Acts 16:16-34
“Jailhouse Rock”
Contrary to the opinion of some, Christians are not immune from pain and disappointment.
The idea of a cotton-candy theology that promises all health and wealth and no turmoil or tribulation melts away with every tragedy that reeks havoc in our lives.
The reality of this sobering truth hit home in a cartoon that was published in The Atlanta Constitution after a man named Mark Barton walked into an Atlanta Business office and shot and killed several people.
In the cartoon, a small boy is sitting next to his mother, and a newspaper is lying on the table.
The headline reads: “Atlanta Murderer: Mark Burton.”
Confused, the boy is looking up at his mother saying, “You said monsters don’t exist.”
Sadly, some of us are like that little boy in the cartoon.
When the monsters of life appear and start to pounce on us, we don’t understand why.
The evil and the pain we experience confuses our distorted view of Christianity.
Eventually, we might blame our suffering on lack of faith.
Some may even give up all together on God.
And as a result they become spiritually bankrupt and are left with no inner resources with which to battle the trials of life.
The Bible does not teach that Christians will escape the tragedies and turmoil of life.
In fact, Scripture teaches that opposition is inevitable.
For example, in our Scripture Lesson for this morning, we read that before Paul and Silas were thrown into jail, they were stripped and beaten.
Sounds awful, doesn’t it?
Yet when we read the New Testament, we notice that this kind of treatment was routine.
Paul talks about this in 2 Corinthians 6 when he gives a litany of the trials and tribulations he and other Christians had to endure: “Afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, and hunger.”
If Paul were walking on earth in the 21st Century he would be nauseated by those who tout a prosperity Gospel.
Paul knew he would face opposition.
And it’s important to remember that he didn’t cower from this fact.
His resolve remained strong…
…again in 2 Corinthians 6 Paul refers to his situation as a follower of Christ:
“We are treated as imposters, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see—we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.”
For Paul, it was unimportant how badly Christians were treated, because he believed that we are empowered by a towering faith that enables us to endure and rise victoriously above any opposition.
Do we agree with Paul in this?
Can we relate?
Or does our faith begin to melt away as soon as the first person even looks at us the wrong way?
In the beautiful mountains of North Carolina, there are lots of stories about the Native Americans.
One is about the ritual of initiation for Cherokee boys entering manhood.
Near age eleven, the young boy travels deep into the Pisgah forest, armed with only a bow and arrow.
This ritual is supposed to prove his bravery, yet the entire night he is terrified.
Every hoot of an owl sounds like a menacing monster.
Every cracking twig sounds like a bear or a bobcat.
Every rush of wind sounds like whispers of the demonic.
But when morning finally comes, the young brave sees another Cherokee hiding behind a tree.
It’s his father, who has been lovingly watching all night long, making certain that his child did not have to face the darkness alone.
And we do not have to face the darkness of this world alone either.
As he sat in that dark cell with Silas, Paul must have been comforted by the promise that he himself wrote about in his letter to his friends in Rome: “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Let’s us remember that promise whenever we are facing the dark—and feel that we are facing it alone!
If we are believers, then we have the Holy Spirit living inside us at all times—and there is nothing more powerful.
Paul knew that he had the Holy Spirit living inside him.
As he faced the dark hours of persecution, he was certain that God was with him, giving him the courage to face the ugliest of terrors.
And he had confidence that the same power that was with him in the darkness would lead him into the light.
Paul was absolutely convinced that with God there was nothing strong enough, evil enough, or powerful enough that could defeat him—not even death!
Are we convinced of this as well?
So, as we can see in verse 25 of our Scripture Lesson at “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.”
What a witness to the power of Christ in a person’s life!!!
John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Movement spent just two dismal years in the American colonies.
When he got aboard an ocean-going ship in 1735, bound for Georgia, John Wesley was already a very ‘religious’ man.
The son of an Anglican minister, Wesley studied at Oxford, where he co-founded The Holy Club, a group of students who aimed to be methodical about their personal holiness.
But despite his striving for righteousness, John Wesley was missing something.
Before his American voyage, he wrote: “My chief motive is the hope of saving my own soul. I hope to learn the true sense of the Gospel of Christ by preaching it to the heathen.”
So, he set out for Georgia on a ship carrying 80 colonists and 26 Moravian Christians.
Wesley got to know these Moravian Christians and was intrigued by their radiant joy and deep devotion.
Then one night just as the Moravian Christians were beginning their evening Psalm-singing the wind-swept sea lashed at the ship, ripping the mainsail and pouring through the decks.
