Singing At Midnight Series

Singing At Midnight

Acts 16:25-40

Early on in my ministry when I was serving as a youth pastor, from time to time parents would set up appointments to come talk to me about their teenager. They would tell me of the difficulties and struggles they were experiencing. As I would sit and listen and take it all in, I would communicate to them how I felt I could come alongside them in their child's life to speak truth, to encourage or to support. But also in the course of the conversation I would try to give them the best biblical counsel I could; counsel on how they might approach the situation. I would suggest certain strategies. I would try to communicate biblical principles and ideas that I thought would apply to their situation. But before I doled out that advice I would always preface my counsel by saying this - "Now for me this is still theory. My children aren't teenagers yet; I haven't walked where you're walking. But I do trust in the Bible, and I trust in the God of the Bible."

Of course as time went on, I would have many opportunities to put those theories into practice. With five kids I have 2 former teenagers, 2 current teenagers, and one teenager on the way. PAUSE Amy - what were we thinking! JK - children are a gift from the Lord. Sometimes I have to keep telling myself that. "Children are a gift from the Lord, blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them." I believe, Lord help thou my unbelief! My point is - as a young youth pastor, my teenage parenting techniques were just theory - theory based on biblical truth, but theory nonetheless. I'd never had the opportunity to personally put those theories to the test. There came a point when theory met reality.

Your theology comes out at midnight. What I mean by midnight is at the darkest moment of your soul; when things seem hopeless, when the pressure mounts, when the pain intensifies. That's when your theology comes out; when what you really believe about God is revealed. Until then, it's theory. When midnight comes you discover the difference between theory and reality.

That's why James says in James 1:3, "You know that the testing of your faith produces endurance." In God's sovereignty, for his good purposes, he allows us to experience the tests, the hardships and struggles. He allows us to go through midnight. And it's at midnight when your theology comes out; it's at midnight theory meets reality.

As we continue in our ongoing series through the book of Acts, we find ourselves in Acts 16. Preaching a message entitled: Singing at Midnight.

Let me remind you of what's going on in this ongoing saga. The missionary quartet of Paul, Silas, Timothy and Luke have made their way to a leading Roman city, a Roman colony known as Philippi. Last week we saw the powerful liberation of two women in Philippi. Two women on opposite ends of the spectrum - they were on opposite ends of the age spectrum, the social spectrum, the financial spectrum and the moral spectrum. But we discovered that there's no one so good they don't need salvation, and no one so bad they can't receive salvation.

One of those liberated women was actually a young slave girl; a girl who was possessed by an evil spirit - a python spirit - a spirit of divination. Her owners exploited that possession to make money. This demon inside her became attached to the missionary team and the girl began following them around, barking out, "These men are servants of the most high God who proclaim to you the way of salvation.” Now that might sound like she’s on their team, after all what she’s saying is accurate, true. But I assure you, the demon was not seeking to enhance or commend their ministry.

After this goes on, not for minutes or hours – but for DAYS – Luke, who wrote the book of Acts and was there when it happened, tells us in the text that Paul became “Greatly annoyed.” Paul turns and says to the evil spirit inside this girl, “I command you to come out.” And the demon came out at once. Now when he cast out the demon, there went the source of Paul’s frustration and annoyance, but along with it went the source of her masters’ financial profit.

So what do they do? They seized Paul and Silas and dragged them before the authorities; they drum up false accusations against them, turn them over to the police who then strip their clothes off and beat them with rods. They then throw them into prison like common criminals.

That’s where we concluded last week – Paul and Silas in prison. Kind of a cliff-hanger, what’s going to happen next? Well let’s read what happens next as we pick up in verse 25. We’ll start there and read the whole account to the end of the chapter: 25About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, 26and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken.