Paul and Silas in Philippi

After the Jerusalem Council that was the previous lesson, Paul decided to begin revisiting cities where he had preached to encourage the churches and leaders.

We know that somewhere along the way, the Spirit prevented Paul and his fellow ministers from entering Asia or Bithynia.

During the night Paul receives this vision in which a Macedonian man is beckoning him to come and help.

Acts 16:6–8 NKJV

Now when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia. After they had come to Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit did not permit them. So passing by Mysia, they came down to Troas.

Acts 16:9–10 NKJV

And a vision appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with him, saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” Now after he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them.

Basically, you get a vision… it’s someone needing spiritual help. “Can you come here and help us?”

God wants to know: Can you hear the call from another world?!

Paul could.

They willingly got up and went.

Even if it meant changing their course, this was what needed to happen.

How willing are we to change the course of OUR plans to meet HIS?

There was a call from another world in Bangladesh! In Thailand!

There is a call from another world in your neighborhood!

But if you’re not willing to determine the importance of the call, someone in God’s divine plan is not going to receive the help they’re crying out for!

They get to Philippi…

At the leading city of Macedonia, there’s a welcome committee. It’s a group of women who prayed along the riverside on the Sabbath.

Among this small Jewish gathering that day is a woman named Lydia.

Acts 16:14–15 NKJV

Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira, who worshiped God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul. And when she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” So she persuaded us.

And what’s pretty amazing is that, her home now becomes a central location for the Philippians who are saved! It’s a church plant that Lydia makes room for!

Normally Paul would have gone first to the synagogue, but it’s likely that there were not even ten Jewish men there to have a synagogue. But there in that Macedonian city, God established a church in the home of a prayerful, worshiping woman!

God opened her heart before He opened her home!

I want to remind someone that A VISION LED TO THIS.

It wasn’t clear that this was what would happen. They were unsure of the end result.

Often, God gives us just enough direction to move forward into His purpose without giving all the details of what we will experience as we go. If we’re going to obey God, it will involve acting in faith on the information we have and seizing surprising opportunities to minister.

They didn’t know what came next. But they yielded to the Spirit and obeyed!

You’ll do no yielding if your ear is hard of hearing!!!

Paul Addressed the Girl Possessed by a Demon

Now there is great revival that is being seen. And great potential for revival on the horizon.

And this is the point at which the devil shows up…

I want you to pay close attention here, because what we’re about to see is Satan trying to set Paul up… this is something that (if you are hungry) you are going to greatly appreciate.

Acts 16:16–17 NKJV

Now it happened, as we went to prayer, that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much profit by fortune-telling. This girl followed Paul and us, and cried out, saying, “These men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation.”

A spirit of what? Divination. Everybody say, “Divination.” This girl with the spirit of divination meets them, which brings her masters much gain by soothsaying.

In practical terms, the spirit made the slave girl able to predict the future. Rather than mere trickery, the woman functioned as a medium with powers of prophetic utterance, though she was actually controlled by a demon that gave forth various prophecies. Soothsaying was a lucrative religious art of the period, which explains why her owners exploited her abilities for financial gain.

Look at these words. If you look at them for face value, it really doesn't look like there's anything wrong with them. “These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation.” There is nothing wrong with those words.

Think about that.

I used to think about this story all the time. I thought, “She wasn't really saying anything wrong. She is following them around for three days and she says, 'Hey, these are men of God. They're preaching the way of salvation.' It's almost like she's helping them. Right?” That's what it sounds like when you read the story.

I was like, “Huh? She has a spirit and she's saying that? Why?” Just because somebody has an evil spirit doesn't necessarily mean they're saying the wrong things. Right? That's what it's showing us right here.

And she keeps saying it. And she keeps saying it. And she keeps saying it. And she keeps saying it. And she says this many days. “But Paul, being grieved...”

Acts 16:18–19 NKJV

And this she did for many days. But Paul, 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 that very hour. But when her masters saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to the authorities.

Now she did this for many days, and Paul didn’t do anything about it during that time…

Listen…

When something grieves you, shut down. Go silent. Don't try to react. Don't try to respond. Don't try to outsmart. Don't try to have better words than them. Shut down.

