For the last couple of weeks or so, we have been looking at
the miraculous power of the gospel as illustrated in Acts. If you were here for those messages,
you will remember that we highlighted Paul’s statement concerning that
miraculous power in his epistle to the Romans, chapter 1 vs.16. In it he says, “For I am not
ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who
believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”
Paul was the apostle that was primarily sent to take the
gospel to the Gentiles. And we
have shown through our study of Acts how powerful that gospel was to save the
lost on his missionary journeys.
Everywhere Paul went, the power of the gospel was evident to save, to
heal, and to establish churches all throughout Asia.
Now in today’s passage, we will learn how God directed Paul
to make the first foray into Europe, through which the gospel would spread to
the whole world, even finding it’s way eventually to us here in America. We can trace back our religious
heritage to this second missionary journey to Macedonia, which was north of
Greece, and from which it then spread throughout Europe.
And as we will see, as the gospel spreads into these far
regions, it loses none of it’s power to save, but it is able to save even to
the uttermost regions of the world.
We will see it is powerful to deliver from pagan darkness, and even
demonic possession. We are going
to see illustrated here in this passage three people who are saved by the power
of the gospel. And we are going to
consider how diverse these three converts are; they are different racially,
socially, and psychologically, and yet they are saved by the same divine power,
through the same gospel, and made part of the same church. So that we might see illustrated in
triplicate the power of the gospel to save, not only the Jews, or even the
Gentiles in Asia, but also to the Gentiles in Europe.
Now for the sake of context I want to briefly recap how Paul
arrived on these shores. He had
come back to Antioch, you will remember, where the Gentile church had it’s
first church. And while there,
Barnabas and Paul had some disagreement about bringing John Mark with them on
this next journey. Paul didn’t
want to take John Mark because he had left them midway on the last missionary
journey. Barnabas disagreed. And their disagreement was so sharp
that they split up and Barnabas took John Mark and Paul chose Silas to
accompany him. Each went their
separate ways. Luke then follows
Paul’s journey as he travels from
town to town, eventually stopping by Lystra, where he picked up another young
man named Timothy who would travel with them and who would be trained by Paul.
After that, Paul makes several stops at churches that they
had previously established, but on two separate occasions the Holy Spirit
prevents Paul from going to a particular region that he wanted to visit. And I
would just point out as a side point that often the Holy Spirit leads us by
closing doors. We should pray for
discernment that God would show us clearly His leading by closing or opening
doors, especially in ministry. Our
goal is to join where the Holy Spirit is working, and not seek to bring the
Spirit to our endeavors.
But one night the Holy Spirit gives Paul a vision, and in the
vision a man from Macedonia was calling out to him, “Come over to Macedonia and
help us.” So right away they find
a boat that is sailing for Neapolis, a seaport in Macedonia, and after arriving
they journey the ten miles inland to Philippi. Now Philippi was a Roman colony; it was a military outpost
for Rome, and as such operated according to Roman rule. By the way, notice the change of
pronouns in the narrative in vs. 10.
Luke who is the author of Acts is presumed to have joined Paul and his
companions at this time, and from this point on he will be a constant companion
of Paul for most of the rest of his life.
And that is born out by the change of pronouns from they to us, or we,
indicating that Luke had now joined the team.
Now usually when Paul visited a new area he would look for a
synagogue in order to find Jewish people who believed in God. But in this far off region they did not
have a synagogue. Jewish law
required that there be 10 men in order to establish a synagogue. Obviously, this town did not have 10
Jewish men. But there were some women
there, more than likely they were Jewish proselytes, who met together on the
Sabbath day to pray to God. And
Paul heard of this prayer meeting and went there by the river to meet them the
next Sabbath day and sat down and began to teach them the gospel of Jesus
Christ.
And the text says there was a lady there named Lydia who was
likely a proselyte to the Jewish faith, she was originally from Thyatira, which
is in Asia. She was a wealthy woman, a dealer in purple fabric which was highly
desirable and costly in those days.
