Prison Shaking Savior

Isaiah 61:1–3 CEB

1 The Lord God’s spirit is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me. He has sent me to bring good news to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim release for captives, and liberation for prisoners, 2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and a day of vindication for our God, to comfort all who mourn, 3 to provide for Zion’s mourners, to give them a crown in place of ashes, oil of joy in place of mourning, a mantle of praise in place of discouragement. They will be called Oaks of Righteousness, planted by the Lord to glorify himself.

Acts 16:25–34 CEB

25 Around midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. 26 All at once there was such a violent earthquake that it shook the prison’s foundations. The doors flew open and everyone’s chains came loose. 27 When the jailer awoke and saw the open doors of the prison, he thought the prisoners had escaped, so he drew his sword and was about to kill himself. 28 But Paul shouted loudly, “Don’t harm yourself! We’re all here!” 29 The jailer called for some lights, rushed in, and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. 30 He led them outside and asked, “Honorable masters, what must I do to be rescued?” 31 They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your entire household.” 32 They spoke the Lord’s word to him and everyone else in his house. 33 Right then, in the middle of the night, the jailer welcomed them and washed their wounds. He and everyone in his household were immediately baptized. 34 He brought them into his home and gave them a meal. He was overjoyed because he and everyone in his household had come to believe in God.

Prison Shaking Savior

Imagine yourself locked in a tiny, windowless cell that is relatively small, shallow, and chilly, and your hands are chained to the wall with restraints. The door is locked shut, and you begin to wonder if it will never be opened after all. What a hopeless place.

I want to tell you a story about a man who found himself in a literal prison. His name is Louis Zamperini, and some of you may recognize him from the movie Unbroken. Louis was an Olympic athlete turned soldier in World War II. His plane crashed in the Pacific Ocean, and after surviving 47 days stranded at sea, he was captured by the Japanese. He was sent to a brutal prison camp, where he was beaten, starved, and tortured beyond what most of us can imagine. His situation seemed utterly hopeless like there was no way out.

But it is here, in the deepest dungeon of prison life, from deepest despair, that the miracle begins – But in the darkest moments of his imprisonment, something miraculous began to happen—not in the circumstances around him, but in his heart. Louis began to pray. And though his physical chains weren’t broken right away, his spirit was. After the war, he found freedom—not just from the prison camp but from the deep anger, hatred, and bitterness that had shackled his heart for years. And it was Jesus who broke those chains. Louis encountered Christ and experienced a transformation that set him free in ways even the end of the war never could.

We may not be in a physical prison like Louis Zamperini or the Apostle Paul and Silas. However, many of us still find ourselves locked in prisons—prisons of fear, addiction, shame, or circumstances that seem impossible to escape. Sometimes, the walls around us feel too thick, the chains too heavy.

But the good news is that we serve a prison-shaking Savior—a Savior who doesn’t just open doors; he shakes the very foundations of the things that bind us. Today, we’ll look at a moment in Scripture where Jesus does just that: Paul and Silas are in chains, but through God’s power, their prison is shattered. And just like them, you and I can experience that same freedom, no matter what kind of prison we’re in.

The Prison of Our Own Making

Acts 16:25–26 TPT

25 Paul and Silas, undaunted, prayed in the middle of the night and sang songs of praise to God, while all the other prisoners listened to their worship. 26 Suddenly, a great earthquake shook the foundations of the prison. All at once every prison door flung open and the chains of all the prisoners came loose.

When we think of prison, our mind drifts towards those locked cells and iron bars, and that’s what Paul and Silas were experiencing when they were thrown into the ‘inner prison . . . fastened with their own feet to the stocks’. Except a lot of us live in our own little prisons too, don’t we? Prisons that don’t have anything to do with prison bars yet still feel equally incarcerated.

Spiritual prisons—the ones we find ourselves in when we feel far from God, when we doubt that He is there or that He hears when we cry to him.

