Come back to Acts chapter 16.
Acts chapter 16. We're going to see in this message, this portion of scripture,
that God saves an old jailer. We are going to continue to see
the power of God, as we saw last week in Lydia, the providence
of God and the grace of God in the saving of sinners. It starts out here in verse 16. It says, As it came to pass,
as we went to prayer, A certain damsel, possessed with a spirit
of divination, met us. She brought her master as much
gain by soothe." Soothe, saying, that's what people want. They
want to be soothed, don't they? You want to make a lot of money?
Just soothe people. Just give them something that
makes them feel comfortable and good. This young lady, it says,
was possessed by a demon spirit. She brought her master as much
gain Tell him the future. People want to know the future.
You know, all you have to do is pick up the Bible, and it'll
tell you exactly what the future holds, without lying. I can tell you the future. You
miss Christ, you're going to hell. That won't get him money. That won't make your masters
any gain. That's just a little too truthful, isn't it? They
don't want to hear that. So, here's what people want to
know. Am I going to be rich tomorrow?
Am I going to get that job I'm after? They don't want to know
about eternal matters. If they really wanted to know
that, they would look in the Word of God. Because the person
who really wants to know that, God's done something for them.
God's at work. But she went about crying, loudly. She went about
doing this loudly, day after day. These men are servants of
the Most High God. It seems strange, doesn't it?
These men are servants of the Most High God, which show unto
us the way of salvation." On the surface, this looks good.
On the surface, it sounds good, doesn't it? What she said was
true. They are servants of the Most
High God, and they are showing us the way of salvation. But
Satan, Satan is very subtle. He's very subtle. You heard the
old adage, if you can't beat him, join him. Join up with him. I believe this demon spirit was
trying to say that there's no real difference between us. There's
no real problem here. I really believe this is what
he's saying. Because this demon spirit knew he was in trouble
when Paul came into town. When the gospel showed up, he
knew he was in trouble. And I believe he's saying there's
no controversy here. There's no controversy. There's
no trouble here. We can walk together here. Light and darkness
can't walk together. Light and darkness can never
walk together. As one person said to me, we're
saying the same thing, we're just not saying it the same way.
That's not the truth. And we can't walk together. I
started writing an article last night after I was reading this.
And I was thinking about this. The collar of truth is not gray. It's never gray. It's black or
it's white. And I believe this demon spirit
that this woman was possessed of said, well, it's okay. Because
she had a lot of influence. She'd been there a long time.
He didn't want to get kicked out of town. That spirit did
not want to, just like the one with the Lord cast out. They
said, let's go over to those swine. They didn't want to be
cast out either. I believe that's what's going
on here. I don't believe she's saying this in a derogatory manner. I believe that they're trying
to say, let's just get along here. Let's just, no, it ain't
going to happen. People gave a lot of attention
to this woman. And so Paul, Paul was troubled. This troubled Paul. Troubled him. He knew this woman was possessed
with an evil spirit. He knew it. And he cast that
demon spirit out of her. I tell you, Satan is just so
subtle. He is so subtle. And this was
just another tactic of his to pervert the gospel of God's glory,
to stay in close to it and twist it. I tell you this, we do not
need Satan's approval. We don't need his approval at
all. Now what she said, as I said,
was true. These men are the servants of
the Most High God. That's the truth. God made Paul
an apostle. He says that over and over and
over in his epistles. And they are showing the way
of salvation in preaching Christ, who is the way, the truth, and
the life. But there's a lot of subtlety
going on here. You know, subtlety is not a flat-out lie, is it?
It wouldn't be subtle if it was. If I walked outside and it was
night, and I said, it's daytime. That's not very subtle, is it? Subtlety never comes in just
a flat-out lie. Subtlety is taking the truth
and adding to it just a little, not a lot. You don't have to
add a lot of salt to it, just a little. Or it's taking just
a little from it. You just have to take a little
from it. Or it's taking what is said and twisting it. Just
put a little twist on it. That's subtlety. That's Satan. Now Paul cast this demon out of her,
and it made her masters mad. It made them mad. Her masters! I looked at that and said, her
masters! We have many masters! Until Christ comes in and takes
over. We have many masters. Lust of the flesh, lust of the
eyes, pride of life, Satan. We have many masters. We think
we are our own person. That's the last thing we are.
