Taking Captivity Captive

If you have your Bibles, turn together with me to Acts chapter 16.

Acts 16 · chapter mention

Acts chapter 16, and we'll be reading verses 16 to 40.

Acts 16 · chapter mention

Acts chapter 16, verse 16, and again, before we read, I just always remind you

Acts 16:16

that you should give great attention to this because this is God's holy and inspired word.

As we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had

a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune-telling.

She followed Paul and us, crying out, These men are servants of the Most High

God who proclaim to you the way of salvation.

And this she kept doing for many days. But Paul, having become greatly annoyed,

turned and said to the spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.

And he came out of her that very hour And when her owners saw that their hope

of gain was gone They seized Paul and Silas And dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers,

And when they had brought them to the magistrates They said,

these men are Jews And they are disturbing our city They advocate customs that

are not lawful for us as Romans To accept or practice,

The crowd joined in attacking them And the magistrates tore the garments off

them And gave orders to beat them with rods,

And when they had inflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison,

ordering the jailer to keep them safely.

Having received this order, he put them in the inner prison and fastened their feet and the stocks.

About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God,

and the prisoners were listening to 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 bonds were unfastened.

When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open,

he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped.

But Paul cried with a loud voice, Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.

And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear,

he fell down before Paul and Silas.

Then he brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?

And they said, Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.

And 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 wounds.

And he was baptized at once, he and all his family.

Then he brought them up into this house and set food before them.

And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God.

But when it was day, the magistrates sent the police saying, Let those men go.

And the jailer reported these words to Paul, saying, The magistrates have sent

to let you go. Therefore, come out now and go in peace.

But Paul said to them, They have beaten us publicly, uncondemned men who are

Roman citizens, and have thrown us into prison.

And do they now want to send us out secretly? No, let them come themselves and take us out.

The police reported these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when

they heard that they were Roman citizens.

So they came and apologized to them, and they took them out and asked them to leave the city.

So they went out of the prison and visited Lydia, and when they had seen the

brothers, they encouraged them and departed.

This is the word of the Lord. You can be seated.

Let's pray together. Holy Spirit, we ask that you would help us now to understand these, your words,

and to see the call of Jesus Christ, our Lord, in them and to be drawn closer to him.

We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.

So last week, we were looking at the conversion of Lydia and the plundering

of the nations that occurred when that beautiful woman of purple was converted

by the power of the sovereign God, regenerated, saved.

And then now we see that there's a movement down to this jail scene,

this jail break, as it were, which I'm entitling Taking Captivity Captive.

This is a scene where the focus is Paul and Silas in the prison cell,

and an angel of the Lord, very similar to what you saw in Matthew 28,

came down, the earth shook, everything flew open, and they were freed.

So, I want to kind of move our way down to that scene of resurrection,

and you, by now, you've heard me say over and over in Acts, resurrection is a central theme.

Resurrection is a very vital theme to what's proclaimed by these apostles.

And Luke has moved us into Philippi, so now the gospel has gone into Europe.

And in this great city, the Lord is establishing his kingdom.

And Luke provides us a setting where we're moved from the story of Lydia to

the story of this prison scene by a demon possession.

The link is the demon-possessed girl. So Luke is moving us down through the

story in Philippi to another story about their resurrection from this dungeon

and the salvation of the Philippian jailer and his household.

I'm not going to tire of saying that phrase. I'm going to really hone in on that.

In fact, today, we're going to really try to tease that out a little bit in

reference to the resurrection and the cultural implications for the gospel and the resurrection.

But for now, we see that Paul is there. He's preaching the gospel.

He's moving through the city. Things are going well. But there's this demon-possessed

girl who has a spirit of divination, not uncommon in the ancient world.

We'll see it even more in Acts 17 when Paul looks at the city of Athens and

begins to explain to us the setting where everybody there is a religious person of some sort.

Everybody's believing in demons and spirits and gods and goddesses and all the like.

And in this story, we see that this demon-possessed girl is bothering Paul.

Now, I want you to notice this is similar to what happened with Peter.

You should be noticing that. If not.

