This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Clark
Wofford, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland,
County of Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Clark as he
continues teaching through God's Word.
So these guys are in one of the most difficult places in their
lives. They don't know if they're going
to live or. Die instead of complaining,
they're praying, which we should do when we're in tough
situations that we don't like, we should pray.
Cause the power of prayer and power of praise is a releasing
power and delivering power from the things that are in our lives
that we don't like. And I'm sure you've experienced
that when you pray, when you're in tough situations, things
begin to change. This life is full of challenges.
More often than we'd like, we're faced with situations that are
too big for us to handle on our own.
But those times are opportunities for us to trust in
God and have faith that He has a solution for us that we couldn't
have seen coming for ourselves. In today's message, Pastor Clark
teaches you about how Paul and Silas praised God even when they
were put in prison. They didn't yet know how it was
going to happen, but they had faith that the Lord would set
them free. Now, here's Pastor Clark in Acts
chapter 16 with today's edition of Living Waters of Grace.
When you think about Paul and Barnabas and Timothy and Paul
was eventually martyred, we get like this inside.
Look at what it was like to live as these pioneers.
We get to read it and participate in it and for
reflect on it and meditate on it.
And perhaps somehow living in a small way in the areas that we
live and where we come from, because there's unreached people
group right in Greensburg, PA, There's people, believe it or
not that know nothing about Jesus Christ.
And you might say, well, how in America could you be here and
not know anything about the gospel?
What's because of where we are today as a nation, people and
these young people? When I grew up as a Pagan, at
least I knew that there was a God.
I believe that there was a Jesus.
I believe that the Bible was true, but I wasn't born again
yet. But I had that basic worldview.
Now you talk to young people. Do you know anything about Jesus
Christ or the Bible or God or the Trinity or the the cross or
the resurrection? They look at you like deer in
the headlight. They have no idea what you're
talking about. So you're starting back to
square 1 and it can be dangerous, especially now if you
aggressively proclaim the gospel.
There's beginning to be persecution in our country.
In Canada, pastors that preach out against abortion or same sex
marriages are being imprisoned. How soon will that be here in
our country? This is all involved in this
missionary vision. So Paul is going to go to
Macedonia now. And we continue in verse 11,
this woman by the name of Lydia, she's baptized at Philippi.
Philippi is a wonderful region, opportunity for a new church.
Not a whole lot of Jewish people.
There was no synagogue there because you needed ten men who
were part of the synagogue in order to have a legitimate
synagogue. So you'll see, it's interesting
here that there is no synagogue. They're meeting down by the
river. So therefore sailing from Troas,
we ran a straight course as a moth, and the next day came to
Neopolis and there to Philippi, which is the foremost city of
that part of Macedonia, a colony.
So they're in Greece now, and we were staying in that city for
some days, and on the Sabbath day we went out of the city to
the Riverside. Now, normally in the Sabbath
day, Paul and Silas and Timothy would have gone into the
synagogue to preach, but there was number synagogue there.
So they went out of the city to the Riverside, where prayer was
customarily made, and we sat down and spoke to the women who
met there. Now, the rabbi said it's better
to have the law burned and to deliver the Torah to women.
That's how discriminating and discussing the culture was
toward women at the time, especially in Judaism and the
rabbi's. There was a low level of esteem
for women, which Paul certainly doesn't have here.
And now a certain woman named Lydia heard us.
She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyrotyra, who
worship God. Thyrotyra is this community, the
city that's known for development of purple and dyed
material, garments and clothing. And so she's probably got an
office down here now in Philippi, following up that
she's a very successful businesswoman.
And they're down there worshipping God, but they're not
worshipping the truth about God yet because they don't know it,
But they're there in their religious form of trying to
develop this encounter with the living God of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob. And then it says the Lord opened
her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul.
So Paul's preaching the gospel and all of a sudden she's
recognizing that there's something missing.
And her understanding of God and her heart became convicted, and
she began to become drawn to the gospel.
And the Lord opened her heart to heed, to obey, to follow the
things spoken by Paul. And it's like anywhere you go
here today, your home, your community, your workplace, you
share the Lord with people as you have opportunity to, and the
Lord opens doors for you. You can't make anybody believe.
You can't force anybody to understand the truth.