We are controlled from so many different directions until Christ
takes over. No man is free until Christ sets
him free. Truly free. Truly free. And they were upset. Paul and
those with him, Silas, got in trouble over this. They got in
trouble over casting this demon out and messing with their income. Their masters trumped up charges
against Paul and those with him. They lost a lot of money on this
deal. She was their business. They were nothing but That's
what they were, religious pimps. There's a bunch of them. There's
a bunch of them. But that's what they were. And
false religion is big business. If you want to really make money
without a lot of overhead, get in religion. You can dupe a lot
of people. People are willing and ready
to be duped. That's what's so sad. The most
intelligent people in the world are just ready to be duped. It's amazing. And they take Paul and Silas, and they beat them. It says with
many stripes. You know, if they were beaten
under the Jewish law, it would be 40 stripes save one. But they
are not. They are beaten under the Roman
law, which is many stripes. They probably whipped him. I
would imagine they whipped him so they probably couldn't stand
up. They whipped him that hard. They were that angry at him. I tell you what, you lose money,
you lose somebody's money, you see how many stripes you get. You can get a lot of them. They
were beaten and then they were cast into prison. Someone might say, I thought
I thought it was God's will for them to go to that region and
preach the gospel. God called them there to preach
the gospel. I'll tell you this, those who
confess Christ will suffer persecution in this world. You will suffer
if you preach Christ. If you witness the truth, now
you're going to suffer persecution. You can't tell the truth in this
life, in this world, on the enemy's turf and not suffer for it. And then God's will is being
done here. God's will is being done while
His providence, His providence here is moving. It's moving Paul
and Silas to where this jailer is. Paul cast this demon out
of this woman. They get in trouble for it. Beaten
mercilessly for it. Now they're going to be cast
into prison. But life's going to come out of it. Mercy's going
to come out of it. God's going to save another sinner.
But they've got to go through this for that to happen. They
have to go through this. We have to go through what we
have to go through because God has decreed it. He's decreed
it. So they're cast into prison.
And that jailer is charged to keep them safely. Don't you let
them escape. Don't you let anyone come in
and take them away. Because I honestly believe that
they were planning on killing them. They were planning on putting
these men to death. They said you put, so this jailer,
and I think he's probably just a rough old rogue. He's an old
soldier that's probably pretty rough. That's why he became the
jailer. It took a rough one to keep those birds in there. And he takes them and he puts
them in the inner prison, the farthest back in that prison
and the worst part of the prison. He puts them back in there and
he puts them in stocks and chains, chains them up. And I'm sure
he didn't, I'm sure he didn't put those shackles on and say,
now is that a little too tight? No, he didn't care. He didn't
care. And he takes them and he puts
them into that. It says he thrusts them in. Just
get in there. Just pushing them in there. Just
throwing them in there. Get into there. In a prison.
He showed them no mercy. This man is merciless. This man,
at this point, could care less about Paul and Silas, those with
him. He could care less. He had no feelings toward these
men whatsoever. He didn't care if they went in
there and starved to death, or died of thirst, or had to crawl
out of there. He didn't care. There was not
an ounce of mercy in that man. The battlefield had hardened
him. Many battles I'm sure he fought
in had hardened him. He killed many a men, and probably
killed many a prisoners. He's a rough man. He puts Paul Silas in there. I want you to notice their attitude. They prayed. Spoke there in Hebrew. They prayed. They didn't whine. Boy, do we take lessons from
these men. They didn't whine. They prayed. and sang praises
to God. I'm sure they were thanking God
for allowing them to suffer for Christ's sake. Lord, thank you
for letting us do this. Thank you for letting us suffer
for Christ's sake. They sang praises to God and
the prisoners, it says all those prisoners in there heard them. Heard them. People hear us, don't they? I
wrote down this morning as I was going back over these notes,
oh, that we can learn to praise and not murmur because the people
hear us. All those prisoners locked up
in that prison heard them praying to God Almighty, and I'm sure
their prayers were like sermons, thanking God for His mercy, His
grace, His kindness, thanking him for Christ. And they heard
him praise God. And they thought, man, this is
different. This is different. Paul said in Romans, I'm not
ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It's the power of God unto salvation.
When Paul stood before Felix in Agrippa, what did he do? He
preached Christ. When he's in prison, Thrust in
the deepest part of that prison, what does he do? He prays and
sings praises of the Lord Jesus Christ. And as they sang, and as they
prayed and sang praises to God, it said there was a great earthquake. I thought the first thought that
came to my mind is that earth is the Lord's and the fullness
thereof. The earth shook. It said it shook the foundation
of that prison. In fact, the foundation of that
prison was so shaken that all the doors opened. He's the one who opens doors.
