Acts: The Gospel Changes Lives (16:25-40)

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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 in silence.

And 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.

And then he brought them up into his 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 said to let you go.

Therefore come out now and go in peace.

But Paul said to them, They have beaten us publicly and condemned, men who are Roman citizens, and have thrown us into prison.

And do they now throw 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.

And just remaining standing, let us uh bow our heads in prayer.

Heavenly Father, we now come before you to hear you speak to us through your word.

Father, I just pray that you would touch our hearts and our minds deeply, that uh your gospel would just ring out in our lives, that we'd be so gripped by it, um, that any distractions from this week, whether good or bad, would just fall away, and that you would draw us near to yourself.

And I pray us in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Please be seated.

Now we're uh we're going through the book of Acts, as many as you know.

Um, and just want to reiterate that this is eyewitness account of things that happened within the first 30 years of the early church.

And now we're we're camping in chapter 16.

Creighton last week spoke on chapter 16, and I'll be speaking this week on chapter 16.

And the reason for this is because chapter 16 is a very important chapter.

It has three chapters that have it has it has um three case studies of how the gospel changes lives in chapter 16.

So we're gonna be looking at it.

Creighton last week talked about Lydia and her coming to faith and what that means.

And then, secondly, um, there's an account of a slave girl coming to faith, which I'm gonna talk very briefly about because that's not the main text that we're looking at, but it helps it ties into the next text.

And then there's the account of the Roman jailer coming to faith, which Victoria read so well.

See, if the gospel has affected your life deeply, whether new or it's been your entire life, you have your own story to tell.

And that's a greater reminder for us that it is a powerful tool in witnessing to people who have not yet put their faith and trust in Jesus.

So the reason why all these accounts are in the book of Acts is that it's pointing to something.

But it's also an encouragement for us to tell people about how the gospel, how Jesus has affected our lives deeply.

So we're gonna look at these two accounts.

So let's look at it.

So please turn in your Bibles to chapter 16.

We're gonna start, we're gonna back up a bit and look, we're gonna start at verse 20.

So if this is um, if you haven't had your Bible, you're just gonna have to listen, but you have your Bible, you'll be able to see it.

So verse 20, we're gonna look very quickly.

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 afflicted 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 in the stalks.

Now, just what's going on here is that so we have in the first account of Lydia and the church of Philippi starting with Lydia.

And now it's been a couple days from now, we don't know how many, but Paul and Silas and other disciples are walking around in Philippi, and they're on their way back to go by the water to the prayers where they pray.

And what's going on here is that there's this slave girl who is demon-possessed, and she's been following them around, proclaiming that they are the ones who come in the name of the Most High, who are the servants of God, who speak of the way to salvation.

And she's been following them around.

And Paul becomes very annoyed by this.

It's almost like in the Victorian era, in the in the fancy parties that they used to have in the upper middle, upper class, there would be someone at the door, the butler, would announce the person as they walk into the room.

So it's kind of like this.

There's just someone going around everywhere with them announcing that they are the ones that proclaim salvation.

And Paul gets annoyed, so he he commands the demon to come out in the name of Jesus, and it happens.

And then the owners of the slave woman are greatly annoyed because they used her for fortune telling and they made lots of money off her, but now they can't do that anymore.

So they they grab Paul and Silas and they bring them before the magistrates.

They drag them all through the town.

And what happens is that they get severely whipped.

In the NIV, it says severely whipped.

So they are whipped with rods quite hard.

And then we see at the right at the end of these verses, the jailer is introduced.

We have the next character, the next one who will be affected by the gospels, introduced into the story.

And the a jailer is a retired Roman soldier.

They have this is their pension.

This is their civil job, that they now have a nice cushy job where they can sit and just watch people in a jail and take and make sure they don't get out.

He knows how to do his job well.

He has had a lifetime of discipline in the Roman army.

He's a man of duty.

He's a through and through, he's a blue-collar man.

He knows what he's doing.