Emotional prisons – where you feel stuck, afraid that you’ll never feel at peace or joy in your life again.

Relational prisons. For instance, toxic relationships you’ve found yourself in, or unforgiveness that you can’t seem to move past.

These are real prisons, and it can feel overwhelmingly claustrophobic — just like Paul and Silas must have felt deep in the bowels of prison. But the fact is, God is still at work in the blackest prison you can imagine.

Prisons of Circumstance

There are times when life comes at you out of nowhere and there’s nothing you can do then, either – and even if you do manage to escape those shackles, there might be others that come afterwards which you feel powerless to forever break. Or you might feel trapped right now by forces outside of your control.

Money problems—Debt piling up, bills you can’t pay, feeling like there’s no way out. It’s like a weight you carry around every day.

Medical issues – Chronic pain, a chronic illness, or a diagnosis that forever changed you. You feel like you’re marooned within your body to experience it all.

Broken relationships – Perhaps you are handling the separation from family or divorce, or a friendship that fell through and you’re left holding on to the pieces. The weight of this emotion can feel like having a cell with no escape door.

These are prisons, too. And sometimes we aren’t asking for these fights, but they keep us bound, they keep us digging and wondering if we are ever going to get out. Just like Paul and Silas, we can find ourselves roped into a situation we didn’t ask for, doing ‘the right thing’, and still shackled in place.

Prisons of Our Choices

Next, there are the prisons of our own creation, which we inevitably join with the passage of time. We all know what it feels like to be in that situation. There’ve been times when we chose to walk the path to captivity for ourselves.

Addictions – from alcohol or drugs to internet porn to social media to junk food – sometimes we start doing something, and it starts doing us. What once might have been a small habit takes on a life of its own.

Anger and bitterness–Holding a grudge or refusing to forgive someone who hurt you. You think you’re getting back at the person, but it’s you who gets stuck.

Regret and shame– Maybe there are decisions that you’ve made in the past that you wish you would have never made. You live a life with all this pain because of those decisions. You look back and there are things you wish you would have done. The pain of those choices can hold us down– to the point where we don’t want to move anymore.

We all know what it’s like to feel trapped by our own hands, wondering how we’ve got stuck in this mess and — crucially — we can get out.

Prisons of Spiritual Forces

There’s another layer, which we don’t always unpack: a spiritual battle, positive or negative, that can surround us at times. We can be in a prison that’s even deeper than the stuff that we see above the surface, at the scene of the crime. There are real forces that want to keep us locked up.

The fear of and doubt about God. Have you ever felt God calling you toward something, yet fear pushed you to the rear? Fear is a special favourite of the enemy, for he knows that by keeping us wrapped up in fear we will not venture forth in faith.

Shame – That voice telling you you are a loser, a good-for-nothing, you screwed up too much, you’re too far gone, and you can’t ever get right with God.It’s that last part of the statement that Satan wants you to buy into – the part about God’s love being beyond your reach. If he can get you to believe that you are too awful ever to be loved by God again, then he’ll keep you in that prison.

Paul and Silas knew they were prisoners, but not only because there were chains on their wrists. If the chains had been the only problem, a miracle would have been unnecessary. In fact, the chains were only a subtle symbol of something much deeper – a spiritual battle for their souls. And yet here’s what really happened. The very devil wants us chained up, but Christ came to set us free.

Let’s Bring It Home: What’s Holding You Down?

So maybe it’s time to take this personally – what prisons do you find yourself in today? Maybe not literally behind bars, but aren’t there always places in your life where you feel trapped?

Maybe it’s fear—fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of the future.

Maybe it’s a drug, something that has got its hooks into you, and that whatever you do and however hard you try you can’t extract yourself from.

Or maybe you’re burdened with shame – some regret over what you’ve done that makes you feel weighted down, that tells you you’re not enough, that you’ll never be able to change.

