ACTS "The Power of Prayer and Praise"- Acts 16:25-26 - Part 1

Brett Meador: They grabbed Paul and Silas and put them into the prison there and while you might say, "Well, Paul and Silas were in bondage," no. It was actually the prison keeper who was in bondage to his sin. You see, as Christians, even though we might think we're stuck, we're not the stuck ones. We're the ones that are free.
Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador assuring the penalty for sin has been paid. But I believe the Christian, as we struggle in this life with the challenges and the temptations, one of the things we want to do is strive for that liberty that Christ gives us, and that's what we see in this story. Acts chapter 16 finds Paul and Silas unjustly thrown into prison, but they had a surprising reaction to their suffering. As they prayed and sing hymns to the Lord, they found strength and a remarkable miracle that created an opportunity to minister and lead many to salvation. Pastor Brett Meador highlights their example of the power of prayer and praise in today's word.
Brett Meador: Saint Lawrence was born right around 225 AD. Brother Lawrence was famous for giving to the poor, distributing to the poor and the needy as a church leader. His mentor was an amazing guy and he looked up to his mentor, but one day his mentor was sentenced to death. Of course, persecution of the church was rampant at that time, and Saint Lawrence's mentor was sentenced to death. The day before he died, Lawrence went and visited and said, "What am I going to do without you?" His mentor said, "You will follow me in three days." Lawrence thought, "That's not very encouraging, you're going to die too." Well, in those days, the Christians had a little more fortitude than we today. We're all so fearful of death and freaked out, but the Christian church in those days had a whole another level of strength and power and divinely given inspiration to just live their lives on the edge and they didn't count their lives dear to themselves. Sure enough, his mentor was killed there, burned at the stake. Lawrence used those last three days to give all of his possessions away to the poor. He was going to use the resources of the church that they had and just give it all away because he knew he was next. But the first day of that he started doing that, one of the Roman prefects that were there said, "Hey, where are you getting all this treasure? The church has a treasure chest somewhere. Where is it? I want to know where your wealth is," because he was going to take it. Lawrence, he'd already started giving it all away, but he said, "I'll tell you what, in three days, I will give you the church's treasure." The guy said, "Okay, three days. You better deliver." Lawrence just kept giving everything away to the poor and the needy in the church. Sure enough, three days later, Lawrence had gotten all the poor church members, all the people in the city town square there, just hundreds of people gathered there that were in poverty but part of the church. Then the prefect comes out and says, "Where's the church's treasury? Where's the wealth?" Lawrence said, "Right here. They're all standing right there. This is the wealth of the church, these people." What a profound statement that was if you think about it. But the prefect wasn't impressed. He said, "Because you didn't deliver, I shall burn you on the iron grill." That's exactly what they did. They heated up this big giant iron grill, the gridiron sort of thing. But the story that is told by all the eyewitnesses that were there said that Brother Lawrence did not show any grimace on his face, but he always had just a smile. The whole time, there was a smile on his face. It was an amazing, miraculous sort of thing. They literally were sizzling this guy on a barbecue grill, and they recorded some of the things that he said on that. For example, he said in the middle of his tortures, he said, "Turn me over. I'm done on this side." That's what he said. The people couldn't believe it. Like, "Why isn't he suffering? What's wrong?" They literally let him just burn there for a long time. Just before he died, he said, "It's cooked enough." He was joking with his tormentors. He said, "I'm cooked enough," and he knew he was about to die. So he literally spoke a prayer as he's sizzling on this gridiron, and his last prayer was that Rome would be converted to Jesus Christ, and then he died. What's amazing about that is that about a century later, really much of Rome was converted to Christ, and it was a radical change of the whole Roman Empire. They built a church to Saint Lawrence there in Rome. You can visit it this day, and they actually have the gridiron that he laid on. But it's just one example of these martyrs in the first century or first few centuries, I should say, of the Christian church. Have you ever read Fox's Book of Martyrs? If you haven't, every Christian should probably read that at least once in their lifetime. It's story after story of brave believers during times of radical persecution where they were smiling, rejoicing even to die a