We can't get this mic working. I wore a v-neck vest and I'm hoping that this mic isn't too close to my mouth. We'll see. I got a green light. Am I good back there? All right. Don't sound too... Am I too loud? No? All right. Well, I'm filling in for Brother Grant tonight. I'm not a real big fan of Brother Grant. I'll tell you why. He called me very short notice and he said, Brother Joseph, I'd like for you to fill in. That's not a problem. I said, sure, I'll fill in for you. I'd love to. He called me once before, but I was unavailable. But he called me again and he said, Brother Joseph, I'd like for you to fill in for me. I said, sure. And he's telling me everything. This is where it's at. This is when it starts. And then right as we were about to get off the phone, he said, I'm not going to be there to listen to you, but we're going to put you on the internet and I'll be able to listen to you later. I've never been on the internet before preaching. I'm nervous. I'm nervous any time I get behind the pulpit now. Now I'm getting recorded and put on the internet. It's just lights on me right now. I'm in a big crowd. I don't know. We'll see. With the will of the Lord, we'll get through this. I am a member at Tateville Baptist Church. I'm actually the youth pastor there. I do have a very special prayer request for you guys. My older brother, Andrew, has been battling a drug addiction. He's in a detention center right now, going through a very rough time in his life, and after he gets out of that, after he gets out of jail, he's gonna be going to rehab. So I'd like for you guys just to pray for Andrew, and hope that the Lord can get a hold of him, and that this rehab will do some good in his life. We're gonna be in the book of Acts. The book of Acts chapter 16. Book of Acts chapter 16. When you get over to the book of Acts, go ahead and find verse 23. Acts 16, verse 23. When you find your place, I ask that you would, would you please stand. I don't know what Brother Rick was looking at his son there. I don't know what Brother Grant normally does, but I like for us to stand and read the Word of God. So starting in Acts 16, verse 23, the Word of God reads, And when they laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailer to keep them safely. who having received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stalks. And at midnight, Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God, and the prisoners heard them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prisons were shaken, and immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone's bands were loosed. And the keeper of the prison, awaking out of his sleep, and seeing the prisoners' doors open, he drew out a sword, and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had fled. But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm, for we are all here. Let us pray. Dear Lord, Heavenly Father, we thank you for the stay, dear Lord. We thank you for each and every one that has came out to hear your word, dear Lord. And dear Lord, we pray for those that aren't here, dear Lord. For whatever reason that they're absent right now, dear Lord, whether it be a physical or a spiritual reason, or maybe they're out at a funeral, dear Lord, we ask that you would just be with them. Remove whatever that is and bring them back at the next appointed time, dear Lord. I ask that you would bless the reading of this word. It may be a mouthpiece for you. May everything that I say bring you honor and glory. We ask this in the wonderful name of Jesus Christ. Amen. And you may be seated. I'm here by myself. Normally, I have a little girl chasing me. Her name is Jessica. We've been dating for about three years. And I'm actually kind of glad she's not with me. I'll tell you why. Because everybody always tells me she's too pretty for me. I'm sure Brother Grant's pretty used to that. I'm sure he's used to hearing the same thing. But anyways, we find here, I didn't read all of this, I kind of picked you up in the middle of a story. We're going to take a couple of steps back and I'm going to paraphrase some stuff for you guys. Right now, Paul and Silas, not only that, but Luke is with them. This is something a lot of people don't notice, but Luke is with them because if you go back in a couple verses, I'd like for you guys to do that when you get home, he uses the word us. We all know that the book of Acts is written by who? Luke. And if he uses the word us, that includes himself, does it not? So, and I think the reason he wrote these verses the way it is instead of saying us, he said them. I think the reason he said that is to take the emphasis away from himself and put it on to Paul and Silas, if that makes sense. But I do believe that there's a good chance that Luke was in prison with them. There's no way I can prove that, but that's just a Mosleology for you guys. So we know that they got the Macedonian vision, they're going to Macedonia to help. People got saved, the whole household got saved. And there was this woman, the Bible says that she was, let's go back here and we'll read that one verse. In verse 17. Actually no, verse 16, verse 16 of chapter 16. And it came to pass as we went, see there's that word we, we went to pray a certain damsel possessed with a spirit. Now, any of you guys that are real good with Greek, there's another word that is kind of interchangeable there. I'm all about the King James Version, I think the King James Version is correct, but viper. That's another word that can kind of fit there as a viper. So we got spirit and viper. There's no doubt that this is a demon. This is not a good spirit. This is definitely an evil spirit within this woman. So the certain damsel possessed with a spirit, a divination met