38The officers reported this to the magistrates, and when they heard that Paul and Silas were Roman citizens, they were alarmed. 39They came to appease them and escorted them from the prison, requesting them to leave the city. 40After Paul and Silas came out of the prison, they went to Lydia’s house, where they met with the brothers and encouraged them. Then they left. (Acts 16:16-40)
Before I go on, let’s have a quick review of what led up to the events of today’s passage—and as I say this—the events that led up to today’s passage—I am thinking I could go all the way back to Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,”— or I could go back to Jesus’s death on the cross for our sin and his rising from the dead. Those are events that led up to the events in today’s passage. (But it then it wouldn’t be a quick review.) But if you really want to know all the events that led up to today’s passage, read and study your Bible every day—all of it.
The events described in today’s passage happened in Philippi. Paul and Silas had arrived in Philippi after having traveled through several other cities preaching the gospel. The Spirit of God had sent them to Macedonia where Philippi is located. Apparently there was no synagogue in Philippi because Paul and Silas went outside the city gate to the river on the Sabbath to find a place of prayer. They found a group of women there and began to speak to them. The result was that one Lydia and her whole household believed and were baptized. It says that the Lord had opened Lydia’s heart to respond to Paul’s message. Lydia invited them to stay in her house while they were in Philippi. (And by the way, at this point, Luke, the human author of the book of Acts is traveling with Paul and Silas.)
Now let’s go on to today’s passage. Verse 16 says, “Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling.” They were going to the place of prayer, probably the place where they had met Lydia. Maybe Lydia and some of her household were with them.
The girl that met them had a spirit by which she predicted the future. Literally it says that she had a python spirit. (Python was the name of a giant snake that according to Greek mythology had guarded the sanctuary of the oracle at Delphi. So the name Python was used in reference to fortune telling.
Now I’m going to take some time to talk a little bit more about these spirits. The Bible calls them unclean, impure, indecent, filthy and similar things. (The NIV translates the word as evil—evil spirits—so that’s what I will call them, too.) These spirits are separated from and opposed to God. There are plenty of references to them in the Bible. Jesus cast out evil spirits and gave authority to his disciples to cast them out, also. Paul cast the spirit out of the slave girl in today’s passage. These things are all in the Bible, how do they apply to us today?
In Ephesians chapter 6, Paul, speaking by the Holy Spirit, tells us that our battle is not against flesh and blood but against the ‘spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms’. Let me read the whole passage. This is from Ephesians 6:10-18:
10Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. 12For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. (Ephesians 6:10-18)
I’m not going to expound on this passage, but the point is that, first of all this battle is not against people, it’s against evil spirits, and then that this is an ongoing battle. We have to expect to be attacked at any time—maybe daily. We have to know that there is an enemy and we have to be prepared.
The passage tells us how to be prepared, too—put on the full armor of God. The armor consists of truth, righteousness, peace—peace with God—faith, salvation and the sword of the Spirit, the word of God. (So study your Bibles every day. Take up the sword of the Spirit.) Also, the passage says, pray in the Spirit all the time with all kinds of prayers and keep on praying for all the saints.
The devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. If we resist him, he will flee from us. How do we resist him? How do we put on the full armor of God? It starts with humility. God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. That means that if you trust in your own ability, willpower, wisdom, etcetera, you will lose. But if you know that you are helpless without God and entrust yourself to him, you will win. (And, by the way, most of the time this is not a battle that we fight as individuals. We fight it together! We pray for each other and encourage and build each other up in Christ. So let’s confess our struggles and pray for each other.)
You know, we hear about demons and evil spirits in third world countries and non-Christian cultures—places where the gospel has not yet been preached (Like Philippi in today’s passage). But in the western world it’s generally taught that such things as demons do not exist.
