And as the disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, we want to be discipled in the scriptures. We want to be the students we were called to be, for that's what it means to be a disciple. It means to be a student of the Word of God, a student of the Word of Christ. Take your outline as well, please. If you've got that map handy, which I had made and handed out at the beginning of our study of the missionary journeys, if you misplaced it, there are a few extra copies on the table. Or you may prefer to use your map at the back of your Bible. But it's important for us to see and visualize this historic movement of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the missionary journeys of Paul and his associates into the world. Now if you look at your outline, we're looking at the witness of the church to the Gentile world, and we are down to the fourth point, point D, the second missionary journey of Paul and Silas. Begins in chapter 15, verse 34, and goes through to the point of chapter 18, verse 22. Last week, we began this study of the missionary journey. We looked at the prelude to the second missionary journey. Actually, that was the week before. That was the difference between Paul and Barnabas over who should be their associate and how they separated and went their own ways, and how Paul chose Silas. Then last week, we looked at the opening phase of the second missionary journey. And again, looking at your map, and we have highlighted the path of Paul and Silas in this journey using the orange pencil. They were there in Syria of Damascus, near Damascus. They went up through Syria, strengthened the churches there from Antioch into Cilicia. And then from Cilicia they went to the churches that they had founded in the first missionary journey. Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch in Pisidia. And we're told that in these verses. Then we have the addition of Timothy at the beginning of chapter 15 to the missionary team. Timothy, a very important figure in the New Testament. And we see him We learn about him, his faith, his background, and how he was called to the ministry. Things about Timothy and Paul's relationship are expounded and explained more fully in the epistles that Paul wrote to Timothy. Remind you again that the book of Acts provides the backdrop, the background, the context of understanding all of the epistles of the New Testament. After Timothy was added, they did continue then in their journey through the churches of the first missionary journey. They went to the other churches of Galatia. Again, the book of Galatians, where does it fit? Who are these people? Well, you can read about them in these journeys, because they were the churches of Lystra, Derbe, Iconium, and Antioch in Pisidia. Then after this, we have Paul. seeking to go further in his work, to go into new ground, to go into new areas. And they decide they want to go into Asia, most likely to go to Ephesus, the chief city of Asia, there which was near the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. But the Lord said, no, not Asia. And so they didn't know where they should go, so they decided, if you look at your map, they went north, up to go into Bithynia. But they got to Bithynia and they're ready to go into that area and began evangelizing and the Spirit of God again closed the door and said, no, not Bithynia. Not knowing where to go, they headed west through Mycenae and they came to the city of Troas and there the memorable vision was given to Paul in the night. The Macedonian man who stood there and said, come over into Macedonia and help us. This was the Lord's answers to their prayers that they had waited and sought for so long, after so many miles, God opened the door, showed the way, and they went into Macedonia, which means they entered into the continent of Europe. For the first time, as missionaries, they went to preach the gospel to the Greek people, the Macedonian people, to the European peoples. a very pivotal event in human history, was this direction of the Holy Spirit to firmly establish the gospel in Europe, which became historically the center of Christendom in the world, the base of all missionary journeys in the future to take the gospel to the world and to the nations, where Christian culture was developed perfectly, for sure, And then we had corruptions in the church and all kinds of problems, because anything that men do is not going to be done without many errors and slips. But nonetheless, in the providence of God, the European peoples became the backbone of the church. This is one of the reasons why Satan hates Europe, Europeans, and we ourselves transplanted from Europe to this new continent. The devil hates us, our heritage, not because of the color of our skin, not because of geographical considerations, but because of the Christian salvation that has come to us, that our ancestors and forefathers have defended and given their lives for. And he would destroy that Christian culture. today, uses various nefarious means to accomplish that, which is not my purpose to go into those. But I want you to just pause for a moment and see the significance of providence. This was not Paul's decision. This was the decision of the Holy Spirit. under the direction of Jesus Christ, who was under the direction of the Father, who ordained all things from the beginning of the earth. This is where they should go. And so they begin their ministry in Europe, in the area of Macedonia, the modern day Greece. And the first city that they preach at is Philippi. And so we come to the mission to Philippi, where we are currently studying. We saw a description of Philippi in verse 12. It was a very important city. It was the chief city of Macedonia. One of the chief cities anyway. We learned that there was not a synagogue there as there was in the other areas that Paul had reached in his first missionary journey, but there was a group of God-fearing women. There may have been a few Jewish women, but the sense we get here is the feeling that it was mainly Gentile God-fearers. Remember who the God-fearers were. They were Gentiles who had become disgusted with paganism, and its philosophies, and its religions, and its immorality, and its hopelessness, and had been drawn to the living God, the true God, through the only means that was available, and that was through the synagogue that read faithfully the word of God. And even though many of those Jews were apostate in the sense of true faith and living God, still they read the word of God. And Paul said, in terms of the gospel, even if enemies preach the