You remember when Peter was in there and he was shackled to
this guard and they were both asleep? The door opened. He comes
in, the shackles are taken off and they walk out and the gates
of the city are open. They just open up to him. I have
no doubt that those doors were opened by an angel. The Lord
sent to open those prison doors. Just as He sent His Son to open
the doors of our prison and let us out. To set the captive free. He said He's anointed to do that.
He's anointed to set the captive free. Only those in prison can enjoy
that. The foundations of the prison
were shaken and all the doors opened and everyone's shackles
were loosed. Now I don't know if all these prisoners were saved.
I don't know that. It just gives us the detail of
that jailer. I don't know about those prisoners. But I do know this. The community,
the whole, where Christ is preached and believed, is blessed. It's
blessed. Every one of those prisoners,
the shackles were loose, the doors were open. Now where they
were saved or not, I don't know. But I know this, they were blessed
that night. Where the gospel is, the people
are blessed. And I believe they were so struck
by the message and the singing and the praying, what they heard,
and the earthquake that attended all of this, they wanted to hear
more. There's nothing out there. Let's stay here and hear more
of this. Hear more of this. God has all power over all hearts.
All hearts are in His hands. Sometimes God sends a still small
voice like He did to Lydia. You know, hers seems to be a
quiet process, doesn't it? She had heard. She walked in
the light that she was given. And then it says the Lord opened
her heart. It was just a quiet, soft process. Then we come up
to this old rogue. This hardened... He was as hard
as a criminal as he was watching. He was just like the people he
was watching, except he was on the other side of the law. Other
side of the line. The only difference between him
and those prisoners was the bars. They were on that side and he
was on this side. That's the only thing that made the difference. God sends an earthquake here. God sends such a quake that it
shook this man's foundation. It shook this man's foundation. All this man believed All that
he ever hoped in, God shook it. He brought it down. Sometimes God must shake a man's
foundation. Sometimes He just speaks softly.
And it says here that jailer woke out of his sleep. He was
asleep. He was asleep. Boy, was he ever. Was he ever. Dead in trespasses and sins.
Spiritual slumber. Just sound asleep. God sent this
earthquake. And when He sent this earthquake,
all those doors opened. All those shackles fell off.
And He thought, He thought all those prisoners would be gone.
And it was a Roman law that if a jailer let any prisoner escape,
he was to die. And so to escape being humiliated,
and his family being humiliated, by being put to death by the
Romans, he said, I'm going to kill myself. He probably thought,
well, at least it'll look like they killed me. That's what it'll
look like when they find my body. So he's going to kill himself.
And Paul cried out. Paul cried out to him with a
loud voice. And he said, do thyself no harm. Now, naturally speaking, we would
have shut up and let him down. being treated like he treated
them. He could have just shut up and
said, let him cut his throat. But Paul, Paul, expressing the mercy that
he once received and continually received. But he remembers, he
never forgot his past. Paul remembers standing there
consenting to the death of Stephens. He remembers casting the church
into prisons and consenting to their death. He never forgot
that. And Paul never felt an ill feeling against that man.
He knew where that man was because he was there once. I tell you,
you can't preach until you've been with the people that you're
preaching to. You can't preach to sinners if
you've never been one. You can't preach about mercy
if you've never tasted it. You can't preach about grace
if you've never received it. Paul cried out and he said, Do
thyself no harm. We are all here. All the prisoners,
even the worst ones that were in. I'm sure some of them were
in there for some pretty good reasons. We're all here. God has kept all of us here. All shows compassion on his enemy.
And that jailer called for a light. And he sprang in and he came
in trembling. And he fell down before Paul Silas. I don't think he fell down because
he was just afraid they were going to kill him. I think God
woke that man up. He heard their praying. He heard
their praising. He heard what was going on in
there before he went to sleep. And after all that happened,
and that earthquake happened, and it shook the foundation of
that prison, and all of them were in there, and it was all
still, I have no doubt, having the same meeting going on, God woke that man up. And he fell down before Paul
and Silas. God brought him down, didn't
He? If God does not bring you down, you'll not be saved. He has to bring a man or woman
down. I'm sure he was a big, burly
soldier, proud, but God broke him. God, we think we're tough,
don't we? I tell you, we think we're tough.