death in the name of Jesus Christ. You think, man, were they crazy or did the Lord somehow insulate them from the suffering and the pain? There's so many amazing stories you should definitely read that, but one common thread of the Christian martyrs is there was often a joy that was accompanied with suffering and even torture. This shouldn't surprise us because we saw even a few weeks ago in Acts chapter seven where Stephen was the first Christian martyr and he had a beaming joyful face as they were stoning him to death. While they were stoning him to death, he looked up and saw heaven opened and the Lord received his spirit up into heaven with joy on his face. It made the tormentors of Stephen hate him all the more. All throughout the Bible, we have these stories, and we come to a persecution story like that here in Acts chapter 16. We see Paul and Silas on Paul's second missionary journey now. We saw Paul and Barnabas go their separate ways. They sort of had a disagreement, and they agreed to disagree and they went their separate ways. So now Paul's got a new comrade in Silas. Paul and Silas, they head out on the second missionary journey. What inspired Paul to go? Well, God gave Paul a vision of a Macedonian man saying, "Come over here, help us, minister to us." So Paul said, "Man, we got to go find the Macedonian man that I saw in my vision." Paul and Silas sail northwesterly in the Aegean Sea, and they eventually go to Macedonia. Basically, that's Europe. The first missionary to Europe was Paul the Apostle, and they land on the coast of Europe there in a place called Philippi of Macedonia. There at Philippi, Paul doesn't find a Macedonian man. He finds Macedonian women. It's interesting. Sometimes you think God's going to do one thing and then God says, "I'm actually going to change it up a little bit," and you have to be ready for that. But there was a group of women and Paul and Silas meet them there and one particular woman named Lydia, she was one who Paul shared the gospel with and she accepted Christ and got baptized in a little stream that's there. But now they enter into Philippi, and another woman comes on the scene and she's weird. She's sort of got this darkness about her. She's the city sorceress. She's like a soothsayer or fortune teller, necromancy, kind of black magic woman, but we also find out she's demon-possessed. She's following Paul and Silas around the town. Not only that, she's going around saying, "These are the servants of the Most High God," pointing to Paul and Silas. She said, "These are the ones who are pointing the way of salvation." Now you might be saying, "Oh, wonderful. They've got a herald following them around saying listen to these guys." You say, what's going on with that? Why would this demonic woman go around saying these are the servants of the Most High God? Why would she almost seemingly be promoting Paul and Silas? Well, the Bible says don't be ignorant of Satan's devices. What are one of the devices of Satan himself? It's to take stuff that looks true, that sounds true, that even looks good on a surface but it's really not. It's actually misleading and oftentimes trying to get the whole notion to be tweaked a little bit. You got this woman who's known in town. In fact, there's men of the town that are owning this woman as their own way to make money. They use this woman's fortune telling and her demonic possession to get money off of tourists that come in. So what happens? She's saying something that's true. They are the servants of the Most High God and they are pointing the way of salvation, but she's trying to put a weird twist on it. By the way, that's the way Satan works. He likes to dabble in the truth but to only uproot the truth. It's the oldest trick in the book. Literally, first trick in the book, Garden of Eden, the first trick Satan ever played on humanity was with Eve there in the Garden of Eden at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil where God said, "Do not eat of this tree. In the day you eat of it, you'll surely die." Well, there's Lucifer hanging out in the tree and he says to Eve, "Hath God said you should not eat of this fruit of this tree? God has not, He doesn't want you to have your eyes opened. If you eat of this tree, your eyes will be opened. You'll be enlightened." Enlightenment. "The day you eat of it, you will not die." Now that says exactly the opposite of what God said. God said the day you eat it, you'll die. But you will not die. If you know the story, it's kind of curious because you could make this argument that Satan was right. Were their eyes opened when they ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil? Yes. In fact, the first thing they notice is, wow, we're naked. Didn't notice that before. It wasn't a weird thing. It wasn't a sinful thing. It wasn't a bad thing until sin entered the world. Their eyes were opened and suddenly they had this thing that they started to recognize their own sinful depravity. Not only were their eyes opened, but they also didn't die. They didn't die, at least kick the bucket, drop over dead. What did