You have to have patience and you have to understand that only
the Lord can open the heart for people to believe.
That's our job. We're to pray and pray, Lord,
open the hearts of those who come here to hear your voice, to
believe Your word, to follow you.
And the Lord will do that. His word is not without power.
It's sharper than any 2 edged sword.
It's able to divide us under the soul and the spirit and is very
discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
Even today your mind might be drifting.
You're thinking about all kind of things, but God will take
something from His Word and Pierce your heart with it.
Convict you, challenge you, make you think about Him more, make
you love Him more, make you want to follow Him more.
Maybe put a burden on your heart for someone you care about that
you want to tell them about what He's done for you.
A host of things that can happen, but the Spirit is the
one that interacts with the Speaker of the Word and the
Hearer of the Word. There's a divide between me and
you today. I'm speaking, you're listening,
but there's someone in between what's happening here today.
And that's God the Holy Spirit that knows what it is you need,
what it is I need. And He's the one will give you
what it is you need to know about the truth.
And this is what he did for Lydia here.
And she believed, and it says in verse 15, and when she and her
household were baptized, she begged us, saying, if you have
judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.
So she persuaded us. So a big party here.
All these people are baptized. She wants to bless them, and she
now wants to give of herself to them because they have given
themselves to her and her friends.
And now they're having this Christian fellowship.
And they stayed with her for a while.
And verse 16, now it happened as we went to prayer that a certain
slave girl possessed with the spirit of divination met us who
brought our masters much profit by fortune telling.
So in between the time of them staying at this home, there's
more work to be done, more ministry.
So they're praying, they get together and pray about, OK,
God, what's your plans? What's next?
What do we do next? Where do you want us to go?
And there was a certain slave girl, she's demon possessed.
And this is what she's doing in verse 17.
This girl followed Paul and us and cried out, saying these men
are the servants of the Most High God who proclaimed us the
way of salvation. And this she did for many days.
Now everything she's saying here obviously is true.
Even though she's demon possessed, the Bible says the
demons know the truth and they fear the truth because they know
it's the truth. But they've already committed
themselves to the Prince of the power of the air of the devil.
They're demonic beings that serve him.
But she's crying out saying these men are the servants of
the most high God, which is true, who proclaim to us the way
of salvation, which is true. But Paul and Silas and Timothy
weren't saying, boy, this is great, isn't it?
We have this marketing person here advertising for us, getting
everybody interested and crowds coming, that kind of stuff.
And she's doing this, this not once in a while, this like over
and over and over again. And then Paul, it says here, but
Paul greatly annoyed. It got to him so much.
I can't deal with this anymore. He 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.
So this woman no longer was going to be saying what she was
going to be saying. Obviously in her right mind.
Now the demon is not possessing her to cause her to 'cause this
rift in regard to what Paul's proclaiming in regard to the
power of the spirit versus demonic activity, she has no
ability to do this anymore. And so verse 19, when her Master
saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and
Silas and dragged them into the marketplace of the authorities.
These guys owned this woman and they made a lot of money because
of what she was doing. And so every time she's out
there, she's getting crowds for all kind of different reasons.
Now she doesn't have this spiritual power and influence
anymore. So they're upset, their profits
gone. So they grab Paul and Silas and
drag them into the marketplace of the authorities and they
brought them to the magistrates and said these men being Jews,
exceedingly trouble our city. And they teach customs which are
not lawful for us being Romans to receive or observe.
So they're basically accusing these missionaries as being cult
people, pushing lies, teaching things that aren't true.
Of course, Roman empires basically Pagan and they were
into mythology, they weren't into truth.
So anything that countered their worship of of Pagan gods would
be not received well. And so they're approaching this
from a legal point of view. They're saying this is not
lawful for this to be occurring. So the multitude rose up
together against them and the magistrates and tore off their
clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rod.
So this problem occurs. There's this insurrection of the
community and these magistrates, and they are not even listening
to anything Paul or Silas might say.
They automatically think these guys are evil and that they're
bad news and they need to be dealt with, so it says.
And when they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them
in the prison, commanding the jailer to keep them securely.
So not even a fair case here. This is just ridiculous.