Even Christians who take the Bible, the word of God, seriously will frequently say, “I know there are demons. The Bible says so. But demonic attacks are very rare. We must not be looking for demons behind every bush. We can’t blame it on the devil for our sin. We can’t have a ‘devil made me do it’ attitude.” Well, it’s true. We absolutely have to take responsibility for our own actions. It doesn’t matter if the devil made us do it. We are still responsible for our own sin. We are responsible to resist the devil. And the reason I’m telling you all these things is that I think it’s encouraging to know that our enemy is not flesh and blood—not even our own flesh and blood (although it’s true that the flesh is weak). But in our weakness, we have the strength of Jesus who has already completely defeated the devil! ‘The right man is on our side’ to use the words of Martin Luther in the hymn A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.
I think that the reason we don’t seem to see much demonic activity in the United States is not because it isn’t there, but because the predominant view around here is that there are no such things as evil spirits or demons. So it is to Satan’s advantage to let us go on thinking that way—for the evil spirits not to reveal themselves plainly.
When I was a kid, I was taught repeatedly that there were no such things as ghosts. Ghosts were just superstition. Ghosts, however, are the same thing as spirits. The words that are translated as spirit in the modern Bible translations are the same words that are translated as ghost in the King James Version. So I was actually encouraged when I found out that there really were evil spirits. The reason that I was encouraged is that when you think there are no such thing as spirits, it follows to think that there is no such thing as God. If there is nothing supernatural, then it follows that there is no God either. But, praise the Lord, there is God and he is almighty. He loves us and sent his Son so that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
Well, as I said, when I was a kid, we were taught not to believe in ghosts. In fact, we were more or less taught not to believe in anything supernatural.
Actually, though, spiritism and occultism have been around since the beginning of time. When I was 6 or 7, I had a friend whose family was into ouija boards and occultism. And there have always been mediums and seances and people attempting to contact the dead. I’ve read where Harry Houdini spent lots of time and money on mediums trying to contact his dead mother whom he believed had spoken to him from the dead and saved him when he almost drowned during one of his escape artist stunts. According to the accounts, the only result of his effort was that he exposed a lot of frauds.
But more recently, interest in the occult has been on the upswing. Only now they talk about spirit guides and psychics, not mediums and seances. It’s all the same. Just the terminology has changed. Nevertheless, in spite of the frauds, there are evil spirits that try to lead people astray. I would say that even the fraudulent psychics are being led astray if they think they are not being influenced by evil spirits. And we know Jesus’s words: The devil has been a murderer from the beginning and a liar. There is no truth in him. He is a liar and the father of lies. The devil obviously would like to destroy us if that were possible. (Praise God that the devil is not able to destroy us. God is able to make us stand!)
Now let’s look at verses 17 and 18 in today’s passage. I’ll read them:
17This girl followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” 18She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so troubled that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her. (Acts 16:17, 18)
Now, before I go on, I want to ask you a question. (You don’t need to answer it unless you want to.) If you were with a group of people who were, for example, handing out Bible tracts and talking to people about Jesus and a young girl kept following you around shouting, “These people are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved,” and she kept doing this every time you went out to distribute tracts (or maybe LHF monthly news letters), what would you think? ...bipolar? ...schizophrenic? ...chemical imbalance? Maybe some antipsychotic drugs would help. Probably most people would think in those terms.
There probably are chemical imbalances. And chemical imbalances may keep people from thinking clearly. But too many of the things—in fact most of the things—I’ve seen and heard about sound much more like something that was inspired by the devil, rather than the product of an inability to think clearly. Maybe the inability to think clearly makes you more susceptible to Satan’s deception. Maybe, if the antipsychotic drug helps, it’s because it gives you the ability to think more clearly. But it still seems to me that these sorts of thing are inspired by demons. And here’s an additional thought. Some years back I looked up one of the antipsychotic drugs in the Physicians Desk Reference. Near the beginning of the manufacturer’s description of the drug, it said, “As with all antipsychotic drugs, no one knows how this drug works.” We are prescribing drugs that no one knows how they work. We apparently only have statistical evidence from drug trials that they are helpful at all.
Now let’s go on. I’ve talked about how the devil is a liar, but look at what this slave girl was saying—what the evil spirit was saying through her: “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” Isn’t that the truth? It certainly is true. Paul and Silas were servants of the Most High God and they were telling people the way to be saved. And yet it seems that there was something wrong here. And in fact Paul did cast out an evil spirit. What’s going on?
