 Today we're in Acts 16. We're going to begin at verse 16. I'll read verses 16 through 18, and we'll get into our study. We're going to actually concentrate at the end of the study on an event that relates to somebody who is called the Philippian jailer. And you'll see that many of you are already familiar with that story, but we'll be closing by and large by looking at some of the things related to him. But here in verse 16 it happened as we went to prayer that a certain slave girl possessed with the spirit of divination met us, who brought her master's much profit by fortune telling. This girl followed Paul and us and cried out saying, these men are the servants of the Most High God who proclaimed to us the way of salvation. And this she did for many days. But Paul, greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out that very hour. Now what we're watching here in this passage is a spiritual battle. And I want to begin by noticing when it begins. Notice it begins in verse 16 as we went to prayer. So that helps us to remember that when you go to prayer, that is a place where many spiritual battles take place. When you're going through the book of Acts, as we've been going through the book of Acts, we've noticed that prayer is emphasized throughout the entire book. Because prayer is the lifeline of the church. When you look at prayer, what prayer can be described as is that it's an act of humble worship. It expresses dependence as well as obedience to God. And so when we pray, we will praise the Lord, we intercede, we make requests, we adore, we give thanks. These are the things that you do when you're praying. You're yielding yourself, you're humbling yourself before Him, you're telling Him how dependent on Him you are. And you intercede on behalf of others or you make your requests known to Him. It's an attitude of humble dependence, of reliance on God. It's an awareness that you cannot meet your own needs, that you require somebody else to be able to do that, especially the deepest needs that you have. And so you take them to the one who can meet those needs and the church was continually praying. You see it again from the beginning all the way up to this point here. In Acts chapter one, verse 14, it said, these all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication. In Acts 242, they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship in the breaking of bread and in prayers. In chapter three, verse one, Peter and John went up together to the temple at the hour of prayer. In chapter six, verses three and four, brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them, but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word. Chapter 10, verse 31, Cornelius, your prayer has been heard. Acts 12, 5, Peter was therefore kept in prison, but constant prayer was offered to God for him by the church. And even in verse 13 of chapter 16, and on the Sabbath day, we went out of the city to the river side where prayer was customarily made. Prayer is a heartbeat. It's a lifeline of the body of Christ. Somebody once said, prayer is made with a pure heart, faithfully believing that God not only hears, but also answers and is made in the name of Jesus according to the will of God, the Father. Again, through prayer, we praise, intercede, request, adore, and give thanks. It's interesting, but prayerlessness is actually a sin against God because of unbelief and laziness. If you take notes, you might want to note 1 Samuel 12, 23. Interesting scripture, let me read it to you. As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by failing to pray for you. And I will teach you the way that is good and right. That I should sin against the Lord by failing to pray for you. There are so many things in the reservoirs of heaven that God has reserved for us that we simply don't even ask Him for. We don't even ask Him for those things and He's got them for us. You have not, James said, because you ask not. And so prayer is the heartbeat of the believer. It's the heartbeat of the church. And so spiritual warfare begins really in this passage here as they went to prayer. So it says again in verse 16, it happened as we went to prayer that a certain slave girl possessed with the spirit of divination met us who brought her masters much profit by fortune telling. The spirit of divination, what is divination? Divination, when you have what is called the spirit of divination, it is a demon that predicts, if you will, future events. Divination, divining future events. This is a young woman possessed by a demon that pretended to predict the future. The body of this person had been taken over by an outside intelligence, a demon. And when you go through your New Testament, you'll see that there are several mentions of demon possession and you'll see various things that they do. We've been going through the gospel of Matthew. You'll remember that demons can cause blindness, muteness, infirmity. They produce sometimes convulsions, the appearance of insanity. The unclean spirits will drive you to sexual impurity. And some demons pretend to be able to predict the future. Again, that is called the spirit of divination. Divination is