Open your Bibles to Acts chapter 16. Acts 16. Our text today will be Acts chapter 16 verses 19 through 34. Let us pray. Father, we thank You. We thank You for Your grace and Your mercy given to us in Jesus Christ. We thank You for Your Word. We thank You for the gospel. That is the power of God to salvation to everyone who believes. Father, would You open our hearts today that we would be a people who believe? But not only that we would believe, but that we would obey, that we would walk in Your ways, that we would be what You have called us to be salt and light in this world. Father, we thank You that You have given to us great and precious promises. And one of those promises is that we will have tribulation in this world, but we are to be of good cheer for You have overcome the world. We are thankful, we are grateful. Make us glorious witnesses for Your glorious name. We pray this in that name above all names in the name of Jesus. Amen. Well, in this world it is not that we should look for tribulation. We don't have to look for it. It has a way of finding us, if you haven't noticed that. We should, though, always look for opportunities and most certainly in the midst of tribulation for they walk together. Tribulation and opportunity walk together. Jesus promised such that we would have tribulation, but He said to be of good cheer for He has overcome the world. In our text today, Acts chapter 16 verses 19 through 34, we will pick up in the book of Acts where Paul and Silas had cast the demon out of the slave girl who made great profit for her masters through that demonic possession, that spirit of divination. Beginning in Acts 16 verse 19 through verse 34, here the word of the Lord. But when her masters saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to the authorities. And they brought them to the magistrates and said, these men being Jews exceedingly trouble our city. And they teach customs which are not lawful for us, being Romans to receive or observe. Then the multitude rose up together against them and the magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods. And when they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to keep them securely. Having received such a charge, he put them into the inner prison and fasten their feet in the stocks. But at midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God. And the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly, there was a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were open and everyone's chains were lost. And the keeper of the prison, awake from sleep and seeing the prison doors open, supposing the prisoners had fled, drew his sword and was about to kill himself. But Paul, called with a loud voice saying, do yourself no harm for we are all here. Then he called for a lie and ran in and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. And he brought them out and said, sirs, what must I do to be saved? So they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your household. Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes. And immediately he and all his family were baptized. Now when he had brought them into his house, he set food before them and he rejoiced having believed in God with all his household. This is the word of the Lord. And verses 19 through 21, we see the reaction of these masters of this slave girl who had been saved. And once they saw that their hope of profit was gone and she would no longer be a source of income for them, they seized Paul and Silas. And they dragged them into the marketplace or in the Greek it's the Agora. It is the town center. And they drugged them and they were in the same place. And they druged them into this town center to the rulers or the archons. And they brought them to the magistrates, the chief rulers, the legal authorities, the ones who had power to actually do something to Paul and Silas for what they were accused of. And they identified Paul and Silas as Jews who exceedingly troubled the city and taught customs. Customs meaning specifically religious rights which are not lawful for Romans to receive or observe. And the masters could not recover their asset in the slave girl because she had been delivered by the word of the Lord and she was set free from that demonic oppression. So they sought to inflict as much punishment as they could on Paul and Silas because Paul and Silas were the ones responsible for her deliverance. And in mind we talked about this last week, Philippi was a Roman colony. So remember a Roman colony was a city, it was kind of like transporting Rome to another part of the world. And if you lived in Philippi, you lived in a city and if you were a citizen of that city, you had rights as a Roman that you would not have in other cities or other areas. If you lived in Philippi and you were a citizen of the Philippi, you didn't have to be born in Rome itself to have the rights of a Roman citizen because you lived in a Roman colony. And when these slave masters say to the magistrates these Jews exceedingly trouble the city and they are teaching customs or religious rights which are not lawful for Romans to either receive or observe. Now Rome was pretty good