God mean? Was God telling a lie? Of course not. God meant that humanity was all doomed to die the day that that fruit was eaten of, and the death process, all of humanity would die from that day forward. Death was the condition of humanity from that day forward. The original was eternal life, but death was brought in by sin. So Satan used a dabbling of truth. "You will not technically die the day you eat of the fruit." That's what Satan will do. He'll whisper in your ear a little bit of truth and twist it just a smidge, and people are duped all the time. Can I just say we're living in a day of great deception from Satan himself? I've found that the church of Jesus Christ is so easily duped, and I see that today in so many areas. Jesus warned in the last days, many will be deceived in the last days and they'll come in the name of Christ. Jesus said even the very elect will be deceived. That means people that are true Christian people will even be deceived by these people. So be careful in these days. Don't be deceived. Well, Paul wasn't deceived. He turned to this woman and he cast the demon out of her. Question: does a demon come out of a person by your gyration and whooping and hollering and getting all whooped up and weird? Bible doesn't say anything about that. That's just people being silly. But Paul just says, "Come out of her," and bam. Why is that? How did that happen? It's actually pretty simple. It's that greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. One of the mistakes Christians make is like, "Oh, we got to pray the hope God wins this battle. God and Satan just going at it, man. I hope God wins." Is that the way it rolls? Not even close. God is the creator of all things. He's omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and Satan is none of those things. Satan is just a created angel and a fallen one at that. I love it. We'll see this where he casts out this demon, but it's not like the movies. It's simple, calm but with power. That's why First John 4:4 says, "Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world." Well, this woman now, she's standing there no longer demon possessed, and she's perfectly whole. You're like, "Oh, that's great." It is, but here's the problem. The men of Philippi are immediately angered. Why? Well, they're the masters of this demon possessed girl. They cared nothing for the girl, only for their ability to exploit her demonic possession for money. They were basically cultic pimps, prostituting her cultic spirituality, and they were making money off her. So now Paul and Silas cast the demon out of her. Now she's whole. This girl is healed, and the guys are ticked. They go to the officials, the magistrates of Philippi, and say, "Hey, these two guys, these Jews," very anti-Semitic kind of wording, "these Jews are messing up our city and stirring up trouble." Is that what they were doing? They weren't stirring up trouble. They were helping some poor woman who was demon possessed. They were just doing good stuff. Well, the magistrate said they are, huh? So they grabbed Paul and Silas and they ripped all their clothes off of them. Then they beat them, whipped them with stripes with probably the same kind of whip they would have whipped Jesus with. That's what these Romans did at that time. They could beat a person as much as they want as long as they weren't a Roman citizen. Really, if you're not a Roman citizen, you could beat them without even a trial. It was really kind of an unfair law. If you're not a Roman citizen, beat the daylights out of them, throw them in prison, do whatever you want with them. Did you know Paul and Silas, they were both Roman citizens? But they didn't do they thought they were just Jews from Judea. But they were literally Roman citizens, and so the men of Philippi are going to be in big trouble because of what they did. But Paul and Silas were taken after being stripped, beaten, bloodied, then they put them into the prison there and Paul wrote about this time later on in Second Corinthians 11:23 when he said, "I've labored more than you all in stripes or whippings above measure and imprisoned more frequently, and I've been even in death." Remember when they left him for dead outside of the city, Lystra? These are the things that Paul said, "I have been all these things, and I've suffered many stripes." After they whipped him, they threw him into the dungeon and they put his feet in the wooden stocks where they clamp down and bolt the beam on your feet. By the way, I've studied these ancient stocks that they used. They were purposefully putting a person in an uncomfortable position and hoping that your legs would start to cramp up in the position they would leave you in and spasm and just cause all kinds of pain. It was to really torture. Then they threw him in and then they said to the guard, "Make this prison sure and secure. Don't let anybody get in or out of this prison." Now when the Bible records that kind of information, you know there's a foreshadowing. Remember they said to the tomb of Jesus, "Make sure it's sealed with a Roman seal and the guards only