The events in Acts 16, focusing on Paul and Silas's ministry in Philippi. It recounts their encounter with a demon-possessed girl, their subsequent unjust imprisonment, and their miraculous deliverance through an earthquake, leading to the conversion of the Philippian jailer and his household. The message highlights the power of prayer and praise even in suffering, the establishment of the first European church in Lydia's home, and the jailer's immediate baptism and rejoicing.
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Now this afternoon, this afternoon we called Mrs. Sender, or Mrs. Mutter, I mean Mrs. Grace Mutter, and had quite long talk with her. Jack underwent the operation on Wednesday, and they did take out the flea, and they found it was benign. And the... made a great test of the liver and found that denying. But there are what they call nodules and a knot on the chest and up in the neck.
He definitely has Hodgkin's disease. And that, of course, is cancerous. But when he's well enough, recovers from the operation, he's going to have radium treatment, and they're all confident the Lord's going to raise him up again. And she said, Jack, he's very optimistic and trusting in the Lord and values our prayers very much. His wife is very brave and altogether they're trusting the Lord up there. It's a great joy to have our brother, Mr. Walter Kaiser, back with us. He's undergone a co-brother operation within the last two weeks and he's back with us tonight.
We thank God for that. And we pray, Walter, you'll soon be right on your feet again, and going on as usual. Thank God for His goodness. Now, I would like to turn. I hope I'm not boring you. We keep it in the Acts of the Apostles. But it's a long, twenty-eight chapters, and with the conference coming in between. It takes a long time to get to a book like this. speaking just a few times in the year. So we'll go on with the sixteenth chapter, reading from verse sixteen. Acts sixteen, verse sixteen. And we left Paul this morning in the home of Lydia in Philippi.
He just come over into Europe, and the first meetings they had there were in the home of Lydia. Verse sixteen, it came to pass as we went to prayer. It seems that they were holding, first of all, they had prayer meetings by the riverside, you remember? He said that this morning, and then they seemed to have prayer meetings in the home of Lydia. Came to pass as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by still saying. The same followed Paul and Silas, and cried saying, These men are the servants of the Most High God.
Which show unto us, or show unto you it should be, the way of salvation. And this she did many days, for 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 came out the same hour. And when her master saw that the hope of their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas and drew them into the market-place under the rulers, and brought them to the magistrate, saying, These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city, and teach customs which are not lawful for us to receive, neither to observe being Roman.
And the multitude rose up together against them, and the magistrates rent off their clothes and commanded to beat them. And when they had laid many strikes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailer to keep them safely, who, having received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison and made their feet fast in the stops, in the stops. And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God, and the prisoners heard them. 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 fans were loose.
And the people of the prison are waking out of his sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled. But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm, for we are all here. Then he called for a light and sprang in and came trembling and fell down before Paul and Silas and brought them out and said, Sir, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe.
on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes and was baptized, he and all his straightway. And when he had brought them into his house, he set meat before them, and rejoiced, believing in God with all his house. You notice that, believing in God, with or his house. And when it was day, the magistrate sent the sergeant, saying, Let those men go. And the keeper of the prison told this saying to Paul, The magistrates have sent to let you go.
Now therefore depart and go in peace. But Paul said unto them, They have beaten us openly, uncondemned, being Roman. and have cast us into prison. And now, do they thrust us out privately? Nay, verily. But let them come themselves and fetch us out. And the sergeants told these words unto the magistrate, and they feared when they heard that they were Roman. And they came and besought them, and brought them out, and desired them to depart out of the city. And they went out of the prison and entered into the house of Lydia, when they had seen the brethren, they comforted them and departed.
May the Lord touch that portion from this one. So we pray again. Blessed God, we thank you for this record of the work of the Holy Spirit in the Acts of the Spirit of God through the Apostles. We thank you for this record of the building of the church in the first century. We thank you for this pattern, a guidebook for us to show us how we should do thy service, and how we should do our missionary work, and how, if necessary, we should suffer for thee in this age. We commit it to thee tonight, and pray that the Holy Spirit might take these words, these scriptures, and apply them to our hearts, and, O Lord, should there be one in our midst tonight who's never faced up to this question, the question that was asked by the Philippine jailer, who came in trembling and said, Sir, what must I do to be saved?
