Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast,
where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.
My name is Pastor Josh, and I want to thank you for listening to
this podcast.
I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen
you in the word of God.
Now, come along.
Let's look into the Bible and see what God has for us here today.
Well, we're in the Book of Acts.
If you have your Bibles, turn there with me.
Last week, we looked at what happens when the Lord closes a door.
We talked this morning about how we can be thankful for conviction,
not something that we're normally thankful for.
We don't usually go around the table and say, lord, I'm thankful
for when you convicted me on that sin.
Well, maybe we should.
But one other thing that we don't normally give thanks for around
the dinner table, around church is when God closes the door.
You haven't heard a lot of people stand up and say, well, I
was thankful when God stopped me in my tracks when I was trying
to do this for him, and he stopped me.
But I can tell you some of the most impactful blessings that God
has had in my life is when he told me no, when he closed the door,
when he changed my direction.
And if you go back, I know last week we had chili on our minds,
but very quickly, before we went to our chili cook off, we did
talk about that door that was closed for Paul and his missionary
group.
So let's go back and review that very quickly.
It says that Paul had a desire to go to Asia to preach the word.
Something that we would say is, that's a good thing.
God, though, had other plans.
God closed the door for him to go to Asia at that point and then
actually closed the door again when he wanted to go to a different
place and directed him to a place called Macedonia.
Now, at the time, Paul probably had no idea why God closed
those doors and moved him to a place of Macedonia.
But we're going to see in this passage of scripture the reason why
that God wanted to open a bigger door to minister to the people
of Europe.
Macedonia is in Europe.
And so Paul had a desire to go to Asia.
Now, in your mind, don't think about.
I mean, you can think about a world map, but their world was a
lot smaller in their minds.
Okay, so we're talking roughly about Turkey and the area of Turkey
and Greece and that region of the world.
And so Paul wanted to go to the Asia side to preach.
God had a plan for him to go to Macedonia the European side, to
open that door.
Paul had no idea what God had in store, but he did know that God
spoke to him by way of a vision.
And there was a man from Macedonia that called out for help.
And what does Paul do?
Even though he didn't understand, even though it wasn't
his will, he obeyed God's plan.
He obeyed God's will and said, okay, we're going to go help the
people in Macedonia.
And what did he do to help them?
Well, he brings them the Gospel.
That's the number one thing that we do when we need to help people.
We can help people financially, we can help people when
it comes to their physical needs, but ultimately we must help
them with the cause of the gospel.
So that's what Paul does.
It says there in verse number 10.
And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavored
to go into Macedonia.
So immediately Paul obeys.
Immediately Paul goes, and it says, assuredly gathering that the
Lord had called us to preach the gospel unto them.
So Paul says, God wants us to preach.
We're going to do that.
We're going to obey.
Now we're going to pick up a verse number 11 and we're going to
see more about this door that is opened in Macedonia.
We're not going to cover all of it here this evening, but what
we are going to do is we're going to see that God has a better
plan.
When we have a plan, sometimes God has a better plan.
So if I didn't say we're in Acts, chapter 16, verse number 11,
it says, therefore loosening from Troas.
They were in Troas and we came with a straight course to Samothrassia
and the next day to Neapolis.
Now he's describing real places and he's describing their,
their path via ship to Macedonia, verse 12, and from thence
to Philippi.
That's a place that you probably are familiar with, the Philippian
Church.
He goes to Philippi, which is the chief city of that part of Macedonia.
So he obeys, he goes to Macedonia.
This is a trip Paul and his missionary team made.
They had crossed, if you know anything about world geography, they
had crossed the Aegean Sea from the continent of Asia to the
continent of Europe.
And this was a big step, and this probably a bigger step than
Paul even really understood that he was opening a door to a whole
new realm of people.
And so they sailed straightway to these places and the perfect winds
would have directed them about 156 miles.
And the Bible says that that's you Know, obviously, the path that
they took, it doesn't.
It says abiding certain days there.
They stayed there a certain amount of time there in Philippi.
And when they went there, verse 13.
And on the Sabbath, we went out of the city by a riverside where
prayer was wont to be made, and we sat down and spake unto the
women which resorted thither.
So immediately they begin to preach the gospel.
And this is verse number 13.
And so the fact that the Jewish believers there in Philippi
were meeting by the riverside and not in the synagogue meant that
there were not a lot of people that knew the truth of God at that
point.
If they would have had at least 10 people, they would have
had a synagogue, a meeting space.
They were meeting down by the river.
So this is a small group of people which we know eventually is
going to multiply in exponentially.
So, so Paul goes and he goes to the small group of people specifically,
he mentions the ladies, and he begins to preach the Gospel there
in verse 14.
And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple of the
city of Thyatira, which worshiped God, heard us, whose heart
the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were
spoken of Paul.
And so they're here on the Sabbath day worshiping, and they
come across this lady named Lydia.
And anyone who was a seller of purple, that phrase there, you might
say, why was that added there?
Because a seller of purple dealt in value, luxurious product.
