I was going to speak from this passage a few years ago, but not all of us were here then. Some of us were very young when I spoke on it. And I thought it would be good to look at this passage again. It's got much of encouragement and much to teach us about God's work of salvation, how we get saved. baptism and quite a few other things. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to actually read a few verses at a time and then comment on those and do it that way. So let's pray first and ask God to help us. So let's pray. Lord God, we thank you for your word. to instruct us and to guide us and to help us to understand the message of salvation. And we pray that you will speak to us this evening. I pray that you'll help me to be able to bring out from your word things which are going to be helpful for us all. And Lord, that you'll speak to each one of us, Lord, any who are not yet saved. Please, Lord, lead them to trust in Jesus through this message. And those of us who are saved, Lord, please help us to obey you better and to understand more fully the good news of the gospel. We pray through Jesus Christ, amen. Okay, so I'd like us first then to read verses 11 and 12. We read there in Acts 16, verse 11, from Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace. and the next day to Neapolis. From there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony, the leading city of that district of Macedonia, and we stayed there several days. Now this is a very important moment in the history of the expansion of Christianity. because this is when the gospel, the good news, came to Europe. Up till now, the preaching of the gospel had been first of all around Jerusalem in Israel, then it had spread around the Mediterranean Sea, around what used to be called Asia Minor and is now called Turkey, but now, Paul and his companions have now, in response to very specific guidance from God, they have now gone from Troas, which, of course, many of you would have heard of from, you know, Troy. I'm sure you've heard of that from lots of you from your history. They went from Troas, or Troy, and they went across the sea to Europe. And they landed up in a town called Philippi, which was a Roman colony. Now, the way that the Roman Empire worked was that the Romans used to, they conquered the whole area around the Mediterranean, but what they used to do was that they used to set up specific colonies in the areas that they conquered, which would be specific towns which were built along Roman lines, with Roman architecture and Roman amphitheater and theater and forum and so on. And Philippi was one of those towns. Now, let's now read verse 13. On the Sabbath day, we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. We see here a continuation of Paul's usual practice. Wherever Paul went around the different towns he went to, as he went around their own empire, he would go first to where he would find Jews gathered. And he would preach the gospel first of all to Jews, and then if the Jews then rejected the message, he would then go to Gentiles. Now, so it says here that they went to the riverside expecting to find a place of prayer. Now, we can only assume that there had not yet been a synagogue built in Philippi. And so, because there was no synagogue, Paul guessed that, okay, what will happen if there are any Jews or Jewish people who are adherents to the Jewish faith, then if there's no synagogue, then they'll be meeting at somewhere like a river to pray and to worship God. Maybe that was common practice, that where there was no synagogue, the Jews would go to a riverside to pray. So we see here then the principle being outworked that Paul had the priority first of preaching to the Jews. Now, in Romans chapter 1 and verse 16, Paul says, I am not ashamed of the gospel, the good news, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. So you see, the priority is first to the Jew, and then to the Gentile. Now here's a lesson for us, that if you go evangelizing somewhere, maybe you go to another town, go to university, move to a new village or town, and you're looking for somebody to evangelize, first look for Jews. Now, we don't unfortunately have very many Jews around here, but if we lived in somewhere like Stamford Hill, our first priority would be find the Jews, preach the gospel to them, and then go to the Gentiles. Some Christians, unfortunately, have a very anti-Jewish attitude, what's known as anti-Semitism, whereby they They say, ah, the Jews are responsible for the death of Jesus. We don't like the Jews. That's completely wrong. The Jews are still loved by God for the sake of Abraham. And we should make it our priority, first of all, to preach to Jews and then after that to preach to Gentiles. Now, then let's go on now to verse 14. One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira who was a worshipper of God. So here's this woman, now she's quite interesting because she It seems that she was a businesswoman, quite a successful businesswoman, and a rich businesswoman. Now we can guess that from the fact that she was a dealer in purple cloth. Now in those days, purple was a very, the color purple was very, very difficult to make. These days it's dead easy because they've worked out chemical processes, how to make purple and any other color you want. But in those days, there was only one particular plant, I don't know what it was, but there was only one particular plant, which was very rare, which could give you the color purple. And so, purple clothing was a sort of clothing that only the very, very rich would wear. And so if she was a dealer in purple cloth, she would have herself been a rich woman. Also, we learn later in the story that she had a big house where she could accommodate lots of people. So here was this rich woman. It looks like she wasn't actually a Jew, but she was a worshiper of God. So she was one of those Gentiles who'd got drawn to the Jewish religion. She realized that the worship of false gods of idols was wrong, and she'd come to believe in God. But she wasn't yet a true believer. She wasn't yet saved, as we will see in a moment. Because it says there, the Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message. So, she'd