And she is either living there or temporarily visiting the city of
Philippi perhaps as part of her business travels and has come to this meeting
to worship God as she has been taught in Judaism. And when Paul explains the gospel, the scripture says that
the Lord opened her heart to receive the gospel and respond so that she was
saved. Note that she was religious, but she wasn’t saved.
Now I want to emphasize that it was necessary for the Lord
to open her heart in order that she could respond to the message of salvation. Because even though she was religious,
yet she was spiritually dead. See, the Bible tells us that the penalty of sin
is death. And while that certainly
speaks of eternal death that the lost will suffer as the penalty for their
sins, it also means that we were spiritually dead and as such cannot accept the
things of God for they are spiritually appraised. In order for a dead person to respond they must be made spiritually
alive, they must have their heart opened to receive the truth, and they must
have their eyes opened to see the truth.
I can preach the gospel week after week and some people never respond. And that is because they are spiritually
dead. They may recognize
intellectually what I’m saying, but at a heart level, at the level of their
desires and will, they are stone cold dead. They cannot accept it. And so Christians must pray that God
opens the unsaved heart to respond to the gospel, even as we present the gospel.
Because the spiritually dead may hear the gospel but they
cannot accept it or respond to it without a supernatural intervention. It reminds me of the man who was trying
to make a point to another person, and he was saying, “Why it’s as simple as A,
B, C!” And a third person said,
“yes, but the man you are talking to is D, E, F.” The unsaved cannot hear the gospel unless God opens their
ears to hear. God has to activate our hearts if we are to respond to the
gospel.
And that requires a supernatural miracle. That is why I say the power of the
gospel is a miraculous power. It
is a miracle when a person’s heart is suddenly opened to accept the truth. They suddenly see the light, they see
the depravity of their sins, and they are convicted and respond in repentance
and faith. I cannot open
hearts. The Holy Spirit opens
hearts.
So Lydia is the first convert in Europe. A woman, you will notice, is the first
convert in Europe. You know, in
the family God has given man the responsibility of leadership. But I am afraid that very often today
men have reliquished their spiritual leadership of the family to the
woman. I would to God that men
would step up and take stewardship of the responsibility that God has entrusted
to them and say, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” I think the church and the family would
be dramatically changed if men would take charge of their families spiritual
well being and lead them as they should.
But unfortunately, that is not often the case. The women are the ones that pull and drag the husband to
church, make sure the kids are dressed and get the family involved in the
church. And thank God for them.
Lydia is quite a woman. She is an independent business woman. She is probably quite wealthy and
therefore socially influential.
She may be a widow, since her husband is not named. But she has brought her household to
church with her. And not only is
she converted and baptized, but her whole household follows her lead and believes and is baptized with her. And then notice that she urges the
apostles to stay with her in her house.
And that very likely becomes the physical address of the first church of
Philippi. If you want to see what
becomes of that church, you should read the letter to the Philippians which
Paul writes later. Undoubtedly,
this woman Lydia is a major force in helping to establish the first church in
Europe.
So the power of the gospel is mighty enough to open the
heart of a wealthy, independent woman so that she might be saved as the first
convert in Europe, who becomes a prime benefactor of the first church in
Europe. In a time and culture when women were valued as little more
than slaves, because of the power of the gospel we find the name of Lydia
resounding through the centuries, so that more than 2000 years later we still
remember her as the first convert in Europe.
And then in vs.16 we are introduced to another woman, the
second person we are looking at today as illustrative of the power of the
gospel to deliver. This girl was a
slave who had been possessed by a demon and in this tragic condition was being
exploited by her owners who were profiting off of her wretched situation. You couldn’t ask for a more pitiful
state of affairs. Being a slave
was the worst possible position you could be in Roman culture, especially as a
woman. You had no rights, no
prospects of freedom, and no hope.
Furthermore, she was possessed by a demon. At the very least that indicates that she is a prisoner of
an even greater evil than human slavery.
She is tormented by the demon, and used mercilessly by her human masters.
What a tragic figure of depravity and helplessness and
hopelessness. By the voice of the
demon she recognizes Paul and Silas as ministers of God and she cannot help but
follow them, shrieking and crying out that they were servants of the most high
God, proclaiming the gospel of salvation.