Anything that was in purple was something luxurious because it
was a very difficult process to make this dye.
Today we take for granted when we walk into a store, you can find
any color of material and just walk in and it's there available
to you.
But back then, they didn't just have artificial dyes.
They had to do a special process to get this purple.
And so only rich people could obtain this purple product.
And so the dyes that were used in making purple were expensive and
they were highly regarded.
And so this woman was, as we see here, the first convert in Europe.
And one might say, you know, obviously the door that was open
through that closed door in Asia, So the door was closed in Asia,
now it's opened in Europe.
And now we see the first convert here in this lady named Lydia.
Now, she's from a place called Thyatira.
Now you.
That might not ring a bell to you.
You might say, never heard of Thyatira.
Well, if you've read the book of Revelation, there is eventually
a church of Thyatira, which there's a lot mentioned about that
church.
We're not going to get into that right now.
But we do know that that place, Thyatira, was a place where
that purple dye and the purple fabric was used and sold very frequently.
And we know that that church at Thyatira was one of the seven
churches that God addresses in Revelation, chapter two.
And he says, I know thy works and charity and service and faith,
and thy patience and thy works, and the last to be more than
the first.
And then he talks about them having the spirit of Jezebel.
We're not going to get into that story.
But just so that you know, she was from the place that the church
of Thyatira was from.
Most likely because she goes back to Thyatira and preaches the
gospel, teaches the gospel, verse 15.
And when she was baptized in her household, she besought us, saying,
if ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my
house and abide there.
And she constrained us.
So what we can see here is that the Lord opens her heart.
If you go back to verse number 13, it says, they begin to go and
preach.
And then Lydia hears this, and it says that she was already worshiping
God there.
She heard them, and her heart was opened by the Lord.
The heart the Lord opened.
Now, I think that's important to notice when we are sharing our
faith with people.
It is not our job to open someone's heart.
It is not our job to be the Holy Spirit.
It's not our job to make that person a convert.
It's our job to present the truth.
It's God's job to open their hearts.
And I think so many times we put too much pressure on ourselves
to say the right thing or do the right thing.
And we miss the point that conversion, someone's salvation is
a miracle that God works in their life.
It's not what we do.
All we do is present the truth of the gospel to them.
And so what I think that we need to see here is that even Paul,
he didn't come in and force people to be saved.
All he did was preach the truth.
And those that were ready to hear the truth, they were open to
the cause of the gospel, and they make a decision to follow.
And she made a decision to follow.
It says that her heart was open.
She attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul, and she
was baptized.
She follows in obedience.
The baptism is not what saves her, but we know that she follows
in obedience right away.
And so before Lydia was converted, the Lord opens her heart.
This was a work of God.
And so therefore, what we know is that she gets saved.
And what we can pray for as evangelists, now all of us are evangelists
to some degree, right?
We are all called for the Great Commission instead of praying
for, hey, you know what, this or that.
When it comes to evangelism, what we need to pray for is open
hearts.
Pray that the grace of God precedes us when we go to someone's
life, you know, and so if you're dealing with somebody, maybe,
maybe you have the opportunity to know that you're going to be dealing
with someone very soon about the gospel.
Pray.
Pray that their heart is open to the truth.
And that's what happens here.
The heart is open and she follows in obedience.
And so she basically, after she follows in obedience and baptism,
it says here that she immediately gets into her spiritual
gift, which is kind of unique, right?
We think that sometimes it's going to take years for someone's
spiritual gift to manifest itself and in their life.
But immediately she goes right into the gift of hospitality.
Do you see that happening there?
It happens right here in verse 15.
And when she was baptized in her household, she besought us.
Now, by the way, we do see that because she's converted her
household converts.
Now that's not a prince.
A lot of people teach the principle that if you're saved, your
whole house is saved.
Now, we don't believe that.
We don't believe that just because I'm saved now, my whole family
is covered in salvation.
But what that does mean is that if I get saved, it's a lot higher
probability for my family to get saved, right?
There's that familial legacy that happens when one person's converted.
You break the chain of that rebellion in your life and you say,
you know what?
I'm going to make a difference for the cause of the gospel by getting
saved and by imparting this gospel message to my family.
I can tell you that I'm a third generation Christian.
I'm thankful for the fact that my grandfather trusted in Jesus Christ.
And that story is an amazing story.
I've alluded to it sometimes in my preaching.
But my grandfather was a pretty rough guy.
He was running with the wrong crowds, doing the wrong thing.
And there was a guy who came and they were friends from before.
Actually, this guy used to run with my grandfather in the bad path.
And he comes back and he's talking to my grandfather and he's
like, hey, I want you to come to my church.
He's like, your church?
What are you talking about?
I don't do things with church.
He goes, well, I'm actually a pastor now.
He goes, I went and got saved and went off to Bible college.
And I'm back and I got a church over here.
It's called Providence Baptist Church.
I'd love for you to come by.
And my grandfather was like, I don't know about that, but since
this guy, we had a relationship before, we're going
to come on out.
And he took his family.
I think my grandmother got saved first, and she was praying
for my grandfather.
