Acts chapter 16 and 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. And the keeper of the prison,
awaking out of his sleep and seeing the prison doors open,
he drew out his sword and would have killed himself, supposing
that the prisoners had been fled. But Paul cried with a loud voice,
saying, Do thyself no harm, for we are all here. Then he called
for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down
before Paul and Silas, and brought them out, and said, Sirs, what
must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house, And
they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that
were in his house. And he took them the same hour
of the night, and washed their stripes, and was baptized, he
and all his, straightway. And when he had brought them
into his house, he set meat before them, and rejoiced, believing
in God with all his house. And when it was day, the magistrates
sent the sergeant, saying, Let those men go. And the keeper
of the prison told this saying to Paul, The magistrates have
sent to let you go. Now therefore depart and go in
peace. But Paul said unto them, they
have beaten us openly, uncondemned, being Romans, and have cast us
into prison. And now do they thrust us out
privily? Nay, verily, but let them come
themselves and fetch us out. And the sergeants told these
words unto the magistrates, and they feared when they heard that
they were Romans. And they came and besought them
and brought them out and desired them to depart out of the city.
And they went out of prison and entered into the house of Lydia. And when they had seen the brethren,
they comforted them and departed. We spent a little bit of time
last week thinking about the incident of the young damsel
who was released from the demonic possession that she was under,
the spirit of soothsaying which she had by the Apostle Paul,
and how as a result of that good work on behalf of that girl,
that liberation from that spirit of oppression which was on her,
because of the loss in revenue that her masters incurred. They
brought Paul and Silas before the magistrates. There they were
severely beaten with rods, we're told, on their bare backs. And then they were thrust into
prison, put into prison and put into stocks. And it's here that
we pick up the story in Acts 16 and verse 25. And we discover
that at midnight, Paul and Silas are singing and praying in the
inner prison. This incident in the life of
Paul and Silas is perhaps one of the most momentous in the
Acts of the Apostles. It's one of those stories that
if we are raised at all with any Bible knowledge, invariably
we'll know from being children. And if David's deliverance, as
we were reading together in the Psalm, in Psalm 54, if David's
deliverance was amazing by the mobilizing of the nations around
about Israel in order to providentially deliver him out of the hand of
Saul, his enemy, then how much more amazing is this that the
very nature of this world itself, the very fabric of the pressures
and the rocks and the earth itself conspired to deliver Paul and
Silas from their bondage. You know we cannot begin to conceive
of the power and the forces that our God has at his disposal to
accomplish the salvation and the deliverance of his people.
Let us never be cowed by this world. Let us never be afraid
that this world can do to us beyond that which our God's shalls
and wills enable and provide. What will God not do to deliver
and to save his people? So here they are in the prison
and they're praying and they're singing and undoubtedly in the
quietness of that prison there in Philippi, their voices would
carry right throughout the prison. And the other prisoners were
listening to the praises of these men and the prayers that ascended
to God. Perhaps they were praying. even
there, not just for their own circumstances, but for the town,
for their captors, for the other prisoners, for the gospel there
in Macedonia. And God heard them as they prayed. We are reminded
that God's people have cause to praise and worship our God,
even in the midst of our trials. because we're in the midst of
trials, because it is in those opportunities and occasions that
we will see the delivering hand of God. Oh, if we just had the
faith to go into every trial with that thought in our heart,
that this is but an opportunity for our God to show his love
and his kindness towards us. The Lord Jesus Christ, he was
not deterred by the prison gates that bound Paul and Silas, and he was willing
and able to draw near to his people there in the darkness
of their cell, in the stalks in which they were bound and
under the beating which they had suffered. The earthquake
when it happened in deliverance of these men was powerful. We're
told that the foundation of the prison shook. So this was a real
earthquake. If it shakes the foundations,
it shakes everything above the foundations. And yet the prison
didn't collapse. The prison didn't fall. No prisoners
were hurt. Paul and Silas were not injured
by this earthquake. Yet it was sufficiently powerful
to open every door in that prison and break all the shackles by
which the prisoners were constrained. And yet not one was hurt. One wonders why the prisoners
didn't just immediately get up and run out the open doors. Here's
a nice little thought. They had been so transfixed with
the apostles' praises to God, and the prayers that they were
making to God, and the momentous things that were going on around
about them, that they just wanted to wait and see what was going
to happen next. See, when the Lord moves, he
brings everything in that whole situation to play out according
as his will desires. The jailer is an important part
of this story. Of course, he's a hard, he's
a tough man. He's a man under authority, but
probably a man who had seen action in his life. Often this was a
way of retired senior military people getting a continuing career
in the army without having to be on the front line. They were
given what was regarded as being a relatively cushy job back in
one of the provinces, which is what seems to be happening here. And so he's likely to have been
a man of some robustness, some tenacity, some toughness in his
character. But this night, something changed.
Something changed that transformed him and converted him, led to
his conversion. And that which changed was that
here was a man who, despite all of his history, despite all of
his experiences, despite of where he had been and what he had seen
and what he had done, was a chosen vessel of God. A man that God
was seeking for in this world. A man with his family that the
Lord God had sent, Paul and Silas. out of that country of Turkey
across into Europe in order to meet him. Nay, perhaps even got
them into the prison where they would be able to witness to this
man who would never, because of his own obligations and responsibilities,
be found sitting under the teaching and the preaching of the gospel
in a synagogue or at the side of a river. Have you ever thought about that
as far as your troubles are concerned? That God put you there so that
you could meet somebody else in the cauldron of your problems?