us. which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying." And it'll go on there to say that kind of Paul got annoyed with her and he said, by the most high I cast that demon out and within the same hour it says, I'm paraphrasing, that spirit left her. And we just read that this woman brought her masters a lot of money, a lot of gain. So they weren't very happy about this. And then we pick up here, kind of in verse 23, where they laid many straps upon them and cast them into prison. The very first thing I want you guys to see is that the light got them in prison. What I mean by that is they went here to do a mission work. They were doing the will of the Lord, and no doubt, casting the spirit out of this woman was the will of the Lord. Say, hey, Brother Joseph, how do you know that? Because he commanded it. in the name of the Most High, Jesus Christ. He commanded that the Spirit be cast out of this woman in Jesus' name, and it did. If it wasn't the will of the Lord, that would have never happened. So no doubt these men were doing the will of the Lord, and the will of the Lord got them put in prison. The light got them in prison. I've got a question for you guys, and I've got a question for Mt. Hebron Baptist Church. What has your light got you into? What has your light got you into? And you say, Brother Joseph, not much. Then you're probably not much of a light. The fact of the matter is we live in a world today that doesn't like light. We live in a world today that likes darkness. We live in a world today that is darkness. The Bible says that. We live in a world today that is so rampant with sin and so caught up in self that a light would shine all the evil things that they've ever done. You know the thing about a light is, in a light and darkness, for miles and miles away you can see it. You guys know that? I went camping once. Actually I've went camping a lot of times, but I went camping once and I noticed this. It got dark. So we built a campfire. That's what you guys do when you go camping, right? It gets dark, you build a campfire, you sit around the campfire, you tell stories, roast marshmallows, whatever it is. But for whatever reason, I got drew away from camp. And I left. And I got into darkness. And no one could see me, but yet when I looked in the campfire, I could see what everybody else was doing. The world doesn't like light, because light shines and the world can see what they're doing. Now, here's the thing. Paul and Silas definitely went to an ungodly city where they were a light, and all of a sudden these masters were exposed. Hey, we got no more gains. This isn't good. So the light got them in prison. But not only that, I'm sorry. I'm getting I'm getting a little mixed up here the light got them in prison Let's go over to the Matthew chapter 5 in verse 14 Matthew chapter 5 I don't mark these in my Bible because I like For you guys to read them with me, so I figured by about the time. I find it you guys should be able to find it Matthew chapter 5 In verse 14, this is a very common verse of scripture for a lot of us. We are the light of the world. But here's the thing, we're not to be hid, but a lot of us are trying to hide. You know, here's something that I see, I love reading the Book of Acts, because you see something that doesn't really take part a lot today, and that's men being active in the church, and that's men being active in the community. Now, a lot of times, the women are kind of the spiritualites in the household, and it shouldn't be that way. The Bible doesn't teach that way. The man should be the spiritual leader of the family. The man should be one of the leaders in the church. The man should be the leader in the community. You guys get what I'm saying here? And you read that in the book of Acts. There are a lot of great leaders in the book of Acts, Paul being one of them. And here we see a group of men going out to do the work of the Lord. This is something that doesn't really take place. Now, it doesn't have to be a foreign city. It could be your neighborhood. It could be just right out here. I've passed up quite a few houses on the way here. But men today in the churches, they don't get active in their community. And I'll tell you why. One of the reasons I think this is, just men today in general. Let's see. The average man, I'm going to say the majority of men today, they like a few things. They like fast cars, they might like guns and hunting and fishing and being outdoors. I'll tell you one thing they don't like to do. Now a lot of us in these types of areas, what's more towards the top of jobs we have? Most of the time blue collar workers, right? I'm a blue collar worker myself. During the summer, I'll work six days a week. Only day off is Sunday. There are a lot of other men that'll like that in Somerset and I'm sure like that in Lancaster. I'll tell you what men don't like to do. They don't like to wake up early on the day off. They don't like to get dressed up. I don't like to get dressed up. I'll tell you the only reason I'm dressed like this is to gain the more. You can't go into a Baptist church and preach before somebody without a tie on. You won't gain nobody that way. Nobody will listen to you. I'm dressed this way so that I might gain the more, like Paul said. Men don't like to get dressed up, the majority. Men don't like to come early in the morning on their only day off and get a book and sing songs. Men don't like to do that, for the most part, do they? I see a couple of men going, mm-mm. Nope. I think one of the problems today in our churches is that our services are kind of directed the wrong way towards men, for men. They say, well, Brother Jostle, what's the solution? We need to have services that prepare men more like battle, for battle. Men like, anybody ever seen like Lone Survivors or American Sniper or something like that? Patriotic movies, men like patriotic movies. I don't know about you guys, some of the men in the room, but I went and watched Lone Survivor and by the time I got done, I was ready to go get a gun and go to Afghanistan and Iraq. I was ready. Let's go. Men like a sense of brotherhood. and a purpose, and to have something to do. And if we had our services for men like that, preparing them for battle, and giving them something to do so when they left all those church doors, they had a purpose. Maybe then we might have men more active in our communities and our churches. So here's the thing, we have these men going out, and they're being this light, and it gets them in trouble, and it gets them put in a prison, but I want to kind of draw our attention to something here. Their light got them out. What are you talking about here? Their light got them out. When we're reading here, we want to pick up at verse 25 of Acts chapter 16. Acts chapter 16 verse 25, and the Bible says, And at midnight, Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God, and the prisoners heard them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, and the foundations of the prisons were shaking. And immediately the doors were opened, and everyone's bands were loosed. And the keeper of the prison, waking out of his sleep, seeing the prisoners' doors open. So, here's the thing. Their light got them through into prison, no doubt. But their praise, their light, is what got them loose. The thing is, a lot of us today, when we're being light and we're actually going out and we're doing something for Christ, that's a rarity, but when we actually do do it, when something like this happens, we use it as an excuse to quit. A lot of times, if something like this would happen to one of us, and I'm talking to myself here, I'm saying one of us, including myself, where it's like, you know what, this is, I got the wrong idea. I wasn't supposed to go to Philippi, I wasn't supposed to be here. Maybe I just misread the Holy Spirit, maybe I'm supposed to be in some other city, or maybe I'm not supposed to be doing this at all, maybe I'm supposed to be doing something else, and I'm just not going to do this anymore. That's what a lot of us do. A lot of us would be sitting in this prison right now and we'd be thinking, you know what? When I get out of here, I'm not doing that again. That's a bad idea. A lot of us would do that. But Paul and Solace had a different idea. You know what? Maybe our light got us in here, but we're not going to stop being a light. We're going to sing praises unto God. We're going to pray unto Him. We're going to continue to be the light that He wants us to be no matter what circumstances we're in. Today, that is the attitude that we as Christians need to have. Today we as Christians have the attitude whenever we are faced with something trialing, with something hard, something that is tough, we turn that light off. I don't like being a light. It's too hard. What if Jesus had that mentality? Who was it that went to Israel? Right here, what's your name? Anthony. Now if I'm not mistaken, you guys went to Jacob's will, right? Where was Jacob's will at? Place starts with an S, I think. We'll give you a hint. I'm absolutely losing my mind. Anybody know? Samaria. Samaria. Do you know who lives in Samaria? Samaritans. Do you know what the thing about Samaritans are? They were Jews mixed with Gentiles. And guess who didn't like Samaritans? Jews didn't like Samaritans. Guess who was a Jew? A man named Jesus. Jesus could have said, I'm not going to go to Samaria. I'm not going to be a lie to those people. I don't like them. People might get the wrong idea. If they find out I go to Samaria, they might not think I'm the real Messiah. No, Jesus was a lie to everybody. Jesus was a lie no matter what circumstance he was in. What if Jesus didn't go out of his way for you? What if Jesus didn't go your way for you like He did the Samaritan? Sometimes, you know, we get too caught up in ourselves, like I was saying earlier. Do you guys notice what I was saying? I'm not going to be alive anymore because it's too hard for me. We don't think about Jesus, do we? Whenever we're giving up, whenever we've got the pooty lip disease, and we're pouting, and we're crying, and we're saying, oh this is so hard, this is so tough. We're not thinking about Jesus at that point in time, are we? Who here has ever back slid and thought about Jesus while doing it? And thought about how He died on the cross for you? I'm just going to backslide, and Jesus, I know you died on the cross for me, and I know that you're the Lord and Savior of my life. I know you're the creator of the universe. I know you didn't have to come, but you did because you love me. I know you took my cross of sins. I know you died for me, but I'm going to backslide anyways, because this is hard. No one does that, do they? What do they do? They say, well, this is hard for me. I don't like it. It's tough. I got an easier route. I'm going to take the easier route. And nowhere, nowhere in our minds and in our attitudes are we thinking about Jesus when we're backsliding, when we're turning away, when we're leaving. So I want you to see something that their light got them in, but their praise got them out. One of the worst circumstances create the greatest opportunities. Some of the worst circumstances will create the greatest opportunities in your life. Whenever you're in your prison, do you know what you need to do? Praise God. In your prison, praise God. Remember that. It's a very easy, simple saying. When you're in your prison, praise God. Why? Let's continue reading