Whatever that is, like Paul and Silas in that jail cell, we all have a fetter on us, some webbing that intrudes into the full experience of free living that God offers. The good news is that we have a Saviour who doesn’t just free us, he shakes the very walls upon which our fetters rest.

Paul and Silas didn’t work to get out of their jail. It was God who broke the ground beneath their feet, it was God who broke their chains, it was God who opened the doors. The same God that made them free is alive today, and he wants to break your chains and set you free.

The question is: are you prepared to let Him? Are you prepared to trust that He can topple the very stones that hold you captive? Because He can – and He will.

Christ’s Power to Liberate

Isaiah 61:1–3 CEB

1 The Lord God’s spirit is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me. He has sent me to bring good news to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim release for captives, and liberation for prisoners, 2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and a day of vindication for our God, to comfort all who mourn, 3 to provide for Zion’s mourners, to give them a crown in place of ashes, oil of joy in place of mourning, a mantle of praise in place of discouragement. They will be called Oaks of Righteousness, planted by the Lord to glorify himself.

Isaiah 61 is one of those passages that’s hard to read without feeling the weight of its promise. This is no pious idea. It’s a prophecy, and it came true: according to Luke 4:18, Jesus stands in a synagogue, unrolls the scroll of Isaiah, and declares, ‘The scripture you have just heard has been fulfilled this very day.’ Among other things, Isaiah had prophesied, ‘I will release those who have been oppressed to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’ So Jesus stands up in that synagogue and says, ‘That’s about Me.’ His reason for coming was freedom.

Let that sink in. Jesus came to set people free.

He didn’t come in order to make things just a little bit better, or to give us a good talking to, or to make us feel bad about the fact that we haven’t tried as hard as we ought to. He came to break chains, and to rescue people from darkness, and to set us free however we’ve been held captive, be it to sin, or oppression, or depression, or appetite, or shame, or fear – take your pick: when it comes to Jesus’ mission, the rule is freedom.

Maybe you’re tired of hearing this, but here’s the thing: that freedom is for you. For the thing that’s actually happening in your real life, right here, right now. Jesus came to take away those things in your heart that are bound by chains, that are ‘weighed down with guilt’, that are locked ‘in darkness’. He’s not just the Saviour of the World (capital W) of some intangible, abstract thing that happened at some distant time and place in history. He’s the Saviour who comes to take away those things that bind you.

We see this play out in the story of Paul and Silas. They were in prison for being right. They were preaching the gospel of Jesus and, according to Biblical traditions, they made the people so upset that they were beaten and chained and locked up in the lower parts of the jail. Most of us would be bemoaning, right? We would have asked God: ‘Why would you let this happen?

What did Paul and Silas then do? Praise God. Pray. Midnight in a grim prison, chained feet, body lacerated by Roman lashes… what better and more liberating response could be imagined? The reaction? God shook the building to its foundations with an earthquake that lifted the chains off every man and opened the doors of every cell.

Jesus was incarnate to do more than just tell some cool stories about miracles. This is what Jesus comes to do, and what he can do. He doesn’t open the door, but will shake the very foundation on which it is built The doors of prison and sin and sickness don’t just need to be unlocked, they need to be shaken so that they can no longer stand. The chains that hold us don’t just need to be broken, they need to be shaken so that they can be snapped.

But here’s the thing about Jesus: He isn’t keen on leaving things neat and tidy. He comes in and shakes the foundations. The addictions that seem too strong? The fears that feel too profound? The habits that feel too set and entrenched? Jesus shakes those trees, cracks their trunks and breaks their branches.

Yet, that shaking can often be uncomfortable. And when Jesus comes into our lives and begins to break chains, He begins to shake the things that He knows you’ve become used to because He wants to set you free.

Consider your own situation: what represents sin in your life right now? What feels like a prison? Is it sex addiction? Is it an anxiety you’ve harboured for decades? Is it shame over something from your past that you can’t escape? Jesus broke the chains on me. He’s the chain-breaker, but also the foundation-shaker.