If something is grieving your spirit, wait, check, ask God, “What do I do?” Why? Because something's trying to trigger you.

The enemy is trying to get you to expose yourself. Divination always tries to get you to expose yourself. You’re under God’s protective and helpful hand as long as you’re in humility…

But the moment Paul makes an action to expose himself, he becomes visible. Watch what the action would be.

So, she is saying, “These are men of God; they're preaching the way of salvation.”

She cries this for three days.

Paul is grieved in his spirit.

He turns and says to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.”

And he came out of the woman the same hour. And, that spirit was the spirit of divination we said—right? Is that right? Okay.

So, Paul casts out divination.

For years I pondered that story and thought, “What in the world?” And then I realized something about it.

Brother Cunningham had gone with Brother Cole overseas on a trip to Thailand. And when they were there, he was assigned to preach one of the services. He got done preaching. They got into the car.

So, they're driving down the road, and Brother Cunningham looks over, and he says, “Uncle Bill, I don't know what happened today.” He said, “I'm sorry, I could have done a better job.”

Yeah, you know, sometimes you don't “hit it out of the park,” and maybe you could have done better. And then, maybe you do some particular thing in the church, or you sing, or you play, or you're in the choir, and you feel like you could have done better because you didn't do your best. And you feel bad.

You say, “Man, I could have done better at that.”

“I'm really sorry Pastor for not doing it better.”

“I'm really sorry, Brother LaRue.”

Or, “Sister March, I'm really sorry.”

We think that that's okay.

So, Brother Cole looks at Brother Cunningham, and he says, “I rebuke that spirit of ego and pride!” Brother Cunningham looked back over and said, “What?” He said, “I'm just apologizing for not doing as good as I could have.”

Brother Cole says, “If you'll take credit for doing bad, you'll take credit for doing good.” He added, “You do the very best you can and you leave the rest unto God.”

It hit me… this girl is walking around trying to get Paul to take credit!

Because, the moment he says, “That's right, I am a man of God. I am preaching the way of salvation. That's right. I've been preaching from city to city.”

You know how easy that is? You know how easy it is to think, “Man, I really sounded good in the choir tonight. God really anointed me.” I know the feeling. Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about. Everybody in here knows exactly what I'm talking about.

You get to sing with your family, and you guys have great voices. And it just flows—and, you're like, “Hmmm. That was good, if I do say so myself!” And you are saying so yourself. And suddenly, do you know what you’ve just done? You've just exposed yourself.

Why? Because now you're taking the credit. And now you've stepped over from humility, and you've stepped over into pride. Know what just happened? You just got visible.

Hell was trying to use this girl to get Paul to acknowledge because, the moment he acknowledges, he becomes visible. The moment he becomes visible, he becomes a shot. Am I making sense to you right now?

What I am teaching you right now, I have learned personally over a period of time. And I'm still learning, because every now and then, the devil will just slip something by me. Then I'm like, “I can't believe I fell for that. God help me. I'm so sorry.” And I’ve got to fall on my face again, and pray before God.

And so I have to wake up every morning and say, “God, I humble myself before you, because there is no way I can get into life's process without humbling myself.” If I become visible to the enemy for one moment, how many hits am I gonna get that I'm going to have to overcome? Consider all the time it's going to take to overcome just to get back to where I was.

We can't afford to be proud and arrogant. People that do that take longer to get to where God designed them to be.

I've watched men that used up their whole lifetime, and they never got to the destiny of God because they kept recycling, recycling, recycling, recycling.

I don't want this very valuable group of people and this church to have to go through more than what’s needed. What I’m teaching right now is trying to shorten your timeline to get you there quicker.

The greatest saturation of anointing is at the feet of Jesus - in humility!

I will follow God’s will, knowing He will make a way.

Like these Book of Acts travelers, we follow the will of God in decisive moments of our calling and in our daily commitment to spiritual disciplines.

As we follow, God prepares and positions others in our path so we can reach them. We anticipate that His Spirit will empower our work and confirm our witness.

Paul and Silas Arrested

The Philippians’ Unexpected Response

So this young lady is delivered. Everyone should have been happy and thrilled! But her deliverance was a disruption and a disappointment to the Philippians.

