“What must I do to be saved?” Acts 16:22-40
If you remember, last time we saw the slave girl, who had supernatural powers that were not from God. Paul and Silas delivered her from demonic possession and because her masters were making a lot of money off of her, they got mad and brought up some false charges against Paul and Silas. Paul and Silas were imprisoned for preaching the gospel but their arrest resulted in one of the greatest conversions recorded in the Bible. I want to examine three things this morning.
1. The Persecution
How many here were hoping that when you got saved, it would be an end to all your problems…?!
Have you learned, since then, that Jesus didn’t come to save us from circumstances but to save us from our sins? He lives to go through the troubles of this life with us!
Paul tells young Timothy in [2Ti 3:12 NKJV] “Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.”
What we find, here in chapter 16, is that Paul and Silas’ are in trouble, not because they’re out of God’s will…but because they’re IN God’s will!
They’re not in trouble for doing the wrong thing, but the RIGHT thing!
3 things that happened to Paul and Silas, for being IN God’s will:
1. They were severely beaten. Look at verse 23.
Now when we read this in the KJV or NKJV it’s easy for us to read over verse 23 without giving much thought to what we read.
But what does this really mean?
This is much worse than any whipping my parents EVER gave me.
Each Roman province had a group of men called the “lictors.” SHOW SLIDE.
They were brutal men, the strong arm of the Roman gov’t, and each carried a bundle of rods, strapped together and usually with their axe in the bunch.
These men loved their jobs and if a magistrate commanded a lictor to beat someone, he’d beat them half to death. And this is what happened to Paul and Silas. After the severe beating of Paul and Silas were…
2. Thrown into prison. Verses 23-24
I want you to wipe every image you have of today’s prisons from your mind because this prison was nothing like the Motels we call prison today.
The prisons of Paul’s day were more like dungeons than individual cells. Paul and Silas were thrown into the “inner” prison, which simply means they were put in the deepest, darkest part of that hole in the ground. It was damp and cold, and history says this kind of prison would be rat infested.
Imagine trying to lie down or relax with rats crawling all over or chewing on you. This is a far cry from the cable TV, college degree rehab farms we call prison today. This place, because of the rat infestation would have had lice, and fleas.
**Oh by the way, there were no facilities in these prisons, so if you had to go you just go and there would be little if any ventilation. So you can just image the smells. It would have been crowded, and the sounds of moaning as well as the smell of death would fill the air.
This is where Paul and Silas were put for preaching the Word of God.
Would you have given up by this point?
C. Put them in stocks verse 24.
I used the word shackles last week but these were not simple handcuffs and leg shackles. These stocks were intended for the sole purpose of inflicting as much pain as possible. They would spread the prisoner’s legs until the hips were almost out of joint locking their legs in that position. Eventually this would cause severe leg cramps. Have you been lying in bed and had one of those leg cramps that make you yell in pain? I’ve had them so bad that Suzanne had to get up and put hot washcloths on my thigh before I could get up and walk it off.
Prisoners in Roman stocks couldn’t jump up and walk off the cramps! They had no one to wrap their legs with hot towels. They could only suffer through the pain.
So, this is where we find Paul and Silas. Their backs are raw, bloodied, bruised and they’re undergoing painful punishment in this Roman prison.
All this for preaching the Word of God!
Let me ask you something. When was the last time that you/I actually suffered for our faith? What have you/I endured for the cause of Christ?
This story ought to challenge each of us to quit “playing church” and get our eyes on the goal!
Someone said the level of your character is measured by what it takes to get you to quit. And it’s amazing how little it takes for some American Christians to get upset and quit on the cause of Christ.
Someone calls you a “Holy roller” and you hide under your bed. “Oh I can’t take the persecution… they called me names… they won’t have anything to do with me.” All I have to say is “Baby, you ain’t seen nothing yet!”
Notice the next thing we see in our passage.
2. The Praise: Look at verse 25.
What would the ordinary Christian be doing right now?
Think about it. You are, bleeding, in severe pain deep in that prison in stocks for serving God. What would you be doing? Would you be complaining?
The truth is, most American Christians would be complaining to God… “Lord, can’t You take better care of Your servants than this? Why did You let us go to jail, in the first place, for doing right?”
We would be complaining to each other… Silas might be saying “Well Paul, just look at the mess you got us into this time! You and your big mouth! I thought you knew the will of God! ‘We have heard the Macedonian call today.’ Well you need to get your ears checked because we’re in jail dude!’”
Paul might say, “Oh be quiet. If you hadn’t got those slave masters all riled up we wouldn’t be here! Besides, if you think you can do better, get to it big boy!”
But that’s not what was happening here. They’re not complaining, they’re singing and praising God!
Elvis Pressley may get the credit for singing the “Jailhouse Rock” BUT Paul and Silas were the first to make the jailhouse rock.
Look at the first three words in verse 25 “and at midnight…”
This doesn’t mean 12oclock but it symbolizes the darkest part of the night.