God can crack us. He can crack us as easy as a
squirrel can crack a nut. He can crack us. He did this
man. This man saw he was helpless
and hopeless. And he said, I need what you
have, Paul. Paul, tell me. Tell me what's
going on here. Tell me about this God that you've
been singing to and praying to and praising. Tell me about Him,
Paul. He realized he could have been put to death right there.
He realized he could have died. I think when God awakens a man
or a woman, I think one of the things they do realize is how fragile and frail you
are, how quickly life can be over that fast. You know, when
you're young and you're moving along, I mean, really, you think
you're just never going to die, everything's going to continue
as it is, and it's just going to be And then when God wakes
you up, you realize you could die in a second. It's just a
breath away. And for the first time, even
probably through all the battles he went, this man realized, I
can die. I can die. And he knew. He knew what he
did to Paul and Silas. He knew how he treated them.
And yet they were merciful to him. The scripture says, the goodness
of God leadeth thee to repentance. It's not hell, fire, and brimstone.
It's the goodness of God. And he said the only thing he
knew to say. I mean, this man didn't know anything about the
gospel, about the word of God. He didn't know anything. And
he says, and I like this. Here's a man that's just rough. Treated him, I'm sure, roughly.
And he said, sirs, what respect, what respect the gospel of grace
will bring to a heart of a sinner. He said, sirs, I thought that,
that just jumped out at me. Sirs, what must I do? What must I do
to be saved? What must I do? This is the natural
response of a lost sinner. And they answered him. Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved in thy house. He was always used to being given
something to do. And Paul said, just believe,
just believe. And if you'll notice in verse
32, It says, they spake unto him the word of the Lord. They
didn't just say, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and then leave
it alone and just leave it there. They preached Christ to him.
You cannot believe in unrevealed Christ. This thing of believe,
believe, believe. Well, who am I to believe? Tell
me about him. There's got to be knowledge of
one to believe if you're going to believe on him. Faith is not
blind. Faith is not a stupid act. Faith is born of knowledge. It's
a revelation of a person. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. And
it says, And they spake unto him the word of the Lord. Paul
preached to him. That's what he did. He preached
the gospel to him. The name reveals a person. I believe Paul used the scriptures. He may not have a copy of them,
but right here, he had them right in his heart. Paul knew the Scriptures. From a child, he read the Scriptures
and read, being a Pharisee, he knew them by heart. And he used
the Scriptures and he preached Christ to him. I feel it did
to that eunuch. It's not what must I do to be
saved, it's what must Christ do. And I believe Paul preached
the person, this man Jesus Christ, this God. God. Now, what must He do? It's not
what you do. It's what He does for me. He
must fulfill the Scriptures. He must become incarnate. He
must bring in an everlasting righteousness because we don't
have one. Not at all. He must suffer and die as my
substitute. He must intercede for us. I believe
that's the body of His message. concerning the Lord Jesus Christ.
He preached the Word of the Lord to them. And, O jailer, this is all of
grace. God saved you by grace. God brought
us into this prison by grace for you to hear the Gospel. That's
why we're in prison. For you to hear the Gospel. And
Paul said to him, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ completely
And it's what this is. It's not just to believe a story.
It's not just to believe some doctrine. It's to completely,
from the heart, trust Him alone. It's to embrace Him as a real
living person. It's what it is. It's embracing
Him. He's real to you. He's real. It's to lay hold of Him. We are not believing a set of
doctrines, but Christ, who is the embodiment of all true doctrine.
That's what we do, we believe in Him. True faith believes Him,
embraces Him, it follows Him, and it never stops until it reaches
Him, who is the mark and the goal and the end of faith. It never stops until faith gives
way to sight. If it stops, you never had it.
You never had it. Now the Armenians have made a
work out of faith by misusing this verse. Paul's not saying
faith is a human work. Paul's saying that there is nothing
that you can do. That's why he's saying, Jailer,
there's nothing you can do. Nothing. Believe on Him. Trust Him who did it all. All
to Him I owe. Trust Him. That's simply put,
but impossible for an unregenerate man to do. He's got to do something. That natural heart says we've
got to do something. We bring our kids up like that.
We reward them for doing good. Spank them for doing something
wrong. And we just carry it right into our life. We must do something
to please God. Faith is not a work, it's a gift. What a contrast here. Let me
show you something here. What a contrast between Lydia and this jailer. With her, it was a still, small
voice. With him, it was an earthquake. With her, she was in a worship
service. They were down by the river where prayer was wont to
be made. With him, he was in prison. He was there in the same
prison everybody else was in. With her, there was preparatory
work. She was walking in the light that she had been given.