I'll notice it for you. Peter is having the same situation where there's a demon-possessed

person and there's a rebuke and so forth.

But here with Paul, you'll notice as with Peter, it wasn't that Paul just got

annoyed, like he just flew off the handle and said, be gone,

like so many apostolic preachers of the day. In the name of Jesus,

be gone, hallelujah. So just, he wasn't just angry.

He was annoyed. He was agitated at the distraction for the ministry of the gospel.

That's the way we need to see it. He wasn't using apostolic powers for personal

gain or personal interest or rebuking this or that demon floating around the room.

This was a hindrance to the gospel. And in the name of Jesus,

by the authority of the apostles and power of the Holy Spirit, he cast out the demon.

There's a constant theme you see in Acts where in different ways, there's nothing.

There is nothing that's going to stop the progression of the kingdom of God.

Not demons, not prisons, not anything.

So here we see that he cast it out, and this causes a conflict.

Another thing you see constantly in the book of Acts and constantly even in our own lives.

Christians loving the Lord, honoring his authority and power,

doing good, doing right, and the right actions, the good works that we do provoke,

not what we wish, not what should be.

God to help someone, oh, look at all the good things we did, and they hate you for it.

In this case, they hated them for it because their livelihood depended on it.

So they rebuke the demon, the demon flees, these people come up and you see

them arresting them. It says, and when they had brought them to the magistrates, they said.

These men are Jews, so there does seem to be a little bit of an emphasis on

their part as a Greek city, as a different city, that there is an ethnic character to it,

which may be why we see only Paul and Silas spoken of as arrested.

We don't know for sure if the others were there.

Luke is speaking in first-person plural, we this, we that, and then he says they.

So we're not quite sure, but anyway, they said these men are Jews,

and they're disturbing our city.

They advocate customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to practice.

So first it's a bit ethnic, and then they not only pull the race card,

but they also pull the sort of this isn't legal stuff, as if they cared, by the way.

Every person in the story of the book of Acts so far has not been concerned

with righteousness or morality or ethics or that which is good.

They're only concerned about themselves and their own power and their own wealth.

From the Sanhedrin at the beginning all the way through the story in the book of Acts.

These people come and they say, well, for the sake of peace and the sake of

Rome, yay, we love Rome. Maybe not.

And even the crowd, it says, joined in and attacking them.

And it says the magistrates tore off their garments, gave orders to beat them.

And when they had inflicted many blows on them, they threw them into prison,

ordering the jailer to keep them safely.

Having received this order, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their

feet in the stocks. Paul and Silas were apparently.

Dressing and acting like Jews, and they accused them of being Jews.

Then they accused them of something funny because in Rome, in the ancient Roman

empire, as empires go, I know it's not very tolerant, but as ancient empires

go, Rome was a very tolerant empire.

They allowed for anybody to practice any religion whatsoever,

so long as that religion didn't interfere with the sovereignty of Caesar,

which is one of the reasons you're going to constantly see Christianity conflict

with any authority that claims absolute authority over all things.

This is going to be a constant point of contention.

So this says they teach customs that are not lawful for us, which was not true.

They weren't teaching anything unlawful, which is precisely why that as Roman

citizens, they had a right to some sort of hearing.

But as long as your religion could peacefully coexist with other pagan religions,

you're fine. You could be tolerated. By the way, there are a lot of parallels

between the ancient Roman empire and modern secular America.

A lot of parallels. Oh yeah, you can be a Christian. Just keep it here in the church.

Don't go out there. Don't bring it into the culture. Don't bring it into your

families. Don't bring it into education.

Don't bring it into government. The moment you do, you're going to come into

conflict with the sovereignty of Caesar, the sovereignty of the government to

claim ultimate authority.

And that's always going to be the rub. That's always why Christianity,

wherever it goes, can live peacefully so long as they don't come into conflict

with someone who wants to rule over them with all sovereignty.

And so we see here now that what happens in the reference to this claim and

this arrest and this beating is that we have the imagery of resurrection.

Now, I don't want you to think sometimes, you know, sometimes I've seen preachers

who want to take an image and stretch it, you know, and that it's like mozzarella cheese.

