I don't imagine y'all would have
enjoyed the singing near as much had I lived. It is wonderful to be back with
y'all again. I think of you often. I heard about Clarice yesterday
and my heart breaks for y'all. But to an extent, rejoices with
her. She's going to be healed. Eternally
and completely healed. The folks at Crossful send their
greetings. Sorry, I didn't say that before. And particularly
my parents. Said to tell y'all hello. Join
me in Acts chapter 16, if you would. We went to Gabe Stoniker's conference,
and on the last morning, the Sunday morning of the conference,
a man stood and he read a portion of Acts 16. In verse 25, The phrase, the prisoners heard,
stuck out to me. So that's where I get the title
of my message this morning. Let's read just these two verses
of scripture. Acts 16, verse 25. And at midnight,
Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God. And the prisoners
heard 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 bands
were loosed." I have just four things I'm going
to try to go rather quickly through, not keep you here terribly long. The hearers. the preacher, the
message, and the effects. Those that heard were the prisoners,
these prisoners that were kept captive in the inner prison. We know very little about these
prisoners. We don't know the specifics of their crimes, don't
know how long they had been held captive, what they were waiting
for. But we do know that they are
in the inner prison, and presumably this would be the worst of the
worst offenders. They're held against their will
in what would have been the most dreary portion of the prison,
being the inner prison. There's no light. Probably very
little sound coming from the outside. They're in the darkest, most
dank part of it. They have absolutely no light,
for if you look in verse 29, the jailer called for a light
before he sprang in. They're in the dark, they're
condemned, having no possible means of escape. Have you ever
been in such condition? There may be some among us today
who are in such condition, unable to escape, bound in darkness. And more than likely, these prisoners
in this inner prison are being held for their execution. Being
the worst of the worst offenders, they may very well be looking
at their execution coming out of that prison. The Scriptures
plainly declare all of us by nature are in such condition. For as in Adam, all die. You who were dead in trespasses
and sins, being dead in your sins. God made Adam a living soul and
Adam was bound under one law. and those bound under a law,
any law, one or many laws. What does the law say to them?
Moses described the righteousness which is of the law, that the
man which doeth those things shall live by them. Adam lived. as long as he didn't eat of that
fruit. But the moment he ate of the
fruit, he became guilty of breaking the law, and he died. He could no longer live. Law
says, this do and live. Don't do it and you're dead.
He died, and we died in him. We are condemned before the law
of God, blinded in the dark, separated from God by our sins. Not one person born of the flesh
enters into the world escaping the condemnation that Adam sold
us into. And the only reason this world
isn't worse than it is, that I'm not worse than I am, is God's
restraining grace that prevents me from acting on what my heart
desires to do. We're already condemned. Are
we then without hope? Oh, thanks be to God, but no,
we're not without hope. For whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call
on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they
believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they
hear without a preacher? Before the foundation of the
world, before Adam's fall, God determined to show forth his
loving kindness in saving certain men. And to ensure that he receives
all the glory for that salvation, he chose by the foolishness of
preaching to save them that believe. He, at the time and place appointed,
will cause a sinner and a God-sent preacher's path to cross. And that sinner is going to hear
of one true and living God who is able to save, who is willing
to save. In the text before us, Paul and
Silas are in Philippi and they've been arrested. They've been beaten,
delivered unto a jailer who treated them equally as shamefully. He threw them into the inner
prison. with condemned prisoners. Here are two of God's choice,
God's elect. One of them, an apostle, and
not just any apostle, but this is the apostle Paul who wrote
much of the New Testament scriptures. And they've been given to endure
this great shame and this shameful treating To what end? To what cause? Now the world's religion, from
its inception, preaches a health and wealth gospel. And when it's
presented with men such as this, who are in great pain, who are tried,
who are mistreated, who are suffering, who are to an extent like Job,
this world's religion jumps on them just like Job's friends
did, and they want to know, what great sin have you done to be
treated like this? You must have offended God greatly
to be treated like this. If you were doing things right
by God, you wouldn't be in this condition. But Paul declares why he is in
such a condition as this. He said, I endure all things
for the elect's sake, that they may also obtain the salvation
which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. Believers, as
they go through this world, are not going to walk through it
without trouble. And I'm thankful that so far
in this generation, we haven't been had to face the physical
abuses that Paul faced. But we must be weaned from this
world and God wisely uses our trials and afflictions to his
glory and to our good. Paul and Silas didn't know what
their end was going to be when they were thrown into that inner
prison. For all they knew, they may well meet with the executioner
the next day. These things that they endured.