He got saved, and then in so doing, my dad and my aunt were born
in the church.
Basically, they were babies and they got saved.
And ultimately that was the church that I was raised in.
And I was presented with the gospel there.
And ultimately then I was able to present that gospel to my family.
You see how that can happen?
That can affect a whole household, that can affect generations.
It's not to say that that's automatically going to happen, but
we can see that there's influence there.
And we see that her house is baptized as well.
And so it says here that she was baptized in her household, and
she besought us.
Basically, she begged us, if ye have judged me to be faithful
to the Lord, come into my house and abide there.
And she constrained us.
And so what we can see here is that immediately Lydia set about
in doing a good work for the Lord.
Now, the good works are not what saved her, but the good works
are not what kept her saved.
But we see immediately she had a desire to do good to those around
her, specifically through this area of hospitality.
Her hospitality is an awesome example of how she could exercise
that spiritual gift in her life.
She was probably already naturally hospitable, but now when
she gets saved, there's an opportunity for God to indwell her
in the spirit and allow her to do that work in the name of the Lord.
And that's what she says she does here.
She says, if you found me faithful to the Lord, come over to
my house.
Now, not all of us are gifted in the area of hospitality.
Now all of us should strive to be more hospitable.
It's very interesting.
This isn't a passage necessarily on spiritual gifts, but
I think that we should touch on that for a moment.
The passage of scripture in Romans that talks about our spiritual
gifts list a bunch of different things that not all of
us are supernaturally gifted with, right?
So the Bible says that there's the gift of prophecy, there's the
gift of hospitality, there's the gift of mercy.
And it goes down the line.
There's the gift of teaching.
And you might say, well, I'm not gifted in hospitality, so that
means I don't have to be hospitable.
It's not what that's saying.
I'm not gifted in mercy, so therefore, I don't need to be merciful.
No.
The Bible says that there are things that we are supernaturally
gifted in that come just to us naturally.
But there are other things in our life that we need to grow in
in those areas of our spiritual gifts.
I'm gonna tell you, like, there are certain things that I struggle
with in my life.
It doesn't naturally come to me.
I don't naturally think about being hospitable to someone.
Okay.
That's just not my natural inclination.
But God has touched my heart many times and said, you need to
be more hospitable.
Now, I'm gonna tell you, there's nothing that anyone has to
do to twist my arm to start teaching or preaching.
Like, I just love that.
I'm gonna come up and I'm gonna do that.
No matter what the case might be, whether someone wants to hear
it or not, I'm willing to preach.
Some of you are like, you know what?
I'm naturally hospitable.
That's all I can think about.
I could never get up in front of someone and talk.
Well, you could.
I guarantee you, you could.
But the truth is that there's some things that naturally come to
us.
And that's what we should immediately recognize in our spiritual
life, is something that we need to go towards.
And that's what she does here.
She says, come into my home.
And so this is an awesome opportunity for her to exercise her
obedience and her thankfulness to the Lord.
And so I would tell you one of the ways that you can display to
the Lord your love for him and your thankfulness to him is just
to act in what he has already gifted you in when it comes to those
spiritual gifts.
Now, I would encourage you, that's a really interesting study,
to go through your spiritual gifts.
And I have a spiritual gift assessment test that you could go
through.
And very quickly you can see, if you're honest, what God has naturally
gifted you in when it comes to your spiritual walk.
But I will say that there's an opportunity for all of us to grow
in every one of those categories, and that is the way that
we display our love for the Lord.
If you say you love God and you say you're thankful, what does
the Bible say?
We obey Him.
We obey him by following his will in our life.
We obey him by exercising what he has gifted us with.
We don't hoard that for ourselves.
The Bible says that spiritual gifts are for those around us to
work into other people's lives, to edify them in the cause
of the gospel.
So my spiritual gifts should be exercised this way to edify other
believers and to evangelize the lost.
That's the whole point of our spiritual gifts.
Our spiritual gifts are not there for people to see us and to
praise us.
Our spiritual gifts are not there for us to earn money.
Our spiritual gifts are not there for us to earn power or praise.
Our spiritual gifts are there for two reasons.
To edify the saints, for building them up and for evangelizing
the lost.
And that's what Lydia does here.
She doesn't evangelize the lost necessarily.
What she does here is she edifies Paul and the missionary team.
Okay, so now immediately we see another story happening.
Right after the conversion of Lydia and her family.
We see in verse 16, something else happened.
This is actually a very interesting story.
And for some of you, you might perk up with this because it speaks
of things that kind of perk our interest.
And verse 16, and it came to pass as they went to prayer.
So.
So they're praying, and we don't know exactly how long this
took, but it says that a certain damsel, a young lady possessed
with a spirit of divination, met us.
And so they move from Asia to Europe.
They begin to preach, and immediately they see a conversion
with Lydia.
And they're like, okay, maybe this is.
Maybe this is where God wants us.
We see fruit, and immediately they face opposition.
Satan immediately opposes them.
That's what we'll see.