gospel to add affliction to myself, I still rejoice that the gospel is preached. And so God was using the reading of the scriptures And I'm sure there were some true God-fearing Jews who really believed, and there were some good teachers yet who set forth the truths of the Word of God. And so these Gentiles were then drawn to the living God. They could go on different levels. You could be a God-fearer, which was called the proselyte of the gate, referring to the fact in Jerusalem, where we have the temple, there's various degrees of closeness to the sanctuary. The proselytes of the gate were able to come into the Jewish court of the women, but they could not go into the court of the men, where we have only proselytes, true Gentiles who have actually converted and become Jews religiously and through circumcision in a physical sense. They were the proselytes of the sanctuary. And so these women, gathered on the Sabbath to pray. Again, apparently no men around that were told of. Paul and his team find out there's no synagogue. Well, they probably knew there was no synagogue, but they wanted to know if there was any place where they might find a opening. And they heard of this prayer meeting, and so they go there. On the Sabbath day, they find these women, and Paul brings to them the gospel of Jesus Christ, and we have our first convert. In Europe, it's a woman by the name of Lydia, and we dealt with her conversion to some extent last week, a beautiful picture. Now we come to a new material. By the way, each week I like to bring us up to where we're at. You've had a busy week, many things have been on your mind, maybe you haven't thought a whole lot about Paul's second missionary journey this week, maybe you have. but we need to get right into the flow of the truth as we step back in. Where are we now? We're in Philippi. What has happened? We've seen this glorious conversion of Lydia and her household, and others are coming to Christ, because we know later on there's men being converted as well, and the church is growing there. But then we have another incident, and it involves a woman in verses 16 to 18. And this incident is very important in the story here, not only because of the story of Christ's power to save a woman, a young woman, and we're assuming she was young because of the word damsel, this young woman from the grip of Satan and the mercenary purposes of evil men using a woman for their purpose. This has been a terrible blight on human history, how men have used women as their instruments for gain and pleasure. They have treated them as objects that are only worthy of such things. This is a picture of the heathen world, by the way, how they considered women and the role they had. And we see here when Christianity comes, women are liberated from the degradation that pagan men have put upon them. We saw Lydia's conversion, but now we see the conversion of a very different woman. And we have the deliverance of this woman from the spirit of divination. So picking up, here we are, chapter 16. Verse 16, and it came to pass as we went to prayer, or to the place of prayer, the place of prayer by the river where Lydia was converted, and on the Sabbath the people would gather for prayer. Now Paul and his companions were there, and not only did they pray, they received the reading of the scripture and the exposition of it by the hands of the apostle Paul and his associates. So as we went to prayer, to this place of prayer, a certain damsel, possessed with a spirit of divination, met us. Then we have this explanation about her, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying. 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. And this did she many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her, and he that is the spirit came out the same our so let's look at this account, this deliverance of the damsel from the spirit of divination. Verse 16 tells us about her degraded condition. She was possessed with a spirit of divination. Now this spirit of divination was a personal spirit, an evil spirit, a demonic spirit. As in the gospel, so we see in the book of Acts and also in the epistles, demon possession was a great reality. in the ancient world, and we certainly should not say it's not a reality today. Demons are still very much at work as the shock troops, the core of satanic influence in the world. And so we have this young lady, a certain damsel. Her name is not given to us, but she was possessed with a spirit that enabled her to divine. That's what a spirit of divination means. She had an evil spirit who gave her powers of divination. Now, what is divination? Divination is the power to see the future and tell and predict what's going to happen. It's part of the occult, as we would call it today. The supernatural powers that are approached through occult means. Now divination, the spirit of divination, this word divination is used for example in the Greek Old Testament, the translation of the Hebrew into Greek, of the woman that Saul went to, the witch of Endor, to find out what was going to happen in the battle the next day with the Philistines. He was desperate, he had no word from God, and he wanted to know the future. And so he sought a woman with a spirit of divination. And her particular expertise, apparently, was to call up spirits from the dead. And she's called up Samuel. My belief is that the spirits she called up were demons, though in this case it appears that God slipped her a change and he actually sent the spirit of Samuel to speak. But that was because this woman had the power to do it. All she could call up were evil spirits. And so this was the kind of woman we're talking about here. So what would people do? Like Saul, what's going to happen tomorrow? Should I enter into this business contract? Should I marry this man or this woman? All kinds of questions hit people. And they have no connection with God, no direction from scripture, no direction from wise men and women to counsel them from the word of God. So what do you have to do? We all want to know what we should do in these decisions. So the pagan world sought spirit of divination. And they would go to this damsel who had shown she had this power, because there is power in the occult world. Let us not think it's all a hoax. The hoax is, though, that it's not good power. It's evil power. But there's powers there. Satan is powerful. And so these people would go to her, and guess what? They had to pay money for it. And it appears they had to pay pretty heavily, because we're told here that people who came to this woman who was owned, possessed