to have Jesus come out triumphantly of the tomb." Same here, lock the prison. Make sure it's sure. So they threw him into this deep dungeon. For those of you that don't know, the prisons in Bible time didn't have ping pong and weight lifting and cable TV and baloney sandwiches. Prison times there, it was a horrible, horrible experience. So the question then becomes, what do you do if you're Paul and Silas? What do you do? You're sitting there in the nighttime, still bleeding from your whippings, feet in stocks in pain and your arms in chains in the dungeon of Philippi. The only thing you did was help a girl that was demon possessed, and you were unfairly treated because you're Roman citizens. You have a legitimate case against the men of Philippi because they didn't even give a fair trial. What do you do when you're sitting there? Well, I know what most people do. I see it all over social media. Pout, complain, whine, sit there and be discouraged. "I can't believe this is so unfair." That's what a lot of Christians would do today. What did Paul and Silas do with the time they had? Well, that's where we come to our scripture here I wanted to show you. Acts 16:25. Right after they're put in fast in the stocks, it says, "And at midnight, Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God, and the prisoners heard 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 bands were loosed." I want to read that one more time. It's amazing. "And at midnight, Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God, and the prisoners heard 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 bands were loosed." What a miraculous, amazing story. Now, one thing I need to remind you because it's hard when you read these Bible stories. Some of you have heard these stories since you were a little kid. But do you know Paul and Silas, they didn't know if they prayed and sang praises that the prison doors would swing wide open. They didn't do it so that that would happen. I want to remind you, why did they do it? I think they did it for the sake of praying and singing praises. That's what they chose to do. They weren't the ones going to sit there and pout and go on social media, "I can't believe my life situation and boy, I've gone through such a tough season." They didn't do any of that. What did they do? They just pray and sing praises to the Lord. It's interesting because they were imprisoned. But one thing that I think is important maybe to acknowledge in this story is they're the ones that really weren't in prison. The other prisoners were. Even the jailer, we're going to find out the rest of the story what happens. Well, the jailer of the prison, who was given the charge to keep the prison, he's a Roman soldier. But basically, he's in trouble now because all the prisoners are free. So the story we're going to read as it goes on, he grabs a sword, he's going to stick himself through like hara-kiri kind of thing. Going to kill himself. Paul and Silas run out and say, "Hey, hey, wait, wait, wait. We're all here. Don't kill yourself." The prison keeper, he's shaking like a leaf and he runs and gets a torch and runs into the nighttime in the darkness with a torch. He looks at Paul and all the prisoners, and then he falls down at Paul and Silas's feet and he says, "What must I do to be saved?" I love it. Paul says, "Believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, and your family." The guy believed and his family came to believe and they all got baptized. The Bible says they got saved that night. I have a hunch it wasn't just the prison keeper, but don't you have a hunch that those prisoners that heard Paul and Silas singing, suddenly there's an earthquake and they see what happens with the jailer and Paul and Silas. I bet you there were others who accepted Christ there too. We don't know for sure on that one, but I'm just speculating. But what an amazing story. Now, the point that I make is while you might say, "Well, Paul and Silas were in bondage," no. It was actually the prison keeper who was in bondage to his sin. It was actually the other prisoners in bondage. You see, as Christians, even though we might think we're stuck, we're not the stuck ones. We're the ones that are free. I remember as a kid, high school kid in football, my team would always go out and party after games or after practice sometimes and "Come on, Brett, come to the party down." But they knew I wasn't a party animal. I was a Christian kid. I was the one, "No, I'm going to the church tonight. You guys have fun, but I'm going to church. Anybody want to come with me?" Nobody took me up on that offer until a little later. But they thought, oh, Brett's the Holy Joe. I remember they used to think that I was the one sort of in bondage to my religious beliefs. They thought I was the one, "Oh, Brett can't have any fun." But meanwhile, I was having the funnest time of my life. I was out doing all kinds of fun stuff, riding dirt bikes and traveling around in Mexico doing stuff with church activities. We had so many fun stuff we spent and yet I'd see them come the next day back to