We will see throughout scripture and we will see throughout
experience that when you present the gospel, there is pushback.
There always will be pushback.
And in this case, we see pushback through a demon possessed
girl.
It says that she was possessed with a spirit of divination.
When you say, what is a spirit of divination?
Well, literally.
Literally in the Greek, it says spirit of.
And you will never guess what the Greek word is there.
It's P, Y, T, H, O, N, a spirit of python.
Now, what's a python?
A serpent snake.
So literally in the Greek, you would read it and you would say,
it says the spirit of Python.
Literally.
And that would have been linked to the pagan ways of the Greek
gods there.
They would have said that the spirit of Python was the spirit that
was there in this region.
And so it's essentially the spirit of Satan is a spirit of evil.
And so there's this spirit of evil that has possessed this girl.
We know this is demon possession.
Now, again, this can be something that our culture has, you
know, emphasized in Hollywood in a wrong way.
I'm going to tell you that this is a real thing.
Demon possession is a real thing, okay?
We cannot deny that.
Now, everybody that you come across is not demon possessed, okay?
Sometimes there's a lot of people that will turn to that.
Like, every single person that has an attitude is demon possessed.
There's a demon in everything.
I'm going to be very, very cautious with my teaching on this
because there are some circles of Christians that believe that every
single thing that's negative is a spirit of Satan, okay?
It's demonic.
Like, this is the demon of this.
This is the demon of this.
That's not the case.
But what I will say that most of our problems stem from our own
flesh.
Most of the problems that we deal with in our life are from our
own issues of our own sin and the worldly influence that comes
from that.
But there are occasions where demons do possess human beings.
We see that in the time of Jesus.
Now, I would say that we wouldn't look at the exception as
the norm.
Now, why do you think that there was so much demonic activity
right around the life of Jesus?
I believe that certainly Satan was trying to thwart the plans of
God.
So Jesus comes to this earth.
I believe that there was more demonic activity around the time
of Christ and the early church than throughout all of history.
And so that's why we see so many occasions of that.
But we see this young girl and we see what she was doing, which
brought her masters much gain by thus saying what was happening.
She was making money for her master.
She was a slave girl.
She was making money for her masters by basically fortune telling.
Now you would say, how could she fortune tell?
Do we believe?
Okay, this is.
This is a whole study in angels, okay?
Angels and demons, okay?
Because essentially a demon is just a fallen angel.
Does a demon know the future?
I don't think theologically a demon can know the future.
I don't think a demon can be omnipresent like God.
I don't think a demon can read your mind.
I really don't think that.
I don't think they have that power.
But what demons do have is an opportunity to observe things in
secret, right?
They're able to travel, they're able to communicate.
And so I don't believe that she was seeing the future for these
people and basically knowing their hearts.
But what we do know is that for some way she was getting demonic
power to see people's private lives so that she could basically
see their inclinations, know what they're doing in private, and
therefore be able to fortune tell and she was making money for
them.
Now, some people would say she wasn't doing anything, she was just
playing tricks.
I do believe that there was some kind of supernatural thing that's
happening here and she was making her master's money.
Verse 17.
And the same followed Paul and us.
And by the way, when you see us, this is Luke speaking.
Luke is now part of the missionary team.
So Luke is now speaking like, hey, it's us.
Now he's not.
Before he was talking about them, now he's talking about us.
So this is firsthand account of Luke.
So verse 16, it came to pass.
And when we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with the
spirit of divination met us.
And then it says in verse 17, the same followed Paul and us and
cried, saying, these men are the servants of the most high God
which show unto us the way of salvation.
You say, what in the world?
She's the one that's possessed and she's the one speaking the truth.
She's basically preaching for Paul and the rest of the guys there.
Now you would say, what's happening there?
Well, essentially what's happening is that the demon possessed
girl, though she was demon possessed, is giving a demonic testimony
to the divine credentials of these preachers.
The demons must submit themselves to the power of God.
Even though they don't believe in God as their savior, they all
recognize who Jesus is.
They all recognize those that preach the truth of the gospel.
The Bible says in the book of James that all demons believe that
God exists and they tremble.
We even know that when Jesus encounters those demons in that one
individual, back in the gospels they basically said, jesus
don't kill us, right?
Immediately they recognize Jesus power.
And then they have to ask Jesus permission to be even moved
out of that.
Right?
And so there's this interesting dynamic of the demons
actually recognizing the role of Jesus and the role of the gospel,
whether or not, you know.
Well, we know for sure they don't believe it.
But what we can see here in this case is that they recognize
this and they basically say, this is the guys that are preaching
Jesus.
These are the ones that are preaching salvation.
And so I think that's very interesting.
And so they're giving a testimony to the divine credentials
and to the message that they are preaching.
And the Bible says that she didn't do it just once, she did it
many times.
And this, did she many days.
But Paul being grieved, basically the original Greek is that
he was annoyed.
He was annoyed that this girl was following them around and there
was this demonic possession that was hindering what was going
on.
So he's like, he's grieved.
This is bothering him.
This is vexing him.
He's like, we gotta get rid of this.