about allowing people they conquered to keep their religion but they couldn't spread that religion. The only religions that were allowed to be preached publicly or to proselye were religions approved by Rome. And this is why as Christianity began to spread in the beginning it was seen as a sect of Judaism. Well under many of the emperors Judaism was okay, it was an approved religion so to speak. But once Christianity kind of began to take on its own identity, this is why you had over 200 years, almost 300 years of persecution by the Roman Empire against Christianity because they realized Christianity was not Judaism and it's not an approved religion. So depending on the emperor's attitude they might have been more friendly or less friendly. Under Trajan it was a capital crime to even be a Christian. And so these slave masters were using religion as their leverage to try to punish Paul and Silas for delivering their stream of profit, who canceling their stream of profit. So the way they would inflict that punishment was to use an argument based on religion. These evil men used religion as a tool to extract their revenge against Paul and Silas. Men have done much evil under the guise of religion. We know this. There are a lot of people today who will not set foot in the church because they've been hurt by the church, they've been hurt by religion. And the problem there is not religion, it's not Christianity specifically. The problem there is not the church. The problem there is that we as men tend to put our eyes on other men instead of keeping our eyes on Jesus. And if you put your eyes on a man, that man will disappoint you sooner or later because human beings are frail, fallen and faulty. And this is what the scripture points us to. Keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. He is the author and finisher of our faith. And when men fail, when they fall, don't fall God for that, pray for that man, pray for that woman that they be restored, that they repent of their sin, that they can find the truth and be set free. Just like this slave girl was set free from the demon that oppressed her, that possessed her. Well, these men used religion as their or the guise of religion as the means by which they would do much evil. They used religion to make a profit. Now they're using religion to try to bring punishment to these servants of God. So these were not men who cared about religion, Roman or not. They didn't care about the Roman religion. They didn't care about Christianity. They only cared about themselves and how they could please their own sinful desires. And in this case, it was to make a lot of money to do whatever they wanted to do with that money. And I'm sure what they wanted to do with that money was not good either. It was the sin of these evil men that caused Paul and Silas to suffer. Yet God had a plan for salvation in it all. And thus, this is why we're talking about how tribulation and opportunity walk together. Paul and Silas are getting ready to experience much tribulation. But what we see, when we get to the end of our text and the end of this part of the book of Acts and the Chronicle of Paul's missionary journey, we see that even in that tribulation, God had a plan for salvation. In verse 22, as a result of these charges made against Paul and Silas, we see the multitude was also stirred up against them. And when Paul and Silas were dragged into the marketplace, they were dragged into the city center where all the people shopped, where they did business, where they hung out. That's where all the coffee shops were, and if they had coffee shops back then, and they didn't. But that's where they would have been. And that's where all the people were. It would have been a very crowded center of commerce and social interaction in this city. And these two men being drug into the city center would have drawn much attention. And this is also the aspect of, this was also an aspect of the girls' masters making a scene in order to stir up the multitude against Paul and Silas. Painting them as troublemakers and preachers of false and unlawful religions, that's exactly what they did and it worked. The magistrates, the legal authorities, also incensed toward the clothes off of Paul and Silas. They didn't tear their own clothes. You read this in the scripture in the Old and the New Testament where the Jewish high priest or the rulers of the people, when they would hear something, when they would hear something heretical blasphemous, they would tear their clothes. That's not what's happening here. When the magistrates heard the accusations against Paul and Silas, they tore the clothes off Paul and Silas. They tore the clothes off of them so that they could have them beat. And there would be nothing between them and the instrument they were going to use to beat them. So the magistrates tore off the clothes of Paul and Silas and commanded them to be beaten with rods, wooden rods. In verse 23 and 24, we see the punishment administered the Paul and Silas. And it was a cruel punishment that easily is lost in translation. Luke writes that they laid many stripes on them. So with each stroke of that wooden rod, it would leave