of a spirit, but also possessed by these men. She was a slave to their mercenary, not missionary, but mercenary motives. And so she brought her masters, notice plural, not just one master. She may have been someone who was of such a degree of divination that many were involved in this racket. And they brought them much gain. Notice the word much. They're making a lot of money by her sooth saying, which is another word that speaks of her ability to predict the future. A word that we might use, she was a fortune teller. and that type of thing. There's all kinds in the occult world of fortune teller. You know, reading the palm, tarot cards, all kinds of things. We don't know exactly how she went about her work here, but she was a soothsayer. She was someone who was a fortune teller. That's the situation. That's her degraded condition. What were her actions then toward the missionaries? Paul and Silas attracted attention. They had been in Philippi for a while. Things were happening. People were coming to Christ. Testimony was being given. And she herself would have heard of this, no doubt. And so she was, in some ways, attracted to them. Now, when I say attracted, I don't necessarily mean in a positive way, but the demons, or the demon in her, was quite concerned about this man, and they hatched a plot. And so she follows Paul, and notice again there we have us. Who's the us? And we mentioned last week these first person plurals indicates Luke is present. Luke was there when all this was happening. He heard her. She was crying out. This is a loud voice. Lifting her voice is a public crier, not just making a comment to somebody at her side. She was shouting this in public. These men are the servants of the Most High God, which show unto us the way of salvation. Now, what she understood by this, no one knows. The idea of the Most High God was a pagan statement. In other words, the highest god among the gods. So it's not necessarily a monotheistic saying. In fact, among the pagans, it was never that. They had their most high gods. within their pantheons and according to their religions and according to their countries. So she's crying out that though they are the ministers, the messengers of the most high God, they're showing to us in the Greek literally a way of salvation. This was not necessarily a, you know, John 14, six, I am the way, the truth and the life. No, it wasn't that. They're showing us a way of salvation. Because again, people were coming to salvation. That was what Paul was preaching, how you can be saved. And she does this for many days, continues this, but Paul is grieved. He's grieved on a number of levels. First of all, this is not who we want to be the voice of the gospel. This is a disreputable voice. This is an evil voice. It's like having someone be a preacher who is an open known adulterer, or an open known evil person of any other stripe, and they are going to preach the gospel. You're saying that's the people who declare these truths? We don't want demonic spirits giving witness to us and to the message we proclaim, and Paul's grieved by that, but I think he's also grieved by the condition of this young woman. It's a terrible thing to see a human being so degraded. And so his grief, I believe, was on those levels. Jesus himself had to deal with demons, and they would, when he confronted them, they would shout out in the crowd, What do I have to do with ye, O son of God? Or something to that effect. And Jesus instantly silenced them. There's one thing that he did not need was their testimony, especially since the Pharisees were saying he had his power from the Prince of Demons. And so if demons possess people, witnessing to him is not the way to go. Similar here, Paul was grieved about that and he was grieved by this young woman. Do we understand this as Christians when we see people in bondage to evil, to the satanic things, to the occult, to false religions? Grieved, he was grieved. He wanted to see her delivered from this spirit of divination. So he turns and he says, not to the girl, She herself and her spirit's not the controlling power in this spirit of divination, but the spirit himself, this evil spirit, and he says to the spirit, not the damsel, to the spirit, I command you, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ. Paul had no power over the demon, but he knew that his Lord did. In Mark chapter 16, at the end of the gospel there, Jesus in his great commission says, in my name they shall cast out demons and heal the sick and so on. Here we see them. casting out the demons. As the gospel goes in to Europe, as it goes into the pagan world, we see at the beginning here an encounter with demonic forces, false religions, the occult, and paganism. This is an important new step in the Book of Acts, because up to this point, the power that has opposed the gospel have been the power of the false religion of Judaism. In almost every event so far, it's been the Jews who have opposed this. Now we have another actor in this, because the devil has various outposts. One of them was the synagogue of Satan, as Jesus called it in the book of Revelation. But there was also the occult of Satan, the divination of Satan, the false religions of Satan, the philosophies of Satan. So there's many ways in which he brings darkness into the world. And here we see this demonic spirit, this in pagan context, has no connection with the Jews, no connection here with the synagogue, comes and has been undermining the gospel as we have just explained it by this testimony of this damsel who was demon-possessed. So he commands this demon to come out in the name of Jesus Christ and he came out the same hour, that is right then. Devil and his minions are powerless at the name of Jesus Christ when it's used and exercised in full dependence upon the Lord Jesus, his truth and his power. And so the demon comes out. She is delivered by the evil spirit, by the power of Jesus. Well, what happened to her then? What was the vent here? Well, we don't know what her life was like after this. Did she become one of the Philippian Christians to whom the epistle to the Philippi was written? I'd like to believe so, but I can't be sure. She was delivered. Just like the demoniacs in the ministry of Jesus, when they were delivered, they put their faith in him. They wanted to follow him. So I'm gonna surmise, not declare, that there was a wonderful story here that someday we'll know. Hopefully. That is what I'm suggesting is true. But she was set free. But that's not the point now that Luke, in his very condensed version here, is going