Monday, July 16, 2012,
8:00 a.m. – The Lord woke me with the song “I’m Not Ashamed” going through my mind. Speak, Lord, for your
servant is listening. I read Acts 16
(quoting vv. 16-34 NIV 1984):
Once when we were
going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit by
which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners
by fortune-telling. This girl followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting,
“These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be
saved.” She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so troubled that he
turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command
you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her.
When the owners of the
slave girl realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul
and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities. They
brought them before the magistrates and said, “These men are Jews, and are
throwing our city into an uproar by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans
to accept or practice.”
The crowd joined in
the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be
stripped and beaten. After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown
into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. Upon receiving
such orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the
stocks.
About midnight Paul
and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were
listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the
foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open,
and everybody’s chains came loose. The jailer woke up, and when he saw the
prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he
thought the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted, “Don’t harm yourself! We
are all here!”
The jailer called for
lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. He then brought
them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
They replied, “Believe
in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved —you and your household.” Then they
spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. At that
hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then
immediately he and all his family were baptized. The jailer brought them into
his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had
come to believe in God—he and his whole family.
Pay Back
The slave girl was evidently a fortune teller, so her owners
made money off of her fortune telling. So, when Paul, in the power of the Holy
Spirit within him, and in the name of Jesus Christ, commanded the evil spirit
to come out of the girl, she lost her fortune telling abilities, and thus she
was no longer useful to her owners, and this angered them greatly. So, that is
why her owners dragged Paul and Silas into the marketplace and trumped up
charges against them. They were getting even with them. This was revenge (pay
back). They even incited the crowd to join them in the attack against Paul and
Silas. It continually amazes me how easily people can be swayed back and forth
by public opinion or by an emotionally charged demonstration or protest of some
kind, and can be talked into one thing one moment and another, often opposing
thing, the next.
Praying and Singing
Now, let me get this straight. Paul helped free a young girl
from demonic possession and oppression. This was a good thing. He and his
companions were also preaching the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This
is a very good thing! The slave owners, though, became enraged with the
apostles, so, out of revenge, they trumped up charges against them, incited a
riot, had them stripped, beaten, severely flogged, thrown into prison, guarded
carefully, and their feet fastened in the stocks. They, obviously, were not
having a good day! Even our most trying days (for most of us in America) pale
by comparison to their day, and to many of the days in the lives of the apostles
who were out preaching the good news of Jesus Christ and were healing people of
diseases and demonic possession.
So, they were having a horrible day, by human standards,
were treated unfairly and unjustly, were in severe pain and were suffering
greatly physically and emotionally, and certainly they were not given
comfortable accommodations, either. So, how did they respond? How would we
respond? Or, should I say, how do we respond to unjust treatment, persecution, having
people take out their revenge on us, etc.? How do we respond over the slightest
inconveniences or having things not go our way? Do we reflect Christ? Or, do we
reflect our selfish and sinful natures?
Although the apostles found themselves in miserable
circumstances, they responded by praying and singing hymns to God. I admit that
I don’t always respond with such grace and joy, but the Lord is working on me,
and he is changing my heart and my responses, so that I might be more like him
every day. I am a work in progress. We all are!
Chains Loosened
So, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God,
and the other prisoners were listening to them. Cool! I suppose, to some
extent, the other prisoners were a captive audience, yet the word “listen”
holds a much deeper meaning than merely hearing audibly with one’s physical
ears. To listen means to pay attention carefully, to make a conscious effort to
hear someone, and to consider and to take note to what the person is saying. I
imagine that if I was a prisoner in a jail like they were, and I was treated
like they were, and I heard other prisoners singing and praying, I would at
least be curious as to how they managed to be so joyful at such a time as this.
It would certainly get my attention.
And, if the singing and praying did not capture my
attention, the earthquake that followed certainly would. So, why did the prisoners
not escape when they had the opportunity? We don’t know for certain. I suspect
the mere shock of it all might have kept them from moving immediately. Yet, I propose
that there was something greater that was keeping them from fleeing. They had
been listening to Paul and Silas singing to God and praying to God, and they
were paying attention. Certainly they were not completely oblivious to the
plight of the apostles, either. Perhaps the Holy Spirit of God was moving in
their hearts, so they didn’t want to flee, because they wanted to know about
this God of these men, who could help them to sing and pray under such dire circumstances,
too.
Whatever the reason, no one fled. The jailer did not commit
suicide, and the jailer wanted to know how he could be saved, too. Awesome!
When we respond correctly to difficult circumstances we can have such a great
testimony for Jesus Christ! The world is watching us, and we need to be
conscious of that, too. We can make or break our testimony for Jesus Christ by
how we respond to the circumstances around us. None of us will respond perfectly
at all times, but we must pray for much grace and joy in such times as this.