And this is unfortunately what happens in many parts of the
world even today. People just genuinely caring
about the world, loving people, telling them about Jesus Christ
and the gospel. And this is the kind of
treatment that many people receive, missionaries,
especially in these countries that are Antichrist.
And so after they beat them, they throw them in jail.
Having received such a charge, verse 24, he put them in the
inner prison and fastened their feet in the stalk so they
couldn't even move around. They were stuck in one position.
But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying verse 25, and
singing hymns to God. What kind of guys were these
men? They weren't complaining, saying
I need legal justice, We're treated unfairly.
Get someone up here immediately. Take these stalks off of us.
We're uncomfortable, we're hungry.
This isn't fair. That's normally the approach
that most people would have, but they're singing and worshiping
the Lord, praying and singing hymns to the Lord.
So these guys are in one of the most difficult places in their
lives. They don't know if they're going
to live or die. Instead of complaining, they're
praying, which we should do when we're in tough situations that
we don't like, we should pray. Cause the power of prayer and
power of praise is a releasing power and delivering power from
the things that are in our lives that we don't like.
And I'm sure you've experienced that when you pray when you're
in tough situations, things begin to change.
But they're not any praying, they're they're singing and
worshipping God, singing hymns to God.
God inhabits the praises of his people.
I sense wherever we've been during the week, whatever
challenge, whatever adversity or difficulty we might be
encountering, when we're worshipping God and our eyes are
on the Lord and we're sensing the presence of the Holy Spirit,
things start happening inside of us that are supernatural.
They release strongholds, they break bondages, they deliver us
from sin. I mean, this wonderful healing
power because of prayer and worship.
And we want to be known as a church that teaches a word,
praise the Word, and worships the Lord so that we can all stay
in a place of spiritual growth and spiritual health and
spiritual development. And so what's happening though,
is they're doing this and they're not doing this to get a
show. You know, we don't like this,
but let's like, let's act like we like it or we're OK.
And maybe we can be a testimony here.
There was none of this stuff in their heads.
They were just doing what came to them by the work of the
Spirit, it says. And the prisoners were listening
to them. How about you and me?
When you're going through tough times, difficult things, things
that aren't fair or whatever, and people who know you or watch
your life or you know, examine how you handle things, keep in
mind that people are always watching your life and how you
handle what it is that you're going through.
And these prisoners, as they were listening to them,
something was happening to them as well.
Suddenly there was a great earthquake, verse 26, so that
the foundations of the prison were shaken and immediately all
the doors were open and everyone's chains were loose.
Now, how in the world can that happen except a miracle of God?
Right when you pray, things happen.
And the keeper of the prison, awakened from sleep and seeing
the prison doors open, supposing the prisoners had fled, drew his
sword and was about to kill himself.
This guy's ready to commit suicide.
He knew that if this went down wrong and these people escaped,
he would be held responsible and they would end up killing him.
That would be worthy of a crime against the government.
But Paul called with a loud voice saying, do yourself no
harm for we are all here. This guy probably can't believe
it. I mean, if you're a prisoner,
all you're thinking about is escaping from jail, right?
You read about these guys have come up with these elaborate
ideas of how to dig tunnels and get special tools to take
handcuffs off or whatever and hide, you know, the hole that
they're making and work on it for months and months and
months. And finally they find a way to
get out. They get out.
They're usually caught again, but it's something inside a
prisoner's mind. They don't like to be
restrained. They're looking to get out.
This is what happened, the opportunity to get out.
And Paul says we're all here, So even these prisoners, no one
left. Then he called for a light and
he ran, and he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas.
And he brought them out and said, sirs, what must I do to be
saved? That's an interesting question
There. Was he asking them, what must I
do to be saved so that they don't come and kill me if these
people, you know, escape? Or is he genuinely asking the
clear question that every human being needs to ask that was
without Christ, without hope in the world, what must I do to be
saved? Aren't we glad that Paul didn't
say, well, first of all, you need to be circumcised, That's
not for me, I'm not interested. Paul certainly gave him the
truth of the gospel. He said believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ and you will be saved.
You and your household doesn't mean that the people that were
part of the family were automatically saved because this
guy became a believer. But what was going to happen was
the whole family was going to hear the gospel.
And according to this and the understanding of this is that
the whole family became believers in Jesus Christ.