To make this even more real, let me share with you a story of a person who has had this kind of liberation. John’s been addicted for decades to everything and anything – drugs, alcohol, you name it. He’s wanted to quit a thousand times but every time he tried it seemed these chains were too strong. He’d feel good for a while but end up right back in his old messed-up life, even worse off than before.

At that lowest of lows, John cried out to God, not knowing if the Father would even hear him. But something did change. As time went on and John continued calling out to Jesus, the burden started to drop away. The cravings began to slip; the shame that kept him in the hole for all the years began to lift. It wasn’t fast; it was slow, one day at a time, but those chains – they started breaking. John has been sober many years, and he tells his story now to bring hope to those caught in the same kind of prison he once was.

What happened in John’s life is a modern-day version of what happened to Paul and Silas. Jesus stepped in, shook the foundation, and set him free.

What about us? Are we willing to praise God even when we’re still in the middle of our own prison? Are we willing to trust that He has the power to break the chains, even when they still feel tight around our wrists?

But what about you and me? If you find yourself in the cell, the pit, the darkness, are you willing to give Him thanks anyway? If the chains are still on your wrists, are you willing to trust that He is able to break them, no matter how constricting or sharp they may seem?

Does anything in your life right now ‘feel’ un-shakable? You might be sitting where you are today and it looks like nothing you’ve tried so far has been enough to break free from a bad habit, or to heal some sort of relationship, or to shake the heaviness of fear or depression, or whatever else is weighing you down. Well, I have good news for you: Jesus can shake things. He can shake whatever it is that is otherwise holding you ‘down’. Sometimes, the best way to see that happen is by beginning to praise Him right in the middle of what you are dealing with.

Jesus is still in the business of setting people free. The same God who shook the prison walls for Paul and Silas is with us today. He sees the chains that hold us back—whether they’re chains of fear, addiction, depression, or anything else—and He has the power to break them.

So the question is: Do you believe it? Will you trust Him to shake the foundation of whatever prison you’re in today? Because He can. He will. All we need to do is invite Him into our situation and trust that He’s got the power to change it.

Let’s be like Paul and Silas—let’s praise Him before we see the chains fall off, trusting that He’s already at work shaking the ground beneath us.

As we conclude, remember this powerful truth: Jesus is our prison-shaking Savior. Just as He freed Paul and Silas from their chains, He continues to break chains today. Whatever holds you back—be it fear, addiction, shame, or doubt—Jesus has the power to set you free. He doesn’t just open doors; He shakes the very foundations of our captivity.

Paul and Silas didn’t free themselves; it was God’s power that broke their chains. That same power is available to you now. The God who shook the prison walls back then can shake the walls in your life today.

Call to Action: Bring Your Chains to Jesus

So here’s the invitation: bring your chains to Jesus. Whatever weighs you down—anxiety, addiction, unforgiveness, or something you’ve never shared—bring it to Him.

For you, that might mean praying right where you are, coming forward to pray with someone, or simply saying, “God, I can’t do this on my own. I need You to break these chains.”

Don’t leave here today still burdened by those chains. Jesus came to set the captives free, and He invites you to let Him do that in your life. There is freedom in Him, and He’s ready to give it.

I encourage you to trust in God’s power, even in your darkest moments. You may feel like Paul and Silas, trapped in a prison with chains around your wrists, unable to see a way out. But remember: they praised God before the miracle happened. They trusted in His power, even when their circumstances hadn’t changed.

We can do the same. We can praise God while waiting, knowing He’s working behind the scenes, shaking the ground beneath us to break our chains.

Let’s live in expectation—not of our own abilities, but of what God can do. Let’s praise Him even in the prison, trusting that He will bring the freedom we long for. Because He will. That’s who He is. That’s what He does.

Prison Shaking Savior