We pray that the Holy Spirit might convict and convince, and salvation might come to this house tonight for thy glory. So we commit it to thee, and keep our blessing on this meeting, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Now, our map is rather long way off, but we just very briefly go over what we went over this morning, because it's going to do with last year. Paul had died on the second missionary journey, the second missionary journey. Okay, left. We were back there in Antioch. First couple years there, I believe.
And then I told the city of God, spoke to Paul, and he sent to Chronicles. Now, let's go back and visit all these cities where we met before, where they established churches before. Don't forget, as you said this morning, as this girl, they shone them and dug them out for days. And even then he went back on that first journey to Mitzvah. But now he said, let's go back there again. And they took their ship and came. No, no, they didn't go by ship this time. They came up this way. Through the... He came up this way. On the second journey, they went to the overland. Now, Paul himself, Paul himself, lives up here in Tarsus.
So he was going home on the whole journey. And the longest, wonderful Roman road. They went through the mountains here. And they came through there and came back to these cities of Iconia, building this church and so on, where they lived in the first missionary journey and where they had established groups and churches, New Testament churches. We went all over this park here. That's called Galatia. Then it says they came They wanted to go into Asia, which is here. Now Asia, as you know it today, is that very vast continent, but here Asia was a little area.
And the Spirit of God said, don't go into Asia. Then they said, let's go into Basilia. And the Spirit of God said, don't go into Basilia. And they came down to, they came to a musty of that fifty-three, and landed up here at SOAS. And there, at SOAS, the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision, a man from Macedonia, over here in Europe. As he said this morning, the dividing line between Asia and Europe is the Vasa here, Karnataka, Napa, and Napa Napa, and down here, truly what we call the day the Shad and the earth, they call it the Helix Fund, is their day, and they came from here.
That was the dividing that day, so this is Europe, and the Spirit of God through this decision of the land of Macedonia, he said, come over and help us. And so they shortly changed the conclusion, is God's will for them to go into Europe. And they took ships from Shroud, came across, calling it the island of the Samothrager, and came across the Neapolus, and then overland they got to be vilified. And that's where we left them this morning. Now, I know that that's a long way away. You can't see it all, but you can get to some ideas. where they journeyed. And don't forget, there were many airplanes in those days, and they had no automobiles in those days, and they either walked or rode on horses.
That's the way they had to do it. These long, long missionary journeys they made. So, we left Paul this morning at Philippa, and we noticed that The first convert in Europe was a lady, a woman called Lydia. It's easy for me to remember, but that was my mother, Lydia. And this was a Jewess, came from Thyatira, over a nation, and was in business in Philippi selling this purple guy.
for dying claws and so on, clothes. She was a seller of purple of the city of Thyatira, and she worshipped God. She was a godly Jewess, and with other Jews they went down and met by the riverside for prayer meetings. Now we said this morning that it was Paul's practice to always go to the Jews first, and he always went into the synagogue. If you look at the very next chapter, chapter seventeen, it says... Verse two, Paul's knowing it, verse one, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue? And Paul, as his manner was, note those words, as his manner was, went into them, and three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures.
As his manner was, he went into the synagogue. Now, there was no synagogue in Philippi, so he couldn't go to the synagogue, but it seems to me, as I said this morning, that these scattered Jews, dispersed Jews, when there was no synagogue, they used to meet on the Sabbath day by the Riverside for prayer meetings. And I recall to you this morning the fact that in one of the Psalms it says, speaking of the exiles in Babylon under the Babylonish captivity, they went out by the Riverside, and they hung their hearts on the willows, And they tried to sing about Zion, but they said, How can we sing the song of the Lord in a farmland when they met by the riverside?
And here these dispersed Jews met by the riverside. And Paul, it says, On verse thirteen, on the Sabbath day we went out of the city by a riverside where prayer was going to be made, and we sat down and spake unto the women which we thought it was. and a certain woman named Lydia, a settler of purple in the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us, whose heart the Lord opened, and she attended unto the things which was spoken of Paul, and when she was baptized, and her household, notice that, because she should get that again in a moment, too, and her household, she bestowed us, saying, if ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide there, and she could faint.