You stretch it so long, it starts to droop, but I'm not going to stretch it

that far. It's not going to be a long shot to say that what we see here is an

image of resurrection. It's not just a prison.

And by the way, it's an image that we oftentimes see.

And one of the clues you'll notice, and maybe you don't notice it,

but now you will, is that it says in the text, about midnight.

You might say, well, so what about midnight? Well, in stories,

by the way, even this is a pervasive biblical theme, but it's even so pervasive

that even pagan storytellers will sometimes use midnight as a very important scene.

You ever seen those movies or read a story where a bad guy's about to come or

Dracula or something that was a bad about to happen and the clock is moving

and suddenly, dong, dong, 12 times and everyone's like, it's midnight.

It's going to happen. Whatever it is When we're reading this story And we see

that now As readers of the whole Bible We should say Oh wow Midnight Midnight

should tell us That something dramatic Is about to happen This is a moment Of

This is a moment of importance,

We see this all the way back to the redemptive stories in Egypt.

When did the death angel come to Egypt?

According to Exodus 11, it says, Moses says, thus says the Lord about midnight,

I will go into the midst of Egypt and all the firstborn of the land of Egypt

shall die. This is a decisive moment.

Exodus 12, 29, and it came to pass at midnight that the Lord struck all the

firstborn of Egypt. Midnight is one of those literary devices where the writer,

the author is telling us this is a time of judgment. This is a time when God's

going to come down and do something.

Judges 13, and Samson lay low till midnight.

And then at midnight, he took hold of the doors of the gates of the city.

This is a literary device that's supposed to say, hey, wait a minute, folks, are you ready?

It's so important that the Jews actually had midnight as a time of prayer.

That's what they were doing at this time. They were at the time of prayer for midnight.

Psalm 119 says, but I've forgotten your law. It says at midnight,

I will rise and give thanks to you. That's what they were doing.

So the clock strikes about midnight.

The apostles are praying. You see it even in the story of Ruth.

Towards the end, when the climax, when Ruth actually approaches Boaz to be her

husband and goes and uncovers his feet, it says that now it happened at midnight.

So when you're reading the Bible and you see midnight, in a story like this,

where there's a problem that needs to be resolved, the Lord is about to come.

There's something decisive is about to happen in the story.

Even Jesus himself said this, didn't he? When he was warning people to be ready,

the story of the virgins, are your lamps full of oil? Are the wigs trimmed? Are you ready?

Because it says when the bridegroom was delayed and people were sleeping,

but then it says, verse six of Matthew 25, at midnight, they heard the cry,

behold, the bridegroom is coming at midnight.

So again, I don't wanna stretch that one too much, but I want us to be sensitive

readers. When we read the Bible, we're reading a story and we're reading that

something dramatic is about to happen.

And something dramatic that happens is the same thing that happened with Peter

and the same thing that happened with Jesus. There's a pattern that we keep

seeing in Acts where the work of Jesus is repeated in the work of Peter,

repeated in the work of Paul, but with resurrection developments.

The work of the church is the ongoing work of the resurrected Jesus Christ.

The same thing that happened to Christ will happen to Peter and now is also happening with Paul.

We read it in Matthew 28, this resurrection scene.

Behold, there was a great earthquake for an angel of the Lord descended,

and rolled back the stone. The stone, the doors were open of the prison, as it were.

This is not an unusual thing, by the way. You see all the time in Old Testament

history, in redemptive history, where God's champions, God's people are put

into pits, wells, dungeons,

prisons, all the time, whether it's Joseph or whoever it is,

they're constantly being thrown down.

Jonah, in Jonah, when he was descending down to the sea, it says,

I went down to the very bottom of the earth were the prison doors and prison

bars wrapped, locked in front of me. He was going to death.

And so prisons and pits and wells that these people are thrown into are reminiscent

of someone trying to kill them and throwing them to their death.

Now, when the prison guards of Jesus' tomb had this experience,

they were bribed and sent away in silence.

You'll notice there's a development that happens both with Peter and with Paul,

is that now when these things happen, the apostles do not remain silent.