not yet been saved, but as Paul preached the message, God did a miracle in her, and he opened her heart to believe the message. Now, this tells us something very important. Because what happened to Lydia actually is what happens to anybody when anybody's converted. Because in our natural state, all of us are blind. All of us are dead in our sins. None of us naturally wants God. And the only thing which will cause anybody to become a true Christian is when God opens that person's heart. You know, sometimes people say, oh, well, we've all got free will. Well, in a sense, we do. Unfortunately, we use our free will in the wrong way. All of us will naturally choose not to believe in God. And this tells us something very important about our evangelism, which is that we need to pray that when the Word of God is preached in services, or when we go out visiting, or when we talk to our friends, God will open the hearts of unbelievers. And when we pray for all members of our family, we need to pray that God will enable them to see, and God will give them the heart to believe. Because if God doesn't work in their lives, they will remain dead in their sins. It also shows us that if any of us have become Christians, we can't say, oh, well, I was so good because I had that faith. No. If we've become Christians, it's because God has been kind to us and he's opened up our hearts and moved us to believe in Christ. Now, next thing to notice, verse 15. When she and members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. If you consider me a believer in the Lord, she said, come and stay at my house. And she persuaded us. Now, this tells us something very interesting and very important about baptism. We see here that this lady was baptized. And we learn from this that baptism is something which follows from faith. You know, there are some people who baptize, who believe in baptizing people in the hope that one day they will become Christians. But that's not what we see in the scripture. We see that it's when people believe when people have heard the message and they've believed the message, that that's when they should be baptized. But also we see from this that baptism should follow soon after real faith. Some people put off being baptized for years and years and years and years. Some people never even get around to being baptized at all before they die, even though They're sure they've become Christians and other people are sure they've become Christians, but they never get around to being baptized. So some people only get baptized, you know, just before, you know, they're getting ill and they know they're just about to die and then they call the pastor and they say, oh, I need to be baptized now. No, we should be baptized soon after we believe. That's what happened to this lady here. And now also, there's something that we need to just think about which says she was baptized, she and her household. Now some people pick up on this and they say, ah, this lady was baptized and her whole household was baptized as well. So they say that if the head of the household believes, then then that person and all the people of their household should be baptized. Well, we'll see. There's another instance of that which we'll come to in a moment, God willing, with the Philippine jailer. But I just want you to notice, just before we go any further, that there's no evidence here that this woman was even married. let alone have children. Sometimes people say, oh, well, here you are, you see, then somebody believes, and then, you know, the person who's believed, and their children should, you know, their infants, even their babies, should be baptized. But there's no indication here that she had any children at all, even that she was married. And by the time household, of course, at this period, it would include the household slaves and any aunts and uncles, parents, whatever, who might also be living in the household. But we'll think about a bit more about that in a moment when we come to think about the jailer and how he was baptized and his household. Well, now, and also I want you to notice from this verse how this lady, having believed in her household, having believed and being baptized, she asked Paul, she invited Paul to come and stay in her house. She now regarded Paul and Silas and Luke was also with them as well, she regarded these people as her brothers in the Lord and so she offered hospitality to them to come and live in their house. Now let's go on now to verses 16 and 17. Once when they 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 her 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. Now what we see from these verses is that there can be such a thing as fortune telling. you know I mean sometimes you get these mediums and spiritists and fortune tellers who just make up things and they and they you know they just work on the basis of probabilities or chance and they happen to say things but sometimes fortune tellers can exist and they can actually tell accurately what's going to happen or can actually tell accurately the state of things what she said was at one level true these men were indeed servants of the Most High God and they were indeed telling how to be saved. And of course the reason why there can be such a thing as fortune-telling is because there are real evil spirits who really do have power, who can predict the future or who can cause the future to happen. They can put a curse on somebody and they tell the fortune, the future of somebody by putting a curse on that person so that negative thing that has been predicted will happen. And there is such a thing then as demonic power and we should not poo-poo it or say that these things are not real. Now, but we see from this also that just because somebody says something that is true at one level or that is fulfilled, we shouldn't necessarily believe them. Sometimes people make predictions about what's going to happen which turn out to be true. And sometimes these people can lead Christians astray. But sometimes those Christians don't think, well, actually, how did that person make that prediction? Was it really from God or was it perhaps from an evil spirit? Just because somebody happens to say something which might be true, that doesn't necessarily mean that we should follow them or we should listen to them. Well, then we read verse 18. 