Her masters were absolutely enraged! Why? They had just lost their source of income! Wow!

So, instead of showing appreciation, they literally drag Paul and Silas into the marketplace before the local rulers and accuse them of introducing illegal customs for the Romans.

Acts 16:22–23 NKJV

Then the multitude rose up together against them; and the magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods. And when they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to keep them securely.

Later on, in 1 Thessalonians, Paul would recall to the church at Thessalonica how they were shamefully treated in Philippi.

1 Thessalonians 2:2 NKJV

But even after we had suffered before and were spitefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we were bold in our God to speak to you the gospel of God in much conflict.

The Shatter Zone

So, there’s like this Philippian shatter zone. Opposing cultures are crashing together. And whenever Paul and Silas are ministering in that zone, conflict is just erupting!

You know, when there’s opposing ideas or traditions, any harmony that there was can quickly go out the window. Relationships start getting strained or in some cases even violent!

Whenever the gospel is pioneered in new territory, we can expect spiritual and social resistance. Paul and Silas were feeling that.

And what’s pretty rich is, they preached a message of peace but were accused of inciting an uprising. Meanwhile, their adversaries commanded a mob. The double standard is glaring.

Although Paul and Silas were Roman citizens, they were rashly punished without a fair trial. From their prison perspective, it would have been easy to be discouraged by the injustice of it all and the apparent failure of their mission. God led them to Macedonia, so why were they in prison?

But we learn from these two that when we carry the revolutionary message of Jesus into new and difficult environments, trouble is not necessarily a sign of failure.

Paul and Silas’s Unexpected Response

So now, they’re in jail.

You can do everything right and sometimes still end up in a frustrating place.

I regret to inform you that walking with God is not a call to a bed of roses or endless days of no struggle. Not TRUE walking with God, anyhow.

Acts 16:25–26 NKJV

But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. 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 chains were loosed.

Around midnight, in a dark prison in an unfamiliar city, Paul and Silas did not sink into despair.

Paul looked over to Silas, nodded, and Silas knew what to do. He hummed in the key of E flat, and Paul and Silas began singing.

The prison guards had heard a lot of prisoners cursing and some even praying, but singing was a first.

Stocks on their feet couldn't put a lock on their faith!

I want to tell you something: you can’t control everything that happens to you - but you can control how you respond to it!

THE NEXT MOVE IS YOURS! And if you make the right move, the glory of God is going to enter in to your jail cell!!!

The world can chain your body but it can't chain your worship! You alone hold the keys to your bound up worship!!!

The other prisoners listened and God responded. A great earthquake shook the city of Philippi, especially the prison, creating a literal shatter zone as foundations shook, doors opened, and chains were loosed.

The guard that night wakes up to all of this, and he cannot believe what he’s seeing! All the doors were open, all the chains were off, and in his mind, all the prisoners have escaped under my watch!

He knew what his fate was going to be for all this, and so he decided to skip to the end. He draws out his sword to kill himself.

Acts 16:28–30 NKJV

But Paul called with a loud voice, saying, “Do yourself no harm, for we are all here.” Then he called for a light, ran in, and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. And he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

The jailor took them to his home and Paul preached to him and his household. The same hour, the jailor and his household were baptized, the jailor washed his former prisoners’ wounds, and he fed Paul and Silas.

God freed the missionaries from their natural bondage and the jailor and his household from their spiritual bondage. An unimaginable story - and it all started with a song in prison.

BUT IF SOMEONE DOESN’T SING THE SONG, THERE WILL BE NO STORY!

I will praise God even when my situation seems bleak.

I need somebody who’ll say, “I’M GONNA PRAISE GOD - IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT COMES MY WAY OR HOW HARD OF A WEEK IT’S BEEN!”

“MY WORSHIP MAY HAVE LACKED FOR A MINUTE, BUT I HAVE DECIDED IN MY HEART THAT I’M CHANGING THAT!”

“I’M GOING TO FULFILL PROPHECY WHERE IT SAYS, ‘HE’S GOING TO BRUISE YOUR HEEL, BUT YOU SHALL… CRUSH HIS HEAD!’” (STOMP)

The Letter to the Philippians

Paul in Prison Again

That wasn’t the last prison Paul would see the inside of.