It might seem to us that saying this should not have been a source of
irritation to Paul. After all,
what she said was the truth. But
the fact is that it was truth spoken by a demon, not to encourage, but to
distract. It was screamed out to
every passerby so as to diminish Paul’s authority, to take away from the gospel
message and draw attention to herself.
Satan uses that strategy even today in the church. There are some people under his
influence that stand up in the church, or proclaim from television statements
that may be true in and of themselves, but they do so to distract and distort
and diminish the gospel and to turn the attention away from Jesus Christ and
His church to themselves. They
want to get attention, because ultimately they want to defraud you, and that is
illustrated by the fact that this woman charged for her services so that her
masters made a lot of money off of her.
There are a lot of false teachers out there, especially on TV, that want
to distract people from coming to salvation, and deter them from the church,
and instead focus their attention on themselves to defraud poor naïve people
who are watching, urging them to send them money. And meanwhile they are raking in money hand over fist,
flying around the country on private jets and living in luxury. They are nothing short of demonic.
But notice vs. 18, it says Paul was greatly annoyed. I love that. Because I’ve been known to get greatly annoyed myself at
some of these false prophets out there.
And I am comforted to know that it is possible to get greatly annoyed
and yet not sin. As Eph. 4:26 says, “Be angry and sin not.” I don’t care for this mamby pamby
Christianity which says I have to tolerate every false teacher and accept every
false teaching, especially when I know it is hurting the cause of Christ or
hindering the gospel. There is a
time for righteous anger, and there is a time when you get annoyed to the point
that someone may need to be called out and exposed for what they are.
And that is exactly what Paul does after several days of
this girl following him around, shrieking and crying out and distracting
people’s attention from the gospel.
So Paul commands the demon, ““I command you in the name of Jesus Christ
to come out of her!” And it came out at that very moment.
Listen, not only are sinners spiritually dead, but they are
imprisoned by the lies of Satan.
2Timothy 3:6 describes the unsaved as in the snare of the devil, held
captive by him to do his will.
That is the reason for the depravity of our culture today. Sinners are held captive by Satan, the
prince of this world, enticed and ensnared by his lies that drugs will bring
you happiness, that alcohol will not harm you, that a little sexual experience
is not such a bad thing, everyone is doing it. And soon that chink in your armor becomes a foothold of
Satan, which he continues to work at until he completely corrupts you and holds
you under the power of addiction, or does irreparable harm to your wife or
husband or family.
Well, Christ came to earth to set the prisoners free. Jesus at the first service in His
ministry quoted from Isaiah 61:1 which says, “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, Because the LORD has
anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the
brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners.”
And I am here to tell you today, by the authority of God’s
word, that there is no power on earth, no power of hell, no scheme of Satan, no
power of drugs or alcohol, no power of sin, that God is not able to
overcome. He is able to set the
prisoner free. I love the hymn we
sang earlier which says, “Jesus, the name that charms our fears, that bids our sorrows cease, ‘tis music in
the sinner’s ears, ‘tis life and health and peace. He breaks the power of
cancelled sin, he sets the prisoner free, His blood can make the foulest clean,
His blood availed for me.”
Well this poor young girl was delivered that day from the
dominion of darkness, and I believe God completely healed her, saving her as
well. Because God doesn’t half
heal someone. God heals
completely, the body and the spirit.
But her cruel owners weren’t very happy that this girl was freed from
demonic possession, because they lost their source of income for which they had
been exploiting her. So they
dragged Paul and Silas off to the magistrates and charged them with
sedition. And so without a trial,
they ordered them to be stripped and
beaten with rods. Now that
was not a minor spanking. Luke
says they were beaten with many blows.
Their backs were more than likely shredded by the force of those rods
hitting their exposed flesh. And
then to add to their pain, they were put into stocks, forcing them to sit bent
over in an unnatural position, their backs throbbing and scabbing over only to
be torn open again and again each time they moved.