So the Lord opened her heart and she opened her house and these four missionaries, Paul and Silas and Luke and Timothy, went to the home of Lydia. I said this morning, I repeat, I think that Lydia was a businesswoman and she probably had a good home, big house, and she was able to entertain them in her home. And this became the nucleus, the beginning. of the assembly of the church in Philippi, in her home. Often in the New Testament you'll read the church which is in thy house. That seems the way they started. And indeed that's how very often we can do it today.
I'm looking forward to when we get to the sixth, the eighteenth chapter. I like the eighteenth chapter because it tells how Paul, how God used Paul to start the assembly, the church in Corinth. And to me, that's an ideal way. I won't anticipate, but when we get to that, I love the ancient chapter, it tells me, in my day, nearly two thousand years later, it tells me, when I go to a new city, what I've got to do is start an assembly. And I've put it into practice several times, and God has used it, and where we've stayed, there are assemblies left behind today, because we did just what Paul did in the ancient chapter, the actual reading of this book.
and notice the verse. These are the, when I speak on the eighteenth chapter of Acts, my points, my headings are the verb. He came to Corinth, he wrote at Corinth, he distributed Corinth, and finally he remained in Corinth. As you'll see all down there, about eight words, kind of giving the stepping stone, the way to build, the way to start at church, the way to start at church in this day. So he went to Philippi and he started in the home of Lydia. Now, I'd like to make two things clear with the end times of the morning. It says, Lydia believed and was baptized and her house.
Now, I've had some very good friends in my life who believe in what they call household baptism. And they misconstrued it. And if the man gets saved, they baptize him, and all his children. Now, that's not what happened here. That's why I emphasize it in the case of Philippine Jailer. This is the chapter to get it from. It's sixteen. It says, her and her household. And it says, the Philippine Jailer and his household. But verse thirty-four says, When he was brought into the house, he set meat before them and rejoiced with God, believing in God with all his house.
That's to say, all his household believing in God. Now, Alfred Gibbs used to argue about this, you know. One man said this, you should baptize infants, because the Philippine jailer, all his children, the infants were baptized. And Alfred Gibbs used to say, yes, but the youngest one in that household was sixteen years a day. The man says, where in the world did you find that? He said, I found it just the same place where you find out as a little baby. Just the same place. And the baby can't believe. But the house, though, they all believe. And I think in the same case here, with Lydia, she and her house sold the leaves, and they were baptized.
She and her house. Was she married? I don't know. I have a feeling she wasn't married. I think she was a modern, what today we would call, now I don't like to say women's lives, but that sort of thing, you know, a woman doing her job and getting on with her business, see? And she was, she was subject to God anyhow. But she was a business woman. Let me put that one. She was a business woman. a cellar of purple in the city of Thyatira, and God has blessed her, and I think she had a nice big home and a good business, and she used it for the Lord.
How wonderful. As soon as we get saved, we use our home for the Lord, and make a place there for God's people. That's a wonderful thing. And you know, that's one of the teachings that's passed upon. People come to me and say, and the one thing that's outstanding in us, people that were here just last week, And so many of our friends are up in the north. And so few of us left there. But people that were here last week said, the chalice, the hospitality, a part of the farm, you don't get it anywhere else. And one brother I said, where are you going tonight? He said, I've been in somebody's house every night since I came here and I can't come to your house tonight and go somewhere else. And that's part of the farm.
So that's what the chalice teaches. He entertains them in our home. And what greater joy is there. than to have a proper chamber where you can put up the Lord's seat. The Lord Jesus is here and says, when he went to Bethany and he stayed in the home of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, they had a proper chamber. One little room, if he had said to Martha, whose room is that, she'd say, that's the Lord's seat. And in there, that's where the Lord's seat. He had nowhere to lay his head. He said, down in Bethany, there was a lovely clean room and a clean bed, and that's where the Lord's seat. And this woman quickly she got the idea of what the Lord wanted us to do, and she said, if you judge me to be faithful, come into my house, and she constrained them.