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, come out of her. And at that moment, the Spirit left her. Now, we see from this that when she was saying that these people were servants of the Most High God, She wasn't saying it because she wanted them to believe, of course not, or when the evil spirit wanted people to believe in what Paul was saying. The evil spirit was saying these things to her in order to be annoying, in order to be troublesome. And of course, this is what happened when Jesus confronted evil spirits as well. They said that Jesus was the Son of the Most High God. very often. But they said it not because they wanted to worship Jesus or honor Jesus or to help his cause, but rather to be a nuisance to him. And Paul then got to the point where he basically had enough and he rebuked the evil spirit and commanded that evil spirit to come out. Now, you might say, well, is that something which we should do? If we come across evil spirits or people that we believe have got evil spirits in them, should we command them to come out? Well, I'm not persuaded that that's what we should do as Christians living in the present time because Jesus gave specific power and authority to his apostles and included in that is the apostle Paul in order to command evil spirits. I'm not persuaded that we have the power and authority to command evil spirits in the way that the apostles did, but we certainly can pray for those that we believe are troubled by evil spirits and ask the Lord Jesus to work in their lives and to set them free. Now, let's now see what happened as a result of this. We see that this led to dreadful persecution for Paul and his companions. Verse 19, 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 in front of 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'd been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. Upon receiving such orders, he put them into the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks. Now here we have the most dreadful miscarriage of justice. Paul and Silas have done nothing wrong. This poor girl had been exploited by her owners. She was tormented with an evil spirit. They had done a kind act by driving out the evil spirit from this girl so that she was set free. But the owners of the slave girl Because they saw that their source of money had gone, they then seized Paul and Silas, they dragged them into the marketplace, and they brought trumped up charges against them, saying that they were advocating customs unlawful for the Romans to accept or practice, which is not true. The crowd was then whipped up into a frenzy against Paul and Silas. The magistrates, they didn't bother to investigate what had been said. They simply went along with the crowd and they had Paul and Silas stripped of their clothing, had them severely flogged, and had them thrown into jail. This was appalling treatment. And all the more so for the fact that Paul and Silas were actually Roman citizens. In other words, they were VIPs, really. They were people who had the full rights of being treated fairly according to the law of the Roman society. But they were treated absolutely abominably and then thrown into jail. Now, this tells us something for ourselves. We should not be surprised if we are persecuted. Jesus told us, didn't he, that we should expect to be persecuted. He said, if I've been called Beelzebub, how much more should you expect to be treated badly? If the world hated me, then you must expect the world will hate you. He told us we should take up our cross daily and follow Him. We must expect to be persecuted. We should not be surprised if we experience really terrible ill treatment. Now, thankfully at the moment, we don't experience this at the moment, although some Christians are losing their jobs. because of their faith in Christ. Some of us have experienced people being nasty to us, people being rude to us, people not wanting to be our friends. That should not surprise us. And if it does happen that mobs are incited against us and we end up being beaten and thrown into prison, even killed, that should not surprise us because we are told in the scripture to expect this. But I want you to see the amazing way in which Paul and Silas responded to this dreadful ill treatment in verse 22. Sorry, verse 25. About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Now, isn't that amazing? They must have been feeling really sore from their wounds, which were probably still bleeding. Their flesh was raw. They were bruised all over. They must have been tempted to feel very discouraged, tempted to feel, where is God in this? Tempted to feel, oh, my world has fallen apart. Oh, I've served, I've tried to serve God so hard and look what happens to me. But instead of feeling sorry for themselves, they were rejoicing and they were rejoicing openly in front of the other prisoners. And that's why we read earlier in Psalm 57, where David says, I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the nations. I will praise you, Lord, among the nations. I will sing of you among the peoples." They were praising God openly in front of unbelievers. And that's an example to us. When we face difficulties, when we aren't ill-treated, that's something we can do and should do. we should praise God. And there are great examples in history when Protestants in this country were burned at the stake. As they were dying, they sang hymns to God, praising God for the opportunity to serve Him, praising God for His love. And it's a tremendous example to us all. Verse 26, suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. All at once the doors, the prison doors flew open and everybody's chains came loose. Now isn't this amazing? The praises of God unleashed tremendous power. And this isn't the only place, is there? Do you remember how there was a time when Jehoshaphat was facing an army, a huge army, and do you remember how he sent people to praise the Lord at the head of his army? And the musicians went out at the head of his army and they praised the Lord. And before they even got