And in that pain and discomfort, Paul and Silas decide to
start praising God. About midnight
they started praying and singing hymns.
I guess they hurt so bad that they couldn’t sleep, and since they
couldn’t sleep they figured it would be a good opportunity to start singing
hymns. I sometimes find myself
thinking like that. I wake up at
least three times a night it seems, and usually around 3am I think about my
kids in California and imagine what they might be doing there, knowing it is
midnight in California. And that
really wakes me up, and I decide that perhaps I should pray for them.
Well, I don’t think Paul and Silas had any kids living in
California, but I will suggest that perhaps they did what I sometimes do. Sometimes when I am in distress, when I
have prayed until I don’t know what to pray anymore, or when I am so upset I
can’t hardly think straight enough to pray, I turn to the Psalms. And I start reading the Psalms aloud as
my prayer. Sometimes I change some
of the words so that I put in my children’s names, or I put in my name, but I
pray the Psalms. And it is amazing
how they speak to my concerns. And
you should know that the Psalms are also meant to be sung. Just before Jesus went out on the Mount
of Olives, He and the disciples
sang a hymn. And Jewish tradition
tells us that they probably sang Psalms 113 -118, which were traditionally sung
after the Passover feast.
All hymns don’t have to be scripture, but hymns should teach
scriptural doctrines. You know, we
made a strategic decision here at the Beach Fellowship to sing congregational
hymns that we feel teach doctrinal truths. Our salvation, our faith, our sanity if you will, is founded
on truth, not on feelings. There
are a lot of songs out there in the Christian music category that may be
appropriate in some settings, but we feel that as a congregation we want to
teach and affirm Biblical doctrine in our music. We may be up one day or down
in the dumps the next day, but we don’t base our faith upon our feelings, we
base our faith upon the timeless, unchanging truths of God’s word. So we don’t
try to manipulate our feelings through music, but use music to teach us
principles of our faith that will sustain us regardless of what is going on
around us. And that is our witness
by the way to the community. We
aren’t trying to convince them of how cool we are, or how appealing our music
may be. But we are trying to
convince them of the truth of the gospel and the power of salvation, and we
best do that as we strengthen our faith by the congregational singing of hymns
which support our faith.
I’m sure that was the intent of Paul and Silas. There weren’t any electric guitars, no
spotlights, no microphones, no drums.
There were just two very beat up old guys in chains who should have been
cursing and crying and complaining, and instead they were singing hymns of
praise to God at midnight. They were expounding the gospel in song; the wonders
of salvation, the glory of God, His faithfulness to all generations. And I can only imagine the impact on
the rest of the prisoners there who were listening to them in the darkness of
this dungeon.
Well, God certainly heard their prayers and their songs. And God answered their prayers with a
song of His own, a song of deliverance.
He caused an earthquake to come upon the prison, so severe that the
foundations were shaken, and their stocks and chains became loose. God was showing once again that He is
able to set the prisoners free. No
matter what your situation, no matter how dire your circumstances, I believe if
you truly call out to God in repentance and faith He will break whatever chains
have bound you and set you free.
The jailer is the third and final character that we will see
in this passage as illustrative of the power of salvation. He comes running out of his quarters
and sees the doors of the jail flung open and he imagines the worst possible
scenario for a jailer. He imagines
that his prisoners have escaped, and in that culture, under Roman military
rule, he would be executed for dereliction of duty. And so he takes his sword and prepares to fall on it and
commit suicide.
Vs. 28-31 “But Paul cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Do
not harm yourself, for we are all here!’ And he called for lights and rushed
in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas, and after he
brought them out, he said, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ They said, ‘Believe
in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.’
Listen, I think this jailer is a picture of the hopelessness
that so many people in our culture feel today. Did you know that today in the US there is a suicide every
13 minutes? Depression affects 25% of all adults, and it’s the leading cause of
suicides. And men are four times more likely to commit suicide than women. I don’t need to recite for you all the
scientific data. But I can tell
you that there is help for depression. And it’s not in a bottle, but in the
Bible. There is hope for all who have considered suicide. It is the gospel of salvation. God is able to deliver from
depression. He is able to
save. He is able to give you a new
heart, a new outlook, and a new life.