a stripe. And if you can imagine, and it's hard for us to imagine, because we don't live in a culture or a society where this is done, but as those, as Paul and Silas were being beat, they weren't lightly being beat. They weren't politely being beat. They were being beat by someone wielding that rod who was beating them with all their might. So that every time that wooden rod came down on the back of Paul and Silas, it would immediately leave a red stripe, a Welp, where that rod had been laid on their back. Luke writes that they laid many stripes on them. And each stroke with that wooden rod would leave a stripe. And the magistrates ordered that many stripes be laid on the back of Paul and Silas. The Jews had a law that did not allow more than 40 stripes to be laid on someone. And usually it was 40 minus one. 39 stripes was usually the maximum that the Jews were allowed to lay on someone's back. But the Romans had no such regulation. The Romans had no such law regulating the number of stripes laid on the back of one who was ordered to be scourged. The level and the duration of beating was up to the magistrate ordering the punishment. And 2 Corinthians 11, 23, Paul writes of receiving stripes above measure, which is a reference to such beatings that exceeded the Jewish maximum of 40 stripes. Paul was beaten in light manner on three occasions. On three occasions, Paul was given stripes above measure, which meant that each of those occasions he had more than 40 stripes laid on his back. It's hard for me to imagine as I'm working through this message, what it would have been like to have my clothes ripped off of me, stretched out, tied down, and then have someone beat me as hard as they could with the wooden rod more than 40 times across my back. But that's exactly what happened to Paul and Silas here. And when they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them or cast them forcefully into prison, commanding the jailer to keep them securely. And having received such a charge, the jailer put them in the inner prison and fasten their feet and stocks. So though the language here is accurately describing what was done to Paul and Silas, it does not convey the amount of pain and suffering likely inflicted on them. They were cast into the inner prison and their feet fastened and stocks. The inner prison would be exactly what it sounds like. It was a prison within the prison. And it would have been the most secure portion of the prison, a lot more doors, a lot more bars, a lot more secure measures to go through to get out of that prison. It would have also been a place void of light. It would have been lightless, airless, no windows, and dank. Damp, dark, just nasty, where everything would have been wet and damp. And they didn't have cleaners, custodians who went in regularly and cleaned out the prison. Whatever was deposited in that prison by the prisoners was left in that prison. So that when the next prisoner went in, he went in and everything that had been in there before was still in there. So it was lightless, it was airless, it was dank, and it had a putrid stench. Making it a place most unfit for human occupation. Prison back in that day was not designed to be a pleasant place, and it was not. To make them even more secure, they placed their feet in stocks. The jailer had the feet of Paul and Silas placed in stocks. The stocks were heavy wooden beams, their feet were inserted into and then securely fastened to those beams. So you would have liked this beam pulled apart, had a hole drilled in it. You'd put their legs in there, their feet in there, and then you'd put it back together and then they fastened it. And typically the legs would have been spread apart in a most uncomfortable manner in a painful fashion, making movement near impossible for them. And then they were likely laid out on their backs with their feet in the stocks on the disgusting floor of that inner prison. I read a poem written by a Roman historian, I think it was somewhere in the second century of St. Vincent. And this poem written about St. Vincent who was tortured in light manner by a Roman emperor. And this poem describes, and when they, after they had beaten St. Vincent, after they had put him on a red hot gridiron, they put him in stocks. As you can imagine, after you've had more than 40 lashes laid on your back, your back is not just red, it's broken and it's bleeding. And when they put St. Vincent in the stocks, it was told that they stretched his legs out, they put his feet in the stocks. They broke glass or pottery, and they put shards of pottery on the floor of the prison, and they laid him down on his back so that those shards of pottery would dig into his broken, bloodied back. Now Luke doesn't tell us that was done to Paul and Silas, but it's bad enough that they had all of those stripes laid on their back. Their backs are broken, they're bloodied, they're no doubt painful beyond description, and now they're laid down on those broken backs with their feet in stocks. In this inner prison where there is no light, where there is no air, where there is, it's just nasty, and it's most uncomfortable. Then Luke records a most amazing scene