They're to us as pictures and types. To them, they were very
real. But for us, they're pictures
and types of what this world's going to throw at those who faithfully
preach Christ and Him crucified. Though they were beaten, imprisoned,
and bound with fetters, what'd these two men do? They prayed. Isn't prayer a precious thing
to us? It's precious to me. But oh,
how I abuse it, how I neglect it, how I must be reminded of
that great privilege Christ brought for me. We have, as believers,
through our Lord Jesus Christ, we have access to come boldly
before the throne of grace to lay out our hearts and our troubles
and our fears and our longings before the Lord God of heaven. I know how often I neglect that
great privilege. To my shame. But, nonetheless, when God's people
are put into the crucible of affliction, when our flesh presses
us sore, when darkness shuts us out, when we find ourselves
seemingly without hope. We're taught and we learn, we
flee to Christ and we fall in prayer before our Lord. They're
precious times. Now these prayers that we bring,
particularly in these hours of distress and affliction, they're
not prayers like the world's religious prayers. The world,
they get in trouble, generally trouble caused by themselves.
And they turn and they pray to their God and they say, If you'll
get me out of this situation I'm in, I promise I won't go
to that place again. I won't do this thing again. If the Lord's pleased to get
them out of that trouble, it's not very long before they're
back doing whatever it is they promised not to do. Not only
them, I do the same thing. Not in prayer, but you'll make
promises to yourself. I'm not going to do that again.
I've learned my lesson. We shouldn't even bother. Five
minutes later, I'll probably be doing what I said I wouldn't
do again. But not these prayers. Not our
prayers. Not those prayers when we're
burdened and under such great affliction. These prayers are
prayers seeking comfort, guidance, encouragement, boldness and strength
that I might honor my Lord. But most importantly, these prayers
in these prayers, we we've learned from our Lord. Who, while he
was on the earth, he taught us to pray, not my will, Lord, but
thine be done. Let me fall upon that. How I yearn to have a heart of
prayer. Now, after they prayed, after
they had poured out their hearts before God, Paul and Silas took
up singing praises to God. And as we'll see from the results
of these prayers and singing, they were accepted of God. God
heard them. And while we don't have recorded
before us what their prayers were, what words they used, we
don't have what their hymns were, what they sang, what words they
used, we that believe know the subject of their prayer. We know
the subject of their praise. But first I want us to, Think
about why were these men's prayers and praises accepted before God? Was it because of who they were?
Was it because of their personal holiness or the position that
they held in the church? After all, this is the Apostle
Paul. He was mightily used of God.
Was Paul able because of who he is to come before God upon
his own standing and say, I'm an apostle. I can come before
you and stand in my own righteousness. I'm anointed an apostle of God. No. Had even the Apostle Paul
tried to come into God's presence of his own merit, touting his
own abilities, he would have been cast out. Man, since Adam's
rebellion, cannot approach unto God without a mediator, without
an acceptable sacrifice. But these men have no burnt lamb
to offer. They have no priest with them
to intercede upon their behalf. How are they going to come? They
have the lamb slain before the foundation of the world. The
true lamb of God, the one that all those other lambs had typified
throughout the Old Testament. And they have the high priest,
our Lord Jesus Christ himself, to intercede on their behalf
before the throne of grace. It is in his name that these
men lifted up and exalted. In their prayers and in their
praise. They acknowledged that they were
without hope, unable to redeem themselves. They were in the
dark. They were condemned. And at the same time that they
acknowledged their utter helplessness, they turned about and gave thanks
unto Jesus Christ for his great work of redemption, for the fact
that he came from glory and took upon himself the nature of man.
God the Son veiled Himself in the likeness of human flesh.
And He walked upon this earth in perfect obedience to His own
law. How they praised Him for coming.
They praised Him for what He accomplished while He was here,
fulfilling the law in every jot and tittle. absolute perfection to God's
holy law in thought, deed, and action. A man, a man, just as much man
as you and I, kept God's law. They praised him for his suffering.
