Beaten, Chained, and Free (Acts 16:16-34)

 Sermon for Milledgeville and Centenary UMC...

[Slide] Beaten, Chained, and Free (Acts 16:16-34)

 

Paul and Silas in a Philippi Jail

Today we continue our study of the Book of Acts with Paul’s second missionary journey. After his first missionary journey, Paul and Barnabas returned to Syrian Antioch. [Slide] During this time, some Jewish Christians from Jerusalem visited the church in Antioch and told the Gentile Christians, “Unless you are circumcised, you cannot be saved.” (Acts 15:1) Paul and Barnabas strongly opposed them. [Slide] This led to the famous Jerusalem Council recorded in Acts 15. Peter reminded them that God gave the Holy Spirit to Gentiles just as He had to Jewish followers of Jesus. God made no distinction. “We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.” (Acts 15:11)

 

The Church acknowledged that salvation was through the grace of Jesus, not the law of Moses. The Jerusalem Church issued a formal letter to Gentile Christians to settle the matter. Here is a portion of the letter.

 

[Slide] ²⁸ It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: ²⁹ You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell. (Acts 15:28-29)

 

[Slide] After this Paul and Barnabas decided to go back and visit the churches they had started in Asia Minor. Barnabas wanted to take his cousin John Mark along, but Paul disagreed since John Mark had abandoned them during the first mission. Their argument was severe enough that they parted company. Barnabas took John Mark with him and sailed to Cyprus. Paul invited Silas from Jerusalem to join him on a trek across land into Asia Minor.

 

At Lystra, where Paul was stoned and left for dead, he met Timothy and brought him along on the mission. [Slide] Paul had a night vision of a man pleading, “Come to Macedonia and help us.”

So Paul, Silas, Luke and Timothy sailed from Troas and came to Philippi, a leading city in Macedonia. Notice that Luke includes himself among their. As the author of Acts, Luke shists from narration in the third person to first person.

 

After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. (Acts 16:10)

 

Philippi was named after Philip II, the father of Alexander the Great. [Slide] In 42 BC, the forces of Marc Antony and Octavian (the future Caesar Augustus) won a decisive victory over republic forces led by Brutus and Cassius, two Roman senators who were involved in the assassination of Julius Caesar. After the war, Caesar Augustus gave Philippi to soldiers as a gift for their loyal service. When Paul and his group came to Philippi, it was a decidedly Roman town. [Slide] There was no Jewish synagogue to visit. Instead, Paul learned of a place of prayer near the Gangites river. There he met Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth who came to faith in Jesus and opened her home to them during their stay. Philippi became the first church in Europe.

 

This brings us to today’s story. [Slide] Paul encounters a fortuneteller who follows them around shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” (Acts 16:17) Day after day, she caused a scene. Paul gets worked up and expels the spirit that enabled her to forecast the future. “In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to come out of her!” (Acts 16:18) Her owners were not happy about the exorcism. They made good money from her fortunetelling. So, they drug Paul and Silas before the Roman magistrates.

 

[Slide] Magistrates had authority to maintain the Pax Romana (Peace of Rome). They had as many as 12 public enforcers, known as lictors, working for them. [Slide] Lictors carried out corporal and capital punishment as the magistrates decided. [Slide] The lictors carried, as a sign of magisterial authority, a bundled cylinder of rods sporting an axe head. It was called a fasces, which is where we get the name fascist. The word simply means bundle.

 

 

[Slide] During WW2, the US treasury issued what is popularly known as the Mercury dime. [Slide] The backside of the dimes has a fasces with an olive branch. The fasces represents strength and honor, and a readiness to fight, and the olive branch depicts a core desire for peace.

 

The magistrates decided to have Paul and Silas beaten with rods. A Roman beating was done publicly. [Slide] Paul was stripped down naked and bound to a post by his wrists and beaten with rods. The rods were about the diameter of a human finger and around 5 feet long. The beating caused severe bruising, whelps, and open wounds. Some beatings were severe enough to cause the eventual death of those who suffered such brutality.   

 

[Slide] Beaten and bleeding, Paul and Silas were imprisoned and bound in wooden stocks in an inner cell. As an inner cell, they would not have access to a window, no fresh air, no sunlight. The air was foul and stagnant. In the dark and dank underground cell, Paul and Silas sat in pain with their feet in stocks. The jailer did not want them to escape, or he would suffer brutal punishment as well.