I'll pick up on that in a moment, but I want to notice then when the jailer,

it says, woke, saw the prison doors were open. He drew his sword and was about

to kill himself, supposing the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried out with

a loud voice, do not harm yourself, for we are all here.

And then we have this niggling detail, at least for my former Baptist heart.

It just keeps coming up, doesn't it?

As a Baptist, you're like, believe and be baptized. That's all it is.

But in the Bible, over and over, it says, believe and be baptized, you and your household.

And your household. This is what we see. Then he brought them out and said,

sir, what must I do to be saved?

And they said, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household.

Now mention a moment the different distinctions and ways we distinguish salvation

from individual salvation, because salvation, as we see here, at least I hope to,

encourage you to understand is a broader, bigger concept than simply someone

getting out of hell and going to heaven.

So this is a covenantal approach to salvation. When God saves an individual,

he saves them, he pulls them out of darkness, rescues them from a slavery,

and saves them and their household.

Okay? It's the way God works. Now, some of our Baptist brothers says,

yes, but it doesn't say there's infants. I don't care.

I don't need there to be infants to have the principle of baptism of households.

If you become a convert, if you believe and are saved, you and your households should be baptized.

If it includes infants, then infants.

I don't have to prove anything. The word household proves everything.

It's there multiple times, by the way. There's five examples of household baptisms

in the New Testament. And by the way, I don't need a single one.

Children have always been a part of the covenant. The sign has changed to baptism,

the sign therefore goes to children.

I don't need a single example to be able to say we should baptize our babies

simply because of the covenant theology that's always taught in the Bible that

God saves heads of households. And when he does, their children should be members

of that covenant community.

It was circumcision in the Old Testament. It's baptism now.

But to add insult to injury, my aching Baptist heart, former Baptist heart,

there's multiple examples of this. This isn't just a one-off.

All the way through the book of Acts, now we've seen Lydia and her household

baptized. Now we see the Philippian jailer and his household baptized.

It's the New Testament pattern for individuals to believe and be baptized.

Yes, our Baptist brothers have that right. That's true.

But it also says you and your household.

You and your household.

So we don't have to worry. I don't know why so many Presbyterians are a bit

dodgy on this issue, like we're a little frightened. No, it's obvious from the

theology coming into the Old Testament, into the New, and it's obvious from

the examples that we have.

No, we don't teach it automatically saves anybody.

But it also causes us to understand something about salvation that we need to

think through. I mentioned it in a previous sermon, but let me go over it again.

I think one of the problems is that when we think of salvation,

we have for so many years, especially in American evangelical culture,

we've been trained to think that salvation is a,

what I will call a get out of hell free card, right? Does anybody play Monopoly?

Play Monopoly, I always win, by the way, but just when I play Monopoly,

I do like to get that get out of jail free card.

I just like to have it, it's $50 otherwise. So if you roll the dice,

land in jail, you're just like, throw, you pull out, your get out of jail free

card, pop, you get out of jail, you keep going.

So often in our circles and evangelical circles, the gospel message,

I put it in quotes, the gospel message has been reduced to a get-out-of-jail-free card.

All you have to do is say a sinner's prayer,

Accept Jesus Christ into your heart as your personal Savior.

Again, whatever that means. And you get your get out of jail or get out of hell free card.

I can't tell you how many people that I've talked to who say, I'm a Christian.

I've had multiple examples. When our church was in Dayton, we're at 75 and 70

crossroads, crossroads of America.

It was great, except homeless people also came a lot there. Knock on my door.

Typical story. This is more than one, but one guy's, hello, pastor.

You know, when they go into a church, they always say, God bless you.

Oh, God bless you I love God so much Okay So I want $5 to go to McDonald's,

Okay Well, I started talking to him about this and that And the other He goes,

don't worry, I'm a Christian Okay, interesting I'm a Christian Where do you

go to church? Oh, I don't go to church,

Do you have a Bible? No, I don't have a Bible. Well, how do you know you're

a Christian? He said, well, I said the sinner's prayer.

It was under an overpass bridge on I-75 in Georgia.

There was a big thunderstorm. And I thought I was going to die and go to hell.

So I said the sinner's prayer like the pastor told me.