involving Paul and Silas. In verse 25, Luke tells us midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God. Beaten and bloodied, naked and humiliated, and no doubt in pain, these two men of God were praying and singing and worshiping God. The King James version translates it as they prayed and sang praises unto God. The word translated praises there in the King James version of the Bible is the Greek word Humeo. It's where we get our word hymn, like singing hymns. In the midst of that dark, dank, and putrid prison, wounded and bleeding, Paul and Silas prayed and sang hymns to God. Luke is not describing two distinct acts. They prayed, they prayed a while, then they'd sing a while, then they'd pray a while, then they'd sing a while. That is not what's taking place here. This is not describing two distinct acts of praying and then singing hymns. The structure of the language is such that they're praying and singing hymns were done simultaneously. All in one. That indicates that the prayers they were praying and the hymns they were singing were from the Psalms. In their singing hymns from the Psalms, they were simultaneously praying the Psalms. It was one fluid and powerful act, a prayer, praise and worship that was being offered up to God. The element of thanksgiving was no doubt part of this offering to God because the Psalms they would have been singing and praying simultaneously are filled with the elements of thanksgiving. The very fact that they were offering prayer and praise to God was from their hearts filled with thankfulness to God. As we sing Psalms in our own worship, we are offering up prayers to God through our singing of Psalms. It's one of the reasons we sing Psalms. The hymns we sing, the songs we sing if you pay attention, they will say Psalm 21, Psalm 117. Because when we sing the Psalms, when we sing God's Word, we're singing God's prayers. We're not just singing His songs, we're singing His prayers. The book of Psalms in your Bible is simultaneously the book of prayer and the book of song that God has provided for you in His Word. Therefore, why would we not use it to sing our songs and to sing our prayers to God just like Paul and Silas did in that inner prison at midnight after having been beat mercilessly? Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God. The other prisoners were listening, Luke tells us. And you can imagine what prisoners heard most of the time in such a place. After severe beatings, most prisoners would have heard moans and groans of pain and suffering, certainly not prayer, praise and thanksgiving. The rejoicing and the giving of thanks and song and prayer to God was something most of them had never heard, had never witnessed, had never experienced before. Now perhaps it was entertaining, but perhaps it was even more inspiring. Paul had a captive audience and he did not waste it. At this point, Paul has no idea what's going to happen. He has no idea what his future holds, but I'll tell you what Paul did know, Paul knew exactly who held his future. And he knew that he needed to cry out to and give thanks to the one, the very one who did hold his future. The first consideration of Paul and Silas was God. Their praying and singing songs to him shows that they gave thanks, they offered petitions and glorified the name of the Lord above all things. They did this for all of heaven and for all that prison to hear. They did not allow their circumstances to dampen their faith or their response to God. We know that God heard and we know that he responded in a very powerful way, verse 26, Luke records that suddenly, suddenly, out of nowhere. There was a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison were shaken and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's chains were lost. That's not just an earthquake, that's a miracle. The faith of Paul and Silas was completely unshaken by the actions of the masters, of the multitudes and of the magistrates. However, God would shake everything else, including the foundations of that prison. And in that shaking, all the doors were open and everyone's chains were lost. This is the record Luke gives us. Those prisoners could have gone free, but God held them in their place for the purpose of his salvation. Paul never thought of fleeing, for he knew God had done all of this for his divine purpose. Paul knew in the midst of this tribulation God had ordained an opportunity that the name of Christ would be glorified. In verse 27 and 28, the keeper of the prison is awakened by the earthquake. He sees the prison doors open and supposed that the prisoners had all fled. Therefore, he drew his sword to kill himself, Luke tells us. Why would he do that? Because that jailer killing himself would have been a much better fate than the torture and the death the Roman authorities would have inflicted upon him had those prisoners left that prison. And the jailer knew it. He's like, I am not going to allow them to do to me what I know they will do to me once they find out my prisoners escaped. I am going to go ahead and end it right here swiftly, cleanly and painlessly as possible. It was the jailer's responsibility to keep his prisoners secure and