to deal with the after effects of this in terms of these masters, these owners, and how they became enraged by this. And this leads to the next point in this study of the ministry in Philippi. It's the persecution of Paul and Silas by the Philippians. And the instigators of the persecution are given to us in verse 19. The charges that were connected with the persecution are given in verses 20 and 21. The nature of the persecution is given in verses 22. to 24, so let's look at these. Who were the instigators of this persecution? Well, as we develop the story here, it was her masters, Philippian men who used this young girl for their own purposes and gained much money through her soothsaying. All of a sudden, the spirit of divination that gave her the real power to divine was gone. And they saw that she was of no use to them anymore. She had lost her abilities. Not only her abilities, I wouldn't be surprised we might say also she lost her desire and her will refused to go that way anymore. But anyway, she couldn't do it regardless. And so their hope of gains were gone. Here we notice that this persecution begins when Christianity touches the pocketbook of the heathen. They were losing money now, and Christianity, the gospel, was the reason that they were losing money. We see this later on in Ephesus when those who made these nice little idol figurines of Diana They made their living that way and all of a sudden all these Ephesians were coming to Christ and they had no interest in buying these little trinkets or whatever you would want to call them. And they saw their gain was going and so they raised a ruckus. People can put up with a lot of things in terms of Christianity until it touches their pocketbook. And that's what happened here. So what happens? They are very angry. They catch Paul and Silas. They seize them. Whether it was at that very moment, I doubt it, because it would have taken time for them to realize this girl was now hopeless and useless to them. But Paul and Silas were public figures there in the marketplace, speaking of Christ. witnessing to people, one and one and so on. And so they go later and they catch these two men, these men who have ruined their enterprise, Paul and Silas. They drew them into the marketplace where the rulers would have sat. The marketplace was the center of the town. If not literally, it was the center of its life, its commerce, and its justice, its government. And so they bring him here to the marketplace, into the center of Philippi. And if you bring someone to the magistrate, you have to have a reason for that. You've got to have some charges. And that's what we see next. And so when her masters saw the hope of their gains were gone, they caught Paul and Silas, drew them in the marketplace under the rulers. and brought them to the magistrates saying, these men being Jews do exceedingly trouble our city and teach customs which we are not lawful, which are not lawful for us to receive neither to observe being Romans. So here we have them bringing these charges, the men, seize Paul and Silas, and they bring them to the magistrates. And a big hubbub begins to unfold in the middle of this as they make their claims. Here's their charge. Notice they don't mention, hey, we were making a lot of money on this damsel, and these guys ruined our deal. And we're angry, and we're going to get vengeance on them for what they've done to our moneymaker. They didn't say that. They didn't mention that. They clothed it in language that would have gotten the attention of the magistrates, and so they act like they are very loyal to Rome in all of this. But what are they really loyal to? Their purse. Anyway, they bring them before him. Now, the first thing they say, they're Jews. Now, the Jews were not very popular at this time. I'm not sure they were ever popular, but I'm saying they were particularly unpopular. I point out before, the Jews and Gentiles didn't like each other. If you look at this chronology that we have here on the Book of Acts paper, and maybe you can't keep all these papers before you, and don't worry about that, but in there we notice that Paul and Silas began their second missionary journey in AD 49. Something very important happened in AD 49 in Rome. And that is Claudius, I believe it was Claudius, the Caesar at that time, had expelled the Jews from Rome. He had had it with them. He threw them out of Rome, AD 49. And so this news would have gone throughout the whole empire. And the Jews, even though they were odious to the Gentiles, were particularly so in that Caesar himself couldn't put up with them anymore, and he threw them out. And so this is the very time this is happening. So this is in the people's minds. These are Jews. You know the ones Claudius just expelled because they're troublemakers? These are Jews. You know, we don't like Jews. They don't like us. So it's a very prejudiced type of situation here. and racial discord of the highest order. Being Jews, they exceedingly trouble our city. Now here's, they are Jews and just like they troubled Rome and Caesar had to deal with them, so they're now here troubling our city. What are they doing? They're teaching customs, which are not lawful for us to receive. Religious customs would be the idea here. It's not lawful for us to receive this religion that they are proclaiming. You know that Rome did allow wide range of religions of all kinds of stripes and contradictory to each other in great degree, and yet they were allowed to do so, but there were religions that had to be approved by the state. There was licit and illicit religions. The licit religions were those that were approved. The illicit religions were those that were unlawful, and that's the idea here. They're teaching religious customs that have not been approved by Rome. They are unlawful for us to receive. I mean, we shouldn't even listen to them, let alone observe them, because we're Romans. We're Romans. So this is the context. They're teaching religion. By the way, Judaism had been granted the licit religion status. In the ups and downs of that relationship between Rome and Judaism, they had achieved that. But Christianity did not. In the early days of the church, it sort of took cover. And I'm not saying they even did this deliberately, but it just was the case, because these missionaries were Jews, and they were teaching from the Old Testament scriptures, the Greek scriptures, and so on. So what we have here, these are saying they're teaching an illicit religion, this religion of Jesus, of Nazareth. It's not approved. It's unlawful. They've broken the law. And