And now I'm a Christian. I said, let me get this right. You don't go to church.

You don't read your Bible. You've only prayed once. And that was the sinner's

prayer. Yes, I said, you're not a Christian. How dare you?

A lot of these guys would go angry at me, poor pastor. How dare you say I'm

not a Christian? I said, you're not a Christian because Christianity is more

than just saying a sinner's prayer.

Christianity is not something you do to get out of hell and go to heaven and

then forget the rest of your life.

Christianity is submission to the Lord Jesus Christ, exactly the phrase that said here.

This isn't some strange controversy that even grew up in my circles.

And some of you were in my circles about the same time in the 90s,

where this lordship controversy came in, where suddenly there were these guys

saying, well, I can have Jesus as my savior, but not my lord.

That's interesting, because in this passage, it doesn't just say,

believe in the name of Jesus as your savior. It even has the phrase, the Lord Jesus.

The word used is kurios, master, king, ruler.

When you come to Jesus to become a Christian, to be born again,

you fall down before him and you come to Jesus the Lord and everything in your

life is submitted to him.

There's no such thing as a saved person who doesn't have Jesus as Lord.

There's just no such thing.

Interesting, when I was rereading, I lived this controversy because I was kind

of in the midst of it. John MacArthur was my hero at the time. Yay, go John MacArthur.

I was there and I remember reading this from, this is from 1991 Table Talk.

This is J.I. Packer, a conservative Anglican, who said, If you'd have told me,

that I would live to see literate evangelicals, some even with doctorates and

seminary training, arguing for the reality of an eternal salvation,

divinely guaranteed, right?

Once you say the sinner's prayer, there it is.

That's all you have to do Wave your card, you get into heaven.

But salvation that's guaranteed, but with no repentance, no discipleship,

no behavioral change, and no practical acknowledgement that Jesus Christ is Lord of your life.

He said, and no perseverance, no need to keep doing anything.

You got your get out of jail free card. You said the sinner's prayer.

He said, I would tell you that you had been out of your mind.

As he said in the British phrase, stark staring bonkers is what he said.

But that thing has happened and it's happened pervasively in evangelical circles

where people have reduced the gospel to this small phrase that you say,

and somehow everything's okay.

That is not at all what the Bible teaches about salvation. Salvation is pervasive.

It means you come to Jesus and you give everything to him.

And you'll notice, by the way, all throughout Acts, although we don't see it

in the story, we see it almost every time the apostles have a section where there's a long address.

They don't ever just say a little tiny part. They don't just ever say,

Jesus Christ died for your sins, and if you believe in him, you won't go to hell.

You notice all that they talk about. The apostles go back to the promises,

the promises made to Adam and Eve, what happened after the fall,

and the promise made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the promise made to Moses,

and even most importantly in Acts, the promises made to the kingdom of David.

There's a kingdom that Christ came to establish. There's a kingdom they came

to build, and in that kingdom, his kingdom is going to rescue people from darkness,

from the chains of sin and slavery and the devil himself.

And yes, according to this story, through the resurrection, even death one day.

Salvation isn't just you not going to hell. Salvation is you coming body and

soul and life and all to Jesus Christ.

Of course, we're supposed to, this is not, do you get saved by doing good works?

That's not even a question. Nobody gets saved by doing good works.

But anyone who gets saved comes and gives their whole life to Jesus.

That's how it works. Thank you.

Good works done in obedience to God's commandment are the fruits and evidences

of a true and lively faith.

They manifest thankfulness. They strengthen our assurance and edify brothers

and adorn the profession of the gospel and stop the mouths of adversaries.

And they glorify God whose workmanship they are created in Christ Jesus.

This quote from the Westminster Confession of Faith.

Notice the apostles preach a body of doctrine. Every time there's a section,

they go over the fact that Jesus has come.

What did he do? He came to just die for sinners? No, no, no, no. He did that.

He came to die for sinners. He came to rescue them from darkness.

And he came to authenticate everything that had ever been promised about Messiah

through all of the Old Testament.

This is a massive reordering, not only of our individual lives,

but of everything in the world.