These are adult people. This wasn't a, a special little
verse in here now that we're going to say, well, the babies
will be baptized and they'll be saved and all that kind of
stuff. No, there's one Lord, 1 faith,
one baptism, one God and Father who is above all and in all
through all. And you have the one baptism,
which is the water baptism that adult believers, people who are
at the age of accountability to understand their need of a
Savior. They're believing in Christ and
then obedience to the Bible and what Jesus said to baptize them
in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
So this is a move of God's Spirit in this whole family.
And then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who
were in his house. So everybody got to hear the
gospel and he took them the same hour of the night and wash their
stripes. So this man was so thankful for
what Christ had done to save him that he wanted to, you know,
help this bleeding and bandage him up and clean, make sure
there's no infection and, and the beating that Paul and Silas
had received. And immediately he and all his
family were baptized. So after he ministered to Paul
and Silas, then Paul and Silas baptized the whole family and
the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, because now they
were part of the body of Christ. And now when he had brought them
into the house, he set food before them, and he rejoiced,
having believed in God with all his household.
And So what a beautiful thing it says.
This is the end of this chapter. And 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 and go in peace. But Paul said to them, they have
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. These guys are freaking out.
It's a crime against the Roman Empire and the truth of the
Roman government that you do not beat Roman citizens.
And so they're already culpable of a crime.
These magistrates, Paul's making it clear now what you guys did
to us was unlawful. And he said, no, we want these
guys to come themselves and recognize their wrongdoing and
get us out. So 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. So they didn't leave right away.
They want to fellowship more with Lydia at her house.
And when they had seen the brethren, they were with the
rest of the new believers. They encouraged them, and then
they departed. So I just find it so encouraging
to read these truths from the book of the Acts.
The work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the apostles and
the believers and the work of the Holy Spirit continues today
in your life and mine. God's called everyone of you for
a purpose, everyone of you, and you have the authority and the
anointing of God to do the ministry and the work of God
with the truth of the Word of God.
Because you have the Word of God in your hands, you have it in
your mind, you have it in your heart, and God is looking for
opportunities to use your life as you just step up and make
yourself available to Him. Amen.
Christianity is not a spectator sport, is it?
We're all to be active participants in the work of the
ministry. The purpose of the church is to
equip the Saints, and that's you guys for the work of the
ministry. You'll go out, you'll rub
shoulders with people. Many of them don't even know
what you know. Pray and ask the Lord to give
you an opportunity, an open door to plant a seed, to give a
testimony, to tell someone what the Lord's done for you.
And you never know what God might do.
He might open their heart like he did for Lydia and they might
become believers, right? And I'm sure most of you guys
have encountered that. You shared your faith with
someone and because of that, they've become believers in
Jesus Christ. So if you've never put your
faith in Christ, the word says to you, you can say the same
question, what must I do to be saved?
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, believe on him, and you
will be saved. Lord, I'm a Sinner.
I've messed up. I've done things I wish I
wouldn't have done. I'm still a Sinner and I still
mess up. But God Forgives us, doesn't He?
He forgives us. He's the only perfect one.
We're all imperfect, but God's perfect, and He chooses to use
imperfect people to accomplish His perfect will.
Isn't that awesome? You or I?
None of us have a right to stand up here and proclaim anything
about ourselves. We preach Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. Amen, because He's the 1:00 we
put our trust in. Thanks for joining us on today's
edition of Living Waters of Grace, a ministry of Calvary
Chapel, Westmoreland. Today, Pastor Clark is teaching
about the book of Acts. And as we learn more about Acts,
it becomes clear that the early church didn't miss a single
opportunity to share the gospel. In nearly every chapter, you see
apostles like Peter and Paul stepping into conversations,
crowds, and crises with boldness, ready to proclaim the
name of Jesus. Their example challenges us to
consider how we might step into gospel moments in our own lives.
What doors might God open this week for you to speak truth,
offer hope, or live out your faith in a way that points
others to him? The story of Acts reminds us we
are part of the same mission. Today, let's live with eyes open
and hearts ready to respond. We hope you are challenged by
today's message. If you're in the Greensburg, PA
area, we'd love to see you in person this Sunday at 10:30 AM
at 400 E Pittsburgh St. Unit 6B.
For more information, visit calvarychapelonline.com.
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