communication with the demon for the purpose of determining the demon's knowledge and for the purpose of making a decision or discernment of the future. So they would go to this woman, she was a fortune teller basically, and they would ask her to predict future events for them. Divination and all occult practices were and are strictly forbidden. In Deuteronomy in the Old Testament, chapter 18, verses nine through 12, it says, when you come into the land that the Lord God has given you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be found among you, anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead. For whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations, the Lord your God is driving them out before you. In Leviticus 19, verse 31, do not turn to mediums or necromancers, do not seek them out, so make yourself unclean by them. I am the Lord your God. Have nothing to do with them. Have nothing to do with astrology. Have nothing to do with fortune telling. Have nothing to do with them. Now I should hasten to add that demons cannot foretell the future because demons are not omniscient. Demons don't have all knowledge. They only pretend. You know, God actually challenges false gods to predict the future. In Isaiah 41, verses 23 and 24, tell us what the future holds so that we may know you are gods. Do something whether good or bad so that we will be dismayed and filled with fear. But you are less than nothing. Your works are utterly worthless. He who chooses you is detestable. God actually challenges them. Tell me the future, predict the future. In Isaiah 46, 9 and 10, remember the former things, those of long ago. I am God, there is no other. I am God, there's none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, my purpose will stand and I will do all that I please. So God challenges these false gods, these demons and he says, predict the future, you can't. So this girl had what is called the spirit of divination. She was a fortune teller. Again, divination going a little bit further to develop this, having, it's literally having the spirit. This was interesting without going into a lot. The Greek word, having the spirit of Python, the Greek word divination is actually where you get the word Python from. So it is referred to as having a spirit of Python or Apollo. Now, Python was according to Fable, a huge serpent that had an oracle at Mount Parnassus and was famous for predicting future events. Apollo, according to their mythology, slew this serpent and hence he was called Tithias and became celebrated as the foreteller of future events and all those who either could or pretended to predict future events were influenced by the spirit of Apollopithias. Oftentimes the priestesses of this God became greatly agitated and gave answers apparently from their bellies when their mouths remained closed. Ventriloquists is what they were. My belly speaks, but not like that. Now I want you to notice in verse 16 again, she brought her master as much gain by fortune telling. Fortune telling is also referred to as soothsaying and giving you some things for you. Soothsaying is the word that comes from the Anglo-Saxon truth saying. They thought that soothsayer spoke by the inspiration of their God. That means that whatever it is that they said had to be true. And so all of this comes under one thing. Satan conceals himself under the guise of truth that he may deceive people. Again, this practice was forbidden to the Jews. This is because the Lord their God was to direct them and not Satan. And he forbade that. Well, as this has taken place, verse 17, this girl followed Paul and us and cried out saying, these men are the servants of the most high God who proclaimed to us the way of salvation. And this she did for many days, but Paul greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her and he came out that very hour. Now, let's look at this for a moment. Satan sometimes speaks the truth, but he always adds a twist. He always does. Remember when Jesus was being tempted and he was up there in the mountain and as he was going through or he's going in using the wilderness being tempted and all. Satan took him to the pinnacle of the temple and he said, it is written that the Lord will hold you up lest you should dash your foot against the stone. He said, so just leap from the pinnacle here and wouldn't it be a wonderful thing was a picture of how you come hurtling down at the speed of gravity from this very high portion of the temple area and angels come and lift you up and everybody would recognize you as being Messiah. And what happens there when you look at that, it says that he will lift you up, lest you dash your foot against the stone, but the scripture makes it very clear that God's, the more full scripture was to keep you in all his ways. And the point that was being made at that juncture in the temptation was that Jesus was not to tempt the Lord, his God by doing something like that, but Satan was misquoting scripture. And so often Satan in the scriptures, and I believe he still finds ways to do it today and we see it here in this example, he can say something that is true, but there's always a twist