So what is Paul's response to this demonic influence, this demonic
possession, this demonic interference to the gospel being
presented?
Well, we see what he does here.
He says he turned and said to the spirit, not to the girl, to the
spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out
of her.
And immediately he came out of the same hour.
So we know that right away.
It comes out as the demon leaves.
Now, what did Paul do?
It was very clear what he did.
He proclaimed the name of Jesus Christ.
And what we have to do in our lives is anytime you're thinking
about demonic influence or you're thinking about evil, you always
have to present that with the truth of who Jesus Christ is and
what he has done.
I can tell you that if we try to respond to evil, specifically
demonic influence, with our own wisdom, we're going to fall short.
Okay?
And I don't want to scare anyone here this evening, but what
I will say is this.
This is real stuff.
And demons have been around a lot longer than we have.
They have a lot more experience than we have.
They have a lot more access than we have.
So therefore, for us in our own power to try to fight, that would
be.
Would be worthless because we cannot overcome them in our own strength.
But what we can do is we can say, you know what, Lord, I'm trusting
in you and I'm trusting in my relationship with Jesus Christ, who,
one who has authority over all evil, to come into my life and not
allow that influence.
Now, I will say this.
I do not believe that a Christian, someone who's indwelled
by the Holy Spirit, can be possessed by a demon.
I don't believe that that is the case, okay?
I believe that the Holy Spirit indwelling an individual and a demon
cannot be possessed at the same time, okay?
Because essentially what happens as a Christian is you are
indwelled by the Spirit.
The Spirit lives within you.
I don't believe a spirit.
The Spirit, the Holy Spirit can live within you and the demon.
So what I will say is that for a Christian I don't believe that
there can be demon possession, but what I do believe in is demon
oppression or demon influence in our life.
And so I'm not saying that every single case that we have in
our life is from a demon.
But what I am saying is that there can be demonic activity, there
can be evil influenced in our life because of the Gospel.
If we're living for Christ, we are going to face pushback.
And I'm being very cautious tonight because I don't want to over
dramatize this.
But what I will say is the more you stand for the cause of the
Gospel, the more you publicly profess the truth of Jesus Christ,
the more you will be opposed by evil in this world.
If you want to live apathetically and you want to be
a lukewarm Christian, don't expect any evil to come towards you
because you're already living.
Satan has already got what he wants in our life if we're not living
boldly for the cause of the Gospel, because he can't take your
soul, he can't take your eternal value.
What does he want to take?
He wants to take your influence.
He wants to stop it.
He doesn't want any multiplication to happen.
He wants it to stop with you.
And if that's where you are in your life, if you're like, you know
what?
I don't want to live boldly for Christ.
Satan has already gotten what he wants to have happening in your
life just for you to stop.
And so what I would encourage you to do is that if you say, you
know what?
I've heard some people say, I don't want to live boldly for Christ
because I don't want to face any evil in my life.
Folks, that's the wrong perception because you're essentially
already playing into the evil.
You're already playing into what Satan wants for you.
And so what I would say to you is live boldly for Christ and trust
in him.
And so what we can see here is that the power of God is far more
powerful than the power of evil.
And so Paul cast out this demon.
Paul was annoyed, you know, he didn't appreciate this free advertising,
so to speak, this free preaching from this demon.
He didn't appreciate the source.
And so Paul knew that if he identified with Christ, Paul knew
that the demons tremble in the sight of Christ.
He presented that.
And so Jesus cast out demons in his own authority.
Paul was careful to speak to the demons only in the authority
of Jesus Christ.
And so he spoke beyond the girl and he spoke to the evil itself.
And so the demon comes out immediately and therefore they have
victory here.
Verse 19.
Well, we think that it's victory until the girl's masters
find out what happened.
Because what's happened is, is that there are people profiting off
of evil.
You say that can happen?
Yes, all the time.
That's actually the norm in this world.
People will always attach themselves to evil and people will
always profit from evil.
Look around at different things that are going on in our world
today and I'll be careful because we have a mixed crowd.
But if you look into advertising, if you look into Hollywood,
if you look into anything with the cause of getting people to throw
money at things, there's always an appeal to sensuality, there's
always appeal to evil.
There's a darker side to things.
And I will tell you that evil will always look for a profit.
And the Bible even says that the love, the love of money, not
money itself, but the love of money is the root, literally the
root of all types of evil.
So what I would tell you here today is that a lot of times when
we, you know, sometimes people say follow the money, right?
Follow the money.
And a lot of times you will follow that money right to an evil
source.
And that's what we see here in this case.
They were exploiting this young girl in the evil of the demon
for money.
Let's see what happens here when that's taken away.
This is what will happen when truth is addressed to evil.
Verse 19.
And when her master saw that the hope of their gains was gone,
so, so what we can see that, that God frees this young girl from
the bondage of the demon, but he also frees her from the bondage
of these masters, which that's what God always does.
God frees us from the bondage of evil.
He frees us from the bondage of sin.
He frees us from the bondage of having to go back to that well
of evil.