here. We're going to go over this. I want to look at something a little bit different. Maybe some of you guys have noticed this before, maybe not. And at midnight, so this is a very dark hour, and here's the thing. I want you guys to know something. Prisons back then were not like prisons today. I've talked to Brother Jerry Chandler. You guys know Brother Jerry Chandler, right? I've talked to Brother Jerry Chandler, and he's actually been here. His mission trips to Romania have actually brought him to this jail, and conversing with him, it's a very uncomfortable place. There's really no jail cells where you're going to be able to stand up all the way. They're cold, they're damp, they're hard, there's no bed, probably not a bathroom. You're shackled up in chains while you're in prison. This isn't like prisons today. They don't got a bed. They don't got a fresh meal. They don't get a bath every day. This is an awful place to be. Very awful place to be. But yet these men were able to praise God in their prison. And we're going to look at this. And at midnight, Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God. And who heard them? I'd like for you guys to help me out. Who heard Paul and Silas praise? The prisoners. So what's this mean? There's more prisoners than Paul and Silas, correct? There are more prisoners in this jail. We don't know how many. It could be 4, it could be 5, it could be 20, we don't know. But anyway, the prisoners heard them. Notice that it's a plural prisoner not prisoner prisoners and suddenly there was a great earthquake So that the foundations of the prisons were shaken and immediately all the doors were open and everyone's bands were loosed all the doors everyone's bands that poor that plurality again and the keeper of the prison awaking out of his sleep and seeing the prison doors again we got that poor again he drew out a sword and would have killed himself supposing the prisoners what's that again prisoners plural right the prisoners heard him and he thought the prisoners might have fled but Paul cried with a loud voice saying do thyself no harm for who's here what do you say we are all here I don't know about you, but he couldn't have said all if it was just Paul and Silas. The prisoners that heard him sing those praises were still there. And if you read these verses, those prisoners that heard those praises, their bands were loosed and their doors were open. Let's put ourselves in Paul and Silas' shoes. And let's say we actually did conjure up the faith and the courage and the strength to actually praise God in our darkest hour. Now, more than likely none of us would have ever got there. But let's say that we did. And all of a sudden this earthquake happens. And every single door in this prison is open, and every single prisoner's bands are loosed, and yet all the prisoners remain where they're at. What's the reason for this? I don't know about you. Let's put yourself in the thief's seat that's been there for a week. I don't know about you, but this would be a good opportunity to get out of there, wouldn't it not? But yet something kept them there. Their light got them in. Their light got them loose. But their light got them to stay. The light of Paul and Silas that they've shown in that prison, in that very dark hour, in that very cold place, made those other prisoners want to stay. Because it was probably the only thing real that they've ever experienced in their life. How wonderful is that? How amazing is that? You know something, remember how I said your greatest circumstances create the greatest opportunities. I know a couple of people. I know a couple of the Crawfords and some faces are pretty familiar. I know Brother Rick's son very slightly. I don't know his name. I just know him because he looks like Brother Rick and I've seen them together before. I know his mother-in-law here. I don't know a lot of people. I know Olivia. You know, I don't know what you're going through. I don't know what problems you're facing. I'm just some guy that just, I barely even know how to get here. I said, I don't know how to get here, Brother Grant. And he said, go down 27, you'll see a big white sign, make a right. And I said, that sounds pretty easy enough to me. So I don't know any of the problems going on here. I don't know what obstacles you're facing. I put in a crowd this size, there's probably a great amount of people that are facing some dark hours. They don't have anything to look forward to. That it feels like you're drowning all the time. It seems like every day you're in quicksand and every morning you wake up you're just a little bit deeper. I want you to know something, that these are the moments in your life that you can make your faith real to other people. James, when he was talking about faith, a lot of people like to say that you're saved by your works. A lot of people like to take that passage of scripture that James was writing and say that you're saved by your works, and that's not what he was saying. Our salvation, our faith, is made known to other men by works. That's what James was saying. Like I said, we've got a lot of blue collar people in this area of Kentucky. And a lot of times we get new work boots. This is the only illustration I can think of to get this picture across. The only time you get to preview work boots is after you've worked in them for a while. and they've proven themselves to you. Does that make sense? We as Christians are like that to the world. We're not going to be able to prove our faith unless we have hard times. And I want you guys to know something. Also in the book of James, let's go over to the book of James while I'm stuck there for some reason. I didn't plan on going to the book of James, but we're going. We're