involved. Notice it says these men are servants. These men are servants, he's saying, servants of God. And so this is, and then he went on to say who, the demon went on to say who proclaimed to us the way of salvation. Someone wrote it is astonishing how such a testimony could be given in such a case. Every syllable is true, but what was the result? Notice Paul was greatly annoyed. Somebody would ask why, what was wrong with this? After all, her witness is true. Well, somebody said this, and I think he said it well, so I'm stealing his idea. The demon knew that the Jewish law prohibited all magic and dealings with familiar spirits. He therefore bears a true testimony to the apostles that by it he may destroy their credibility and ruin their usefulness. Now how did he do that? How did he plan to do that? Well, one, the Jews would be led to believe that the apostles were in agreement with demons and this would harden their hearts against the preaching of the gospel. Secondly, the Gentiles finding that their own demon bore testimony to the apostles would think that there was one system which ultimately meant that they had nothing to learn and nothing to correct and thus the preaching of the apostles would be useless to them. So if they received the testimony from this demon, then it would undermine the credibility to Jew as well as to Gentile. The Jews would think that they were breaking the law of God by allowing demons to be involved in their ministry and the Gentiles would say then what do we have to gain by following this God that you're speaking to us about? And so that's what annoyed Paul. You don't want the devil to be advertising the gospel. So what did Paul do? Verse 18, he cast out the demon in the name and power of Jesus Christ and that revealed that it's Jesus who sets captives free and not man. You see the demon was cast out in the name and the power of Jesus not in the name and power of the apostle Paul. Now as this takes place, and notice it came out that very hour when this takes place verse 19, when her master saw that their hope of prophet was gone they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to the authorities and they brought them to the magistrates and the judges and said, these men being Jews exceedingly trouble our city. They teach customs which are not lawful for us being Romans to receive or observe. Then the multitude rose up together against them and magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods. And when they had laid many stripes on them they threw them into prison, commanded the jailer to keep them securely. Having received such a charge he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks. And so the result of all of this is they seized them. Notice in verse 20 how it says these men being Jews there's a hint of anti-Semitism there. This actualization is that they're Jews they've come into our city and they've upset it. It's interesting that they took Paul and Silas but they didn't touch Luke nor Timothy because Luke and Timothy are there with Paul and Silas. It could be because Paul and Silas were obviously they were Jewish and Luke wasn't and Timothy was half Jewish and it may be simply because of appearances. For whatever reason they took just Paul and Silas. Now notice in verse 21 there's the charge disturbing the peace by bringing Jewish superstition to the city. Now as this takes place verse 22 the multitude rose up together against them. The magistrates tore off their clothes. So what they did is they came to Paul and they came to Silas and they stripped them naked. It was part of the humiliation that they were gonna go through. Sometimes when we're reading our Bibles we fail to realize the kinds of things that were done to believers in the first century in the first portion of the history of the church they were humiliated in front of all of these people. They tore their clothes right off of their bodies. So there they were naked and they were beaten with these rods. They were beaten mercilessly. There was such an uproar that it seems that this is one of the ways they wanted to calm down this mob. They were so upset. So if we beat them and put them in prison it'll keep the whole city from going into a riot. There was an official, an attendant that would carry a bundle of rods and he would use those to punish transgressors. Second Corinthians 11-25, Paul speaks about the fact that he had been beaten three times with rods and after beating them they put them in stocks in jail. Rods are like whips. They're like pieces of, we'll say like, I'm just using, it's like bamboo. They're thick sticks and to be beaten we'll send your entire body into complete shock. It is a very painful thing. This is still done in some countries. If you do something wrong you violate one of the laws. This rods are still used in some countries to beat those and punish them in. And I've read and heard that such a beating is something that is beyond anything that we could understand in terms of the pain that they went through. So you have to picture the humiliation and you have to picture the physical beating that they've gone through. You have to picture that in your mind's eye to get an