And it says there that they had lost their hope.
What did they do?
They caught Paul and Silas and drew them into the marketplace unto
the rulers.
And so these masters, whoever these masters, were very offensed
by what Paul did.
And specifically Paul, but also Silas, because Paul and Silas
are linked together, they have an issue with this.
And so what happens?
Verse 20.
And brought them to the magistrates saying, these men, being
Jews, do exceedingly trouble in our city.
So they're getting in trouble for doing the right thing.
They're getting in trouble for proclaiming the truth.
They're getting in trouble for freeing this young girl from this
exploitation.
And it says, and what do they do?
They're accusing them.
They teach customs which are not lawful for us to receive.
Neither do observe being Romans.
And the multitude rose up together against them.
And the magistrates rent off their clothes and commanded to beat
them.
So it goes from verbal accusations now to physically harming
them.
This is persecution.
Paul and Silas are being persecuted not for doing wrong, but
for doing good, for preaching the gospel.
Now you would say, wait, I thought we were supposed to praise
God and thank him for closed doors.
Because, like, God stopped Paul and Silas from going to Asia
to preach and now moves them to Europe.
And now it's like, hey, great, Lydia's saved.
Now we're gonna.
And then all of a sudden, we're gonna be beaten for this.
Sometimes God leads us to a place that doesn't make a lot of
sense.
But then we see more.
Verse 23.
And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them
into prison, charging the jailer to keep them safely, meaning,
hey, look now, gonna beat you.
Now we're going to imprison you.
And now we're gonna put someone over you so that you can't
get out.
This looks pretty bleak.
This looks like, you know, Paul and Silas, maybe they had a
chance to question whether or not God had the right thing in mind
when he called them to Macedonia.
I don't know about you.
I mentioned this morning I'm thankful to be in Delaware.
I don't know about you, but if I was called somewhere, and immediately,
almost immediately, they begin to put me before a court and try
me and falsely accuse me and beat me and throw me in prison, I
might start to think, well, maybe I wasn't supposed to come to
this place.
And there is a test here.
There is the test of persecution.
There is a test for them to quit.
And it says, verse 24.
This is talking about the prison guard who, having received
such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison and made their
feet fast in the stocks.
So there's multiple checks and balances that they're putting there
so that Paul and Silas cannot get out.
So they beat them.
Well, they disrobed them first, then they beat them.
They throw them in jail.
They put a guard over them, and now they chained them down.
And what was their response?
What was Paul and Silas's response?
They could have responded with, I'm going to question you,
God.
We quit.
That's enough.
They could have responded in many different ways.
They could have pouted.
They could have said, woe is Me.
We didn't deserve this.
We need to get out of here.
We need to recant our faith.
We need to go back to Asia.
What do they do?
It says, and at midnight, Paul and Silas prayed.
Their response to the opposition is they rely on the Lord.
They pray.
Prayer is not just something that we do.
It's who we are as Christians.
It should be our natural response to good, our natural response
to bad.
It should be the way that we communicate with God.
It.
It should be the way that we ask him for things.
It should be the way that we help other people.
It's prayer.
Prayer is the immediate reaction to difficulty in our life.
And they prayed, but they didn't just pray.
Because here's what I would have done if I stayed true.
I would have prayed and said, lord, get me out of here.
Lord, strike all these people down.
Lord, I want you to, you know, put fire and brimstone on Macedonia.
I'm done with them.
No.
What do they do?
And they sang praises unto God.
Now, it's very hard to sing praises to God when you're living
in a place of bitterness and anger towards him and towards others.
They're praising God, and through their prayers and their singing,
what happens?
And the prisoners heard them.
They're a testimony to those around them.
And so what we can learn from this, we're going to stop here at
this verse, because we're going to see next, not next week,
but we're going to see in two weeks a miracle happen.
We're going to see something amazing happen.
We're going to see that God miraculously intervenes in their
life for his purpose.
We're actually going to see that folks are converted, they're
saved because of the testimony of Paul and Silas.
So what do they do here?
It says that they prayed and sang praises unto God and the prisoners
heard them.
They're a testimony in the midst of their trial.
You know, a lot of times we as Christians don't see the opportunity
and the privilege it is to be a testimony to people when we're
going through that trial.
This is a trial here.
This is a trial.
I'm looking around.
This is a trial that I don't think any of us have faced.
I'll be safe to say that I don't think any of us have gone and
cast out a demon and then after casting out a demon, had people
whip us, try us, and chain us up in prison.
Okay, so none of us have faced this, but most of us, if not all
of us, including myself, have been tempted to not see a trial as
an opportunity to bring people to Christ.
We see a trial as something that we need to get out of right
now.
And that's not what they do.
Of course they want to be out of prison, but immediately they go
to prayer and praise.
That's the.
That's the first response when we go through a difficulty, is prayer
and praise.
And if we respond with prayer and praise, what happens is, is that
we become a testimony to the prisoners around us.
Folks, you are living in a world.
You are living in a society, in a community that has prisoners
all around you.
They're not in prison.
