocks." Now, from these last verses that
we have just read, this is what we learn, that without Christ,
man is an arrogant despiser of God and God's people. I got to
thinking about that. You know, the Scripture says
you'll be hated of all men for My name's sake. And there's times
that, you know, we go to work and we don't, in our understanding,
we don't see just so much open hatred and rebellion, and the
Scripture says it is there. Let me tell you where it is manifested. When men or women that do not
believe the gospel of free grace, when they hear what you are saying,
what you are saying and what they understand you are saying
is this, if you do not bow to this God that we are preaching,
you are lost. That's what they're saying. That's
what we are saying. We are saying that, you know,
and they hear that. And when they understand that
you're saying that my God, that is not the God of this Bible,
the God that loves everybody and the God that wants to save
everybody and the God that's trying to be God, when you say
that's not God, they hate you because what you're doing is
you're stripping me of all of my security, all my false security. And they despise you for that.
Now, as I've said before, a man can stand up and say, no, I don't
believe that. That's just, I don't believe that. But does it change
this Word? It's not going to change one
thing. These men preached Christ. God's preachers, Paul and Silas
and all of them, since then and before then, had done nothing
but preach Christ, and were humiliated for it, were beaten for it, were
despised for it, and they counted it all joy to suffer for His
namesake. Lord, thank You that You've given
me a heart to believe this, and a heart that You've kept in this,
and a heart that You have given me that doesn't deviate from
this. Thank You. Thank You. Thank You. The second
thing we learn is that God's Word is true. Mark 13, 13, you
shall be hated of all men for my name's sake, for the authority
and the character of Christ. All men despise the truth if
left to themselves. They hate the truth. They will
not come. They hate it. Why? They love
a lie. That's what the Scripture says. They love a lie. Thirdly,
we learn that the Word of God is never bound as to God's purpose. You know, they can take Paul
and Silas. They can take any of them. You
can take any of them and chain them up. That's what they did
right here. But was God's Word bound? Was God, 2 Timothy 2,
9, wherein Paul said, I suffer trouble as an evildoer? even
under bonds, but the Word of God is not bound. God's Word
is not bound. I mean, we preach and men have
been burned at the stake and sawn asunder and thrown in oil
and drowned and everything else, but did that stop anything concerning
God's Word? No. No, no, no. Almighty God
will raise up a preacher and take that blessed saint of God
and receive him unto Himself. He is victorious. Everything
else is completely in bondage. God's Word has free course according
to exactly what God has ordained. Fourthly, we learn that the sheep
of God shall surely hear His voice. All that Almighty God
has purposed to save, God is going to save them. all that
the Father hath given me, shall come to me. And he that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out." What's it going to take for this Philippian
jailer, the one Lord willing? We'll look at what happened exactly. What's it going to take? for
God to get a preacher there. Well, God is going to take the
wrath of man, and it's going to be to His honor and glory.
He's going to allow this woman to come and try to exert her
authority. And God's going to cast that
demon out of her. And then God's going to allow
these men to take Paul and Silas bring them up and humiliate them
and beat them and throw them in prison. And God Almighty is
going to put these men exactly where God is pleased to have
them. God is going to have His own. He is going to call them
out. That is why they were there. And the Scripture says in verse
25, and we will end with this verse and begin with it next
time, Paul and Silas prayed and sang
praises unto God, and the prisoners heard them." You know, I read that and I thought about
how often I take every little something that comes up. And
at that moment, it becomes such a major issue with me. Almost
like my world is just crashing down, you know. And I stop, Mitch,
and think about it. I think, what have I got to complain
about? Here were two men, preachers,
you know. Surely a preacher of the gospel
will never go through anything, never suffer any trial, never.