She constrained them to come in, and that's where the church started in the house. Now then they were having prayer meetings in that house, or it may be, they went out to the riverside again, doesn't say, but it says, it came to pass as we went to prayer. as we went to prayer. Now, whatever happened that day, happened for several days, but it says, Vichy did many days. Many days. So they went to prayer many days. And I think they were going to the house of Lydia for prayer meetings, for God to bless the testimony and the work in Philippi. And surely God did bless it. It should be the...
Paul writing to the Philippians, he says, I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all, making requestless joy for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now. From the first day until now. The Philippians. Being confident of this very thing, that he which has begun a good work in you, will perform it or complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. For God is my record. How greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ. And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment, that he may approve things with your excellence, and he may be sincere and without offense till the day of Jesus Christ.
And I was not happy to be ignorant, he said, brethren, that the things that happened unto me have fallen out rather... for the presence of the gospel. But he speaks of their standing by him and helping him there in those early days as criticized. Now then they're on the way to the prayer meeting. and a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination. In my Greek New Testament, it says, a spirit of python, a spirit of python, a demon within her.
And she met her. And she brought much gain to her masters by soon saying, let's say fortune-telling. Now we're living in an age when fortune-telling, necromancer, and wishes and this thing is developing energy. All these things, because of all this horoscope nonsense and fortune telling, it's getting more and more. It's a sign of the last sign. Paul told us, this should be a sign of the last sign. And she was a fortune seller. And you know very well, it bears and other things. What a business they do. And this girl brought much gain to her master.
by her truth saying or her fortune telling. But isn't what she said. You see, she was a servant of Satan. But Satan knows. It says the devil's belief and tremble. But Satan knew what Saul and Silas were doing. Listen to what she said. She said, these men, she cried again, these men are the servants of the Most High God. Unless that's time to type in. The Most High God. That's the title with which the Lord appeared to Abraham. And he went out to, in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis, when he read out to Christ and Melchizedek met him, and he was a priest of the Most High God.
And she said, these men are servants of the Most High God. They are the only gods, he said, to God. So many gods will see that when we get to the next chapter, we went to Athens. It says the city was full of idols. That's what it says in the Greek city was full of idols. Unless they should offend one god by not having a monument to that god, they put up a monument to the unknown god. We'll come to that in the next chapter. So there were many gods, man-made gods, but this is the most high god. She knew that they were servants of the god of heaven, the most high god. She said, they show unto you, it should be.
They show unto you the way of salvation. See how much Satan knows about him? He knows very well when we're preaching the gospel. And he'll do all he can to stop the gospel getting home. These are the servants of the Most High God which show unto you the way of salvation. Now, how much the Philippine jailer knew about what she said, her words, I don't know? whether in the, well, there was no really court or judgment or defense of anything. They just keep them put them in the prison. And he says that they put them in the prison. He said without the, as he put them, they cast them in the prison.
Uncondemned. Uncondemned, he said, they didn't have a court, judge, and jury or anything. Uncondemned, they put them in the prison. But the rulers there, And I suppose the Roman governor there at the prison, you must have heard these words, they show unto us, unto you, the way of salvation. See, she did many things. And Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the Spirit, I command thee, in the name of Jesus Christ, to come out of us. He came out to say, Now, here's the miracle. God knew miracles in the early days of the church. Now, I'm not going to say that God can't use miracles today.
And I think you and I can look back through our lives and say, that God works miracles today. I've had some miracles happen in my life. It may not be so dramatic as this, but things have happened with nothing more or less than a miracle. I think that that car accident that we had on the twenty-th of January, two months ago, when we went fifty-five miles an hour straight into another car and we didn't get a scratch. That was miracle. The angel of the Lord encamped us around about that mystery of him. And the Lord saved us. That's the miracle. I think we live in the age of miracles. That's not as dramatic as it was in these days.