So to say, I'm not talking about the real prison down the road.
I'm not talking about that.
I'm talking about people that are unsaved.
The Bible says that they are living in bondage to sin.
And so therefore, you have prisoners all around you.
Every day that you walk into work, every day you go to Walmart,
every day that you drive through your neighborhood, there
are people that are in bondage all around you, whether they know
it or not.
Most of the time, they don't know it.
All of the time, I would say, is they don't know it.
And so for me to be a testimony to the prisoners around
me, what I have to show them is the difference.
Because all of us are going to face trials.
Your neighbor, let's say your unsaved neighbor, gets cancer.
Okay?
Let's say you go through a trial.
We're all going to go through trials whether we're saved or not.
The Bible says life is difficult.
So how we respond to the trials that we are in gives us the
opportunity to be a testimony to the prisoners around us.
Paul and Silas were chained up, but they weren't prisoners.
They were free in the power of God because of what God had given
them in their relationship with Christ.
And so they're acting, and the people, they're like, I would happen
to think that the prisoners are like, how are these guys?
They just got tried and beaten, and now they're singing praises
to their God.
What kind of God do they praise for being in jail?
Right.
There's a difference in their response to the bondage, right?
The physical bondage, because they are spiritually free.
And the way that we live our lives is a testimony to those around
us, whether it be a good testimony or a bad testimony.
What have I done for Jesus?
And it's a question that I think all of us need to answer because
we are going to face those times where we feel like we're in
the prison and we're chained up and we've gotten beaten down.
And what we can do is we can say, you know, woe is me.
I quit.
This isn't worth it.
I shouldn't have stepped up for the faith.
I shouldn't have proclaimed the name of Jesus Christ to that
person.
And we could even say that maybe.
Maybe Paul and Silas could have been tempted to say, maybe we
shouldn't cast out that demon of that girl, right?
Look what happened to us now.
But instead, they praise him and they proclaim the truth of God.
They ask him for guidance.
They pray.
And I would encourage you to think about that same thing in your
life, because I me, I think about in the concept of when am I
thankful?
I'm thankful for when everything is going my way.
I'm thankful for when my family is all in order, and I should
be.
But am I thankful for those moments when I'm in that dark prison?
Can I praise Him?
Can I sing those praises?
You know what?
There's been times where I've sat in a service and I'm singing,
oh, how I love Jesus.
And I'm singing that just because I'm a pastor and I'm standing
up here.
I'm singing that just because everyone.
But in my heart of hearts, I'm struggling.
I don't know if you guys have ever done that.
Maybe some of you said, well, I just don't sing.
Okay, when I feel that way, I understand that.
But for me, sometimes I'm more concerned with other people around
me, so I have to keep my front up.
But there is a truth that many times when we sing those songs and
when we say those prayers and when we sit in those Bible studies,
we're not really there.
That's not really where our heart is.
And I would encourage you to be able to sing it as well.
With my soul in the midst of a difficulty and really have that as
your testimony.
How great thou art and really mean that amazing grace how sweet
the sound Victory in Jesus.
And it was so appropriate that we had that singing there, Ms.
Lorna, because we have an opportunity.
They're not in church.
They're singing praises.
In the middle of a prison cell.
We can sing praises no matter where we are.
We can give thanks to the Lord for wherever we are in our life.
And so we're gonna see that it's not in vain.
We're gonna see that in a couple weeks that the prison keeper
sees Christ and trusts in Christ through this.
We're gonna see that there are more People that come to the faith
and ultimately see the truth of God and that the closed door was
not a mistake.
The closed door to Asia was not a mistake.
It was actually an open door for God to work in the life of Paul
and Silas and God to work in the life of people like Lydia and
the prison keeper and all of the people of Macedonia.
And I'm gonna tell you, folks, the Church of Macedonia plays a huge
part in the New Testament.
And that would have not happened without Paul and his missionary
team being open to that closed door, closed door vision of God and
following in obedience.
Folks, what have we missed out on in our life because we pushed
through that closed door?
God closed the door and we said, I don't care.
That's what I want to do, and I don't care.
God better bless it, folks.
Sometimes the closed door is the best thing God saved.
And I wish I could tell you all the stories of my life.
I don't have time, but God has saved me from a lot of pain and heartache
and loss because of closed doors.
There was things that I wanted in my life that were not the right
things.
But because God closed that door, I was able to look back and
say, lord, you closed that door for a purpose.
I would not be able to do this because I would have been somewhere
else.
So we usually celebrate when open doors happen.
When someone prays and says, lord, send me here, and God sends
them there, and everything is great.
And those happen sometimes.
But I would actually challenge you to think about what happens when
God closes that door.
Is he wise enough?
Is he powerful enough, Is he loving enough to close that door
for our protection?
Or do we get upset with him and say, well, he doesn't know better
than me.
I know exactly what I need in my life.
I would encourage you to embrace those closed doors.
So when we sit around the table and we thank God this week,
thank him for the good, but also thank him for the conviction.
Thank him for the closed doors.
I think about all the doors that I could have taken when it came
to my life.
