Tuesday, March 17th

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Tuesday, March 17

Acts 16: 25-27

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to 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 bonds were unfastened. When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped.

Most High School yearbooks include a page that identifies members of that year’s graduating class who are voted “Most likely to...” do or be something.

“Most likely to succeed.”

“Most likely to become President of the U.S. someday.”

“Most likely to run a fortune 500 company.”

“Most likely to play professional sports.”

Well, I think the central character in this story would have been voted a different kind of title. I see him as “Least likely to hear and respond to the gospel.”

Luke doesn’t tell us his name but the Philippian jailer was probably an ex-Roman soldier who had either been assigned to this lousy job or had to take it because he was qualified to do nothing else.

Even our modern prisons are rife with rage, violence, abuse and disease; so imagine what a Roman prison 2000 years ago might have been like!

This man dealt with the dregs of society on a daily basis. He probably saw and participated in more brutality in one day than most of us will ever see in a lifetime. He had lived his whole life in a pagan culture and almost certainly thought of the “gods” as both distant and capricious in their dealings with human beings; and probably assumed that he had nothing to expect from the gods but punishment and torment.

He most definitely was not a man you would expect to find in a church setting, nor would he have been remotely interested in what Paul and Silas had to say.

But notice that God does not wait for this man to come to the gospel, rather, he takes the gospel to him.

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them...

The gospel comes to the prison in the form of two men named Paul and Silas. Their response to being beaten with rods and thrown into prison with their legs in stocks was to sing and pray.

A two man worship service breaks out on death row. Luke says it’s midnight and the prisoners are listening. They’re listening because they’ve never heard anything like this in prison before. They’re listening because Paul and Silas are singing praises to a God they believe loves them even though they are in prison; they are praying to a God they believe knows them and cares about them even in this place of pain and suffering. They are listening because these two men have two things they don’t have; they have faith and joy.

I think we can assume that someone else was listening as well; the man Luke identifies only as the jailer.

Is it possible that God allowed Paul and Silas to be accused unjustly; beaten mercilessly; and thrown into prison illegally (after all, as Roman citizens the law required that they be given opportunity to defend themselves), just so that this jailer could hear the gospel?

Yes, I think it’s possible.

In fact, I think that’s the whole point of the story. The gospel is unstoppable; the gospel goes places and reaches people that we think are unreachable.

Do you know any “Least likely to hear and respond to the gospel” people? Do you know someone who you have come to think of as beyond the reach of the gospel?

This story reminds us that no one is beyond reach.

No one.

Pastor Brian Coffey