Midnight Deliverance

Acts 16:16–34 CEB

16 One day, when we were on the way to the place for prayer, we met a slave woman. She had a spirit that enabled her to predict the future. She made a lot of money for her owners through fortune-telling. 17 She began following Paul and us, shouting, “These people are servants of the Most High God! They are proclaiming a way of salvation to you!” 18 She did this for many days. This annoyed Paul so much that he finally turned and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to leave her!” It left her at that very moment. 19 Her owners realized that their hope for making money was gone. They grabbed Paul and Silas and dragged them before the officials in the city center. 20 When her owners approached the legal authorities, they said, “These people are causing an uproar in our city. They are Jews 21 who promote customs that we Romans can’t accept or practice.” 22 The crowd joined in the attacks against Paul and Silas, so the authorities ordered that they be stripped of their clothes and beaten with a rod. 23 When Paul and Silas had been severely beaten, the authorities threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to secure them with great care. 24 When he received these instructions, he threw them into the innermost cell and secured their feet in stocks. 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.

Midnight Deliverance

One of my favorite cartoons is the Dennis the Menace cartoon. It doesn’t matter if it’s the one printed in the newspaper or the old TV show or even the remake movie. I enjoy Dennis. I think that he is one of those kids you either love or hate. I don’t think there is any middle ground with him.

Dennis had a bad habit of always getting into some kind of trouble and it usually involved his neighbor. The neighbors were the Wilson’s. Dennis looked at Mr. Wilson as his best friend although he drove him to distraction with the trouble that he got into. Mrs. Wilson tried to keep the peace between her husband and Dennis. At times I think particularly in the TV show that Mr. Wilson wished that Dennis and his family would move someplace far away from him but I also think that he loved Dennis like a grandchild.

Did you ever have a kid of your own or a neighbor kid who drove you nuts? One of those kids that was always getting into mischief or constantly talking? Over the years I’ve run across several kids like that, I think they were my punishment for what I was like as a kid.

I wasn’t like Dennis, always getting into trouble. I could as my grandmother called it, get into mischief but I never really got into trouble or at least I didn’t get caught. I was one of those kids who was curious about how things worked and why we did things the way we did them. Basically if I was awake I was always asking questions and exploring. I absolutely drove my family nuts with my constant questioning.

My favorite question was “why”? If my dad was working on something, I was right behind him asking about what he was doing, why he was doing it, how it worked and on and on it went. My dad wasn’t a very patient man and he only tolerated that for a little while and he’d chase me away. He pretty much refused to do any projects around the house if I was there. It wasn’t until I was an older teenager that he would let me help with any projects. I don’t know why!

My older brothers and sisters were fair game and they did their best to avoid me. My one brother who is closest in age to me got even with me one time. I guess I had been annoying him to much so he plotted on how to get even. It really wasn’t my fault, he’d never go or do anything by himself, he always had to drag me along.

One day we were in the basement and him being bigger he managed to get me tied to one of the floor jacks and then he proceeded to tape me to that pole with 4 inch wide masking tape, pretty much from head to toe. Our mom wasn’t home, it was just the two of us.

He taped me really good because I couldn’t move and then he left me there and went outside. Fortunately he didn’t tape my mouth because when I heard my mom come in the house I started yelling for her to help me. She made my brother come in and let me loose. I don’t remember if he got in trouble or not, but I learned an important lesson about not being alone with him again! I’m just glad it wasn’t duct tape that he used!

Paul and Silas in our scripture text ran into one of those people that never quit talking. They were in Philippi starting a new church. The scripture says beginning in verse 16

Acts 16:16–17 CEB

16 One day, when we were on the way to the place for prayer, we met a slave woman. She had a spirit that enabled her to predict the future. She made a lot of money for her owners through fortune-telling. 17 She began following Paul and us, shouting, “These people are servants of the Most High God! They are proclaiming a way of salvation to you!”

On their way to a prayer meeting the come across a slave who was possessed by a spirit that gave her a supernatural ability to predict the future. We don’t know how accurate her predictions were but she must have been pretty good because the scriptures tell us that she earned a great deal of money for her owners.

This spirit that she had was a demon, a fallen angel. Based on Paul’s response to it we conclude that she was demon possessed. We don’t like to talk about demon possession today. Many Godly Christians dismiss the idea that a person can be possessed by a demon, but it can and does happen, even today.

This slave girl was possessed with the spirit of Python. Pytho was according to Greek mythology a huge serpent that had a messenger on Mount Parnassus. Pytho was famous for predicting the future. Apollo killed the serpant. He was referred to as Pythius. He “became celebrated as the foreteller of future events; and all those, who either could or pretended to predict future events, were influenced by the spirit of Apollo Pythius.” (1)

It amazes me when Christians get caught up in fortune telling or attempting to contact a deceased family member or friend through a medium, practices that are specifically condemned by God in the Bible. There are popular TV shows with purported mediums who claim that they can speak to the dead. If that person is real in what they are doing they aren’t doing that by their own special talent and they aren’t in contact with the dead person, they are however in contact with a demonic influence.