How long she'd been doing that, I don't know, but she'd been doing it
probably a pretty good while. And she's walking in that light.
There'd been some preparatory work going on before. Here, it
was just a sudden. Just like that. God'll work as
He will, won't He? But here, listen. Providence.
The providence of God worked in both their favors. Both. Grace was after both of them,
even though God may have used different means and ways of bringing
them to the gospel. Both heard the same message. There wasn't
a different message. There wasn't hellfire brimstone
for the jailer and then peace and mercy for Lydia. It wasn't
too different. It was the same message. Christ. Christ and the crucified. And
the result was both were converted And both became very gracious.
Both became very gracious. It says in verse 33, And he took
them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes, and
was baptized, he and all his, straightway. The same hour of
the night when this happened. I tell you what, grace makes
you gracious immediately. This big old burly prison guard. This man who had just, a few
hours before, threw him into the innermost prison and treated
him roughly, now so gently, washes their stripes. I bet he washed
them with tears. He didn't use his tears, but
I'm sure he wept as he washed those stripes. And their backs
were striped. They were whipped hard. And here's
this big old soldier, this big old guard. I'm sure he got a
wash rag and stooped down there and just gently washed their
backs. My, what grace can do. What grace
can do. The grace of God is so powerful.
So powerful. And I bet Paul and Silas were
glad to be whipped. I bet they were glad to be whipped
for His sake who now cleansed their stripes. If our troubles
bring us or make us a means of salvation to a sinner, is it not worth it? I wrote out
yes. I wrote out a big yes. Yes, it's
worth it. It's worth everything we suffer.
if one sinner is saved by the grace of God. If it brings us
into contact and enables us to preach the gospel, it's worth
it. And notice here, he was baptized.
You notice how this keeps coming up in the book of Acts? Lydia,
Eunuch, they were all baptized. Sovereign mercy was unsought. It was unasked for. It was undeserved. But He got it anyway. You know,
we receive the mercy of God in spite of ourselves, don't we?
That's the best way I know how to say it. God has had grace
on us in spite of us. I do everything I can to keep
from having it. But He gives it to me in spite
of me. And it says in verse 34, they
rejoiced, believing God with all his house, and he fed the
apostle. He fed God's servant. He wouldn't
have given him a flip just a couple of hours before that. And now
he's got them in his house. They're in his home. And his
home is just turned over to them. It doesn't take years to become
gracious. It just takes the work of God. It just takes the work
of God. And notice the Lord's mercy here. And when he had brought them,
in verse 34, he brought them into his house, he said, meet
before them and rejoice, believing in God with all his house. God
had mercy on his house, not just him, but on his house. It's amazing. And when it was daytime, the
magistrates sent the sergeant saying, let those men go. This jailer
was in a dilemma. You realize what a dilemma he's
in now? God has saved him. He's just taken him to his house.
Fed him. I'm sure he gave him some clothing
there. Now he's going to have to face
The Roman law. What does God do? He moves those
magistrates to just let them go. And word comes and says,
just let them go. He doesn't have to answer for
any of them now. I thought that was so amazing. He doesn't have to answer for
any of them. He said, let them go. And the keeper of the prison
told this to Paul. He was excited. The magistrates
have sent and said, let you go. He said, go, depart in peace. But old Paul said, no, I'm not.
He said, they've beaten us openly, uncondemned, for no reason. We're
not going to let them just do this privately and slip out of
town. No, he said, you tell them to come and send us out. And
the sergeants told these words to the magistrates, and they
feared now. Now the fear was on them. Isn't it amazing? God reversed this thing. Here
they was going to kill them, and now they're scared to death
because they beat these men who were from Rome. That's what Paul
says up there. He says, They have beaten us
openly and unconditionally, being Romans. And now they were afraid. They
came, and now they're begging. Now they're begging. And they
brought them out. They desired them to depart out
of the city. They went out of the prison and entered into the
house of Lydia, went back to Lydia's house. You know what
they did? They comforted. They. The ones who were beaten. The ones who were cast into prison.
They comforted the brethren. They comforted. Comforted them
with the Word. Comforted them with what happened.
Jailer. He said, Lydia, you wouldn't
believe this. He said, let me tell you something, Lydia. Let
me tell you what the Lord saved another one. This jailer. Amazing grace, how sweet the
sound that saved a wretch like me. I thought last night, that
song has been sung many a time before it was ever written. Long
before that song was ever written, it's been sung many a time. Okay,
Mike.