I mean, God wants to bless you. God's got a wonderful plan for
you. Well, I'll tell you how God's wonderful plan led these
two men. He put them in a foreign country, put them somewhere,
had their clothes stripped off, beat them, threw them in prison,
and here they were at midnight singing praises unto our God. in the most secure place of that
prison, the inner prison, that part of the prison that was the
farthest away from any place of escape. No light. No windows. One door. Shackled. And here are these two preachers
in the stocks. And you look at that and, boy,
you think that has got to be the most miserable place that
two men could possibly be. And here these men were worshipping
God. Worshipping. Singing praises. Midnight, Paul and Silas prayed
and sang praises unto God. Actually, the exact wording of
that is they prayed in singing praises. They were singing praises,
and more than likely, I don't know this, but more than likely,
singing the Psalms. Now what comfort! What comfort
there is! I want you to just look at a
couple of them in closing here. Psalm 120. Psalm 120, verse 1
and 2. I won't read them all. I'll just
look at a couple of them here. Psalm 120. I don't know what
the courses were. I've heard some psalms put to
courses and stuff like this, and whatever they were, but listen
to this song, In My Distress. Psalm 120, verse 1. In my distress,
I cried unto the Lord, and He heard me. Deliver my soul, O
Lord, from lying lips and from a deceitful tongue. Do you know
what joy? I mean, you just read those words
right there. And what joy fills the believer's heart? You know,
if he will settle me down, if God Almighty settles me in whatever
the situation is, if God has settled my heart in the midst
of the worst news that I could think of right now, whatever
it would be, if God settled my heart, I'm settled. Some might say, aren't you perplexed? No? Well, you just heard it. I know. But let me tell you about
the most amazing thing. The Lord's given me some peace
in this. The Lord's comforted me. I can
understand how it seemed like to me I ought to be, you know,
just pulling out the last hair of God. But I'm okay. I'm alright." You know,
he took your wife. That's tough. That's tough. But God settled him in. He settled
him down. The Lord does all things well.
Look over at Psalm 121, verse 1, 2, 3. I will lift up mine
eyes unto the hills from which cometh my help. My help cometh
from the Lord. which made heaven and earth.
He will not suffer thy foot to be moved. He that keepeth thee
will not slumber." Here was Paul and Silas. Where was their God? But David said, Our God is in
the heavens, and he is doing exactly what he wants to do. You would ask these two men,
and I am telling you, it is going to take a revelation from the
Spirit of God to believe this. But you ask these men. Would you rather be anywhere
else than where you are right now?" And I'll bet you they'd
have said, well, but for the grace of God, I'd say something
else. They'd say, yeah, but for the grace of God, I'd say, yeah,
I'd be anywhere else but right here. But you let God Almighty
settle their heart and teach them, in all things give thanks. This is the will of God in Christ
Jesus concerning you. That takes a miracle of God's
grace. I'm not saying that men can naturally
do that themselves, because you know and I know we don't. We see the worst in everything.
But that God Almighty would cause these two men at midnight to
be singing prayers unto the Lord. And I like this, that last part,
and the prisoners heard them. You can go a long way on that,
Carl. Here are some spiritual prisoners. Here are some men singing the
Word of God. And you know, when prisoners
in sin and despair, when they hear God speak in power, God
Almighty releases them. I don't know what the Lord did.
I don't know. I don't know. The Spirit of God
was pleased to put that, and the prisoners heard them. I bet
you that was the most unusual sound that they probably ever
heard. Some men in the innermost part,
instead of moaning and groaning and crying and complaining, here
were some men praising God for allowing them to be exactly where
they were. Lord, thank You. Thank You that
You've put us here. Lord, You're our help. You're
our comfort. You're our peace. These songs of praise was a witness. And I'm telling you, when you
as believers, when you witness the sustaining grace of God in
a believer, in another believer that's going through some trouble,
that's a comfort to you. That is a comfort to you. When
you see God's grace keep one of His own in the midst of great
trial and comfort. I've seen some of you. I've witnessed
it. I've seen some of you and I know
you were hurting. And I saw the attitude that by
the grace of God you had. And I heard the words that you
spoke. honor, comfort. And I'm going
to be honest with you, I was greatly encouraged. I think to
myself, you know, our God is faithful. He's faithful. I'm never going to leave you.
Boy, he said, I'll never leave you. Well, what about if I'll
never leave you? I'll never forsake you? And you
know, if Almighty God settles us here, right here, we can rest
right there. And all things are well. They're
okay. This light affliction, Paul says,
which is but for a moment. It worketh a weight of eternal glory. We are going through this world
by the purpose, permission, and grace of Almighty God. Why are we still here? God hasn't
called all of His left out yet. But when He is pleased to, He
will. So what do we do? We continue
doing what we're doing. Preach the gospel. Not ashamed
of the gospel. It's the power of God in salvation.