Well, I’ve read several explanations. They all were possible but none seemed satisfying. I’m going to go with the one Tom proposed (probably some other people, too, but I didn’t research it too much).
In China there’s a pseudo-Christian cult that’s referred to as Eastern Lightning. I don’t know all their teachings, but I do know that they are said to be destructive and contrary to the truth. (Tom can tell you much more about them.) The cult is very widespread. I think their success is partly due to a shortage of Bibles.
Anyway, according to Tom, the Eastern Lightning people will frequently come to a church (a legitimate Christian church) and say things that agree with the truth. They will try to establish themselves as legitimate Christians. If they are accepted, then they will little-by-little lead people astray. (So read your Bible every day so that you aren’t little-by-little led astray. And read all of it. If you focus on just certain passages, you can be led astray. Jim Bakker, the former ‘gospel of health and wealth’ preacher, says he was led astray by just focusing on certain passages.)
The Moonies back in the seventies were also a pseudo-Christian cult. (I think they still exist, but haven’t heard much about them lately.) They referred to the Bible, but definitely taught false and destructive doctrine. When they were rejected by the general public, they began to try to work with other churches without saying much about their doctrine in order to make themselves seem legitimate. That’s most likely what the spirit was trying to do with the slave girl. If it succeeded and people began to trust what the slave girl said, then false and destructive teaching could be brought in later. But it didn’t work. Paul ordered the spirit to leave and it left. That left the girl’s owners without their cash cow (or whatever expression applies) and they were very unhappy. Let’s look at verses 19 through 21:
19When the owners of the slave girl realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities. 20They brought them before the magistrates and said, “These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar 21by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice.” (Acts 16:19-21)
Do you think the devil was involved in this? I think so! The attempt to infiltrate the church failed so the devil tried another approach—one that he had used before. The slave girl’s owners dragged Paul and Silas before the authorities and falsely accused them.
Now I want you to notice something. I’ve said that this passage (and the rest of the Bible) were recorded for us to learn from. What can we learn? Well, the owners of the slave girl still owned her but now were not able to make much money from her. They probably had a legitimate complaint to make to the authorities. Slavery was perfectly legal and this was a pagan culture where the authorities would probably not have thought it strange that she would have been able to tell fortunes. (Demons probably can predict the future to some extent, by the way, simply because they may have access to information about the present that we aren’t aware of. They may also be able to influence events to whatever extent God may allow to go the way they have predicted.) Although the girl’s owners had a legitimate complaint, it’s not the one they used before the authorities. Instead, they accused Paul and Silas of “throwing our city into an uproar by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice.”
Now, have you ever been dishonest about your real reasons when you are trying to influence someone to make things go your way—especially when your way was not God’s way? Have you ever given some reason that was really irrelevant to your purpose? If you haven’t ever done anything like that, you can go directly to heaven—maybe be translated like Enoch. I think it’s something we all do. But it’s the devil who is the liar. We shouldn’t be. (It has to do with trusting God. Sin results from not trusting God.) When you read the Bible, you should notice what people do. In this case, we have an example of what not to do.
Now let’s look at verses 22, 23 and 24:
22The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten. 23After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. 24Upon receiving such orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks. (Acts 16:22-24)
What happened to Roman justice? These magistrates did what they thought would pacify the crowd, not what was right. They ordered Paul and Silas to be beaten and locked up. They used the same approach that Pilate had used with Jesus—what would pacify the crowd. And what can we learn from that? Do we ever take the approach that will lead to the least trouble rather than the one that is right? (And I also, by the way, suspect that the magistrates may have thought that there was some supernatural power that Paul and Silas had because they ordered the jailor to guard them carefully, something which he understood to mean “put them in stocks in the innermost cell”. Maybe the magistrates knew the real reason for girl’s owners’ complaint.)