to the enemy, the enemy were destroyed. God dealt with it. Tremendous power in praise. Situations change. And we often forget this, don't we? But it's really good, obviously it's good to praise the Lord just because it's good to praise the Lord. But remember, If you go into a situation praising the Lord, that has tremendous potential to change that situation. Now, of course, I'm not saying that every single time there'll be this sort of deliverance. It may not be. But you never know what God might do. And this earthquake that took place here, it was not just, you know, that it just happened to be a natural earthquake that happened to just, you know, take place at this time. No, because you can see that this was a supernatural event, because not only did the prison shake, not only were the doors opened, but the chains of the prisoners fell off. Now, if it's just a natural earthquake, that wouldn't have resulted in the chains of the prisoners coming off. No, this was God stepping in. God intervened at this point, and he set the prisoners free. And of course, this is a wonderful illustration of what happens when somebody is saved. We sang that hymn, which we were asked to sing earlier. He sets the prisoner free. And also, it's picked up in that hymn, And Can It Be, that I should gain interest in the Savior's blood. And it says, long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature's night. you spoke. My chains fell off, my heart was free." And this is what God does when He saves somebody. He speaks, He intervenes, and the prisoner, the slave of sin, is set free. Well, then the jailer, verse 27, the jailer woke up And when he saw the prison doors open, he drew the sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. Now, you say, why would he do that? Nobody would commit, no jailer, no modern prison warden today would want to commit suicide just because a few prisoners have escaped. They think, oh, well, they've just got out. But of course, in those days, you were held responsible for your prisoner. It's your life for their life. If that prisoner escapes, you're going to be put to death. Now we see this earlier on in the Book of Acts when Peter was imprisoned by Herod and the Lord delivered him from prison and Herod, that wicked man, he put the jailers to death even though the Lord It wasn't their fault. The Lord had intervened to let Peter out of prison. But Herod held the jailers responsible. And you notice how the prison warder had been told, verse 23, the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. Look, you better make sure these people don't escape. Otherwise, you're going to be in trouble. And that's why he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks just to make sure they didn't escape. So they thought, oh no, they've escaped. I'm going to be put to death. So before they put me to death, I'm going to kill myself. And he's just about to kill himself when Paul shouts out to him, don't harm yourself, verse 28. Don't harm yourself. We're all here. Paul and Silas, although they could have just walked out of the prison at this point, out of love for that jailer, they probably knew that that jailer would get into trouble if they escaped, so out of love for that jailer they stayed put and then they cried out to him when he was just about to kill himself, don't harm yourself, we're still here. Now then, verse 29, the jailer called for lights and rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. He brought them out and asked them, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? The jailer now had a very profound sense of his sin. He knew that he was a sinner. He knew that he was in danger. He knew that he was at the very brink of going to hell. And he cried out, what must I do to be saved? Now, we don't know quite what will have led him to have this sense of conviction. Maybe he'd already heard Paul preaching. Maybe it was that he felt guilty. Perhaps he'd been involved in the flogging of Paul and he felt guilty. He knew that he was a good man and he'd done that. Maybe it was because of just the sheer power of God that was shown by this intervention. But whatever it was, he felt now this deep sense of guilt. He felt that he was in deep trouble before God. And this is what happens when people are converted. Some of us can look back to times when we were converted and we remember that dreadful sense, oh no, I'm a sinner. I deserve to go to hell. What can I do to be saved? And this is what needs to happen for people to be saved. And we need to pray that God will cause such a conviction to come to people. You know, we have our services, we get our non-Christians to come to services, we're very thankful to God for that. Sometimes it's sad though, isn't it? They come, they hear the message, they hear the gospel, they said a lovely service, they go away, they go home, sadly sometimes unmoved. It's not always, sometimes people, the Lord speaks to them. They're convicted. That's what we need to pray for. Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 1, verses 4 and 5, he says, for we know, brothers, loved by God, that he's chosen you because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit, and with deep conviction. That's what we need to pray for, for our friends. That power, the Holy Spirit, and deep conviction. That's what happens in times of revival. That conviction of sin comes upon a whole neighborhood. Hundreds of people sometimes are simultaneously converted. As the power of God comes down, the presence of God is known. And this is what we need to pray for. Now, then Paul answers the man's request. Verse 30, that question, he says, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household. Here's a tremendous promise. Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. Perhaps some of us here, one of us here who's listening here, or maybe somebody you might listen to are recording this talk, you might be under conviction. You might be saying, what must I do to be saved? Is there anything I can do? Are there any good works I can do? Is there any of this, anything? What can I do to be saved? And the answer is quite simply, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved. If you put your trust in Jesus, you'll be saved. It's not through your works. It's not through good deeds. It's simply through trusting in Jesus. But if you do trust in Jesus, the promise is you will be saved. Then notice what happens after that. Verses 32 to 34. 