school with headaches and hangovers and wondering who they slept with. I remember watching those guys who thought I was the one in bondage, but I really kind of saw, wow, they're the ones who seem to be stuck. In fact, it gets worse the older you get. I had one buddy who actually brought that up to me, said, "Brett, you're just stuck in your religion." I'm like, "No, I'm actually it's a get-to for me, not a got-to." That same guy several years later, he went to jail because he had so many DUIs and he was quite the raging alcoholic. It was heartbreaking to see. Because that's what happens. The world is in bondage and they need to be let free. So here's Paul and Silas. They're the ones whipped, beaten and imprisoned. You think, oh, they're in bondage. But actually I think it was the other way around. I've seen many examples of this. The Lord doesn't want his people to be tied down in bondage. The Lord wants to free us up from that. First Corinthians 6:12 says all things are lawful for me, but not everything's expedient. Then he says, "All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any." That's what Satan wants to do. He wants to get some habit, some thing that will get you locked down and stuck. Man, it happens to all of us. We all have our temptations and it's hard sometimes to break free of those temptations, things that we know we shouldn't be doing. We all struggle with that and be careful. Don't look down your pious nose at people that are alcoholics and say, "Well, at least I'm not in bondage to that." We're in bondage to a lot of things. It may not be cigarettes or drinking or whatever, it might be pornography. It's a battle, but the Lord says through Paul, "I don't want you to be under the power of any." It's a battle that we all fight. But I believe the Christian, as we struggle in this life with the challenges and the temptations, one of the things we want to do is strive for that liberty that Christ gives us, not a liberty to go sin and do it over and over again, but to just be free to just be free, and that's what we see in this story.
Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador drawing a good illustration from the imprisoned Paul and Silas for freedom from the bondage of sin that all who find forgiveness in Christ receive. There's more to come next time from this study of Acts 16 in Today's Word. In just a moment, Pastor Brett will join me to discuss how the good news of the gospel is spreading throughout the country today, led by a certain age group. But first, Today's Word is the radio ministry of Athey Creek Church in the Portland suburb of West Linn, Oregon, where Pastor Brett Meador is the senior pastor. You can find out more by going to todayswordradio.com. That's todayswordradio.com. Okay, Pastor Brett is with me. You know, with the one year anniversary of the death of Turning Point founder Charlie Kirk just a few days away, we've seen not only an outpouring of emotion, especially among young people over the last year. So, Pastor Brett, do you think we may be actually seeing revival in America led by young people?
Brett Meador: You know, Kurt, I believe we really are seeing that. It's this stirring of the young people's hearts. All throughout history, by the way, when revival breaks out, it's often the younger generation that led the way. I think the young people, Gen Z, they're challenging the status quo. They seem to be a generation that's pursuing authenticity. I think they're seeing through the indoctrination of the colleges and universities. I think they're tired of shallow answers that they've been given. So with Charlie Kirk, he was giving solid answers and he was stirring up so many young people, hugely instrumental in waking up Gen Z. I believe so what encourages me is that the gospel speaks right into that longing of young Gen Zers and we're seeing students gathering in prayer and on campuses, sharing their faith boldly. Like even a few weeks ago, I had a guy show up to church. He came up and said, "Pastor Brett, I'm 20 years old and I haven't been to church for a couple years, haven't read my Bible, but this whole thing that's happening, it's just made me want to follow Jesus." He asked me what do I need to do, and I was able to give him some words that just, really simple. It reminds me what Peter said when he was quoting the prophet Joel. He says, "It'll come to pass in the last days, I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh. Your sons and daughters shall prophesy. Your young men shall see visions." That's a promise that God proves he's not done with this generation.
Guest (Male): Well, that is so encouraging, Pastor Brett, to hear that scripture actually predicts revival and is something that we can be praying for. Well, if you'd like more information about Pastor Brett Meador or Today's Word, you can visit our website at todayswordradio.com. Well, that's all the time we have. Next time, Pastor Brett will continue looking at the miraculous response by Paul and Silas after an earthquake opened their prison doors. Today's Word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.