idea of what's taking place. Notice it says in verse 23, when they laid many stripes on them they threw them into prison commanding the jailer to keep them securely, having received such a charge. He put them in the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks. So there's no movement at all. They're in that position there. Their backs and their bodies are completely lacerated, bleeding and the throb such a pain. Can you imagine what that would have been like? So how do you deal with this? Because this is obviously unfair and this is obviously unjust. But the fact that it's unfair and unjust doesn't mean that Christians don't experience that. I think one of the things that, and I won't go too long on this one, but one of the things that we modern day believers actually believe is that we should never experience anything that's either unfair nor unjust. And when we do experience those things sometimes it causes us such anger and such disappointment in the Lord that we want to just walk away from Him. Because we really believe that God owes us something. I had the worst problem with that attitude. I have to be honest with you, when I first got saved I used to blame God for everything. Everything, everything. It's just like I say, you're in control of everything and you know and this hurts and how come? I did it a lot. I argued, well I just would say things to the Lord all the time. I'll give you an example. I can't remember the exact, yeah, I think I, anyway, I went to get my haircut and I had gotten out of the military and I had let my hair grow long for a year and actually probably a little bit longer than that because it was pretty long and you could actually, never mind anyway, I'm starting to float down the road. So I went to get my haircut because I was going back to Biola and I had to get my haircut and I went to this place that I had gotten my haircut years before because I, you know, I was in the army for two years then I went to school for a year and I only had to get a couple, two, three haircuts and then I let my hair grow. So I hadn't gotten my haircut for a long time and it was now past my shoulders and now I have to get it cut because Biola had regulations and you had to cut your hair a certain length. It was almost like the army. So I go to this guy to get my haircut and I tell him, it's got to be kind of short, you know, you've cut my hair before, do you remember? It'd been years, he goes, oh yeah, sure you do. And so I said, cool. I said, no, I had a Harley at that time and so I had driven the bike to get my haircut in Whittier and so as I went in and got my haircut, he's just visiting with me. Then he, you know that moment when they turn you around to see yourself and then the mirror and you go, oh, no, you know that moment. You ever had that? Your hair is not what you thought it was going to be and you know, there's hardly anything that you hate more than a bad haircut. It seems like it takes forever for your hair to grow out. I'm looking at myself, you know what he did? He gave me a pompadour and I was a hippie and all of a sudden my hair is just out like that because the guy, the guy was a cholo at my barber so he made me one of them, you know, and I was mad. I was livid. I got on my motorcycle and I was driving and you could hear the wind through my hair, you know. Actually it sprayed it so hard I didn't need a helmet and as I was driving home, I was railing against the Lord, railing at him. I can't believe it. Once again, just something as simple as a haircut. I'm mad at God, like he was the barber. I went home, I washed my hair. Now you got it, my hair was shoulder, past my shoulders and now it's shorter than when I was in the army and I am angry over that because I didn't want my hair that short and I got on my motorcycle, still ranting at the Lord and I pull out, I came to a corner and I put it in the first gear and just powered and came blowing across to go take a right turn. I was still angry. I hit a patch of oil and the rear tire spun out and the whole bike spun and I fell and I laid on the ground and I picked up the bike and I dragged it off to the side and the Spirit of the Lord said, you were sane. You ever have that, you ever have that? You gonna yell at me? Are you wanting to yell at me anymore? I don't know, I don't believe I'm superstitious but I do believe that the Lord has a way of getting my attention and sometimes you can actually believe that should have gone better for you, should have gotten that job, should have been able to get whatever it was, that girl, that guy, whatever. How come I didn't and you get angry at the Lord? And we started saying one of the things that I heard my kids, my grandkids saying earlier than even my kids, it's unfair. It's unfair. What do you know about fairness? You don't know anything about fairness. I was with my brother, my mom, we didn't get ice cream. You know how kids, people today eat ice cream? It's just normal. It wasn't when I grew up. It wasn't, ice cream was a treat and my dad used to get Neapolitan, I think was called. It was like strawberry, chocolate and vanilla. Anybody even remember that? I don't even know if they make, I