Years later Paul wrote a letter to the Philippian church, encouraging them amid their persecution and the news of him being thrown in prison for preaching. The saints at Philippi were familiar with resistance to the Message, as persecution was very much a part of the church’s founding days.

Even though Paul was writing under such dark days, the letter to the Philippians bears a hopeful tone. Imprisonment, which appeared to be a setback, had actually resulted in “the furtherance of the gospel” (Philippians 1:12)

Philippians 1:12 NKJV

But I want you to know, brethren, that the things which happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel,

Somebody claim that scripture!

Everybody for miles upon miles were aware of Paul’s trial, and other Christians were becoming even bolder to preach because of this unwavering faith he had.

And here’s the point of it: Paul didn’t promote a message of false positivity that ignored suffering; instead, Paul accepted his suffering as an opportunity to imitate and point people to Jesus.

And so, Paul is facing two possibilities:

release from prison, or

a martyr’s death

And Paul talked about the benefit of either one of these:

If he is released, he would return to a church that is overjoyed.

If he dies, he’ll have the joy of being with Jesus in the resurrection.

It’s win-win! No matter what, Jesus is going to be glorified through him!

A Message Worth Repeating

And I want to point out something: even in this tough situation, Paul’s repeatedly mentions rejoicing.

Philippians 1:4–5 NKJV

always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now,

Philippians 1:18 NKJV

What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached; and in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice.

Philippians 2:2 NKJV

fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.

Philippians 2:16 NKJV

holding fast the word of life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or labored in vain.

Philippians 4:1 NKJV

Therefore, my beloved and longed-for brethren, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, beloved.

And how about this, in the final words of the book (from the prison cell):

Philippians 4:4 NKJV

Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!

Even from another prison cell, Paul’s call to joy was persistent, repetitive, and not dependent on all his prayers being answered.

Like the steady rhythm of a song, joy continued to set the pace for the Philippians’ faith and witness in their city.

I will embrace the Spirit’s beckoning to joy.

We often need repeated reminders to rejoice.

Joy is often thought of as a mental and emotional state, but rejoicing is an active choice. No matter how we feel, we can choose joy by expressing our gratitude to the Lord and focusing on praiseworthy things.

As we make the choice to rejoice, the Holy Spirit transforms our hearts, producing the sweet fruit of joy. Biblical joy is not a shallow optimism that comes from our understanding or pleasant situations. We rejoice not in ourselves but in the Lord.

As people of God, we celebrate the story of salvation and communion with our Savior. Like Paul and the church at Philippi, we can also rejoice in the body of Christ. Appreciating the church community, working toward unity, and celebrating those who serve and sacrifice give us bountiful reasons to rejoice.

Conclusion

Internalizing the Message

In 2014 a nine-year-old boy named Willie Myrick was kidnapped from his driveway in Atlanta, Georgia. Willie was terrified, but he remembered a song from church. For three hours the kidnapper drove him around the city while Willie sang a gospel favorite, “Every Praise.”

The kidnapper cursed at Willie and told him to “shut up,” growing progressively more annoyed. In an amusing under- statement to reporters, Willie acknowl- edged, “He was probably irritated of me singing.” Seemingly unafraid even as a kidnapped nine-year-old in the backseat, Willie repeatedly sang the hook: “God my deliverer, yes He is.”

Finally, unable to endure any more of the private gospel concert, the kidnapper shoved Willie out the door and told him not to tell anyone what had happened. Willie was rescued and his story naturally went viral, reach-ing numerous news outlets and even leading to a meeting between Willie and the gospel artist who sang “Every Praise,” Hezekiah Walker (fox4kc.com, “Boy sings gospel song until kidnapper can’t stand it anymore, tells him to get out of car”).

Rejoicing is something we all can do, whether we are young or old, musically apt or tone-deaf. Our song may be simple, but the message is profound; every praise belongs to God, and we offer it to Him in every situation.

Like Willie, our choice to rejoice can increase our faith even when we are afraid. Our rejoicing frustrates our enemy and encourages everyone who hears. It’s like a blitz on the devil! It’s jamming all his systems!

Ultimately, our rejoicing results in deliverance, for us or through us.

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