Acts chapter 16 and verse 16. And it came to pass as we went
to prayer, now perhaps you'll remember who the we is there. This appears to be Paul and Silas
and Timothy and Luke. So at least these four we know
are together now here in Philippi. Philippi, of course, is a Greek
or a Macedonian city, and this is in Europe. So these are the
early days of the gospel arriving in Europe from that Middle Eastern
area around Jerusalem and Turkey. And it came to pass, as we went
to prayer, a certain damsel, possessed with a spirit of divination,
met us, which brought her master's much gain by soothsaying. The same followed Paul and us,
and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the Most
High God, which show unto us the way of salvation. And this
did she many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned
and said to the Spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ
to come out of her. And he came out the same hour. And when her masters saw that
the hope of their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas and
drew them into the marketplace unto the rulers. and brought
them to the magistrate saying, these men being Jews do exceedingly
trouble our city and teach customs which are not lawful for us to
receive, neither to observe being Romans. And the multitude rose
up together against them, and the magistrates rent off their
clothes and commanded to beat them. And when they had laid
many stripes upon them, they cast them into 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
stalks. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading from his word. Now I had intended to pick up
a little microphone here. I'm going to ask somebody to
do me a favour as well. Maybe, I don't know, whether
Susie at the back or one of you guys, if you've got your phone,
can you just go on to the website and check that nobody who's chatting
there is saying that they can't hear me? Everything's okay, is it? because
I plugged this microphone in, but I never got the opportunity
to test it. And I'm hoping that it makes the sound less echoey
and less tinny. But if anybody is making their
way up here, it's not a long enough cable to lie on the ground.
So just be careful or you'll drag me over the top of the pulpit. Not long after arriving in Philippi,
Having met Lydia and having had the blessing of seeing that lady
converted, Paul and Silas met another lady. And what a poor
creature she was. Just a girl. Maybe just a little
girl. Maybe, maybe just no more than
a child. And possessed of an evil spirit. not only possessed by an evil
spirit, that spirit which allowed her to divine the future and
to soothsay or to prophesy, to speak wise words, so-called,
to the people that were willing to pay for her demonic skills. And she was a girl who was abused
and a girl who was exploited by cruel masters. The fact that
she had several masters suggests that her distress was particularly
profitable to them. And we find that this girl follows
Paul and his friends, and she's shouting out repeatedly. It seems morning after morning
after morning, as the apostles went to prayer, this girl met
them on the way, and she's crying out, she's shouting out, these
men are the servants of the Most High God, which show unto us
the way of salvation. Time after time after time. And it's interesting because
here is a girl who is obviously distressed and possessed, obviously
hurting and abused, and yet she has the insight to know the truth. And whether this was the demon
within her crying out, like we sometimes see in the evidence
of the demons interacting with the Lord Jesus Christ, knowing
that here, now, suddenly, in Europe, in Philippi, was the
gospel, where preachers of the Lord Jesus Christ and even the
very demons were starting to quake at the recognition and
acknowledgement of this, or else the Holy Spirit speaking through
this girl, and in some way acknowledging the fact that here was the gospel. Whatever the case might be, here
is the truth being declared by this poor girl. Here she acknowledges
God's preachers and ministers that they are bearing the truth
as they carried that message into Philippi. The fact that she speaks about
salvation speaks about the fact that she was aware that there
was a difference between what they preached and what the Jews
of the city, for example, might preach, or the heathen and the
idolaters, or all the various religions that might be here.
Here was salvation by the one true God, salvation by grace
and not by works. And we discover that the apostle
is grieved by this young girl's actions and activity. And when
the procedure continued for a long time, perhaps it was that he
felt pity for the girl. Perhaps it was that he didn't
want to be associated with his own ministry with the way in
which this girl for the rest of the day was speaking her prophecies
and her divination and making money for her employers. Whatever
the case again might be, He turned to the girl and commanded the
spirit to leave her, and it obeys, showing that the prophet of the
Lord to his apostles that they would be able to cast out demons
in his name had been fulfilled. And we might imagine that the
other apostles also were able to do the same thing. The girl
seems, at least at that time, to have had some degree of peace. And I think that perhaps for
the first time in years, she was able to sit quietly. And
I do not know, I can't tell whether or not this means that the peace
that she had was a spiritual peace in her heart, as one who
had discovered grace, or whether it was just that the evil spirit
had been taken from her. But I would like to think that
this is a testimony to the fact that the Holy Spirit had come
and taken the place that the evil spirit had once possessed. And not only was she at ease
in her body and her mind, but she was at ease and at peace
in her spirit and in her soul. The masters were angry. They
could see their source of income disappearing and they arrested
Paul and Silas and they took them to the magistrates. They
accused them of being Jews. They accused them of bringing
wrong doctrine, troublesome religion into their midst. They didn't
mention the girl. You see, when we're opposed for
the gospel, Very often we don't know the real reasons as to why
that opposition is taking place. It might be that what we see
in the surface is exactly what the matter is, or it may be that
there are other things going on underneath that we cannot
see and we cannot discern, but the opposition comes against
the gospel nevertheless. These were deceptive men, and
the crowds were riled by them, excited by them, and without
any due process, The apostles had their clothes torn from their
backs and they were beaten with rods and then they were put into
prison. The Apostle Paul speaks a number
of times. I think it's in Thessalonians
he speaks about this time when he was in Philippi. and he was
treated so badly. He was beaten with rods. We're
not told the number of beatings that he had, but that must have
been an extremely painful and traumatic experience to have
been whipped bare back with these sticks, with these rods. The
jailer was charged to keep them safe, perhaps because there was
an anticipation that there would be more punishment yet to come.
And the two badly beaten men, Paul and Silas, were put into
the inner prison and they were placed there with stocks. Their
feet were placed in stalks so they were trapped and did not
have any comfort there in the prison. We're going to think
a little bit more about that on another occasion. But just
to say this, by way of bringing our thoughts here to a conclusion,
what a perilous introduction to their ministry in Macedonia. They had had a vision, they had
had a dream, come over to Macedonia and help us. And they had had
some reassurance and encouragement insofar as Lydia had been converted
and shown them hospitality and shown them that brotherly love
and fellowship. But also we discover that there
was an opposition in the society. There was a bitterness in the
hearts of individuals. And wherever the gospel is preached,
we might expect there to be that opposition. What a trial for
Silas and young Timothy. and look, how might these men
also think about where they were, what they were doing so far away
from their homes, as well as the Apostle Paul. We should expect
trouble when the gospel comes with success. The devil will
not lose his subjects easily, and he was angered as much as
the masters were for the loss of this young girl out of his
kingdom. But like the apostles, we are
called to have faith, to trust, to speak, and to wait upon the
goodwill of our God. Was that not the sentiments of
Mr Ryland's hymn here as we read it together? Our Lord knows and
he will protect his people and not a shaft can hit. The shaft is the arrow. Not an
arrow, not a shaft can hit until our God, our loving God sees
fit. Next week we're going to see
how the Lord overrules man's wickedness in a great way and
uses even the hardships of the apostles here in order to accomplish
his purpose and glorify the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
as we pass through these experiences of the acts of the apostles,
let us remember that the same pressures and powers that existed
then exist today. There will be trouble in our
lives, but the Lord God will preserve us and uphold his word. Amen.