Salvation is all encompassing. That's why I wanted to emphasize household salvation.

It's interesting. You fathers in particular need to take this seriously.

When the Lord calls heads of household, it was Lydia in the last chapter,

it's the Philippian jailer here.

He calls them to call all of his family, all of his household,

and order them under the discipleship of the Lord Jesus Christ.

They all belong to Jesus.

I don't know if you've thought about it, but a household is like a culture.

It's like a mini culture.

I tell every married couple that comes to me, I said, you're about to experience

cross-cultural marriage. They're like, no, no, we're both white.

No, I'm not talking about ethnic.

I'm talking about you came from this family.

And you thought this was okay and that was okay, and you laughed at these jokes

and you talked about these things, but this person comes from this family and

they don't think any of that's okay.

They have a different culture. They grew up in a different culture because families,

households are cultures and cultures are called under the lordship of Jesus

Christ with household baptisms.

These families, our families act as like little self-contained micro societies,

with our own distinct shared values or spoken and unspoken rules,

behavioral norms, even local rituals. Your family has a liturgy,

whether you know it or not.

When you get up, how you get up, what you do before your meal,

what you do at night. Do you have dinners together? All of these things begin

to shape and form, or we might say disciple, disciple your little culture,

your little family, your household under Jesus Christ.

And every family has this as a part where a family has established operational

codes. You ever notice this? Like your family has your little family things.

You notice this when you go to other families and maybe someone in your family

will say that word that makes everyone in your family laugh.

And it was like, I don't get it. Oh yeah, it's an inside household thing.

It's only our little household knows this story and knows that joke,

because in a household, there are shared values and shared norms. There's a culture.

This is why when we baptize our babies, we baptize them unto the lordship of

Jesus Christ. Yes, we call them to confess their faith, and they need to as

individuals, of course.

But when we emphasize the baptism of infants, we're emphasizing the fact that

if we have come to Jesus, so is everything in our household and everything in our lives.

And everything is to be done that way. It doesn't mean that we don't distinguish

between justification, that is how are you made right with God,

you're made right with God by faith in Christ alone.

But we also have this thing called sanctification, where when we come to be

justified, we fall down before the Lord, we say, what do you want of me?

Where do I go? What do I do? Everything is yours. My money is yours. My time is yours.

My household, my wife, my children, my job, everything belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ.

That's a view of salvation that's broader than simply a get out of jail free card.

That concept doesn't exist in the New Testament and certainly not in the book of Acts.

And you'll notice, by the way, that Paul and they don't have this strange Baptist

reticence about household baptism.

In the ancient culture, everybody knew that when a head of a household came

to a particular religion, that was the religion of the household.

It's simply understood.

In the Bible, it's the same thing.

But now, I told you I'd give you a little bit more on the household and baptism.

And I don't just rant and rave as a former Baptist, right?

You know how it's bad to try to smoke around an ex-smoker, like,

that stuff will kill you. It's part of that, I have to admit.

I grew up in the Baptist culture.

But it's more than that. When you read the book of Acts and you read the message

that the apostles are preaching, they're not preaching this simplistic, easy-believe-ism.

They're not preaching this get-out-of-jail-free card stuff. They're preaching

the lordship of Jesus Christ, the resurrection of Jesus, and the fulfillment

in him of all the promises of God throughout all time.

Salvation is massive, and salvation involves the kingdom of David,

led by our new king Jesus, ravishing and stealing the goods,

plundering the goods of Satan who once ruled this earth.

Just like he did Lydia and just like he has literally rescued from the dungeon

from death, the Philippian jailer and the apostles.

And you'll notice what the apostles do. And I'll begin to close.

There's a development that I mentioned earlier. When Peter goes through this,

there's a development. When Paul goes through this, there's a development.

It's interesting that when Jesus was publicly condemned, what did he say in his defense? He said,

nothing. If I ever preach another Good Friday service, I'm going to preach on

that because I want to think through that more because it astonishes me.

I couldn't do that. I can't do that even when I'm guilty. Wait a minute.

Let me justify myself. Jesus, Pilate was marveling at this.