 

[Slide] There are times in life when we feel beat down and imprisoned. Perhaps it is a financial hole you can never seem to climb out of. Maybe it’s a prison of your own making like addiction. Perhaps an unhealthy relationship feels like a prison. Childhood trauma can feel like you are chained to darkness, a cancer on your soul keeping you anxious and depressed. These days loneliness is a prison. We are hyperconnected through technology and yet have few real relationships.

 

Whatever prison you have experienced, what ever darkness has you feeling chained, know that God is with you. You are not alone in the darkness of your personal bondage. And know this: God is ready to set you free.

 

 

[Slide] At midnight, Paul and Silas are praying and worshipping. At the third watch of the night, a time considered to be thin between this world and the spiritual realm, a time when God gives visions and dreams, guidance and inspiration, Paul and Silas were singing praises to God.

 

If I were in prison in the dark, chained and in pain, I don’t know that my choice would be to worship or pray. I would cry, moan and curse. While I’m confessing my weaknesses, did you hear about the English major who went to confession? They began the confession, Father, pastor, padre, reverend, forgive me… for I have synonymed!”

 

Paul and Silas did nothing wrong. They were beaten and chained in a dark cell because of money. They had interrupted the flow of income by freeing a young girl of spiritual slavery. What happened to Paul was not fair, nor was it just. In fact, Roman citizens were exempt from beatings with rods. Such punishment was reserved for foreign subjects. Paul was born a Roman citizen.

 

When we face challenges and difficulties, what is our response? Even the best of us fall into fear and despair in the face of life’s disappointments and difficulties. The death of a child, or a spouse, is life altering. Some never recover. Losing a job can bring us into despair. Beaten down by loss, we are chained to grief. Healing occurs over time, but such loss can keep a dark hold on the heart.

 

Paul and Silas pray and worship God in the deep darkness of an underground prison cell in the middle of the night. Their bodies are wracked with pain. They have whelps, bruises and open bleeding wounds. Their feet are chained. And yet, they choose to lift their hearts to God. And in their worship, they are set free.

 

Yes, they were hurting. Yes, they were chained. Yes, they sat in utter darkness. It would be enough to crush any soul. But Paul knew the Lord was in His heaven. Paul knew the faithfulness of God. He knew that God is worthy to be praised no matter our circumstances.

 

In fact, Paul knew that he suffered for the sake of the name of Jesus. Jesus told him that he would suffer for his name and for the sake of the gospel. Paul accepts his suffering as part of God’s plan for him. His suffering even became a point of pride.

 

Defending his ministry and influence with the Corinthian church, Paul boasts of his sufferings.

 

I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. ²⁴ Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. ²⁵ Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, ²⁶ I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. ²⁷ I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. (2^nd Corinthians 11:23-28)

 

Paul boasted in suffering for Christ because he knew suffering to be his duty to the One who opened his eyes to what God was doing in the world. He longed to share in the sufferings of Christ so that he might also share in the glory of His resurrection unto eternal life.

 

When we are experiencing our own personal prison, when we are feeling beaten and chained, know that God still reigns on high. The creator is with you and ready to set you free.

 

[Slide] The prophet Habakkuk wrote at a time when Babylon was a rising power. Israel knew that in time Babylon would come to their land. When Babylon sieged Jerusalem, the residents were trapped inside the city with threats to their food and water supply.

As people starved, as people grew sick, a horrid state of existence darkened Jerusalem. The prophet wrote: [Slide]

 

 I will wait patiently for the day of calamity
    to come on the nation invading us.
¹⁷ Though the fig tree does not bud
    and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
    and the fields produce no food, [Slide]
though there are no sheep in the pen
    and no cattle in the stalls,
¹⁸ yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
    I will be joyful in God my Savior.

¹⁹ The Sovereign Lord is my strength;
    he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
    he enables me to tread on the heights. (Habakkuk 3:16b-19)

 

[Slide] Worship frees us. Lifting our hearts in praise of our God breaks the chains that bind our hearts. There is a healing balm that comes to a heart connected to God in faith and love. Praise lights our way and scatters the darkness. Be joyful in Christ our Savior.

 

[Slide] Live a life of worship. Seek His glory in all things and walk free in His light.