Beecher Island Sunday School Sermon
July 1, 2018
Acts 16: 22-34
by Hunter Irvine
= Acts 16: 22-34 reading by Johanna
+ Last month we learned about Peter being put into prison. Now we have Paul and Silas put into prison. Different circumstances. A different place; Paul and Silas were in Philippi. However, they were all put in for the same reason. They were all preaching the Gospel and doing ministry work by the power of Jesus Christ.
Here, Paul frees a young lady in the name of Jesus from a bad spirit. She was a slave, and her owners had been using her to make money. Her owners became irate they would no longer be able to make money from her, and they come up with accusations against Paul and Silas.
The result is Paul and Silas are beat really bad.
Then they are thrown in prison.
They are even put in stocks.
During my youth, my parents rarely took a family vacation, other than an annual trip to Ocean City, Maryland. Yet there were a few other trips, including a memorable vacation to Williamsburg, Virginia. I thought Williamsburg was so cool. People dressed in colonial attire carry out jobs which were done back in the 1700’s. For example, there was a woman making candles and man making bricks. In the governor’s mansion, there was a violin trio, playing music from the 1700’s. As a kid, Williamsburg increased my interest in history.
Numerous red brick colonial buildings are restored, and that includes the jail. In front of the jail are the stockades, where people were locked in for a period of time for public humiliation. You can put yourself in the stocks, without being locked in of course. There are pieces of wood on a sliding track with holes for a head and hands. You lift it up and put your head in, and then put it down. There is no way a person could break out of it if it was locked. My parents took a picture. I always like that picture.
They also had a similar contraption for your feet.
Paul and Silas were in stocks. Whatever type of stocks they had there in Philippi, the odds of getting out was probably zero.
Even though Paul and Silas were beat really bad and are in prison, they are singing hymns to God!
Being in pain, being in a pitch dark jail, they still have hope.
Note other prisoners were listening to them. They were being a witness of hope to other prisoners.
Then came an earthquake. Natural disasters are a part of this fallen world. However, this was a unique earthquake from God I think. The chains came loose for all of the prisoners, and the stocks were opened. Normally in an earthquake, a person's fragile flesh would get hurt in an earthquake. Yet chains fall off. Also, the doors flew open all at the same time.
Yet Paul, Silas, and the other prisoners did not make a run for it.
The earthquake wakes up the jailer, and when he sees the prison doors open, he thinks the prisoners escaped, so he is going to commit suicide, because he knows he would be executed for allowing the prisoners to get away.
Back a few chapters in the passage of Acts where God freed Peter from prison, the next day an investigation was done regarding how Peter escaped, and of course no one could figure it out. The result was that Herod had all 16 of the Roman soldiers who were guarding Peter executed. That is what probably would have happened to the jailer there in Philippi, a Roman colony.
Yet Paul shouts out to the jailer they are all still there. Paul cares about the jailer!
The jailer seems to recognize God was involved in this whole prison event. Maybe he had even caught wind of the reason they were in prison in the first place.
The jailer asks the ultimate question: “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
Paul and Silas respond with the ultimate answer: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved – you and your household.”
~ + The message for us is clear: Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved!!!
This verse here in the middle of the church story in Acts, is a pinnacle verse:
“Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved!”
Do note this passage is not teaching patriarchal salvation or infant baptism. This passage is teaching salvation is available for all people. The word of God was told to all the family, and they all believed!
The first time I ever served here, I told a story about a time my grandma and I went for a drive in the eastern plains. Grandma was born on a homestead, and raised on that farm. She was a true farm lady at heart.
Her family moved to Keenesburg, so she and her sisters could attend Keenesburg High School, and then Grandma went with her Mom on Sundays to the Methodist church in Keenesburg where her mom taught a Sunday school class. Grandma admired and loved her mom, and Grandma liked going to church with her. I think a seed was planted at that time. But Grandma did not enter a personal relationship with Jesus.
When Grandma was 17, her parents got separated, and she moved with her mom to Denver. Her mom started running a boarding house, and Grandma got a job at Gates. She would live in the city of Denver the rest of her life in this world, except for her last year plus when she was in a nursing home in Wheat Ridge.
She married my Grandpa in the late 1930’s. He was a special guy. But he had been raised in a denomination he did not agree with, and he veered away from God. As a result, neither he nor grandma ever went to church, with one exception. Every Sunday, they would attend the sunrise service on Easter at Red Rocks amphitheater. But neither had a personal relationship with Jesus.
After my grandpa died, my grandma was in shock. She soon moved to Windsor Gardens, a retirement community. There she was encouraged by a caring woman to attend some clubs, and to attend the community church there. At that church she heard the preaching of Dr. David Beckman, the best preacher I have ever heard. At that church, she realized the love and care of the assistant pastor, Dick Chambers. A man who had never taken a theology class in his life, he was a truly caring man. With such an influence, at some point, Grandma believed in the Lord Jesus, and she was saved. She was in her late 70’s! She still physically died. Yet she is now in heaven now.
+ Invitation I give an invitation today, that if you do not know Jesus as your Savior and Lord, all you need to do is believe, and you will be saved.
To be in an everlasting relationship with Jesus Christ, what you need to do is to truly believe in Jesus, and you will receive the Spirit of Christ in your heart.
Jesus Christ died on a cross for the forgiveness of sins of anyone. He was the substitute for the consequence of sins, which is hell. If you believe in Jesus, you will be saved, and you will have eternal life in heaven with our Holy God.