so the multitude, here we have, they stir up the multitude. This is always the way injustice works. You build anger against justice. You plant false evidence against truth. And you stir the multitude up, the unthinking multitude. Isn't it tragic how history has been wrecked by the multitude? Well, what happened at Christ's crucifixion? The multitude cried out, crucify him. And that was the ultimate turning point. It wasn't that the Pharisees and scribes and Sadducees convinced Pilate. He just brushed him aside and go away. But when the multitude began to shout and crucify him, you're not a friend of Caesar if you don't put down this insurrectionist, and so on. And so the multitude rises up together. This is the problem in every country in history, and you see it today. Open your eyes and see how the multitude is manipulated and turned by false teachers, false doctrine, and influencers, as we call them today, who stir up the people against godliness, truth, and of the Lord Jesus Christ. So the multitude rises up together against them. And again, if the multitude wouldn't have risen up, probably nothing much would have happened to them in this context. But the multitude rises up, they're shouting and demanding that something be done with these terrible Jews who are teaching illicit customs that Romans should not even hear, let alone observe. And so the magistrates, just like Pilate, follow his lead and succumb to the motion of the moment, the clamor of the crowd, and they have, Paul and Silas have their clothes taken off. That is, they didn't rent their clothes, but the magistrate rent off their clothes, that is the clothes of Paul and Silas, and commanded them to be beaten, to be scourged with the Roman lictor, using the rod. And it says, and when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailer to keep them safely. Now, this was a brutal beating. The men who administered the rod were men with muscles of iron. They could swing a rod, and those rods weren't a little reed. They were pliable, but oh, were they powerful and painful, and they beat them. We don't know how many times they beat him. In the Roman system, the criminal would be beaten until the magistrate said enough. Under God's law, there was a limit of 40 stripes. Under the Romans, no such limit. We don't know how many times they were beaten. But when Paul and Silas had gone through this, their backs were a bloody pulp, bruised and beaten, bleeding in agony. This is what it costs them to be missionaries of Jesus Christ, to proclaim his gospel. And in a moment, we will see what their response was. Did they resign? Uh-uh, I didn't ask for this. It's not what I signed up for as a Christian. I'm done. They're the people, by the way, of the seed that falls by the wayside, Jesus talked about, with joy they receive it. Oh yeah, we're gonna follow Jesus. But then a persecution arises for the word's sake and they quickly abandon Christianity. What did you sign up for using that phrase to become a Christian? A ticket to heaven? Well, that is there. But the path to heaven, As Paul said in his first missionary journey, with much suffering we must enter the kingdom. The path is hard, it's painful, and we must as Christians be ready to bear it or we are not worthy of the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is serious business. This is the history. of the war between darkness and light. And we are enlisted in the side of light. And darkness will not take their defeat easily. And they will fight back. And here is now, Satan sees what's going on. The gospel's going into Europe. He said, I'm gonna stop it now. I'm gonna do away with this Paul and Silas, and I'm gonna beat them and have them beaten to the point where they resign. He didn't realize the stuff of which these men were made. And when I say the stuff, that's a phrase we use, but they had the Holy Spirit within them. That's what made them what they were. You ever see a rubber hose? Sure you have. Not very strong, is it? Bends back and forth. No strength. Can't stand up against anything, can it? But what happens if you took that rubber hose and put a rebar in it? I'll come bend. You see, you and I are the rubber hose. The Holy Spirit is the rebar. And when the Holy Spirit is in us, we're able to bear it. He gives us the strength to stand against persecution. Here was their persecution. They were beaten with many stripes. And then, we're told, they were thrown into prison and bound fast in the stocks. It says this, and when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison. I like that word cast. I mean, I don't like it, but it's very descriptive. They did not lightly lead them along because they were so beaten and so in pain and bleeding. They just roughly took them in and grabbed them. They were thrown into the prison. And being thrown into the prison by the jailer, that jailer, Then having received in verse 24, I should back up, they were thrown into prison by the lictors, no doubt, the men who had beaten them. And they also then charged the jailer to keep them safely, who he, verse 24, having received the charge, he thrusts them into the inner prison, which we might call the dungeon, the worst part of the prison. Many of the prisons of that day were built into the side of a mountain, and at least part of the prison itself was underground in the rock and in the darkness. And it's been suggested that this is what may have been the arrangement here. But regardless, it was not the place you wanted to be. And the prisons back then make our prisons look like the Marriott. They were filthy, vermin infected. cold, damp, miserable. And so they were thrown into this, but then added to that, they were put in stocks. Their feet were bound fast in stocks, and often they were bound in positions to add to the misery and discomfort of the person. And so they've got the misery and discomfort of their back, the misery and discomfort of the, a dungeon, as it were, and now the misery of stocks. This is intense persecution, my friends. Try to picture it and see the heroic nature of these men, because then we come to verses 25 and 26, their prison experience. The prison experience of these men. Verses 25 and 26. And at midnight, Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God and the prisoners heard them. And suddenly, and we get to the next. Yeah, I'm gonna read verse 26. And suddenly there was a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison were shaken and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's bands were loosed. So here's their experience in there. What did they experience in the midst of their suffering? Intense physical suffering. They experienced the presence of God. God is in the dungeon with his people. Christ is there. And in their suffering, what do they do? They pray. Now that, somewhat understandable. We're praying God that he would deliver us, get us out of this mess, ease the pain. But the next one's not so easy to see or do. Not only did they pray, but they praised. They praised the Lord. They prayed and sang praises unto God. And of course, most commentators believe, and I think rightly so, that they were men who were steeped in the Psalms, and they were singing the Psalms back to God. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and let all that is within me bless his holy name. That type of thing. And they were praising God in the midst of the storm, in the midst of the affliction, with the bleeding, bruised back, with the cold, damp air, with their feet in stocks, painfully thrust into these stocks. Here they are at midnight. Paul and Silas are praying. That we understand. But the praises is a hard one to understand unless you have known the presence of God's Spirit in your darkest hour. They sang praises to God. This was their victory, the victory of faith that overcometh the world, that overcometh beatings, that overcometh dungeons, that overcometh stocks, overcomes injustice, because they certainly did not deserve to be there. And the prisoners heard them. The word heard there means eager hearing. This got their attention and they eagerly listened. They never heard anything like this in their life, never experienced anything. Some of these may have been in prison numerous times. They didn't know what they heard at midnight. They heard curses and shouted and cursing the gods and so on. Here they have men praying and praising their God. And so these prisoners were hearing them eagerly and also the action of the verb is continuously. They were mesmerized by what they heard. And then I love that word, and suddenly in the midst of the praising and praying, the prisoners caught up in amazement and eagerness to hear what these men were saying and hearing their songs of praise. Suddenly in the midst of all that, there was a great earthquake. Philippi was shaken, not just the prison, The city was shaken. The center of the earthquake was the prison, yes. And it was in this earthquake, the shaking of the earth, the whole mountain, the building itself, the foundations were moved. They were shaken. So picture these men there, the shaking. Debris probably starting to fall, and then we see next all the doors flying open. Their chains, if they had any shackles, are falling off, and the loudness, the noise, and they have just been eagerly listening to men praying. And I wouldn't have been surprised if they were praying for their deliverance. We don't know, but all of a sudden, this happens. Now, what would you do in that? Can you add one plus one? Everything's amazing here. They understood, I believe, that this was the hand of the God of the men that they were praising. And this explains why even though they were loosed, none of the prisoners left. This was a divine moment. Fear gripped all. The fear of divine presence gripped them all. And so it says, the keeper of the prison, of course, awakened out of his sleep, verse 27, and seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled. So the jailer, the one in charge of the jail, is awakened by this earthquake, throws on his garments, straps on his sword, flies out of the house to go to the prison, and he would have been right beside it, right near it, goes to the prison, and he sees the doors open. What would you think would be the next deduction? Well, the prisoners are gone. And so seeing this and knowing the penalty for a jailer who allows prisoners to escape, particularly dangerous state prisoners like Paul and Silas, and who else knows was in there, murderers perhaps, he knows what's going to come to him. He's going to be publicly tried, publicly humiliated, and executed for his crime of allowing the prisoners to escape. That was Roman justice. And so he decides that the best thing to do to avoid all of that humiliation and perhaps torture and then execution is to kill himself right then and there. So he draws his sword, he's ready to kill himself, and Paul and Silas, at least Paul, sees it and he cries with a loud voice, which he had to do in the midst of the moment. Because he was inside the dungeon, he cries out, do yourself no harm, for we are all here. What a word that must have been to the mind of this jailer who was ready to kill himself. And so it says, then he called for a light. His family member or assistant jailers or whoever, bring him a light. And he springs in, he goes in quickly, And not only quickly, he's trembling with fear. Something amazing is happening here. And he falls down before Paul and Silas. And he brings them out, verse 30, and said, sirs, what must I do to be saved? And then those, the immortal words. And they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy house. So let's look at this, the conversion of the Philippian jailer. First of all, if you look at her outline, I believe we have three things or five things at work here, emotions. First, despair. Second, astonishment. Third, fear. Fourth, fate. And fifth, joy. You can see that, can't you, all through there. It begins with despair. He would take his own life. That's the first stage of his conversion. He has been brought to the end of himself. Life cannot be lived any longer. I'm going to end it. I'm undone. There is no hope for me. Suicide is the only way out. But then he's astonished. All that's been happening, by the way, the earthquake, the doors open, and the prisoners all there lead him to astonishment at what is really happening. He doesn't need to kill himself. Something amazing has happened here. And so he goes in and he brings them out of the prison, and in fear, he's afraid, he needs salvation. In fear, he asks, what must I do to be saved? Some have suggested, this man, what do I have to do to be saved, to be free from punishment by the authorities? Well, first of all, he doesn't need to be punished. The prisoners are all there. I think the fear that he's exercising here is the fear of God. The men that I just horribly treated, didn't wash their wounds, threw them in bleeding and bruised into the prison, roughly put them in the stocks. In the worst part of the prison, these were the servants of the Most High God. and the wrath of God must be on me for what I did to them. Something like that is probably closer to the truth. He is fearing for his soul. He fears the wrath of God. The God he has rejected is the servants he has abused. What must I do to be saved from the wrath of your God? From the wrath of the most high God, I think is the question. and then he receives the answer. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved in thy house. Why do you think he said in thy house? He's telling him what the way to salvation is. I believe that by this point, whoever was in the house was awake as well. They had all come out to the courtyard of the prison and were crowded around the jailer as he had brought them out. And he asked the question. And so Paul doesn't just address him, but though all the others who are present from his household. If you jailer, if you household of the jailer believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you will be saved. All of you can be saved. I think that's the context. Paul, after giving that brief statement, goes on to explain verse 32, and they spoke unto him the word of the Lord and to all that were in his house. And so in other words, you can't be saved just by hearing the phrase, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. That won't save you, that one verse. The meaning of that verse has to be explained. How believing in Jesus Christ will save you from your sin, that has to be set forth. The gospel, in other words, has to be declared. And this is what he does. He then goes on to preach the gospel to them, the story of their sin, their judgment under God, the coming of the Redeemer, his death for their sins, his resurrection on the third day. And he set this before the jailer and the house, and they believed. Verse 33 tells us that. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes and was baptized, he in all his straight way. In other words, not only did he believe, but all of his household believed at the same time. And so by faith, the jailer and his household were saved and they were baptized. And then finally, we look at his joy. because he would have been saved. And when he had brought them into his house, he set meat or food before them and rejoiced, believing in God with all his house. In other words, his whole house rejoiced. His whole house had believed in God. His whole house had been baptized. This was a moment of what you would call family revival of the most amazing sort. By the way, this is one of those hints in the New Testament, that in the New Testament era, families are important as a body and as entity, household salvation. God delights to bring whole households to himself, that the household, husband, wife, children, extended members of the family who might live there, and of course, in the ancient world, there would have been servants and so forth, come to Christ, and as a household, they serve Jesus Christ. What a powerful force in the world, the Christian household. And this is a great example of it. Cornelius may have been the first Christian household we hear of outside of the Jewish believers in the Book of Acts, but here's a second example. But then we have the release of Paul and Silas in verses 35 to 39. When it was day, the magistrate sent to the sergeant saying, let these men go. so their command to release them. And the keeper of the prison is really happy to hear this, obviously, and he says to them, says to Paul, the magistrates have sent to let you go. Now, therefore, depart and go in peace. But Paul says no. Let's look what he says. Here's his demand. He said to them, they have beaten us openly, uncondemned. We had no trial. We didn't go through it. We didn't have a chance to say anything. Uncondemned mean we're uncondemned by a judicial sentence. There was no trial. They beat us without a trial. Two things here. They had beat them, and they gave no trial before the beating, and now he lays the bombshell, being Romans. That means we are Roman citizens. It is illegal. It is a grave offense to deny a trial to a Roman citizen, and even a greater offense to beat them. In fact, they were not allowed to be beat. Roman citizens were not allowed to be beat like this. It was against Roman law. In other words, these magistrates are in big trouble. And Paul wants justice to be served. He doesn't want to now leave the town, and everybody will just remember that event and remember that these Christians are criminals, right? Their leaders were beaten, thrown into prison, and now they've snuck out of town. And so let's go. And we'll continue to do this to the rest of the followers of Jesus here. And so this would have been a very dangerous thing to do. Christianity was never tried here. The gospel was never even given opportunity. In fact, it seems like, as Paul, when he was ready to be beaten by the Roman governor in Jerusalem later on in the book, before he was arrested, when they started to strip his clothes off, and he said, is it lawful to beat a man who's a Roman? Now that was done in the barracks, and there was judicial calm there, as it were, as the soldiers were efficient, and he could be heard. I bet you in this case, they might even have been saying it. We're Roman citizens, we're Roman citizens. But who could hear him? And who believed him? But this was a terrible offense. He says, now do they thrust us out privately, secretly? No, verily, let them come themselves and fetch us out. In other words, come and apologize. to set the record straight that they have grievously erred. And the sergeants told these words unto the magistrates, and they feared when they heard that they were Romans. They better fear, for they themselves are liable to severe punishment now, the least being removed from office. So they come quickly, and they beseech them. They plead with them. They bring them out, and they say, please, depart out of our city. We can't guarantee your safety, or something to that effect. And so they leave, but they don't leave directly. They go to the house of Lydia, where the church apparently is taking its residence. The other believers were there, the brethren, they comfort them, and then they depart. As we mentioned last week, they also leave behind Timothy and Luke, who were not involved in this persecution because they were not considered to be the leaders, just Paul and Silas. So they leave from there. This ends the ministry of Paul, for now, in Philippi. Stirring accounts here, and as we conclude, I'd like you to look with me at the conversion of the Philippian jailer again. I believe we have a paradigm of Christian conversion. The first step in Christian conversion for anyone is despair. Have you ever despaired of your sin? Your own