He was touched with the feelings of our infirmities. He was tempted
in all points, as we are in fail, yet without sin. They praised
him for going to the cross, for suffering the shame of it, because
they knew that it wasn't of anything that he did that he went to that
cross. but for their sin that he bore in his body, that he
bled and died on that cross. On the cross where he laid down
his life, he satisfied the just demands of the law. The soul
that sinneth shall die. They praised him for rising from
the dead, proving that his work was satisfying to God, and ensuring
that He had accomplished that which He came to do, the salvation
of His elect people. And they praised Him for ascending
back to glory. A man, the God-man, is seated
at the right hand of God there making intercession for us. They praised Him for sending
His Spirit to them for teaching them the gospel, for revealing
Himself as Lord, God, and Savior in their hearts, for seeing fit
to redeem such vile, worthless sinners as themselves, and for
keeping them by His grace. How do I know It's not recorded
here what they said, what they sang, what they prayed. How do
I know that is what they did? Because it's the subject of my
praise. It's the subject of every believer's praise since the first
sinner saw by faith Jesus Christ, the Messiah and Redeemer of guilty
sinners. And also, that is the only message
of salvation that will result in the effectiveness that their
message had on these sinners. The preaching of Christ and him
crucified will not go forth without effect. When that sinner that
is cast in darkness and hopeless of any redemption, when that
sinner hears a God-sent preacher and the Holy Ghost anoints the
message and opens that sinner's heart to the Word of God, that
Word speaks to that sinner, great things happen. Look back in verse
26 here. And suddenly, There was a great
earthquake so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. In
our sin and unbelief, all of us descendants of Adam create
foundations of our own to exalt ourselves one above another. We all, by nature, come to God
just like our father did, clothed in fig leaves of our own making.
We're confident that these dead leaves will give us acceptance
and the right to stand in the King's presence. In Philippians
three, Paul gave a list of the earthly foundations that he trusted
in before God revealed himself to him. Let's look at just a
couple of those. Philippians three, verse five. Philippians 3.5 Paul says, He was circumcised
the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin,
and Hebrew of the Hebrews. Do you know this foundation? Some of you are like me that
grew up under the sound of the gospel. Some of you are becoming
like me, being forced to come by your parents. Do you know how long I trusted
that because I went to the right church, because my parents were
saved, I was going to be saved? I trusted that my parents' salvation
would become my salvation. All that our ancestry has for
us is that we are children of Adam, and we have his rebellious
nature within us. Our ancestry, the child of my
father, the child of his father, all the way back to Noah, and
all the way back to Adam, All that our ancestry has for us
is we are condemned, come short of the glory of God. Paul continues
on in verse five, as touching the law, a Pharisee. In this, Paul is declaring that
no one could keep the law better than he did. He was a Pharisee. And he kept the law as the Pharisees
and the scribes interpreted it. For our Lord said to them, the
Pharisees and scribes in Mark chapter seven, for laying aside
the commandment of God, you took the commandment of God, the law
of God, and you shoved it over to the side. Ye hold the tradition
of men. and continued full well, ye rejected
the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition."
Paul says, I'm blameless outwardly before the church. No one can
lay anything to my charge. I did everything better than
even my Pharisee brothers. We know this foundation. I was raised in the right church. It was a sovereign grace church. It wasn't a Catholic church or
a Protestant church or a Camelite church or a Southern Baptist
church. This was a sovereign grace church. They preached the
one true God and they teach that works religions don't exist. I'm better than those folks going
over to that other church. Look at me shine. It's just another foundation
we lay for ourselves to try to lift ourselves up a little bit
higher than the person next to me. Because we're convinced when
it comes to that day of judgment, as long as I outperform that
person next to me, I've got to be accepted. It'd be unfair if
I did better than them and we were both cast out. It's foolishness. It's sad. And it's foolishness. Will you accept a maggot into
your home, invited as an honored guest, because that maggot was
found on an apple rather than on a rotting carcass? Of course
you won't. It doesn't matter where the maggot
came from. It's not staying in my house. It's got to go. God is holy and he cannot accept,
reprobate sinful man in his presence. Oh, may God bless us today and
shake our foundations, utterly destroy them. May I be found
on the one foundation, Christ Jesus, the rock. For if he does, then we'll be
like Paul. We'll exclaim, yea, doubtless,
and I count all things lost. for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus, my Lord. It's the preaching of Christ
Jesus and the Holy Spirit's anointing that opens the hearts and ears
of men to shake those foundations. Now, back in Acts 16. Suddenly,
after having heard, not only were the foundations shaken,
but the doors were opened. When Adam sinned, he was cast
forth from God's presence. And unless God opens the way
of life, we will never have fellowship with him again. Well, hold your place here and
let's turn to Ephesians 2.13. Ephesians 2. And as these prisoners in the
inner prison were separated from their freedom by the closed doors,
we are cut off from God. I want to quote Isaiah 59 too. It says, Your iniquities have
separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His
face from you that He will not hear. Now in Ephesians 2 verse 13, But now, in Christ Jesus, ye
who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.