And then it says in verse 24, I'll just read it again very quickly.

Having received this order, the order is that keep them safely in jail.

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

Now, when you we have to think about this, when it's not when you think of stocks, we probably think of a time we've taken a photo at like an amusement park in the stocks or something like that.

That's what's not going on here.

These stocks were made against the wall, and they're just perfectly apart just enough that it was painful for them.

That it was a sense of torture.

So they're hooked up in stocks, being tortured slowly, and they're in the inner prison where there's no windows at all.

They're being tortured, what's happening here?

So Paul Paul and Silas are dragged through the mud, severely whipped, and then they're being tortured.

You think that you would hear coming out of their cell groaning from the pain that they're in, continuing the pain that they're in, or you think you'd hear them cursing the injustice that they're experiencing, they would have been in a very pitiful state.

Like they pitiful state.

They would have looked horrible, they would have been in lots of pain.

But that's not what is heard coming out of their cell.

When I was in a cell at midnight, that's when the jail quiets down.

All the commotion from the jail is now quiet.

And the only thing you hear is people talking.

And the way that jails are built, they're small corridors in a lot of spots.

So you hear sound just ricocheting through the whole place of people whispering to each other.

So I remember when I was in a cell, you would hear people talking way across the hallway.

So here, what you what they would hear would be ricocheting across.

The prison other prisoners would hear this everywhere.

So let's look.

Let's look at what they're hearing.

Verse 25.

At 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 open, and everyone's bonds were unfastened.

When the jailer awoke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped.

You might be thinking, how can they be singing and praying to God?

How could they?

They are in experience, they've just experienced incredible injustice.

There was no trial, and now they are being tortured and they're singing.

How?

Well, we're gonna get to that, but later on in the sermon.

But just a quick note on where it says listening, this means attentively.

The prisoners are listening attentively to them, that they are amazed by what they see and what they're or what they're hearing.

There's no groaning, there's no cursing, they're praising God, they're singing hymns.

They would have been, they were amazed by it and they're gripped by it.

And then the story goes back to the jailer, and he is clearly shook about what's going on.

The place has fallen down, there's earthquakes, there's an earthquake that happened, and the doors have flung open.

So you might be thinking, well, why would he kill himself?

Well, you've got to remember, this man is a trained killer, he is a man of duty, but also what's going on here is that if he if the prisoners were gone, the punishment is death for losing prisoners.

So he's just getting on with the deed.

He's just getting it done.

Because it would have been a more horrible death than what he would have to go through, and then him just killing himself.

But right before he does it, right before he's about to do the deed, Paul cries out to him to stop.

And we see that in verse 28.

But Paul cried out with a loud voice.

But Paul cried out 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.

Now, why does he act this way?

Well, we would think that this guy has just tortured me.

Let's just let him do it.

Let's let him do the deed.

But Paul stops him.

Why?

Why does he do that?

See, Paul by hit Paul and Silas, by his by the Roman jailer's standard, had all right in the world to let him die and not let him live.

He had treated them so poorly, but why didn't they let him die?

Why?

See, this is an opportunity for Paul and Silas to forgive him and to share the gospel with him.

See, God uses us in very unique situations, but he will only use us if we practice forgiveness.

He won't use us otherwise.

And a way that we can see that God uses people in very unique situations, later on, as Paul is in jail at another time, he writes to the church in Philippi, to the Philippian church, and he says, I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all and all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ.

See, Paul is thinking, is thinking that this is a moment that God's going to use him, and this is what happens.

God uses him in this moment.

See, the jailer saw God's power through the earthquake, through the jail doors opening up, through all the commotion.

But then he also sees God's power in the lives of Paul and Silas and how they treat him after they have treated, he treated them so poorly.

And he also would have been hearing in his mind, probably he probably would have heard the woman, the slave girl, crying out before that these people, in verse 17, she says, These men are servants of the Most High who proclaim to you the way of salvation.

This would have been in his mind.

He would have heard this.