A word of warning is that when we dabble in things like this that expose ourselves to evil powers then we run the risk of opening our lives to the presence of a demon in our own lives. Don’t even dabble in it. In Leviticus 19:31 we read:

Leviticus 19:31 CEB

31 Do not resort to dead spirits or inquire of spirits of divination—you will be made unclean by them; I am the Lord your God.

This slave woman kept this up for many days, following Paul and Silas around and shouting:

Acts 16:17 CEB

17 She began following Paul and us, shouting, “These people are servants of the Most High God! They are proclaiming a way of salvation to you!”

She was speaking the truth. Even Satan recognizes who God is. The issue here is that there was not a large presence of Jews in this city. The people wouldn’t automatically assume that she was talking about Jehovah. The term would have been very misleading because there were a lot of “high gods” in the Greek culture

For Paul after several days of this he got annoyed at her. He was annoyed because she was not saying that they were proclaiming the way of salvation. She was saying that they were proclaiming one way of salvation. One way out of many ways.

In an Oct 18, 2006 radio interview Bishop Jefferts Schori, the former leader of the Episcopal Church stated, “Christians understand that Jesus is the route to God. That is not to say that Muslims, or Sikhs, or Jains, come to God in a radically different way. They come to God through human experience – through human experience of the divine.”

“We who practice the Christian tradition understand him as our vehicle to the divine,” the presiding bishop told Time magazine in its July 10, 2006 issue. “But for us to assume that God could not act in other ways is, I think, to put God in an awfully small box.” (2)

That god she was speaking about is not the God of the Bible. I will leave it at that.

This slave girl was like that little kid always asking why. Paul had one nerve left and she was plucking it. Paul finally became so annoyed that Luke records:

Acts 16:18 CEB

18 She did this for many days. This annoyed Paul so much that he finally turned and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to leave her!” It left her at that very moment.

Paul had enough and he turned to her and commanded in the name of Jesus that the spirit come out of her and it did. It’s important to note that Paul was only able to command that spirit by the name of Jesus; it wasn’t through his own authority, but by the authority of the name of Jesus.

Something that is overlooked in this encounter is that for probably the first time in this young woman’s life she is free. Oh, she’s still a slave, but she’s been set free from the demonic influence in her life. The God who set her free that day is the very same God that can set people free today.

Of course when you start messing with peoples livelihood you get yourself in trouble. The owners of this slave realized that they were no longer going to be making money from her. What do you do when someone takes your moneymaking scheme away from you? You make up some charges against the person and take then to court and that is just exactly what the slave owners did.

Luke records that

Acts 16:19–21 CEB

19 Her owners realized that their hope for making money was gone. They grabbed Paul and Silas and dragged them before the officials in the city center. 20 When her owners approached the legal authorities, they said, “These people are causing an uproar in our city. They are Jews 21 who promote customs that we Romans can’t accept or practice.”

They weren’t concerned about her, they were only concerned about the bottom line. How easy is it for us today to turn a blind eye to a person who is trapped in sin. We know the one who can set them free and yet sometimes it is so easy to avoid them because their lives are too messy.

Life is messy. Think of the prostitute who came to Jesus and washed his feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. That was messy, but Jesus wasn’t repulsed by her. The thing about Jesus is that he never left people were they were. He always challenged them to go and sin no more. That should encourage us as we encounter people caught up in messy lives.

The slave owners drug Paul and Silas to the public square, before the authorities, before the magistrates. Notice that they didn’t accuse them of taking their cash cow away from them. No, they trumped up some charges against them and said that they were throwing the entire city into an uproar because they were advocating customs unlawful for Romans to accept or practice.

They weren’t bringing the city into turmoil, that was a lie on the part of those slave owners. Paul and Silas were presumable preaching the gospel. At this point in history, Christianity was looked on as just a sect of the Jews. The only one actively persecuting the Christians at this time was the Jews. These slave owners brought these false charges because they were losing out on making money.

Luke writes:

Acts 16:22–24 CEB

22 The crowd joined in the attacks against Paul and Silas, so the authorities ordered that they be stripped of their clothes and beaten with a rod. 23 When Paul and Silas had been severely beaten, the authorities threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to secure them with great care. 24 When he received these instructions, he threw them into the innermost cell and secured their feet in stocks.

They were stripped down and beaten or flogged with rods. Just picture that for a moment, standing nearly naked in the town square and being beaten with rods. For the Jews a person could only be struck 40 times. Luke says they were severely flogged. You’ve heard the phrase “beaten to within an inch of your life”? That phrase probably applied to Paul and Silas, it describes how severely they were beaten. They were beaten so badly that they were near death, it was bad.

