From a May, 2004 sermon of mine…

Acts 16:16-34

Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. This girl followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so troubled that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her.

When the owners of the slave girl realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities. They brought them before the magistrates and said, “These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice.”

The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten. After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. Upon receiving such orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody’s chains came loose. The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted, “Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!”

The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved — you and your household.” Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his family were baptized. The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God — he and his whole family.
NIV

During the very early ‘80’s, I worked for what was then the largest people transporter in the world… and the only thing we carried was school children! As an example, at our Edwardsville, IL contract alone, we hauled 6000 kids a day 600 thousand miles a year… and we did it on thirty busses and two vans!

 

While my main job was trying to keep all of them rolling, I also had my school bus license and drove as a substitute or extra-curricular driver almost everyday. Since I knew both the mechanical and the driving side of the bus I was often sent to other contracts to train drivers. On one such occasion one of the official company safety people was there as well and accompanied me on one such training session. He was so impressed by my ‘techniques’ and methods that within a month I received a certificate from the head office in Kansas City naming me as a ‘Certified Drivers Instructor’! I thought that was really neat… but when I asked, there was no raise that went with it!!! Oh, well.

 

            What I would do, often as not, was to load my trainees up on a bus and head out to as deserted a stretch of country road as I could find and park on the side. There, away from the hustle and bustle of the city, schools, the shop, and kids, I would sit and expound on safety issues first and practical issues second. One issue that always came up had to do with the impression that most seemed to have of the bus not weighing anything, and I think it was my stock answer to that that most impressed  the safety man that day. I would point to the passenger rating printed above the door and say something like… “A medium sized bus will carry 60 people. If you figure an average weight of 100# per student and you’re loaded to capacity, you have at least 3 tons of cargo on board… and it is a cargo that is totally precious and irreplaceable! Add to that the weight of the bus body itself, and the fact that your cargo is constantly moving around, and the conscientiousness and skill of the driver becomes paramount!” Sometimes, it was like a switch going off inside of their heads… I could literally see some of them come to grips with what I had just said. Those who had applied for that training with the idea that it would be an easy job suddenly had their mindset changed by those words with the realization of the responsibility now carried on their shoulders… and that’s how it should be!

 

            These verses tell more of the story of Paul, Silas, and Luke during their stay in Philippi. And again, there are several points that various commentaries try to draw from it. Matthew Henry’s Commentary asks, “How came this testimony from the mouth of one that had a spirit of divination? Is Satan divided against himself? Will he cry up those whose business it is to pull him down?” He then builds a case for it being either Satan not able to help himself in declaring the cause of God, or in some way trying to discredit the Gospel by having the woman attach herself to them for whatever reason.

 

            Meanwhile, The Life Application Commentary points out that, “Faced with the loss of their slave girl’s fortune-telling ability, the Philippian entrepreneurs were furious. Never mind that Paul and Silas were speaking eternal truths, never mind that the poor slave girl had been delivered from an awful existence; these men could only bemoan their economic loss! The gospel would also later hurt Ephesian idol makers financially, resulting in a citywide riot. When people care more about their own economic well-being than the glory of God and the salvation of lost souls, it is a clear sign of idolatry, greed, and worldliness.”

 

            The same source tells us how, “Paul and Silas were stripped, beaten, and placed in stocks in the inner cell. Despite this dismal situation, they praised God, praying and singing as the other prisoners listened. Did they “feel” like worshiping? Probably not. They were likely aching, tired, and scared. But they were determined to give glory to God, who they trusted was in control of their situation. They clung to the hard-to-understand truth previously announced by Jesus: “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me”. The radical response to worship was a decision of their will. No matter what our circumstances, we can choose to praise God. Others may even come to Christ because of our example.”

            And each of these are very good points… ones that I’m sure have been and will be preached and expounded on a number of times over the years. I, though, would like to talk this morning about the jailor in the story. The jailor was nobody special… his job wasn’t particularly noteworthy… he was just an ordinary person doing an ordinary job. We might assume that he did his job well in that he seems to have been entrusted to oversee the prisoners on his own, and that he had probably had that job for some time. For those reasons we can assume that he knew the penalties for letting prisoners escape. Guards were responsible for their prisoners and would be held accountable for their escape, and the punishment was usually the same sentence that would have been the prisoner’s. Furthermore, that had been demonstrated not long before upon the keepers out of whose hands Peter had escaped earlier in Acts. So when the jailor was awakened by the earthquake and found the prison in ruins and the doors and stocks open, he naturally assumed all of them were gone, and determined is was better to end his own life than suffer the death which the authorities would likely condemn him too. Imagine his shock… and maybe even disbelief, at first… on discovering that no-one had left!

 

That brings to mind some questions… first, we might conjecture as to why the other prisoners didn’t run. I read several ideas about this, but I would think the main reason was that all of them had heard of Paul and Silas before, and had heard them praying and singing throughout the night. When the walls of the prison collapsed, most, I’m sure, would have connected it to the God that the two men had been praying and singing to, and when they didn’t use the opportunity to escape, opted to stay, themselves, to learn more of this powerful God and the message being spread by His messengers.

 

The second question I think we need to address is this… if the jailor was so concerned that the prisoners were gone as to draw his sword to use on himself, why was it suddenly alright for him to take Paul and Silas from the prison to his home… in effect, removing them from the prison of his own accord? Because… between the two incidents he had come to believe and accept the Lord Jesus… and in that acceptance came a change in his priorities!

 

Before, his main concern was for himself … better to die an easy, honorable death by his own hand than a slow, painful, humiliating one at the hands of the authorities! But after, his concern was for the Word of God, and doing what he could to follow and further that Word. He took Paul and Silas home, dressed their wounds, and had his whole family listen to their story! He was just as likely to be held responsible for their not being in prison… but now he was doing the right thing by God!

 

When I told my trainees about the heavy cargo they would be responsible for, and reminded them of how precious it was, I could sometimes see the look on their faces change as they came to grips with rearranging and rethinking their priorities… this wasn’t going to be something they could just coast through… it was something that they really had to think and care about! And the same may be said of each of us when we accept Christ as the Son of God.

 

Far too often, people profess to being Christians without really meaning it. Oh, they go to Services most Sundays, and may even attend Sunday school occasionally, but never seem to have time to get more ‘involved’ than that. They may put a few dollars towards doing God’s work each week, but are very careful not to cause themselves any discomfort. The fact is, many could be considered Sunday morning Christians… Christians on Sunday morning, but ‘just regular folk’ the rest of the week.

 

When the jailor asked what he must do to be saved, Paul told him he must, “Believe in the Lord Jesus…” And the Jailor believed! But… what happened then? “At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his family were baptized. The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God-he and his whole family.” In other words, once he accepted Christ, he began to act as Christ would want him to!

 

Can the same be said of you?