But God can still do that. And he will yet, I'm sure. So the miracle happened. The demon came out of her. And when her master saw that the hope of their gains was gone, the same Greek dryness, I read this morning Greek this afternoon, and the same Greek word is used, it came out of her, and it says their hope came out. It's the same way. The grape came out of her, and the hope went out of there. Hope went out of them. That's how it's put in the grape. When they saw the hope of their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas.
them into the marketplace under the rulers, and brought them to the magistrate, saying, These men, being Jews, to extremely trouble our city. Now I'd like you to note here that as Paul and his companion, Barnabas and the first missionary journey, as he went from city to city, it was the Jews who persecuted him. It was the Jews who drove them out of one city and followed them on to the next city, and the Jews who stoned for as far as they knew the death, so they drew them out of the city of Lisbon as a dead man. The Jews did all that, but it says in the Antiochian criteria that they raised up the Gentiles as well.
The Jews and Gentiles together assaulted Paul in the Thirteenth chapter. Here, it seems they were raised in Jews. And it's not the Jews that are bringing into the magistrate. It's the Gentiles. So all the world, Jew or Gentiles, they're against the preaching of the gospel. And Satan can use one or use the other. But here he's using Gentiles. And they brought them to the magistrate, saying these men, being Jews, were exceedingly troubled our city. And they're teaching customs which are not lawful for us to receive. You would have observed being Romans.
Now whatever they were referring to, I don't know. Because Romans, they wouldn't know much about the Old Testament scriptures. And if they thought they were teaching Jewish customs, They weren't, because that was made clear in the other previous chapter, that they were preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and that we're preaching the law, so they weren't teaching that. But whatever it was they pumped up against them, they said they're teaching customs, which we as Romans, it's unlawful for us, not long for us to receive, neither to observe being Romans. I said this morning, When they got the city by state, they said they gained the city by, which is the chief city of that part of Macedonia, and a colony.
A colony means to say that the emperor of Rome had conferred upon that city the status of being a Roman colony. So anyone born there was a Roman citizen. And they were, in their minds, they were always conscious of citizenship. and a colony and being Romans. That was one of the things that characterized Philippians. We are Romans. We're citizens of Rome. As far as I've read it this morning, Paul says, our citizens, right into the Philippines, our citizens is in heaven. He said, they're trying to teach us how we're Romans, and we're not going to put up with it.
We're Romans. And I'd like to say, wait just for a moment, being Romans. We should not receive, it's not lawful to receive nor observe being Romans. And in verse thirty-seven, Paul said to them, They have beaten us up with thee, openly undemned, being Roman. The same word, being Roman. Because Paul was Roman. He said, I was born in the twenty-fifth chapter, twenty-fifth chapter, the act, twenty-first chapter, maybe twenty-second chapter of the act. He said, Just those three Greeks. And he said, And they were going to scourge Paul in Jerusalem.
And he said, can you scourge a Roman? They were not allowed to scourge Romans. They were not allowed to crucify Romans. That's what they did upon all the people, the colonies, the countries they conquered, but not the Romans. They were exempt from that kind of punishment. And Paul claimed his Roman citizenship in later on in the Acts in Jerusalem when they were going to scourge it. But here he submitted to the clergy, but later on he says they have beaten us over the unclean, the Roman. We shouldn't have done it with a Roman. And that's when the magistrates trembled and they found their beaten Roman. Verse thirty-two. The multitude rose up together against them and the magistrates rent off their clothes.
They didn't rent their own clothes off. They rent off their clothes from Paul and Silas and commanded to beat them. And when they gave many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailer to keep them safe in. Now this was disgusting treatment. What had they done? They cast out a demon, they should have rejoiced. This poor girl, possessed by a demon, possessed by a demon, they cast a demon out, they should rejoice that she was delivered, but they didn't. They beat them merciless and girded them. threw them in prison, and the jailer, having received the command to keep them safely, I suppose that meant so they couldn't get out, so that he kept them safe, he might have taken just better than he did, he put them, having received such a charge, he thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet pass in the swamp.
Now here's a picture then. Paul and Silas, beaten and bruised their back, bleeding, and in awful agony and pain, sitting in a dark dungeon of a prison with a rat in the filth and the lice and the cockroaches and all the rest that crawled around in a dirty old prison dungeon. Crap never came out with all the filthiness. There they were in that awful state. And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God. and the prisoners heard. I was reading one commentary and a man said, if I'd been Silas, I would have said to Paul, now the duet, you sing a solo, I've got enough pain without it.