And like, I say this a lot, but honestly, there were.
There were.
I do not want to be where I am today.
If you asked me 20 years ago, 10 years ago, where do you want to
be?
It wouldn't be where I am today, but it's because.
And I'm not just talking physically, I'm talking about even
spiritually, professionally, all of that.
But God changes our hearts.
And those closed doors are opportunities for us to be yielded
to him and to see his power in our life.
And so as loving parents, we know the power of.
No, we know the power of a closed door.
And God is the most loving father.
He's the perfect father.
And sometimes he's going to close the door and it's not fun.
Sometimes it closes right on our foot, and we're like, whoa, that
didn't happen the way I wanted it to happen.
Sometimes that door hits us right in the face.
But what I will tell you is that's the best thing.
And so the closed door of Asia for Paul at this point was the open
door for Europe and the open door for this miracle to happen,
and the open door for all of us when it comes to the gospel moving.
And that's exciting.
I don't know about you, but some of my favorite passages of scripture
are the passages of scripture that explains the spread of the gospel
and how we, as, wherever we're from, got to hear about the gospel
because there were people who are willing to spread the gospel.
You understand that the gospel.
There was one point in time.
There was one point in time when, like, less than 20 people knew
about the gospel, right?
Very quick, very early on, Very, very early on when Jesus resurrected,
right?
There was only a few people.
It was the ladies that went to the tomb.
You could argue that the two guards knew about what happened,
and you could argue that Peter, James and John knew.
And you see, that spread from just, let's say less than 100 people,
then 500 people.
Jesus came and visited, and then we know that thousands of people.
And it started in one city.
Jerusalem is a small city, by the way.
Like, it's not very big.
Jerusalem is.
You can see across it.
You can get up on the Mount of Olives and see from one corner to
the other.
It's not a big city.
But the gospel message started there in Jerusalem, and it spread
to Judea.
Judea is not big.
All of Israel is the size of New Jersey.
Okay?
And so then, Amen, New Jersey.
Right.
And then Samaria to the uttermost part of the earth.
Folks, we still are on that path.
And the sad part is, and I don't want to get on my soapbox too
long here, the sad part is there's people that live in the United
States that don't know the truth of Jesus Christ.
Whose fault is that?
I don't know.
You could argue, I would argue the only people responsible for proclaiming
the gospel is the church, right?
We can't blame the unsaved for not knowing the truth of the gospel.
Like, you can't just like you can't blame the unsaved for acting
like an unsaved person.
I just can't believe these people that don't have Jesus, don't
honor him.
That's exactly.
Their nature is to live like the world.
To live like who?
We live like our master.
The Bible says that before we come to Christ, who's our master?
The Bible says that our master is Satan.
We're children of this world.
Now where the problem comes is when Christians who have a master
in Jesus Christ live like the world.
That's the travesty.
And so as a church, what do we do?
Well, you say, well, we rely on that church across town that has
more resources.
No, no, no.
The Great Commission is for all individuals to proclaim the gospel
message.
You say, well, I can't go to China.
I can't go to Europe.
Never says that you have to go everywhere.
It says that you have to start in your Jerusalem.
If everybody here shared the gospel with just a few people, we
could see a spread of that.
I always say this.
Think of the power of this on a Sunday morning.
Let's say we have 200 people sitting here.
Think about if 200 people just impacted one person for the cause
of the gospel, that's 200 more people that have been impacted by
the cause of the gospel in that year.
Now, that's minimum.
That's minimum.
And I would encourage you to say, you know what?
I want my one this year.
You say one.
I think pastors should ask for more.
I'm not asking for more than that.
If we can reach one for the cause of the Gospel, it is worth
it.
So therefore, if all of us see that one, if all of us have that
one that we are pursuing, hey, we can see that multiplication happen.
And that's what the goal is for us as Christians to see that
Great Commission living out.
So thank you for your attention here this evening.
I did mention that I'm not going to be here next week.
Lord willing, we will be back on that Sunday.
But I don't know when that plane flight gets in.
I think.
I think we're flying out.
Yeah, it's going to be really tough for us to be back for the evening
service.
So either way, Pastor John will be preaching on the evening
service.
I may or may not be here, depending on travel and time.
But we definitely want to make sure that you are here because Pastor
John, I know, has been preparing sermons for Sunday morning
and Sunday night for a long time.
And it would be really, really encouraging for him to have you all
out here.
He loves you all.
And I can tell you this, he is a true servant of the church.
And I will say this.
Pastor John doesn't get to preach as much as me, but we're looking
for more opportunities for him to get involved.
Because you know what, you know, he.
He is somebody who desires to preach the word.
And as a pastor, I have to practice what I preach about discipleship.
And so he's got to.
He's got to use those opportunities.
And so come on out, support him.
I know that he would be thankful.
Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church
podcast.
I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.
If you would like to find out more information about our church
or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org
or find us on Facebook or YouTube.
You can also email me directly at joshmusaroiddletownbaptistchurch
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Thank you so much.
God bless.
Have a wonderful day.