Following the beating there were drug off to prison and locked up. I don’t think there was much of a chance of them even wanting to escape because of the beating they had taken, but they were placed in the inner cell of the prison and then they had their feet placed in stocks. They weren’t going anywhere.

What did Paul and Silas do? Did they sit there in their prison cell and mope and complain about what had happened to them?

They knew that they were where God wanted them to be, they knew that they were being obedient to God. They didn’t sit there and second guess God, they didn’t sit and complain about what happened to them. No, Luke records that they spent their time praying and singing hymns. Notice that it was about midnight. I would think that after the severe beating that they took they were looking for some Tylenol and a comfortable bed to sleep in. Not for Paul and Silas, at midnight they are praying and singing hymns to God and they had a captive audience, the other prisoners were listening to them.

What is your first response when you’re going through a hard time? What do you do if someone wrongly accuses you? Do you sit around and complain and moan about what you’re going through? Or, do you follow Paul and Silas’ example and go to the Father in prayer and praise?

That must have been quite the prayer meeting in that prison that night. I don’t think it was any ordinary prayer meeting either. There was power in their praying that night because Luke says that there was a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. It shook the prison doors open and even the chains that that bound the prisoners where shook free.

That was not an ordinary earthquake, it was a supernatural earthquake, it was a God event.

God didn’t sneak into the prison and secretly set Paul and Silas free, he came storming into that place and shook it until they were free. Folks, God can handle those big problems you face today. Do you have a big problem today? Do you have a big need? Take it to God and let Him take care of it. Remember what the Apostle John wrote in his first letter:

1 John 4:4 “4 You are from God, little children, and you have defeated these people because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”

Don’t give in to despair over your situation, take it to the Father who and shake open prison doors and shake loose chains that bind.

Imagine the jailer, the building around him is shaking and he hears doors opening and he thinks the worse. He thinks all the prisoners have escaped. He knows that he is in deep deep trouble. He’s responsible for all those prisoners and he thinks the worse and he pulls his sword and is prepared to commit suicide because he just knows that his life is over with.

But Luke writes, But Paul shouted out to the jailer and tells him to not harm himself because all the prisoners are still in their jail cells. I think the jailer can hardly believe it so he calls for lights to be brought in and Luke records that he rush into the very interior of the jail where Paul and Silas are at and falls down before them in disbelief. His job was safe, he hadn’t lost any prisoners, and there was a huge wave of relief that flowed over him.

That jailer brought Paul and Silas out of their cell and he asked them “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” He had fallen asleep hearing them praying. He fell asleep that night hearing them sing hymns to God. Perhaps for the first time he heard about God through their prayers and their singing and the Holy Spirit began speaking to him.

When he was awaken from his sleep by the earthquake and after he found that his prisoners were still there he knew that God was there and all he didn’t understand it all he asked them what he needed to do to be saved.

Sometimes God comes to us through a still small voice drawing us to Himself. Sometimes He comes through the storms and the trials of life to draw us to Himself. Sometimes He literally has to shake us to get our attention.

God certainly to the jailer’s attention and the first question out of his mouth was “what must I do to be saved.” The answer that Paul and Silas gave to him is the same answer that each of us must do in order to respond to God. They told him “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved – you and your household.”

It begins with belief, with faith. God has done everything necessary for salvation by what Jesus did for you and I when he died on that cross and was resurrected. It’s all be done, God asks us to believe that and by faith receive the salvation that he has provided for us. We don’t have to try to earn it, we don’t have to work for it because the truth is we can’t earn it, we can’t work for it. God has already accomplished it through Jesus, we just simply receive it by faith.

Notice how they told him “you will be saved – you and your household.” What they are saying is that it is the same for everyone. You can be saved by believing in Jesus, everyone who believes through faith in Jesus will be saved, it wasn’t just for the jailer, but it was for his entire household. Apparently everyone in his household were saved that night because Luke tells us that “he and all his household were baptized” that night. From the youngest to the oldest, every one of them were saved and were baptized.

Set Free

Just like that slave girl who was set free from the spirit who controlled her, Jesus can set you free. Are you bound up in sin? Are you bound up in an addiction? Jesus has come and he wants to set you free.

Have you been set free? Have you been set free from the power of sin by the Power of the Holy Spirit? Can you say that this morning? I am redeemed? Have you been redeemed? Have you been set free from sin in your life? Are you not the person that you used to be? You can be, it’s as simple as believing in Jesus, putting your faith in Him.

(1) Clarke, A. (2014). The Holy Bible with a Commentary and Critical Notes (New Edition, Vol. 5, pp. 815–816). Faithlife Corporation.

(2) Presiding Bishop … ‘Jesus is not the only way to God’: CEN 4.17.09 p 7 | Conger (wordpress.com)