Aren't you going to say anything? Jesus remained silent. According to the prophecies

of Isaiah, like a sheep led to the slaughter, he remained silent under his punishment.

But you'll notice something about the apostles that's different.

Now that Jesus has been raised from the dead, now that he sits at the right

hand of God, the father almighty, from where he will come to judge the living

and the dead, they don't remain silent.

They speak always. You'll notice that. It's kind of a radical development.

If they're going through the same thing Jesus did, but this development is we're

not going to be silent anymore.

The days of silence, Jesus wanted to be silent so that he would be taken to

the cross so that he would die for sinners. But those Those days of silence are over.

We now speak in the name of the resurrected and ascended Lord and we speak against

it. Now Paul's actually has the audacity to say, we're not leaving here.

Tell the guards to come down and apologize. You could imagine,

you can imagine that these guards, you says these guys were afraid because to

beat a Roman citizen was to risk death yourself.

It was a huge, big deal to mess with a Roman citizen and not give him rights.

Very few people were Roman citizens.

And Paul, as we'll notice, had citizenship from birth, which was even a higher standard of citizen.

God had fitted him as a Roman citizen. Gotta love Paul, by the way,

as we flesh out who he was.

A scholar, a preacher, multiple languages, and also a Roman citizen.

And he pulls out and says, no, we're not leaving until you come down and apologize and let us out.

He speaks. He speaks out loudly about the gospel.

So this development of Paul speaking when Jesus remained silent, like Peter spoke,

and like the church is now supposed to speak, comes from even the scene itself

of where Jesus Christ, the Lord's angel, comes down and bursts open the darkness,

and the chains fall off.

This is, by the way, used in multiple hymns and songs. My chains fell off.

I saw the light. I rose, all that.

An image of salvation, also an image of salvation connected to the resurrection.

Captivity, death, darkness, dungeons have been taken captive through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The chains fall off. The doors are open. The power of the resurrected Jesus

Christ is on display. And Paul and Silas walk out and preach the gospel. And they speak.

A glorious salvation this is. By the way, we'll see it doesn't lead to glory,

glory, glory, glory. There's persecution, there's hatred, there's suffering,

but this is a glorious salvation.

And we now know when we see this, believing in the name of the Lord Jesus is

not just saying a sinner's prayer.

It is complete submission and declaration of Christ's authority and ownership of everything.

His divine name, Christ's name

is given to us in our baptism and to our children. And we reclaim that.

Believing in the name of the Lord means that you submit to him in everything.

Purchased by his blood, you recognize your salvation is a rescue operation from

hell itself, from Satan and all of his kingdom and all of the darkness associated with it.

And we yield then when we become Christians, when we're born again,

we look to Jesus and we yield all our autonomy and all our lives to him.

You now, Christ, are master of our lives. Do you do that?

We do that. We say it. I know we say it. And I know you're good Reformed Westminsterian

people. So I know you say it, but do you live that way?

I want to remind you, and I'll close on this. It's just to recall your vows.

Everyone who's a member of this church took this vow.

And it's related to this whole idea of the sovereignty of God,

the Lord Jesus Christ saves us.

Your vow said this, and I want to keep reminding you of it. And every time you

hear someone join the church, be reminded of it yourself, because we forget these vows quickly.

People come in here and they stand up and they take vows and then they leave

sometimes and they act like they never said it. But this one is a good one.

Vow number four, do you acknowledge Jesus Christ as your sovereign Lord? Wow.

And do you promise that in reliance on the grace of God, you will serve him with all that is in you?

Each one of you took this vow. Forsake the world, resist the devil,

and put to death your sinful deeds and desires and lead a godly life.

That's the call of the gospel.

I know you've said it once My encouragement for you is to be reminded It's something

we have to live for the rest of our lives Amen Let's pray together.

Lord how we thank you that when you save us You save all of us,

You put us in a place that we need to rely on your grace And Lord I pray by

your Holy Spirit that we would As individuals, as a church We would be known

as those who serve you With all that is in us,

That we would forsake the world Resist the devil Put to death all our sinful

deeds and desires And in the power of Christ Lead a godly life Help us with

this we pray in Jesus name Amen.