So this is, he sang a duet, Paul and Silas sang praises to God and the prisoners heard them. What a picture. I wonder how we would react if we would feel it like we. We were cast in a dirty, silky dungeon, a way out there with our back bleeding and sore and dirty, pain and caution, our feet didn't stop for it and couldn't move. I wonder what we do. We pray, say, pray. That was tremendous. They were men of prayer all down first.
They were praying. They were praying. By the riverside, they prayed in the house of Lydia, and they prayed in the prison. That's a wonderful thing. God answers prayer. We're proving it. Here's part of the psalm. Just go on praying. We see there's many... We keep on coming to our prayer meeting Tuesday morning and Thursday night. And in our homes, and on whenever we can, let's keep on praying. Even there, in that terrible condition, they prayed and sang praises unto God. And the prisoners heard them. I said, who else heard them? God heard them. God heard them.
And suddenly, immediately he said, suddenly, there was a great earthquake. I like the Greeks, they come. You notice the more. A great earthquake. So that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's bands were loose. Now they could have all got up and ran away. But God held them there like that, amen. God was going to work a great work that night in the heart of the Philippine Gaeler and in the hearts of all his household that night. God was building a church at Philippi, and this was God's way of doing it. He used Lydia. He used her home.
And now he's going to use the Philippine Gaeler. And so... Suddenly there was a great earthquake, and the foundations of the prison were shaken, and immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone's bands were loose. And the keeper of the prison, awaking out of his seat, I've often wondered how these tyrants could sleep. Did you think of some of those? emperors and rulers and dictators. They cruelly treated people and cast them in the prison, and those four regs couldn't see.
And yet these pirates could go home and convictate them. I was only thinking a day, how could Adolf Hitler flee when he was murdering, purring the dead, and getting rid of six million Jews? How could he flee? They're no conscience at all. Their consciences are skewed. These men that give themselves up, put God over their lives, and give themselves over to Satan, they seem far away. And this fellow went to sleep. The people of the prison were waking out of the sleep. They were seeing the prison doors open. He drove the sword and would have committed suicide, supposing the prisoners are being fled.
So Paul cried, there is another great in the Greek history. with a great voice, with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm. We're all here. He called for light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul inside. And he brought them out. The young Jesus stopped. He got their feet out. He brought them out, and said, Now this is amazing Christ. He said, Sir, what must I do to be saved? What must I do to be saved?
Now you might say, oh, you're thinking, how can I get saved from the house crashing down on me? I don't think he meant that. He didn't say that the prison fell in. He said the foundations were shaped, and then the doors were loose, but I don't think the building fell down, and he was frightened. I believe God is working in his heart. I believe somehow he just... He found out that this girl was saying, these be the servants of the Most High God that show unto you the way of salvation. He knew, I believe, that these men knew the way of salvation. And God had worked in his heart, and he came in trembling. I'll tell you something. There are people here tonight I have never met before, and I don't know.
But let me tell you this. you won't say, sir, what must I do to be saved? And you can come to a state when you return them before God, and you find out your loss, and you're going down to a lost eternity, and there's no hope for you. That's when you cry, sir, what must I do to be saved? A man who can swim, you don't shout, what can I do to be saved? It's a man that's drowning who says, I want to be saved, and it's a man that finds he's a lost sinner. and he's on the way to a lost hell. That's the man that cries out, what must I do to be saved? And God worked in the conscience of this hard-hearted Roman jailer, and God worked him down that night, and he realized what a wicked thing he'd done with these servants was the most high God.
And he trembled, because he'd heard that these men knew the word salvation, and immediately said, Sir, what must I do to be saved? You know the way. You are the servants of the Most High God. It's shown to us the way of salvation. What must I do to be saved? What about the answer? Somebody asked you, what must I do to be saved? What would you say? Were you misjoined in the church? You got it. There's the answer. Acts, verse thirty-one, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. and thou shalt be safe, and thy house.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be safe. Now, this is the way of salvation. I don't know whether there's anyone here young or old tonight who's never yet come to that point in your life when you've accepted Christ as your personal Savior. The way of salvation is the answer. What must I do to be saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be safe. says. And they take unto him the word of the Lord and to all that were in his house. Now this is right. When you lead a soul to Christ, then you've got to sit down and speak from something from the word of God. It's no good guess to say believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and leave them high and dry.