going to follow where the Lord leads us. Book of James, I'm thinking it's in verse 13. It is. Chapter 1 of James, verse 13. He says, Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God. For God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man. But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Can you say that no doubt Paul and Silas were tempted to remain silent while they were laying there in that cold, dark prison? I'm saying some part of their flesh wanted them just to quit. They wouldn't be humans if they didn't. But I want you to know something, God was not the one tempting them. God is not the one tempting you to give up. God is the one, that real quiet, steady voice that's telling you to stay in the fight. Even though sometimes we don't want to listen to it, and a lot of times we don't listen to it, a lot of times we ignore that quiet voice. The thing is, when we're tempted and we're going through that hard time, people around us know it. I don't know you guys. I don't know you guys enough to know what you're going through. But I'm guaranteed somebody in your life does. Somebody in your workplace, somebody in your family, somebody in your household, they probably know what you're going through. And if they don't know what you're going through, they know you're going through something. They can tell that change in you, you're not quite the person you used to be. My mom is the world's best at that and I absolutely can't stand it. Something would be bothering me when I was in high school and I'd go home and mom would, she would notice me and I'd walk through the door. Honey, what's wrong? I don't want to talk about it. You know? But the point I'm trying to say is, you know you may be going through something hard right now. But I don't think God wants you to give up. I know God doesn't want you to give up. He wants you to continue to be that light so you can prove your faith to those around you. And when you do, you'll make something real to them. They will find comfort in that. And that is how souls are saved. I honestly believe that. You know, I hear these stories a lot of times where people just, they'll go and they'll knock on a door and talk to a complete stranger and they'll get saved and there's a good chance that that might happen, but I don't think a lot of people get saved that way. I wasn't saved that way. I had men around me who were proving their faith to me and I wanted to have what they had. I wanted to have that peace that they had. I wanted to have that comfort that they had. At first, at first I didn't like them. Did anybody ever know me before I became a preacher or seen me at maybe like a youth rally or something? I had hair down to here. I had metal t-shirts on that said awful things. I went to church chasing a girl, like a lot of guys do. And I didn't like anybody in that church. Didn't. They always came up, where are you going to cut your hair? Stuff like that. When are you going to stop asking me that question? That's what I'd tell them. But I didn't like being around them. I was uncomfortable. You know why? Because they were a light. And that light was exposing my sin. But as I continued to spend time around them, their faith was made real to me. And all of a sudden I said, you know what? I'm not happy with myself. I'm not happy with where my life's going. I want to have what they have. And I'm not leaving here until I get it. That's what happened to these men in prison. You want to be a light? It's going to be tough. But who's ever had a great reward without going through something tough? We used to have men, and I've seen them in church, that knew the only way you're going to get something worth having is by doing something tough. We used to have men and mentality that way. Today, we only want to do something unless it's easy. As we prepare for a song of invitation, and our song leader comes, I would ask that each and every one of us would stand, please. I want to take a moment to talk to those who weren't saved, just for a few moments. Anytime I stand up and preach, I want to be able to present the gospel. You know, Paul and Silas, they had someone to turn to in their darkest hour, because they were saved individuals. They knew who Jesus Christ was. Today, if you're lost, whenever those hard times come, either if you're being allowed or not, you're not going to have really anybody to turn to. You ever find yourself in prison, who are you going to turn to? Who are you going to call on? Who are you going to have to praise at night? Nobody. The fact of the matter is there was a man named Jesus who was 100% man and 100% God. And he loved you enough to step out of the folds of heaven, even though we didn't have to, to take up your sins, even though he was perfect, to go to your cross and die so you wouldn't have to. And this is just as simple as coming to Him and asking Him to come into your heart and you will be saved. Now for those of you who are saved, I guarantee you're probably going through some sort of dark time in your life. And if you're not, you're going to. That dark hour might just be right over the horizon. It may just be tomorrow. Who knows? I want to encourage you to continue being the light that Jesus Christ wants you to be. That He needs you to be. The fact of the matter is, if He didn't need you to be a light when you got saved, He would have took you home right then, right there. But He didn't. Because He has a job for you to do. It's only you to know what that job is. And it's up to you to continue the good fight like Paul did. Only you can do that. And I'm trying to encourage you the very best way that I know how to keep up being that light. So that others around you may come to know Jesus Christ. It's a single white number.