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, And he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God, he and his whole family. Now, again, sometimes people, well, first of all, I just want you to notice again here that baptism follows hearing the word of God. and believe in the Word of God. You don't get baptized before you hear and believe. You hear and believe and then you get baptized. But also notice that baptism follows very soon after hearing and believing. In this instance, it happened the same night. Now, we might feel it prudent to perhaps delay a little bit because in those days, for somebody to be baptized, you're signing your own death sentence. Suppose for somebody to be baptized, you know that they've got real faith. And somebody could easily come forward in our present society, and there's not much of a cost to being baptized. And perhaps we might need to just be a little bit careful just to make sure that somebody really does have faith. And that's true saving faith. But nevertheless, we see that baptism should come soon after coming to faith. We can see here a household being baptized. And again, this raises this issue that some people say, oh, well, here you are. You see, the Jonah believed, and then he and his whole household were baptized. And so perhaps they say, what this teaches us is that if the head of the household believes, then he and his wife And his children should all be baptized because he has believed. But I want you to notice it says there that Paul spoke the word of the Lord to him and all the others in his house. All those who were baptized had also heard the word. But also notice from verse 34 that the whole household had come to believe. The jailer brought them to 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 household. So far from this passage teaching that the infants of those who believe should be baptized on the strength of the faith of the head of the household, far from it. What this passage teaches is that baptism should follow faith to those who have heard and who have believed the message. Now, yes, that can include children, a four-, five-year-old, six-year-old, eight-year-old child, can hear the message and can believe the message and can also be baptized. That's quite right. But to build from this passage that a baby who is incapable of really hearing the message and of making any response of faith should also be baptized, I'm sure is completely incorrect. The point is this. It is those who hear and who believe who should be baptized. Now, of course, this raises the whole question of how can you tell? You know, a child of six or seven says that they believe. It can sometimes be quite difficult to tell real saving faith from the sort of faith that a child will naturally have who's brought up in a Christian home. And that can require some wisdom. But there's no reason in principle why a child who who has heard the word and has come to faith cannot be baptized. But we should not draw from this passage, just say the principle of infant baptism. Now, then we go on then to see what happens at the end. The magistrates realized they'd made a mistake, and they tried to sort of get rid of Paul quietly, but Paul won't have it. Read verse 35. When it was daylight, the magistrates sent their officers to the jailer with the order, release those men. The jailer told Paul, the magistrates have ordered that you and Silas be released, now you can leave, go in peace. The magistrates obviously realized they'd made a mistake somehow or other. But Paul said to the officers, they beat us publicly without a trial, even though we are Roman citizens, and threw us into prison. Now they wanted to get rid of us quietly? No, let them come themselves and escort us out. The officers reported this to the magistrates and when they heard that Paul and Silas were Roman citizens, they were alarmed. They could have got into serious trouble. Verse 39, they came to appease them and escorted them from the prison, requesting them to leave the city. After Paul and Silas came out of the prison, They went to Lydia's house where they met with the brothers and encouraged them. Then they left. So we see then that what we can learn from this is that if you're treated wrongly as a Christian, yes, we should bear it patiently as Paul and Silas did. Yes, we should rejoice as they did. But it's not wrong to use the law to seek redress. Now, probably some of you heard that Israel Folau, the Australian rugby player who was sacked for his posts that he put on social media, is taking the court, the rugby union, Australian Rugby Union, to court for breach of contract, for unfair dismissal. Now, that's completely right that he should do that. And we can hope and pray that his case succeeds. Because it's not wrong if you're treated unlawfully to seek that for that to be put right. But it's also important that when we're treated badly that we personally have no malice towards those who treat us badly and that we still rejoice in the Lord as Paul and Silas did. Okay, well, I hope that the Lord will have used something from this message tonight to encourage you. If you're not yet a Christian, maybe the Lord will have shown you what you need to do. that you need to, to become a Christian, you need to believe on the Lord. If you have believed on the Lord, I hope the Lord will help you to see that you need to be baptized if you're not yet being baptized. And if you are already a Christian and you've been baptized, I hope the Lord will use this to encourage you. to help you to see how the Lord can work in other people's lives and to see how we should respond when we are treated badly. Now, I'd like to pick up on what we're saying about how the chains falling off Paul and Silas are a picture of what happens when someone becomes a Christian, and I'd like us to sing that hymn that I referred to, and can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior's blood? So let's do that now, number 700.