to lose them for any reason would have resulted in severe punishment. Yet to the jailer's amazement, he hears a loud voice call from inside the prison saying, do yourself no harm for we are all here. That was the voice of the Apostle Paul saving the life of the jailer in more ways than one. At that moment, Paul understood the opportunity that was before him. Now, I wonder how many of us would have fled once those prison doors opened and the chains fell off of us? You don't have to answer that question, but it is worth thinking about. You couldn't hardly fault them, right? If the doors open and I have my chance to escape, could you fault those prisoners? It is not that we could fault them, but Paul didn't even think about leaving. And somehow we are not told how. Maybe we have a clue because maybe later on we see this later in the book of Acts from Paul the Shipwreck. The ship is going to get broken apart and he tells the Romans the churren, he said, listen, as long as everybody stays on the ship, we are going to all make it to shore and no life is going to be lost. But if anybody leaves the ship, then we are going to perish. So make sure nobody gets off the ship. And in the midst of the storm, the sailors were trying to abandon ship and they had to get rid of all the lifeboats so everyone stayed on the boat. Well, whatever happened here, those prisoners didn't leave that prison. Paul didn't leave that prison. Silas didn't leave that prison. And I think it's worth considering for us today that an open door is not always there for you to go through. We must learn to stay put and to trust God until he moves us because God always has a plan and it very often is not our own. Have you noticed that? So in verse 29 and 30, we see the jailer in the dead of night call for light and running in, he falls down, trembling before Paul and Silas who had not left the prison. It is the jailer who brings them out and then says to them, serves what must I do to be saved? Luke gives necessary detail but there is more to this story. The jailer obviously had come to know who these men were and that they had been preaching a message of salvation. It is also likely the news of God's power that delivered the slave girl had come to him as well. Very likely that jailer went to sleep that night hearing Paul and Silas pray and praise from that prison. And he may have thought they were crazy who knows what he thought but right now after that earthquake, after seeing those prison doors flung open and knowing all those prisoners stayed. And that guy in the inner prison who had been treated so cruelly just saved my life. And I think he is going to save it in even greater ways, sirs, what must I do to be saved? That earthquake and all the events surrounding it including the uncharacteristic prayer and praise that had been going up to heaven from that prison culminated in the jailer crying out for salvation. You can almost hear the desperation in his voice when he cries out, sirs, what must I do to be saved? In verses 31 and 32, Paul and Silas answered the jailer's question with these words, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your household. Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house and the jailer and all who were in his house received the message of the gospel. In verse 33, the jailer takes Paul and Silas, he takes them that same hour of the night and washed their stripes. There was no medical aid given to Paul and Silas before this. The Romans didn't care how bad you were wounded, how infected you were in might get. They just beat him and they threw him in the prison. Now this jailer who has just been saved physically and spiritually by the words of the Apostle Paul takes Paul and takes Silas that hour, in other words immediately, and he washes their stripes. Then Luke tells us immediately he and all his family were baptized. The jailer who had roughly treated Paul and Silas at the first was now washing their stripes and tending their wounds. And this was indeed a strange turn of events, but the night had been filled with strange occurrences and the jailer could no longer ignore any of that. He was now moved by God's grace not only to trust in Jesus Christ but to minister to these men who were his prisoners. Truly the love of God had changed the hard heart of this hard man. And now embracing faith, he also embraced baptism. And immediately he and all his family were baptized. Now this reminds us of Lydia. Remember Lydia? As it was with Lydia, a case can be made that the jailer as the head of his household was the catalyst for the baptism of his entire household. The word was preached to all in his house and all those of an age who could express faith, no doubt submitted to that ordinance of baptism in faith. But all those who were too young to express faith, no doubt were baptized due to the expressed faith of their head, their head of household. And by baptism, this entire household, whether young or old, was brought into the new covenant and made members of Christ's body. In verse 34, we see the fruit of a new heart and a transformed life. Having dressed the wounds of Paul and Silas, the jailer now brought them into his