Someone that you would never get a chance to speak to otherwise? I wonder how many of God's preachers
have been put in prison over the years in order to speak to
their prisoner, their prison warden. In order to speak to
their fellow prisoners. And they say, oh, this is terrible,
I'm in prison. Well, the Lord knows exactly
what he's doing with his people. Waking from sleep, this Philippian
jailer fears the loss of his prisoners. And he takes in quickly,
even in the confusion of that moment, that he has failed. And he realizes the significance
of the fact that while he was sleeping, the gates were opened.
and he assumes that his prisoners have fled. Rather than face the
consequences and the shame that that might bring, he draws the
sword that he's wearing. and he is about to take his life. I don't know how the Apostle
Paul knew what was happening outside his own cell. I don't
know how he perceived or was made aware of the circumstances. Perhaps it was just the Holy
Spirit that gave him the information. But the apostle cries out. He says, don't do yourself any
harm. Everybody's here. No one has
fled. They were in the inner part of the prison. How did they
know what was going on in the outer part of the prison? But
the Lord told them, it's okay. Things are going to work out
all right. Do not take your life. You know, I think there were
two earthquakes that night. There's the one that we've already
spoken about, and there was another one that occurred in the soul
of the Philippian jailer. Such a transformation, such a
change occurred, such an effect transpired there by the power
of God. Christ was at work in that man's
life. God, the Holy Spirit, was leading
him to that place of conversion. And here is a wonderful example
of that grace and mercy of God. This man is literally, with his
sword drawn, a moment from hell. A moment from
hell. and he's restrained by the words
of the Apostle Paul. What must I do to be saved, he
cries. Here is a sinner with a felt
need. He runs in to Paul and Silas
and they tell him, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou
shalt be saved. You know, sometimes we think
that that's too easy to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. But
in the trauma of that moment, in the terror of that moment,
here was a glimmer, here was a light. He called for a light
to be brought, but there already was a light, a light which had
been sparked in this man's heart because he was one whom God was
calling to himself and bringing to an experience of grace. And faith brings knowledge of
sins forgiven. And faith and believing in the
work of the Lord Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation
for sinners in this world. And that is why it is a message
which resonates not only around the stone walls of Philippian
prisons, But down through the ages and the years of this world,
it is the message that we preach still today. How can a man, how
can a woman, how can a boy, how can a girl be saved? By believing
in the Lord Jesus Christ, and they will be saved. You will
be saved if you trust in the completed work and the person
of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Verse 32 says, and they speak
unto him the word of the Lord and to all that were in his house. They speak to them the word of
the Lord. They spoke to them about the
words that the Lord had spoken. They spoke to him about the things
that God had done. They spoke to him about the great
purpose of salvation in the person of Jesus Christ, about the gospel
of mercy, about the cross. and about blood and about forgiveness
of sins. And that man's heart was opened
and his understanding was opened and his spirit was quickened
and enlivened as was the spirits of those of his household amongst
whom the apostle preached and taught. And what a change, what
a change took place. From beating Paul He is now bathing
his wounds. From chaining him up, he is asking
for his help. From self-destruction, he is
seeking salvation. From spiritual darkness, he is
trusting the light of the world. He found salvation that night
by trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ. he found peace in the
midst of an earthquake. What a wonderful God we have
to be able to reach his people in such strange and wonderful
circumstances and yet secure their deliverance. Paul and Silas
were to be released. The magistrates, perhaps aware
of something which was going on in the prison, seemed to have
changed their mind. Perhaps just the cold light of
day or the opportunity to reflect caused them to think, you know
what, we really just need to get these guys out of town. We
need to get rid of them before they cause any more trouble or
any more problems. And Paul says, no, no, no, that's
not the way it's going to work. We're not going to carry the
stigma of being ushered away as if we've done something wrong.
We did nothing wrong. And by the way, we're Roman citizens. And I know that you were not
allowed to do what you did to me. And suddenly, from being
so irate and dramatic about what had gone on the previous day
with this young woman, These men are cowering and shaking
in their own boots and wondering what is going to happen to them
when the Roman authorities, under whose rule they were, discovered
that they had done this to a Roman citizen, often in the way in
which These things worked. It's perhaps true of the jailer
himself. So that's the reason why he was
ready to take his life is because he knew that the crime that he
had committed in letting these people go who were in his charge,
he would be put into their place. Excuse me. Equally, these magistrates
knew that having beaten a Roman citizen illegally, their sentence
for that would be that they would be beaten with the same rods
that they had beaten Paul with, and they would be put into the
same prison that they had been putting Paul and Silas into.
So they knew what was at stake here. and they were greatly afraid
because of it. They came and they asked for
Paul and Silas to leave graciously. They sent them away and Paul
and Silas went to Lydia's house and there they spent some time
with the saints at her home and no doubt introduced her to the
jailer and his family and then they left Philippi. But what
had they left there? They'd left a little church.
They'd left a little community of believers. They'd left Lydia
and her household and the jailer and his household. And in a few
years, the apostle would be writing his book. to the Philippians,
his epistle of the Philippians and that letter went to the church
which had been formed here on this occasion by the apostle
in the household of Lydia and the Philippian jailer. What a
lovely account we have here of God's salvation in the hearts
of these individuals and may the Lord bless us to remember
that no matter what circumstances we find ourselves in He is in
control, even to the very earth shaking, to accomplish His purposes
and our deliverance. Amen.