And there sure was some was some supernatural power connected with Paul and Silas. It was God’s power. Let’s look at verses 25 through 28:
25About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. 26Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody’s chains came loose. 27The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. 28But Paul shouted, “Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!” (Acts 16:25-28)
What do you think? Would you have been singing hymns to God? You probably would have been praying. (I remember reading a book where the author, a woman, didn’t like stodgy liturgy in the Episcopal church where her husband was the priest. She called up an old friend to get some sympathy because she was forced to sit through all that stuff. Instead of saying, “You poor thing,” her friend told her, “Paul and Silas praised God in the Philippian jail. You ought to be able to praise God in an Episcopal church.” What a blow!) Anyway, Paul and Silas were probably in some pain because of the beating they had received, but they were still singing hymns to God.
When the jailor awoke after the earthquake and realized that all doors were open and all the chains were loosed, he was going to kill himself. Letting the prisoners escape was worthy of death! I don’t know why the jailor was going to kill himself right then. It may have been a matter of honor to take his own life or it may have been because he would have had to have suffered torture before he was put to death. But in any case, after the first miracle, another miracle happened. The prison doors were opened and everyone’s chains came off, but nobody left! They were all still there!
Look at the jailor’s response: “The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. He then brought them out and asked, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’” (verse 30) This is the response of someone who fears the Lord. This man saw God’s supernatural power and knew that he was a sinner: “What must I do to be saved?” (Maybe he had heard Paul and Silas’s preaching.) In any case, this is the work of the Holy Spirit.
“What must I do to be saved?” Here’s the answer: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved— you and your household.” (verse 31) It isn’t complicated, is it? Salvation is by God’s grace and is through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Did you notice that Paul told the jailor that not only would he be saved, but that his whole household would be saved? (Remember? Lydia’s whole household was saved, too.)
Now I don’t think that whole households are always saved. Jesus said that the gospel would turn family members against each other and parents would even have their children put to death and children their parents. Neither do I think there is predestination—that God determined before creation who will be saved and who will be lost. But God knows our hearts and our thoughts before we think them, before a word is on our tongues. (Psalm 139:1-4) I think what Paul said was prophetic. God knew that at this point the jailor’s entire household would believe. Let’s look at verses 32 through 34:
32Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. 33At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his family were baptized. 34The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God— he and his whole family. (Acts 16:32-34)
The jailor was filled with joy! Isn’t it true that God uses what men intend for evil for good and for the salvation of many?! Clear back in Genesis when Joseph’s brothers were afraid he was going to take revenge against them, this is what he told them: “Don't be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” (Gen. 50:19, 20) And we put Jesus to death by our sins, but God used his death for good. He used it for our salvation!
Now let’s look at the last 6 verses. I’ll read them:
35When it was daylight, the magistrates sent their officers to the jailer with the order: “Release those men.” 36The jailer told Paul, “The magistrates have ordered that you and Silas be released. Now you can leave. Go in peace.”
37But Paul said to the officers: “They beat us publicly without a trial, even though we are Roman citizens, and threw us into prison. And now do they want to get rid of us quietly? No! Let them come themselves and escort us out.”
38The officers reported this to the magistrates, and when they heard that Paul and Silas were Roman citizens, they were alarmed. 39They came to appease them and escorted them from the prison, requesting them to leave the city. 40After Paul and Silas came out of the prison, they went to Lydia’s house, where they met with the brothers and encouraged them. Then they left. (Acts 16:35-40)
Well, the magistrates apparently didn’t even know what had happened, but they gave orders for Paul and Silas to be released. The jailor told Paul that they were free to go: “Now you can leave.” They could have left any time. But the jailor was trusting them not to run away. (Remember the death penalty.) Really, the jailor was trusting God.
The magistrates got a little rebuke here, too. They had beaten and locked up Roman citizens without a trial. It’s kind of like acting arrogantly toward some young pipsqueak at work and then finding out that it was the boss’s nephew (only in this case the consequences might have been much worse than getting fired). Have you ever done anything like that? Praise the Lord that he loves us and his rebukes don’t do any permanent damage. They save us.
Paul and Silas went back to Lydia’s to encourage the brothers. (Apparently they did plant a church and it met in Lydia’s house.) Then they left.
[prayer]