wickedness? The fact that you're under the judgment of God, that you have rejected the living God, you have blasphemed his son and his word. Have you ever been brought to despair over your life? In this situation, the despair could be where you've made such a mess out of your life that you're suicidal. You just want to end your life, it's not worth living. Despair of both or either sort is a precursor to salvation. It's only those who are in despair, who have no hope, which suicide shows the last stage of hope is gone. But when we talk about salvation, you have to have despair of your life before God, despair of ever being forgiven, despair of eternal life. Have you come to that point? I can't save myself. I'm undone. I'm lost. That was the first step of his conversion, and it's the first step in anyone's conversion. They despair, they have no hope of eternal life, no hope of the forgiveness of sins. As long as you think you can get your sins forgiven by good works or religious acts or whatnot, you're not in despair. The next was astonishment. And really the astonishment here in this story was the astonishment of what God did. In this story, it was the astonishment of these servants of God who were shown to be the servants of God and their message to be true by the earthquake, the astonishment that nobody left, the astonishment that God was present. Now, I would say the second stage of conversion in a more general sense is astonishment is what God has done for you. That's one of my, Great memories of the Lord's working in my life for salvation. As I heard the cross preached, I was astonished that God would send his own dear son to die for me. I couldn't believe it. Really? I was astonished. And then comes fear. People who are converted have despair and then they're astonished to hear that God has the solution to their broken life. That God has a solution to a life that they thought only should terminate in suicide. That God could do and has done something so wonderful that they could become a new creation, a new life, turn around. And that's what the gospel brings to the lost, whose ears are opened, are astonished by the gospel message of love and salvation. And then fear. Fear. of the God who has provided salvation, fear that I've rejected it all my life until this moment, and the greatest fear of all that I can't reject it this time, because there might not be another time when the Spirit speaks. And so fear is that reverential awe of God. And that's where repentance comes in. Fear and repentance. You fear the wrath of God. You fear to offend such a holy, but now you understand such a loving God that would give his own dear son to die for you. And so that fear moves you to cry out, God, what must I do to be saved? See all these build? Despair, astonishment, and then reverential fear. Trust, Lord. What must I do to be saved? And notice the answer is believe, faith. Faith alone, nothing else is stated here. Faith alone in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And it's also faith in the Lord Jesus. You're not saved by believing in Jesus. Wait a minute, what are you talking about? You're saved by believing, as the apostle says, in one who is the Lord, in one who is the Savior, and one who is the Messiah. You cannot separate him, like people who say, deny so-called lordship salvation. Just believe in Jesus and you'll be saved, and then maybe later on in life you can get right with him in terms of lordship, but that's not important right now. It's impossible. You believe in the whole Jesus, everything about him. You believe in the Lord, this is the repentance, this is the submission, but you believe that he is the Lord, that he is the Savior, and that he is the Christ, the King. And if you believe that with all your heart, of course, the gospel that's later explained in verse 32, that he died for your sins and rose again, you'll be saved. That's salvation, faith alone. And then the final part of his conversion is the conversion led to a new life. He was in despair, now he's filled with joy. He was ready to take his life, now he's ready to live life to the fullest. Furthermore, he is now ready to put his own reputation, even his own well-being in terms of hateful people who don't like Christians, on the line by taking Paul and Silas and washing their wounds, gently caring for these men that a while ago he was thrusting into stocks. He's changed. He loves the brethren now. One of the signs of salvation is you love fellow Christians. John makes that very clear. If you don't love the brethren, you've never been saved. Period. That's what John says. And John knows how to say things bluntly. But you know, we need blunt talk at times, perhaps most times. But he now loves the brethren, and with joy, he has been changed to be given joy of salvation. He ministers to the needs of Paul and Silas. And that's the way of salvation. begins in despair over our sin and our judgment. It leads to astonishment in the gospel of love of Christ, dying for our sins and rising again. It leads to a reverential response where you say, Lord, what must I do to be saved? The Holy Spirit answers, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. And you accept that by faith. You follow that up with Christian discipleship, which the first step is baptism. And then you, with joy, minister to the brethren and serve Christ. There it is. What a story of conversion. Everybody's story is different in its details. My point here is it's not different in these five points. They're all present in some degree, depending on your circumstance. Some people's despair isn't as great as others. Some people's astonishment isn't as great as others. Some people's fear isn't as great as others. Some people's faith, well, I don't know if I want to say the whole rest on that one, because faith is a gift of God. It's faith, faith, faith. Everybody's got the same faith in salvation. And there's different levels of joy, but they're all there. Look at your course. Is this your conversion? If not, fall down before the Lord and seek him. in despair, in astonishment, in fear, and in faith. Then you'll have joy. Let's pray. Thank you, Lord, for the story of the Philippian jailer, the great salvation you wrought in his life. Thank you also for the opening story of the salvation, or at least the deliverance from evil spirits of this young woman who was possessed of a spirit of divination. We see your power defeating the devil. We see your power defeating persecution, and hateful men, you're the king. Bless us now, we pray, for the saving of our souls. In Jesus' name, amen.