For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken
down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished
in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained
in ordinances, for to make in himself of twain one new man,
so making peace, and that he might reconcile both unto God
in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby, and
came and preached peace to you, which were afar off, and to them
that were nigh. Those things that sealed us off,
that keep us from entering into God's presence, Our Lord fulfilled
them. He kept them. Then He suffered
for the penalty that we owed due to the breaking of them,
that He might open the way, that He might be the way that sinners
may come unto God. The path of freedom being opened,
there is but one thing hindering them yet. Their feet are bound. Our walk is polluted. Paul says of himself, even after
his conversion, for that which I do, I allow not. I don't know
why I do the things I do. For what I would, that do I not. But what I hate, that do I. Think of Saul's walk before the
Lord revealed himself to him. He went to the high priest desiring
letters that he might go and bind and bring to Jerusalem all
those that were found trusting in Christ. He walked after the
flesh and he despised all things that honored God. Can we change our walk? We all walk after our own natures. Can our walk be changed? Can
our nature be changed? Not of ourselves. So how has Paul's walk changed? How did he repent and walk a
different path? He said, I am crucified with
Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not
I. but Christ liveth in me. In the
life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of
the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. We who
believe walk by faith and not by sight." As Paul declared, he wasn't able
to do it. That that I would do, I don't.
That that I hate, I do. But Christ in me, I'll walk after
Him. His nature has been, He's been
brought forth in me. Christ formed in you, the hope
of glory. Then I'll walk a new walk. I'll
have a different nature. and my walk will be honoring
to God, because it's not me that does it, but Christ. From the standpoint of this world
and the world's religion, our gospel goes forth to the most
unlikely of people, the prisoners heard. Not the great men, not
the priest, not the righteous, not the Pharisee, but the prisoners
heard. Our Lord said, come unto me,
all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Are there any here today bound
in the inner prison and cut off from God? Who have earthly foundations
built up as your hope to face God and to declare unto him who
dwells in light, look at what great things I have done. May
God have mercy upon us. Let us hear the praises of the
glory of Christ and tear down our foundations. Reveal to us
how that Christ left the eternal glory of God to dwell upon this
earth as a man, who after he had suffered many things at the
hands of sinful men, laid down his life to pay the penalty of
sin for those he came to save, for those that he loves. After
He had accomplished all things that were written of Him, He
rose from the grave after three days and ascended back into glory
where He makes intercession for us, for His beloved. May Christ give His Spirit to
us this day. that we might have faith to see
that Christ is all and in all, that we will see the path to
our eternal rest open to us and walk after Him in newness of
life. I pray that this little study
has been a blessing to you. And I so appreciate your hospitality
and your invitation to come. Lord willing, we'll meet together
again. Any dismissing prayer? Our gracious Heavenly Father,
Lord, we thank you that you've given us this time to
come together, that we can worship Christ. What a privilege it is
to hear of Him. And Lord, I pray that the message
this morning exalted him. And Lord, ask that you would
remove all foolishness and bless us with your word. Cause it to
take root and bring forth fruit and that we might be nourished thereby. Lord, we pray for those under
such trials and afflictions Give comfort. Bless them. Keep them. Lord, give us love, one for another,
that we might bear one another's burdens. Father, as we go forth from this
place, I pray you'd keep your hand upon us. Oh, Lord, we need you to guide
us. We need your guiding hand. Our flesh will lead us astray,
so Lord, cause us to fall upon you, to seek after you, to lean
on you. For only in you do we have life. For it's in Christ's name we
pray. Amen. You're dismissed. Thank you very
much.