The Gospel
“They replied, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be
saved – you and your household.’” Now, this passage of scripture has presented
many with theological confusion, and out of this many have developed what I
believe is a false doctrine of salvation. Some people build a whole doctrine
out of this one verse and say that we can use this verse to claim salvation for
our entire family members on the basis of our own faith, i.e. that our faith
would save them. No other scripture in the New Testament supports this, and, in
fact, contradicts that idea. We are each responsible before God for our own
decision to believe or not to believe. So, we should read this as saying that
the jailer and his household, if they (individually) believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ, will be saved. And, verse 34 supports this idea when it clearly states
that the jailer and his whole family believed in Jesus Christ and were saved.
Understanding what it means to believe in Jesus helps to
clear up the confusion, I believe. Jesus said that if any man would come after
him, he must deny (die to) himself, take up his cross daily (die daily to sin
and the old life) and follow (obey) him. John, in the book of 1 John clearly
states what it means to believe in Jesus Christ, as does Paul and James and
others. If we claim to have fellowship with God and we continue to walk in
darkness (sin), we lie and we do not live by the truth. The way we know we have
come to know God is that we obey his commands (New Testament). Paul said, as recorded
in Ephesians, that the way we come to know Christ is we must put off our old
self, “which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the
attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in
true righteousness and holiness” (see Eph. 4:17-24). No one person can do this
for another. My faith will not change another’s heart. Only God can transform
human hearts, and faith is as individual as we are.
“Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the
others in his house.” They didn’t just say “believe” and leave it at that. If
they spoke the word of God to them, they explained more fully, I believe, what
it means to believe in Jesus Christ and to follow him with their lives. I think
this is where there is a breakdown in the presentation of the gospel on many
fronts. So many people throw the word “believe” out there as though it is
nothing more than some kind of intellectual acknowledgement of what Christ
Jesus did for us, or as though it is some kind of emotional decision we make to
follow Christianity and to join a church (institutional). Or, we use the word “Lord”
as merely a title for God without truly understanding that it means he is now
boss of our lives. He is now in charge!
A man said this past week that we need to explain to people
what it means to believe when we present the gospel so people know what they
have signed up for. I so agree! If we sell the gospel short, then we may be
guilty of giving people a false notion of what true faith involves. It involves
repentance (turning away from sin) and obedience (turning to God to follow
Jesus wherever he leads us). Jesus Christ died a horrible death on a cross,
taking upon himself the sins of the entire world so that we would be free from
the ultimate penalty of sin (eternal damnation), so we would be free from the
control of sin over our lives on a daily basis, and so we could have sweet
fellowship with our Lord in following him in full surrender and obedience to his
will for our lives. Yet, so many are not teaching the truth of the gospel, they
are selling it short, and are giving people a false hope of salvation absent of
coming to the cross of Jesus Christ, dying to our old lives of sin, and being
resurrected to live new lives in Christ Jesus in doing what he desires and
requires of us.
Why was Jesus hated and persecuted? It was because he taught
the truth of God’s word, he confronted sinful man with his sins, he called for
repentance and obedience, he told people that to follow him they must die to
their own selfish lives, and they must be willing to suffer great persecution
and perhaps even death for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Why did they
hate and persecute the apostles and the prophets before them? - For the same
reasons. If we are teaching the true gospel of Jesus Christ, we will be hated,
too, and we will be persecuted and rejected for our testimony for the gospel.
Yet, we should not be ashamed to tell the whole truth of the gospel out of fear
of men, but we should be bold and consistent and persevere in sharing the whole
gospel message to all who will listen.
I’m Not Ashamed /
An Original Work / February 15, 2012
Based off Matt. 28:19-20; Acts 1:8; Rom. 1:16-17
Go into all the world,
And tell them the Good
News,
Making disciples of
all the nations,
Baptizing them in the
name of the Father
And of the Holy Spirit,
And of the Son,
Teaching them to obey
Ev’rything I have
commanded you,
And surely I am with
you,
E’en to the end of the
age.
You will receive power
When the Holy Spirit
Comes on you;
My witnesses you will
be
In Samaria, Judea, and
Jerusalem,
And to the ends of the
earth, amen!
You will receive power
When the Holy Spirit
comes on you,
My witnesses you will
be
Unto the ends of the
earth.
I’m not ashamed of the
Gospel of my Jesus.
For salvation, it’s
the power of God.
For in the gospel a righteousness
From God is made
known,
A righteousness that
is by faith.
I’m not ashamed of the
Gospel of my Jesus.
For salvation, it’s
the power of God.
The righteous will
live by faith.
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