Acts 16:22-30
"I can do all things..."
The other day I saw a guy who says he can predict earthquakes.
And he doesn't predict the actual day of the quake, he just looks for indicators that say a quake is likely during a certain period of time.
And he has indicators like the phases of the moon and the depth of the tides.
And he says, when you see these things, it's likely that an earthquake is going to happen.
Well, I can't predict earthquakes, but I can predict something else.
I can predict bad days.
I have a set of indicators myself that will tell you that a bad day is likely, if not a sure thing.
Here they are:
You can be pretty sure it's going to be a bad day when:
1. You call suicide prevention and they put you on hold.
2. You see a 60 minutes news team waiting for you in your office.
3. Your birthday cake collapses from the weight of the candles.
4. You turn on the news and they're showing emergency routes out of the city.
5. Your twin sister forgets your birthday.
6. You wake up to discover that your waterbed has broken...and then realize...you don't have a waterbed!
7. Your horn gets stuck as you follow a group of Hell's Angel's down the freeway.
Now, these are not guarantees that you'll have a bad day, they're just indicators that the chances are pretty good!
Well, if I'd been writing this 2,000 years ago I might have included one more.
"You know it's going to be a bad day when...you're stripped, beaten and thrown in a jail cell."
That's exactly what happened to two men in the 16th chapter of the book of Acts.
Paul & Silas were called by God to take the gospel into the region of Macedonia.
But when they got there, instead of wide open doors, like they might have expected, they ran into opposition!
Big time opposition!
Opposition so powerful that they were able to convince the authorities to treat these men like common criminals.
But before we go to that particular jail cell, allow me a short side-road.
How many in here want to live a godly life in Christ?
If that's a goal of yours raise your hand.
Alright, with that in mind, let me read something Paul wrote to Timothy.
"Everyone..." he didn't say some people. He didn't say first century Christians, or apostles or prophets.
"Everyone...who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus..."
Now, if you raised your hand, that's you. Just as if your name was written right here in the Bible, the Holy Spirit is talking about you when he says, '
"Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will..."
It doesn't say "might."
It doesn't say "could be."
It says, absolutely, unequivocally, without a doubt,
"will suffer persecution!"
Now, how many here still want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus?
Alright, but at least you go into it knowing about the downside!
You see, I think we've soft-pedalled the gospel sometimes!
I know I have!
I've been guilty of telling people about all the wonderful things that will happen to them when they become a Christian.
And there are some wonderful things, amen?
Let's start with freedom from guilt and freedom from sin and eternal life and peace of mind.
Just a few small things like that!
Those are wonderful things, and there's nothing wrong with telling folks about that, unless...
Unless you leave out the not so wonderful things.
I have a book in my library entitled, "The Unhappy Secrets of the Christian Life."
And I went back and looked at it this week.
Let me read you a couple of lines:
"A dangerous rumor is making the rounds," it says. "It's the notion that problems fade away when you become a Christian."
"The Christian life is not a week at church camp. For every stirring campfire testimony and 'mountaintop experience' there are ten times when we struggle."
Why didn't I write that?!
That's so true it hurts!
I've been guilty of telling people about pie in the sky when you die,
and leaving out the part about pain and suffering here on earth!
"Those who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus WILL SUFFER PERSECUTION!"
I read this in a church bulletin a while back. It said,
“JESUS NEVER SAID FOLLOWING HIM WOULD BE EASY,
JUST THAT IT WOULD BE WORTH IT!”
He wants us to count the cost.
He wants us to think it through.
He wants us to know it's not a cake-walk, this Christian path.
There's going to be pain, there's going to be suffering, there's going to be more valleys than mountains and then at the end of it, we're going to DIE!
And live in heaven forever and ever, amen!
God did not promise Christians an easy life!
He promised them an eternal one!
And so there are going to be those times...when you're in prison and you don't deserve to be.
When you've been beaten and you didn't do anything!
Times when you're wrongfully accused and woefully mistreated.
So what’s a Christian supposed to do?
Well, we just grit our teeth and hold on, right? Wrong!
We rejoice! And people might look at you funny.
But that’s alright, because this isn’t some “power of positive thinking” seminar.
It’s not some Bobby McFerrin “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” song.
This is a rejoicing that’s rooted in reality!
The setting was a balmy October afternoon at Badger Stadium, in Madison, Wisconsin.
The year was 1982. 60,000 die-hard University of Wisconsin fans are watching their football team take on the Michigan state Spartans. And it wasn’t long before they realized they were really there to watch their team lose, and lose badly. But on that day, a very strange thing happened.
As the score became more and more lopsided, the Wisconsin fans started to cheer more and more loudly! At odd times, there would be these bursts of applause here and there throughout the crowd, even though their team was virtually getting killed!
But there was a reason for this applause that had nothing to do with that particular game. You see, 70 miles away the Milwaukee Brewers were beating the St. Louis Cardinals in game three of the 1982 World Series! And sprinkled throughout that football stadium were little groups of people gathered around portable radios…responding to something other than their immediate circumstances!
It reminds me of Paul and Silas. Let’s start reading in Acts chapter 16 and verse 22:
Acts 16:22
"The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten. After they had been severly flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. Upon receiving such orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks."
Now, I don't know about you, but that's what I'd call a bad day!
I think I'm having a bad day if I break a shoelace!
Or my latte' gets cold.
I don't know what I'd do if somebody beat me 'til I was bloody, threw me in a cold prison cell, and then to make things worse, they shackled me to the wall and left me there.
That's exactly what they did to Paul and Silas.
And you know what, about that time they had every right to be downright angry with God.
Or at least disappointed!
"God, where did you go?" they might have said.
"I thought you wanted us here?!
You called us and we came!
Now look where we are! God, why did you let this happen to us?"
They might have said all of that, but they didn't say any of it.
No, look what they were doing, deep in the bowels of that cold prison cell.
Verse 25:
"But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them."
I wish I could say that's what I'd be doing, but I don't know if I can!
You don't know, either.
You've never been beaten and thrown in jail, so you don't have any idea how those men felt.
But then again, maybe you do!
Maybe you have suffered when you didn't deserve it!
Maybe you have stood up for and been put down for your convictions.
Maybe you've tasted the whip, maybe you've felt the stones.
Maybe you've been to that prison cell.
Paul and Silas certainly weren't the first ones there.
I look at Paul and Silas sitting in that dungeon of a prison and I don't see Paul and Silas.
I see others who have been where they were.
I see David in the cave of Adullam, cold, scared and hungry.
Running away from the very man he would have given his life for!
But instead he feared for his life!
I see Joseph in Pharoah's prison, sent there by jealous brothers but protected by a loving God.
I see righteous Daniel sleeping like a baby while the lions prowled around him all night, dreaming of Daniel soup…but God had closed their mouths.
When I look at Paul and Silas on that prison floor, bleeding and bruised, I don't just see Paul and Silas.
I see three young boys thrown into a fire so hot that it killed the men who threw them in!
And I hear King Nebuchednezzar say to his servants, (My favorite line in the Bible!)
"Weren't there three men we tied up and threw into the fire?" And they said, "Yes, O King."
And he said, "Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods."
Paul and Silas weren't alone in that prison cell and they knew it!
They were surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses.
They were filled with the Holy Spirit!
They were encircled by the heavenly host.
Talk about prison overcrowding! This one was crammed!
And so they sang and rejoiced and praised God at the top of their lungs.
The next time you're in the prison of persecution or the dungeon of despair, look around!
Realize you're not alone, and then do something that may seem a little strange.
Sing a song.
"When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost..."
"Jesus loves me this I know..."
“If you’re happy and you know it…”
And at first you may feel silly, but that's alright!
If Paul & Silas felt silly, they didn't show it.
Verse 25 says, "and the other prisoners were listening to them."
And I hope I don’t offend my brother Luke when I put this in the “Well, duh!” category!
What choice did they have?
Talk about a captive audience! This was it!
Paul and Silas could have stayed right there and had a jail ministry, but God had something else in mind.
Look at verse 26:
"Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody's chains came loose."
Hear this if you hear nothing else, God can set you free!
You can't do it, don't even try!
How much of a chance did those men have of getting out of there on their own?
Could they chew through the chains, could they break down the doors, could they overpower the guards? NO!
They were absolutely, totally powerless to free themselves.
And they knew it.
And that's exactly what God was waiting for!
You see, that's how God operates!
Over and over in the Old Testament we see it!
He turns to Gideon in the 7th chapter of Judges and says, "Hey Gideon, you have too many men to win this battle, get rid of a few."
So Gideon whittles it down until there are only 300 men left.
And finally God says, "Alright, that's perfect!"
Then God tells him why he did it.
Judges 7:2 "...In order that Israel may not boast that her own strength has saved her."
You know what? Sometimes God looks at us and says, "You're too strong!"
"You have too many resources."
"If you get out of the mess you're in, you'll just look back and say, "It's a good thing I was strong enough to handle that!"
I heard an amazing story this week.
Leutenant Colonel Donald Couliard and his son Matt were skiing in the mountains of Northern Turkey last week when they got lost in a blizzard. Search crews combed the mountainside for 3 days, 4 days, 5 days a week...and then they gave up.
They didn't know that the Colonel and his son were holed up in a cave with the search helicopters sometimes flying directly over them, but by the time he ran out to signal them, they were already gone.
Finally, with no other options, that father made the hardest decision in his life.
He left his son in the cave while he went for help.
He told him he loved him, he told him to wait for him, but he also knew that it was a pretty good chance he'd never see his son again.
He'd seen some cabins in the valley below them and thought that if only he could reach them, they'd be saved.
So he went.
He spent all day and most of his remaining strength to get down the mountain to this little village.
When he got there, despair hit him like a brick wall...the village was deserted.
He broke into one of the cabins and sprawled on the floor, totally spent, completely exhausted.
For two days he lay there, waiting to die.
And then, on the morning of the tenth day...he heard the sweetest sound he'd ever heard.
An engine.
It turned out to be a group of Turkish loggers up there cutting wood.
They went up, found his son and brought them both out to safety.
I saw Colonel Couliard interviewed the other night, and I couldn't keep the tears from my eyes as he told about this incredible ordeal.
And I want you to hear what he was thinking as he lay on the floor of that cabin.
I wrote it down, because I didn't want to forget it.
He said, "By that time, all my strength was gone and I'd given up all hope of my controlling the situation. I just prayed, God help us...and he did!"
When your strength is gone and your resources depleted, know this:
God can set you free!
And he will set you free, and he does it because he loves you and he does it because he cares, but he does it for another reason, too.
Look at verse 27:
"The jailor woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped.
But Paul shouted, "Don't harm yourself. We are all here."
The jailor called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas.
He then brought them out and asked, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved."
We'll hear how Paul answered that question next week, but for now I want us to see this:
God saves us so we can be an instrument for saving others.
We need to just write that down somewhere.
God saves us so we can be an instrument for saving others.
The question is, are you?
Are you allowing God to use you as his instrument, as his hands, as his feet to take the good news to a world who desperately needs it?
One last note, just to keep us in context: Do you remember where Paul was?
He was in Philippi, wasn't he?
Several years later Paul wrote a letter to the church in Philippi and he said something that the Philippians knew to be true.
He said,
"I have learned the secret of being content in every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want." (And, he could have added, in a prison cell or out of one)
And then he topped it off by saying...
"I can do everything through Him who gives me strength."