Small place.

They would have heard it.

So he brings them out and asks them, What must I do to be saved?

Now, this, as I said, this guy, this Roman jailer, is a man of duty.

He's a man of getting things done.

It's a very practical question that he asks.

What must I do?

What must I do to be saved?

But look at what they say.

In verse 30, they say, Then he brought them out, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?

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

So this is a this would have been very countercultural to him.

Everything's about doing things, getting things done.

But it's also very countercultural to us, to Canadians.

It's very countercultural.

See, we are we think the same way that that Roman jailer thinks, that we need to get things done.

That if we want to be saved, we need to do things.

We need to please God.

We need to get things accomplished.

To live a good life, we must take action.

I um recently finished the uh documentary about Arnold Schwarzenegger on Netflix.

And I was pretty impressed by the documentary.

He that guy has gotten things done.

He's taken action.

And obviously it's biased, because it's it's him, it's all about him, it's very biased.

But that guy has accomplished a lot.

He became the best bodybuilder in the world.

He became one of the best action movie stars in the world during the 90s and early 2000s.

And then he became the governor of California.

And these are all good left, good life lessons that get things done.

But that doesn't help us when we're dealing with God.

We can't get to God.

God has to come to us.

See, and then Paul and Silas just say, just believe to him.

This would have been just like that is so hard to fathom at times that just believe.

Doesn't that sound so easy, just to believe?

Well, that's the beauty of the gospel message.

That God, in his loving kindness, saw that we could not help ourselves at all.

So he sends his son into the world to take on our sins, to die the death that we deserve, and then to rise from the dead and to ascend to heaven, and then there'd be the future hope of the glory of Christ's return.

That is the good news of Christ.

That is the good news of the Christian story, and that is the good news of the story that we're walking through Holy Week, and we're starting that today.

That through God, through Jesus, you just have to believe.

Now that sounds easy, but that is very hard.

And I love the prayer that the man says to Jesus He says this, he says, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.

That is something I say daily, because it is, it is so easy to say, I'll just have faith.

But that is a very hard thing.

But that faith comes from God.

It's not something that we muster up in ourselves.

It's not something that we just get done.

That is something that is given to us.

And how do you know if someone has a life transformed by the gospel?

Because you see that in these in these three case studies, that these lives are transformed instantly.

How do you know?

Well, look at verse 33 and 34.

And he took them the same hour that of the night and washed their wounds, and he was baptized at once, he and all his family.

Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them, and he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God.

See, when Paul and Silas were first brought to the jail, and then he locks them up and starts to torture them, he doesn't wash their wounds.

He just leaves them bloodied.

He leaves them all beat up, cut up.

But now he shows compassion on them.

He washes their wounds, he brings them into his house, he washes their wounds.

John Christosthen has a great quote, and every single commentator that I read about this passage quotes it, so I'm gonna quote it.

He washed them from this from their stripes and was himself washed from his sins.

That is a beautiful quote.

And that is something that if you are baptized in Jesus, your sins are washed away.

He shows them hospitality, and then he has great joy.

This is a man that is so deeply affected by the gospel that it has come into his heart.

It's not just this idea in his head that if I just believe, I'm good.

He is so moved by the gospel.

He's so moved by it.

That's so ungripped by it.

Just believe.

Just believe.

See, anyone can believe in what they what anyone can believe.

That's easy, but what are you believing in?

Are you believing in a savior who is only in your life on Sundays?

Are you believing in a self-made savior that doesn't even involve Jesus?

It's just a savior that you have cocked up in your own mind that if I do these things, I'll have a good life.

If I have this image, I'll just make this image and I'll have a good life.

Or is it a savior who consumes every part of your life?

Your decisions, your finances, your goals, your ambitions, your weekend.

See what happens next?

Well, let's look, verse 35.

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

So, what's going on here?

Why doesn't Paul and Silas just go?

Why does Paul have to make a stink now?

See, what's going on here is that.