don't even know if they have that anymore. Do they have it anymore? Yay! Yeah, right, yeah, that's right. I think we got ours at thrifty or whatever but save on, I don't remember what it was but it was cheap but we didn't get it and we didn't get real ice cream. I didn't eat butter until I was in the army. We ate margarine because that's what my dad could afford, right? So I didn't even know what butter tasted like unless I went to somebody's house and I don't think I ever ate it until I went in the army. But anyway, we didn't eat ice cream, we ate ice milk. It was cheaper. Anybody know what ice milk is? You ever heard of it? Nah, ancient history. So, what was I gonna tell you? There was a point to this. Oh yeah, just testing to see if we're listening. So, my mom puts ice cream on the plate before my brother and me and I look at his and I look at mine and I said, that's not fair. He got more than me. You know what my mom did with the wisdom of Solomon? She says, oh, did he get more than you? Yes, okay, she took both of the bowls and threw it in the sink, washed them out. She said, if you're gonna be doing that, you don't get any of that. So my mom taught me real early. So that's why I took it out on God. Cause he never took my ice cream away. We get this attitude that it's unfair and I think that sometimes Christians can have that attitude. But Lord, I'm doing my best for you. I'm sharing with you. I mean, we just cast a demon out who was confusing the people and this is what I get. I get beaten so severely and then I'm placed in the stocks and I'm just laying here. My back is throbbing, the pain is intense. I can't believe they humiliated us in front of all of these people. Stripped us naked, beat us like this, threw us in here and what do they do? Did they complain or are they saying this is unfair? Verse 25, at midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God. That's what they were doing. And the prisoners were listening to them. Someone said, the other prisoners heard, not groans of pain, but songs of love for God. Amazing. These men were in pain. They had reason to fear, yet they are not worried and are even happy in their sufferings. They were so fully satisfied that they were right and had done their duty that there was no room for regret or self-approach. We are suffering for Jesus' sake and we can live with that. So they prayed. They prayed for grace, for God to support them. And secondly, they sang. They sang to the God who saved them and counted them worthy to suffer. In Philippians 1.29, Paul writes this, for to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for his sake. It has been granted to you. It's a gift from God to not only believe, but also to go through and endure suffering. They were in the inner prison, but they sang so joyfully that the other prisoners heard. It's like it says in Nehemiah 8 verse 10, the joy of the Lord is your strength. And as they were singing, the prisoners were listening. And the other prisoners were witnesses to those joy-filled believers. Paul and Silas knew that they were invulnerable as long as they were in the center of the will of God. They were safe in him. And as this is taking place and they're singing, and the prisoners are listening, and there's the joy that they have suffered for the name of the Lord. And as this is taking place, notice verse 26, suddenly there was a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were open and everyone's chains were loose. And so as this earthquake hits, those people had, they had chains that actually had been bolted in, if you will, to the walls. And everything was shifted so much that everything came loose through this amazing earthquake that was from the Lord. God was bearing testimony of his power. By the earthquake and loosing the bonds of the prisoners, he was showing symbolically the nature of the faith that they were preaching, because their faith that they're preaching proclaims deliverance to captives, opening of prison doors to those who are bound, and it sets at liberty those who are bruised. And so that's what's taking place as a picture of what God does through Christ. And as all of this is taking place, and in verse 27 it says, 27 it says, the keeper of the prison, awakened from sleep, seeing the prison doors open, supposing the prisoners had fled, drew his sword and was about to kill himself. But Paul called with the loud voice saying, do not, do yourself no harm, for we are all here. Then he called for a light, ran in, and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. You see, he could be put to death for losing the prisoners. It was something that he knew. Remember earlier when the apostle Peter had been loose from prison in Jerusalem? We saw it in Acts chapter 12. The angel had let him loose, but Herod ordered the death of the guards. In Acts 1219, when Herod had searched for him and not found him, he examined the guards and commanded that they should be put to death. So rather than to be put to death, he said, I'll take my own life. And so what happens is, they say, don't do yourself any harm, we're here and nobody has escaped. And as this is taking place, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. In verse 30, and he brought them out and said, sirs, what must I do to be saved? So they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household. Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who are in his house. You know, this is one of the first questions I ever had as a Christian. I read this passage in verse 31. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your household. And so as I was reading the Bible, I said, does that mean that when one person is saved like me, that automatically my whole household is saved? Because if I only had that scripture, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your household. I thought to myself, does that mean automatic salvation to others? I get saved, therefore my dad, my mom, my sisters, my brother, they're all saved along with me because they're members of the household. But I didn't notice the next verse. They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who are in his house. So no, it wasn't an automatic salvation. What they did is they went and they proclaimed the message to him as well as to his family. But as we look at this, he wasn't concerned with personal safety. He already showed that he was willing to kill himself. So when he asked the question, what must I do to be saved? It's a question that relates to salvation. Now he knew that they had been preaching what was called the doctrine of salvation and he also knew that for expelling a demon they had been delivered into his custody. So what happens is the Holy Spirit is convinced his heart that he's lost and he needs salvation and so the question is, how can he obtain it? And they give the answer, notice, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. Now I want you to notice with me, he did not say, be saved and you'll believe. He said, believe and you will be saved. In John 3.36 it says, he who believes in the Son has everlasting life. He who does not believe the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abides on him. John 6.40, this is the will of him who sent me that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have everlasting life. I will raise him up the last day. John 6.47, most assuredly I say to you, he who believes in me has everlasting life. So you believe and you're saved and he says, what must I do to be saved? And he doesn't say you do a work, he doesn't say you've got to go out and do something very spectacular or heroic. He says, you need to believe. You need to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who is our savior. And if you do believe, if you trust him, if you embrace him in faith and rest your entire life upon him, you'll be saved. And so that's how you're saved. It's not by works of righteousness which we've done. But the interesting thing is, is after you're saved you do perform works of righteousness. See there are some who think that if they work hard they can be saved. There are others who work hard because they're saved. And there's a difference. It's a huge difference. You serve the Lord, not so that he will give you favor. You serve the Lord because he has shown you favor. You serve him because he has loved you. You don't serve him to try and make him love you. You serve him out of gratitude. Notice verse 33, he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes and immediately he and his family were baptized. Now when he had brought them into his house he set food before them. He rejoiced having believed in God with all his household. And so immediately he's doing things. He's feeding them. He's washing them, which is interesting because he takes them and washes them because they're bloody. Because their bodies are filled with that blood that is now just caking on them. And with a merciful and compassionate even thankful heart he takes obviously a basin of some sort and he brings a cloth and he begins to gently wash their back. He takes the water and he washes all of the blood off of them and once they're washed they take him and he gets washed. Isn't that interesting? You see that? He washed them but then they washed him with the water of baptism as he was openly identifying himself as a follower now of Jesus Christ. And so as this is taking place it's a demonstration that the wounds in his soul were deeper than the wounds in their skin. He needed a washing, not of water. He needed a washing of the word and he needed a washing of regeneration. It isn't the water that saved him, it's the blood of Christ. As he was washing the blood off of their back the blood of Christ was flowing upon him. What a beautiful picture of salvation that took place here with this man. What must I do to be saved? Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved and your household. Trust him, love him. And then he said, I will. They come and share with his family. The family receives, he ministers to them because again when you're saved you serve. He ministers to them and then they in turn minister to him. In verse 35 when it was day the magistrate sent the officer saying, let those men go. So the keeper of the prison reported these words to Paul saying the magistrates have sent to let you go. Now therefore depart, go in peace. Paul said to them, they've beaten us openly, uncondemned Romans and have thrown us into prison. And now do they put us out secretly? No indeed, let them come themselves and get us out. I like Paul, I do, I really do, I like him. The judges had thought a night in jail and a beating was sufficient for them. But Paul refused to go because an injustice had been done and it shouldn't be covered up. And that's why he said, listen, we are Romans and uncondemned, in other words, you have violated the law. You don't have the right to do that. As a matter of fact, for doing so, you can get in some tremendous, tremendous problems over doing that. And so what happens is he exercises his right as a Roman citizen. There are times when we, the church, I think are obligated to make our voices heard. I do not believe, and I'm gonna say this quickly, but I do not believe that the church is intended by God to be pugnacious, to go out and pick fights all the time with government officials. These are government officials we're dealing with here. But there are times when we need to make our voices heard, they need to know what the church stands for as well as the fact that we are not second class citizens here in the nation that we live in. We have rights too, like everybody else. Years ago, years ago now, I got a phone call and a member of our church told me that the city of Ontario was going to use a wizard as the city image, if you will. And they were really pushing this program to have a wizard. So a member of my church calls the church as his pastor. I just feel this is not right, I don't think that the city ought to be identified with sorcery and magic, do you? And I said, I think there are better images, and I don't know that that's a good one. She said, would you give a call and do something about this? I said, let me look into the crystal ball. No, I said, yeah, I said I'll do something. I wrote a letter to the editor and I wrote as a pastor and I said, you know, I'm concerned that we're choosing to use an occult symbol to typify a city like Ontario. And I just wrote and it started a hornet's nest. I was real surprised at the anger that came out. And I got a call from some secular radio station and they wanted to ask me questions concerning this and it actually got kind of big in our area and there were a lot of angry people over this and so they got 12 pastors from the city of Ontario together when we were in Ontario and I was invited to be part of this group and to debate and discuss whether or not as religious people, whether or not it was wrong or right to have a symbol like a wizard and it's amazing how it kind of blew up like that and there were things that were written to the newspaper and I was called names on radio for two days because what an idiot, what an ignorant person and it was just really an interesting thing. And the one calling was Marie, I said, honey, you shouldn't, you're making me look bad. So I met with these pastors and one of them sitting across from me said to me, I don't see anything wrong with this, I don't think there's a problem with this, what's the problem? You know, it's like playing cards because they were talking about other things related to Ouija boards and stuff and I said, I can't believe that you're telling me that the occult reading cards and all this equivalent to plain poker, are you kidding me? We had a large, and eventually what happened, obviously is the symbol was not accepted in Ontario and it's because the Lord used several pastors including myself to say, look, there's gotta be a better symbol. You know, one time a while back now there was an ordinance passed here in the city of Chino against handing out tracks, did you know that? There was an ordinance that was passed to forbidding you to hand out religious tracks. When the Christmas lights in Chino had become a real big thing, members of our church would go there and would walk through in street witness and it got people upset in the neighborhood. We weren't there to disrupt, we weren't there to cause problems, but they were upset about that and so we challenged them on that too and we said, you don't have the right to pass ordinances against the church, we have the freedom of expression of religious belief the way anybody else does and you cannot stop us from doing that and we challenged them and they backed down. There are times when you stand up and you say, no, this isn't right, this is what we're going to do, we need to do the right thing and in the case of Paul, they're trying to kind of put them out the back door, all right? And Paul say, no, I'm not going for that. You have beaten us as Romans, we are un-condemned and when they heard that, they were greatly concerned because if word got back to Rome what had happened, these people would be in serious trouble. You see, the punishment appointed for those who transgressed the law was death as well as confiscation of his property. These people were very afraid of what could take place and so what did they do? Well, it says in verse 38, the officers told these words to the magistrates and they were afraid when they heard that they were Romans, then they came and pleaded with them and brought them out and asked them to depart from the city. So they went out of the prison and entered the house of Lydia and when they had seen the brethren, they encouraged them and departed. So they left being cleared as innocent men and what did they do? Well, we'll close with this. They saw the brethren and they encouraged them. In other words, they strengthened them, they comforted them by telling them what God had done. The church had been concerned but God had a plan to reach a jailer in his family and though it initially looked real bad, God turned the evil around for good and what he did is he comforted them. The comfort he received from God was used to encourage these people because they too should be bold in their faith for God is also their help as well as their comfort. One of the things, let me close with this, one of the things I want to encourage you all to is to always remember this. You don't need some spiritual hero to go out and do exploits that you can be proud of. Some people think that way, they think that the pastor is supposed to be some real important person and they simply support him with prayers and this and that. Listen, there are things God wants you to do. Keep that in mind. There are things that you can do that he's intending for you to do, not somebody else. It's not that he can't use somebody else because he will use somebody else but why not be the one he can use? I was, I've said this before, where I'll close with this story. I was a young Christian. I went with a friend of mine to get some pizza. My friend who never drank and I was an alcoholic before I got saved, my friend never drank, said, you know, nothing tastes better with pizza than a good cold beer. I said, oh, he says, I'm gonna order a pitcher and he did, he orders a pitcher and puts it in front of us. They put it in front of us and I poured a glass. I thought, well, I can drink a beer. I'm over 21 and I'm not gonna get drunk and I'm rationalizing but in the back of my mind, I'm saying, I'm not supposed to be drinking. This isn't something for me to do. I got away from this, what? I'm arguing with myself. Maybe some of you have done that. I was arguing with myself. Oh, you know, it's a big deal, you know. And I have the beer in front of me and I took a bite of my pizza. I took a drink of the beer. No, I didn't get drunk. No, I didn't chip on the table and start dancing. No, I just tasted the beer and when I did that, this old man who had walked in was sitting and when I say old, he was in his 70s and I was in my early 20s and so he sat right across from me. I mean, I'm at this table and he's in the next table so he's just a few feet away and he's looking right at me when I picked up the beer and I drank it and put it down. He's looking right at me. The spirit of the Lord spoke to my heart and said, go tell him I love him. Go tell him. And I said, I can't. You can believe this or not, this is a real conversation. I said, I can't. And a question came, why? I said, because he saw me drink this beer and if I walk over there and tell him Jesus loves him, I have the smell of beer on my mouth. And he's gonna look at me like some hypocrite. I can't. As God is my witness, believe this or not, as God is my witness, I said, I can't. Two young men came out off the street. I still remember them off to my right, walking in the door. One sat on his left, the other sat on his right and I'm right there. I'm closer than the front row here and I see one pull a Bible out and he opened it and he started reading the scriptures to this guy. I saw this and the Spirit of the Lord spoke to my heart and said, if I can't use you, I will find somebody else to use. I said, God, I'm so sorry. I don't wanna go into the position where I can't be used. See, I restrict the freedoms I possess. I restrict them for the love of people, for the freedom to be able to speak to somebody, a word of comfort in their time of need and there are so many believers arguing, oh, I have freedom to drink beer. You're stronger sometimes in your belief in your freedoms than you are in preaching a gospel to set them free and we need to understand that. It's not my freedoms. It's theirs I should be concerned with. It's not what I'm able to do. It's what God can do in them and I don't think there's gonna be beer in heaven so I got used to it here on earth. I don't drink it. I don't do it. Why? Because I wanna be able to walk up at any given time and speak to somebody about Jesus Christ without them smelling that beer on my breath or that wine or what. I don't want that to be a stumbling block. Now, some don't care. I do. The time is short. The gospel needs to go out. We preach a transforming message and a great evidence that it transforms others is when it's transforming us and that's what God wants to do in us. Listen, we need revival. The church needs to wake up. We really need revival. A president, a president isn't gonna lead us to righteousness, Jesus does. And we need to understand that and the church has to come back to that place of being comforted in the word of God and giving that word of comfort to others. That's the bottom line. Amen.