Brown's Daily Word 1-9-14

The Lord blessed us with a wonderful Wednesday evening gathering.  The Food was fantastic.  The fellowship was sweet.  The time of study was brilliant.  During the day time  I had visited three people, whom I call senior saints.  One woman in her 80's, though frail and confined, had a wonderful sense of peace and deep sense of the presence of Jesus.  Some how she was saying non-verbally, "All is well".  During the time of study one man shared that 14 years ago yesterday his teenage son died accidentally.  The Lord, through massive grief and sadness, has given him peace.  Another man shared that his young grandson, 4 years old, died in a tragic fire the day before.  In the midst of grief and sadness we turn to the Savior, the Man of sorrows who is acquainted with our grief.  

    I am struck and provoked when I read the Christ-event in the life of Paul and Silas as it is recorded.  “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them” (Acts 16:25).  So what would you do when you have been arrested, beaten, imprisoned, placed under guard, with your feet bound in stocks, for nothing more than preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ?

    If you were Paul and Silas at midnight, you would start praying and singing hymns of praise to God.  Acts 16:25 says that the other prisoners were listening to them.  No doubt these two strangers looked like a mess after being severely beaten.  The fact that they were in stocks and under close guard told the other prisoners that Paul and Silas were not ordinary criminals.  It throws light on the darkness of that prison cell in Philippi where Paul and Silas were singing and praying at midnight.  It is insructive to us from the Word of God and from the witness of Paul and Silas that we go and serve the Lord wherever we  happen to be, even though it may not have been our first choice.  That’s why Paul and Silas were singing at midnight.  They knew that God had sent them to the jail to bear witness for their faith.  As Paul and Silas sang and the prisoners listened, they had no idea of the earthquake that was about to set them free (vv. 26-28).  Neither did they know that soon they would lead the Philippian jailer and his whole family to the Lord (vv. 29-34).  That was all hidden to them.  As far as they knew, they would stay in prison a few days or a few weeks or a few months, and then they would go on trial.  After that, no one could say what might happen.

    Paul and Silas weren’t praying and singing in prospect of some great miracle.  They simply bore witness to the goodness of the Lord in a most difficult situation.  God’s call to you and me is the same.  We are where we are because the Lord wants us here.  When He wants us  somewhere else, we will be somewhere else.  “Stay where you’re put” doesn’t mean passively accepting all the bad circumstances of life, and it certainly doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try to change things if you can.  

    Paul and Silas weren’t trying to be quiet in the jail.  Evidently they prayed and sang loud enough that a crowd of prisoners listened to them, amazed that two men in stocks, having been beaten and roughed up, no doubt a sight to behold, would seem so cheerful and full of faith. . . In jail! . . . At midnight!

 E. Stanley Ott who offers this insight:

“In every case, the person whom God called simply replied with the Hebrew word hinnainee (hin-nay’-nee), the word of the servant - which means “here I am"  - available - ready to serve - what may I do for you?”

    When God calls, we can always find excuses to make: “Not me, Lord.”  “Go ask someone else.”  “I’m busy.”  “I’m happy right where I am.”  For all of us, the issue is not our personal desires but our response when the call comes.  In the truly tough stuff of life, we rarely get a choice in advance, which is probably a good idea because if we did, we would be sorely tempted to run the other direction.  It is in moments like this that we discover the promises of the Lord. 
    We should not be surprised that Paul and Silas sang in prison.  Some of God’s best work gets done in prisons.  John Bunyan went to prison for preaching the gospel and wrote “Pilgrim’s Progress.”  Dietrich Bonhoeffer went to prison in World War II and died testifying to God’s grace.  Chuck Colson went to prison and God gave him the vision for Prison Fellowship.
    I wonder what Paul and Silas prayed at midnight?  Could it have been something like what Paul wrote several years later in 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17.

"May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word."

    Eugene Peterson gave us his version in The Message, where he started back in verse 15 and came up with:

"So, friends, take a firm stand, feet on the ground and head high.  Keep a tight grip on what you were taught, whether in personal conversation or by our letter.  May Jesus himself and God our Father, who reached out in love and surprised you with gifts of unending help and confidence, put a fresh heart in you, invigorate your work, enliven your speech."

I like that. “Take a firm stand, feet on the ground and head high.” We all need that, don’t we? 
    In Christ,
   Brown
http://youtu.be/KYP--c2LTfg