The English passengers were screaming, but the Moravian Christians kept singing.
“Weren’t you afraid?” he asked one of the Moravians after the storm was over.
“Weren’t your women and children afraid?”
The Moravian gently responded, “No. Our women and children are not afraid to die.”
John Wesley was not only an Anglican minister, but a missionary, traveling across an ocean to spread the Christian faith, but what was this Christian faith he was spreading?
Was it merely a matter of seeking righteousness?
Or was there more?
What was it that gave those Moravians such confidence in the face of death?
How could they sing joyfully while others were shrinking with fear?
Whatever they had, John Wesley feared he didn’t have it.
Three years later Wesley writes in his journal: “In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans.
About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed.
I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”
Have our hearts been strangely warmed?
Can we sing, even as the storms of life rage and roar?
Have we received God’s gift of Light which pierces our darkness and causes us to bloom?
Have you ever seen violets cracking rocks?
It’s inspiring.
You hike up a mountain or walk down a sidewalk and find a huge rock with beautiful violets growing right through it!
Incredible!
Tiny, yet determined, violets with so much desire for sunlight that they literally crack the rock so they can bask in the sunlight and finally bloom victoriously.
Paul and Silas were given that same kind of strength to break out of jail.
The hymns of faith and praise that they sang penetrated the walls of their cell.
Even other prisoners heard the healing notes that were exploding with the power of the Gospel.
No cold, hard, rock-like prison could squelch the joyful notes of two men who were confident that they were in the hands of the Almighty God.
Their songs of faith burst forth in glory, and the foundation of the prison shook.
As Christians, we are like the violets that have the power to crack the rocks of opposition, the rocks of suffering, of tragedy, of sin, death and hell.
And that power is the Spirit of Almighty God revealed in Jesus Christ!
The biblical scholar William Barclay wrote: “Endurance is not just bearing rough times, but turning rough times into glory!”
Wendell Wilkie was right when he said, “What a person needs to get ahead is a powerful enemy.”
The Chinese language has a similar principle.
The word “crisis” in Chinese has two characters: one represents “danger” and the other “opportunity.”
When we are faced with opposition, the same truth applies.
God can take the worst evil and transform it into an opportunity for victorious change!
Jesus’ work on the Cross is the ultimate example of opposition being transformed into opportunity.
Before Jesus, the Cross represented suffering, shame, punishment, and death.
But He came and transformed it into the symbol of forgiveness, victory, love, and life!
So whenever we gaze at the Cross, we are reinforced by the reality that God in Christ takes what is ugly and makes it beautiful.
The great preacher Harry Emerson Fosdick once told a true story about the transforming love of Jesus Christ.
A young woman lived in war-torn Armenia in the early 1900s.
A Turkish soldier chased her and her brother down a dead-end alley.
The soldier killed her brother, but she escaped.
Later she was captured and put to work in a military hospital.
One day the man who had murdered her brother was a patient in the hospital and was assigned to her ward.
When she recognized him, she was horrified.
But he had been critically wounded and she knew that the slightest neglect would cause his death.
Suddenly, a very different battle waged within her.
One side of her wanted vengeance.
She thought, “Here’s my chance. No one will ever know.”
But Christ’s Spirit reigned victorious inside her.
She nursed him back to health and prayed for him daily.
When the soldier finally recovered, he asked the nurse in amazement, “Why? You recognized me. Why did you care for me so faithfully?”
She replied, “Because I serve Him Who said, ‘Love your enemies and do them good.’
That is my faith.”
The soldier was silent as he reflected on such foreign words.
Then he replied, “Tell me more of your religion. Tell me more of your Lord. I would give anything to have a faith like yours!”
Isn’t that what happened in that infamous jail so many years ago?
Paul and Silas were faced with opposition and, yet, with God’s help they were able to seize an opportunity.
They transformed their cell into a sanctuary, and their jailer came to Christ and was saved.
They didn’t fight evil with evil but overcame evil with good.
Paul and Silas had a choice, and we have a choice as well.
We can stay locked up in our own prison, or we can seize the opportunity that God creates out of opposition for those who love Him!
Let us pray: Almighty God, we pray that You will help each of us to look opposition in the face and say unwaveringly, “I can do all things through Christ Jesus Who strengthens me.” Help us to see opposition as an opportunity to trust in You, witness for You, and grow in our commitment to You. In Christ’s name and for His sake we pray. Amen.