The magistrates have treated them so poorly by Roman standards.

It is law that you cannot accuse, you cannot punish a Roman citizen until there is a proper trial.

And if you did not follow that role, that idea, you could be sentenced to death or put in prison for a long time.

So that is why they're afraid.

But the other reason why Paul is doing this is because he's thinking about the gospel's reputation.

That if they just went out secretly now, no one would know that there was a mistake made.

And that people would think that these Christians in Philippi were criminals, that they are people you can't trust.

So he's thinking about here that this church is just starting to form now in Philippi.

So he wants people to publicly see the magistrates, the rulers, acknowledging that the gospel is not bad, that they're not criminals.

Paul's thinking about the reputation of the gospel, of the church's reputation.

He doesn't want that put in jeopardy.

He wants everyone to see that they're not criminals.

And on their way out, they visit Lydia's house.

Verse 40.

So they went out of the prison and visited Lydia.

And when they had seen the brothers, they encouraged them and departed.

Here we see the starting of the Philippian church that Paul writes to later down the road.

See, we have Lydia, we have an upper class person here.

She would have been probably like a, the best way to say it, like a boutique owner on Queen Street or something like that.

And then we have a slave girl, lower class.

She would have been like a homeless person that is being taken advantage of by the system, by people.

And then we have the Roman jailer, a middle class man, blue-collar.

Gets dirty, he's a blue-collar man, he's a worker.

Only the gospel could bring such a group of people together and be in a house and being family.

Also, only the gospel can satisfy personal needs deeply, deep down.

If you look at verse 14, if you don't have the Bible, I'll read it out.

One who hurt, and this is talking about Lydia.

See, Lydia is the this woman that Paul and Silas and every other disciples meet.

And it says, One who heard us was a woman named Lydia from the city of Phaetira, should have practiced that.

A seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God.

The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what Paul had said to us, said.

See, here we see the gospel speaking in right to Lydia's intellectual needs.

She's a thinker, she's a businesswoman, she would have been a smart person.

She would have, the gospel had to be presented to her in a way that she could think it through.

And then we have the slave girl, and she has psychological needs.

So the gospel comes to her and pulls her out.

Another thing that you see is that she would have had no identity.

She would have been just taken advantage of.

She is a piece of property.

But then the gospel comes in and gives her a sense of identity that now she is a child of God, loved by Jesus and God.

And then we have the Roman jailer.

And the gospel comes in and speaks directly to his moral needs.

Because a Roman middle to upper class men could do whatever they wanted.

They can go to whatever temple they wanted and just commit whatever deed they wanted.

You can just, your imagination can just go on that.

See, the gospel comes in and speaks to personal needs that nothing else in this world can, that can fulfill.

The gospel speaks to all that.

And then only the gospel answers your deepest longing to belong.

We see baptism happening all through chapter 16.

And what this is, is that baptism is a bringing in of God's people into the family, bringing them into the visible church.

See, only the gospel gives you your deepest longing to belong.

To have Jesus in your life, leading you to belong.

And you might be thinking, well, you still never answered.

How could they be praying songs after being whipped and tortured?

See, what they were thinking of was that there was the future hope.

That's the other thing about the gospel, the future hope.

And that's Christ's returning.

That there would be a time when there would be no more pain, no more suffering, no more people torturing people or taking advantage of people, that there would be a time of perfect peace, and that is when Jesus will return.

And as we go through Holy Week, I would encourage you to reflect on this hope.

As we go through and we reflect on the gospel story, the only hope that can truly satisfy and change lives and bring you through pain and suffering is the gospel of the future hope of the Lord Jesus coming again.

Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, I thank you that your word is so full of examples that we can trust in, that it is eyewitness accounts, Lord, that that we can see you working through history in people's lives and of the church being formed.

Father, I just pray that as we go through Holy Week, that it become your gospel, we become more and more gripped in our lives and our hearts and our minds, that we can help but tell people about the good news.

And I pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thank you for listening today.

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