That's the time to sit down and start opening up the word in the simple way in the beginning. And it says he took them into the house, he took unto the word of the Lord and to all that were in his house they had a Bible reading. And he took them the same hour of the night. He took them and washed their stripes and was baptized. He and all his... It seems as if before his back was washed. And before the blood was cleared off of his leaving back, Paul first off was to show how he stayed and teach him the word of God. And then the man was changed. The man became a converted man.
And so did his household, his wife and family and servants. They all accepted the Lord Jesus, his household, and Paul baptized them the same hour of the night. Straightway, he said. He took them the same hour of the night, washed their stripes, and was baptized. He and all his straightness. You know, I believe he put off baptism. He said, people, I've got pride for baptism. He doesn't say that in Scripture anymore. He says that... He commanded them to go into all the world, make disciples of all nations, baptize them.
The command was to the apostles to do the baptizing. Not for the converted people who asked to be the baptized. The part of the preaching of the gospel was baptism. And that was their business. When they believed, then immediately they baptized them. That happened with the Philippine unit. That happened with Paul. as Saul of Tarsus. That happened here. It came out of the night. They were baptized. Then he brought them into his house, and shed meat before them, and rejoiced, saluting in God with all his house. Now then, we have two houses in Philippi now, consecrated home, the home of Lydia, and the home of the Philippian jailers, who were destroyed.
The sergeant's going to build a church and purify him if he doesn't. And then he brings them all together. Now very quickly our time has been gone. Whenever a day the magistrate sent the sergeant saying let these men go, and the keeper told Paul, and Paul, the magistrate sent them to let me go. And Paul said, they've beaten us openly, uncondempt, being Roman, have cast us into prison. Now do they come and thrust us out privately? Nay, verily. let them come themselves and fetch us out. And the sergeants told these words under the majesty, and they feared. They feared when they heard they were Romans.
They had no right to scourge the Romans. They were afraid for what they had done. And they came and they stalked them. Well, they put them in the prison. Now they had the people of them to come out and sit on them. They distraught them. They said, come out. And they brought them out, and desired them to depart out of the city. And they went out of the house, and entered into the house of Libya. And when they had seen the presence, they comforted. As I read this, I kind of ask myself, who comforted whom? They comforted them. And it did this. Paul and Silas comfort the brethren.
It did the brethren comfort Paul and Silas. I think really the brethren should have comforted Paul and Silas after all they suffered. But I can assure you from my little Greek testament, it was Paul and Silas that they comforted the brethren. That's what it says here in the Greek. They comforted the brethren. And then they departed. And so a church was started in Philippi. The work is going forward. going to all the world and preach the gospel. And God is using the Apostle Paul to pray the gospel. And the church, the gospel is reached now over to Europe. Over here to Europe. Now we've seen our next study that I was right to and come down this column.
And so later it was gone. And as I said this morning, Paul wanted to get to Spain. Ultimately came to the United States of America and took you and me in. And God saved us. Thank God. He's given us a pattern, a way to show us how to build his church in these days. Blessed God. Our Father, we thank you for these men, Paul and Titus, for the brave princes, the way they suffered, for thy name's sake. And we thank thee, Lord, that they endured much persecution, much pain, for they went forward, and amidst all their pain and suffering with their feet in socks and not all for dirty, silky jails, with the rats running all around and all the fields.
They sang praises and prayed and sang praises to God at midnight. And thou didst answer with a mighty earthquake. For all the miracles we see in this chapter, we thank you for them. And we ask you, Lord, we may not be slow in expecting miracles from thyself. We pray thou shalt touch some heart here tonight. May the great miracle salvation take place if there's someone here on stage. We keep thy dressing. Lead us on. Build us up. and help us to go forward doing what these men do, praying the gospel, preaching, establishing churches, and going forward for thy namesake. We look back many of us on life in the way thou hast used it, and we ask the Lord, although we're getting older in days, thou shalt still use us for thy glory as long as we can go on for thyself.
We seek thy parting blessing now in the precious name of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.