That time when the situation is the loneliest, and the darkest!
Have you ever been to the midnight hour in your life? At the end of your rope?
I’ve walked with some of you at the midnight hour of death or illness and tragedy. Do you have a song in that hour?
I’ve been on both sides of that same street and what I’ve found is that it’s easy to sing when the sun is shining or when you’re on the mountaintop that Matt mentioned last week.
But what about when you find yourself in the midnight hour, of pain or sickness or even death? It’s during the darkest hour of our lives when our faith becomes real!
[Job 35:10 NKJV] “… 'Where [is] God my Maker, Who gives songs in the night,”
[Psa 42:8 NKJV] “The LORD will command His lovingkindness in the daytime, And in the night His song [shall be] with me…” Paul/Silas held to that promise!
There is no better testimony for the child of God than to have a song at midnight in our lives, so that those without Christ will know where our strength comes from!
Look at verse 25b. The KJV says “and the prisoners heard them”
The word “heard” literally means the prisoners listened, they heard every word and it made a difference in their lives!
Think about it. These prisoners were possibly cursing God and each other and suddenly they hear this singing. Each prisoner is in his own midnight hour, when the singing starts.
Spurgeon said, “any fool can sing in the day, it’s easy to sing when we can read the notes by daylight…but the skillful singer can sing with never a ray of light to read by…songs in the night come only from God, not in the power of men.”
One preacher tells the story of losing his father, and all the pain he went thru with that loss, but at the cemetery he saw the recent grave of a child…and he realized that would be one of the greatest pains any person could ever bear. He told how his heart broke as he read the inscription toward the bottom of the stone which said, “oh God, how can we give up our little angel…” He said the despair in that statement pulled at his heart, and made him realize his pain could be much worse, and he thought of how he would like to talk to those parents and share with them about the wonderful grace of God to help them. He said the tears flowed down his cheeks, and he began to weep uncontrollably, and he actually fell on his face at that grave.
That’s when he saw it. There was some tall grass around the bottom of the headstone, which his hands were now holding down, revealing one more line in the inscription: the full inscription read, “oh God, how can we give up our little angel…to anyone but Thee!”
When you put God in your midnight, you can know that:
• He is a good God who makes no mistakes.
• All things WILL work together for good to them that love God and are called according to His purpose.
• His grace will ALWAYS be sufficient, and if we look for it, He WILL give us a song in the night!
That’s the persecution and the praise. Now let’s look at…
3. The Power verse 26.
Notice that ALL the chains were unlocked, not just those holding Paul and Silas.
God set every captive free and the prisoners knew it and the jailer saw it and that cold and hardened heart of a Roman soldier began to crack.
Our passage tells us that he fell to his knees and asked the most important question any person could ever ask. The 7 most important words in any human language are “What must I do to be saved?”
And in verse 31, we see the answer is simple. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved,” Salvation didn’t come because he prayed some prayer… Salvation happened because the jailer truly believed, in his heart.
The fact that the jailer asked how to be saved tells me that Paul has already been witnessing to him. I can tell you that he didn’t stop preaching because he was arrested, and I can imagine that Paul told about the blood that Jesus shed, as his own blood dripped from his wounds. I believe that he told them of the beating Jesus received, for our sakes, as he received his. Maybe, as they were locking his and that prison door, Paul shared how, through the sacrifice of Jesus, the gates of hell were unlocked and those held captive by sin could now be set free.
And suddenly God broke the hardened heart of this Roman Jailer.
At this point the jailer, like many of us just hit bottom and there was no way to look but up. He knew that he’d be executed, if any of the prisoners had escaped.
Can you imagine how he must have felt when he realized that everything happening was done by the hand of God just so that he could be saved…!
The jailer got saved then he was baptized. His life immediately began to change, as he tried to make amends for his sinful life. As a matter of fact, he was so excited about the change in his life that he told his entire household, and they got saved!
He may have been the very man who put those stripes on the backs of Paul and Silas but now he is washing them.
Before he didn’t care if Paul and Silas starved but now he is feeding them.
Remember that I have told you over and over that when you really get saved real change takes place in your life!
I read about a soldier on a battlefield, who lay dying. His chaplain knelt beside him, told him he wouldn’t make it, asked if he could do anything for him. This young man had led a wicked life and had hurt a lot of people deeply. He looked at the chaplain and said, “sir, there’s nothing anybody can do for me right now, what I need is somebody who can “undo” some things for me…”
Is that what you need today? Do you need someone who can undo some of the things you’ve done? If so I want you to that there is someone who can undo that life spent in sin. There is someone who can undo the wrong in your life. His Name is Jesus. He is your answer!
Many stumble over salvation, not because it’s difficult, but because it’s so easy. Many can’t figure out why it doesn’t seem to work.
They say “I repeated the words the pastor told me to say but nothing changed.” My question would be; “did you truly believe in your heart?” It’s not about what you say but what you believe.
See Jesus did the hard part, at Calvary. All you have to do is believe and accept His gift.