house. He set food before them and he rejoiced having believed in God with all his household. He brought them into his house. We saw this with Lydia who invited Paul and Silas and Timothy and the whole party to come and to stay in her home. And now we see this jailer who brought Paul and Silas into his house among all his family, among his servants, among all of his household who had just been baptized. And he set food before them, extending the hospitality of his home, breaking bread and fellowship with two men, two prisoners. He was commanded to securely guard his heart. The heart of this jailer was now overflowing with the grace of God. And he went from such despair that he sought to take his own life to now rejoicing and praising God. The change was brought by God's grace, demonstrated by this man having believed in God with all his household. This was not an end of his troubles, but the beginning of a new creation. The beginning of a new creation for you and for me is not the end of our troubles. But it is the beginning of something real, something powerful, something eternal, something that this world cannot take from you, something that no one in this world can take from you. Even if they take your life, this jailer was literally a new man. There is no telling what his past held and what he had witnessed and experienced. Just as a human being, much less a jailer in a Roman prison, it is not that his past did not matter. It is that he was now a new creation. His past, just as your past, is finite. But his future, just as your future is eternal. He now rejoiced for he knew that whatever his past had been, his future was now in Jesus Christ. He had come to know something he never knew before. He now knew the perfect and complete love of God. Poured out, poured into his heart by the Holy Spirit. He could now cry out, "'Abba, Father,' truly knowing that he is a child of God. That privilege is not unique to the Philippian jailer. You also may cry out to your Father in heaven as you are trusting in Jesus Christ. Life may give us reason to despair, but Christ gives us reason to hope and to rejoice always. Even in the midst of our despair, God will turn our mourning into dancing. In a moment the jailer went from deep despair to joy unspeakable and filled with glory. God's salvation was revealed to him by the power of the gospel and the illumination of the Holy Spirit. Ironically, the jailer had called for light, but little did he know God had already prepared the light for him. Light that would consume all the darkness the jailer had known, the light who is Jesus Christ, now illuminated in his heart by the Holy Spirit. It was God who gave him the true light. This jailer who once was darkness was now light in the Lord, and now he was walking as a child of light. And that light and that love of the Lord spilled over into the life of Paul and Silas. It spilled over into very many more even unto us today as we read his story recorded and preserved for us in the Word of God. Let that same light, let that same love change you and let his light and his love in you change others. Go and be the light of the world. Go and be love personified as Christ lives in you, the hope of glory. Go and walk in the light as he is in the light and the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Let us prepare ourselves to come to the Lord's table. Here is your charge, church. I believe it does each of us well to consider the suffering and humiliation endured by such men of God for the cause of Christ. This is only one instance of many that Paul endured in the name of Christ. His example and certainly the example of Christ should inspire and embolden us all. When you're tempted to lament your circumstances in life, you may first look and find reason to rejoice and give thanks. There are many. You do not do this to minimize or to deny your suffering or to compare your suffering with others, but to remind yourself in spite of your suffering that you have much for which to thank God. You are not here by accident and your life, and I mean all of it, is part of God's eternal plan and purpose. You do not reject it, but embrace it and trust God with it all. More than anything, your salvation in Christ gives you reason to rejoice and to be eternally grateful. And when you offer thanksgiving to God from your lowest valley and deepest shadow, it is more powerful than you can imagine. Your willingness to continually offer up prayer and praise to God with thanksgiving empowers every step of your climb to higher ground and greater light. Remember whatever your past, it is finite, but in Christ your future is eternal. Do not live with a finite vision defined by your past. Live with an eternal vision informed by your future. Do that yourself and then teach others and especially teach your covenant children to do the same. Jesus promised we would have tribulation in this world, but know that even when tribulation comes, if you are in Christ, you are to be of good cheer for Christ has overcome the world and so have you. And in all things may you pray and praise and work with thanksgiving to see his kingdom come, his will be done on earth as it is in heaven and amen.