He is able to put his Spirit in you, to give you a future and a hope.
In Jeremiah 29:11-13 God says, “For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the
LORD, plans for good and not for evil to give you a future and a hope. Then you
will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will
seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.”
I think the jailer must have been listening in his quarters
when Paul and Silas were praying and singing. He had lain there in the darkness hearing the testimony of
their unfailing faith, in spite of being beaten, in spite of their physical
condition. And so when he
witnessed the power of God to deliver, and when he saw that Paul and Silas
hadn’t escaped, he trembled and asked how he too could have that salvation. Paul
told him that he just need to believe in the Lord Jesus and he would be
saved. As a result of his
belief, that is repentance and faith, he would be saved and his whole
household. Folks, I hope you
realize that how you go through trials is a testimony to the unsaved, watching
world. We all go through trials,
saved and unsaved alike. But as we
go through trials with Christ, praising God for His faithfulness to us, it
becomes a testimony to the watching world.
It says in vs. 32 that Paul and Silas went in and spoke
further with him and his household; I think that means they explained the full
gospel to them, how Jesus was the Son of God and came to earth to be born of
man, to bear our sins upon the cross, to die in our place, and then He rose
from the dead and ascended to heaven, to be our intercessor before God, that we
might be the sons of God. And as a
result of that late night sermon, the jailer and his whole house were saved and
were baptized immediately.
Now to summarize the remainder of the passage, in the
morning the magistrates sent word that Paul and Silas should be released. But Paul got annoyed again and said he
wouldn’t leave quietly. He had
been mistreated as a Roman citizen.
They were not supposed to be beaten without a trial. So the magistrates were so afraid after
that they came and escorted Paul and Silas out of prison, apologizing and
asking them politely to please leave town. And so they did, but not without leaving on their own terms.
First they went by Lydia’s house and talked to the saints there, the brethren,
meaning the members of this newly formed church. It must have been quite an eclectic mix of people in that
little church that they spoke to that morning. The successful business woman Lydia and all her household,
the former demon possessed girl, now sitting in her right mind, and the
household of the Roman jailer. A
small, seemingly inconsequential group perhaps, but the start of the Gentile
church in Europe. And from these
humble beginnings would come a great movement of God which would sweep through Europe
into England and on to us here in America in due time. God often uses seemingly insignificant
people to accomplish His grand design.
In closing, I just can’t help but reiterate the three
different people represented in this passage. I can’t help but think that perhaps one of you sitting here
today identified with a person in this passage. Perhaps you are a wealthy woman, an independent business
woman of social influence, perhaps you have been seeking God, desiring to
worship God, and yet you have never been saved. You have never been born again by the Spirit of God and
given new life. Today you too have
heard the gospel. Today I pray the
Spirit of God has opened your heart to respond to the gospel invitation. Call on Jesus today in faith and repent
of your sins, that you might be saved.
Or perhaps you find yourself here today as a young person,
trapped by drugs or alcohol, like the slave girl. You are a prisoner of your addiction. You want to be free, but you don’t seem
to have the power to get free.
Today you have heard the good news of the gospel. That Jesus Christ came to set the
prisoners free. That the power of
Christ is powerful enough to break every chain, to forgive every sin, to set
you free. Here is the antidote for
your disease; call on Jesus in faith and repentance to save you, to change you,
to set you free. Surrender your all to Him and He will set you free of every
sin that has enslaved you.
Or perhaps you find yourself here represented by the
jailer. Maybe you have been
struggling with depression. You
believed the devil’s lie that there is no hope for you, that you might be
better off dead. I want you to
hear loud and clear the message of the gospel; call on Jesus to save you, and He will come into you and
live with you and give you a new life, and a peace that passes all
comprehension. God loves you. He loves you so much that He sent His
Son to die for you, so that you may have life and have it more abundantly. There is hope in Christ. There is the power of salvation in the
gospel. Please come and talk to me
afterwards and I will explain to you more fully how you can be set free
today. Let us pray.
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