Acts 16:25 ... "About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them."
Paul and Silas, led by the Holy Spirit, came to Philippi to preach the gospel and encourage the citizens to accept Christianity. The converts were Lydia, a business woman, and members of her household. The evangelists were given lodging in her house while they continued their work in the city among the people. One day Paul cast out of a young girl a demon called a "spirit of divination," (literally, a "Pythian spirit"). She was being exploited by some greedy men, who were using her soothsaying power to their profit. Paul's exorcism of the spirit eliminated this power and terminated the men's source of income. Becoming enraged, they proclaimed that Paul and Silas were disturbing the peace of the city and, to make the situation worse, were Jews. The two gospel preachers were quickly arrested, beaten, and thrown into prison. Also, their feet were fastened in stocks, probably forcing their legs apart into a wide angle that soon produced great discomfort. There they sat in darkness through the rest of the day and into the night, in the midst of other prisoners who were likely criminals, aching from the cruel beating and their lacerated backs covered with clotted and dried blood. They had come to Philippi with the offer of eternal salvation, but they had been incarcerated for the humanitarian act of releasing a poor girl from evil affliction. They had done nothing for personal gain, nor anything to hurt anyone.
There is an important lesson for Christians here. When we have done our best to live for Christ and carry on His service, terrible things may yet happen to us. Then we search for an explanation and can find none. For all appearances it seems we have been rewarded cruel treatment for the good we have done. Suddenly we find our trust in the Lord being put to a severe test. We have come to the proverbial "fork in the road." One path is the way of continued faithful service to God, in spite of the horrible hand that has been dealt us. The other path is the way of abandoning Christian effort and considering bad luck as only an impersonal turn of fate. When serving as minister of a congregation in Arkansas, this writer was asked to visit a couple who had once been faithful, zealous workers in the church, but had then become spiteful and contemptuous of the Christian religion. My visit in their home was most congenial until I brought up the subject of their returning to the church. In rather angry tones they explained to me why they had forsaken Jesus and His church a few years before. Their only child, a six year old boy, had died while undergoing a simple tonsillectomy. They said God had been cruel to them, repaying them evil for the good they had done in His service in the church. They resentfully declared they wanted no more to do with God and made it very clear that I had best leave them alone. Sadly, I had no choice but to do that.
Paul and Silas had sufficient cause for adopting such an escapist attitude and turning away from further service to Christ. Instead, they found reason to pray and sing praises to God. Their attitude was that God rules in this world and knows what is best for man. In the case of Christians, whom He claims as His children, He can and will turn the worst situation into a blessing, if they adhere to the faith and truly love Him. Paul and Silas survived their ordeal in Philippi, and later Paul wrote to the church in Rome, "God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God," (Rom. 8:28). In human experience it is premature to judge God cruel and revile Him for bad things that come upon us. We are assured in Jas. 1:13, "Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am being tempted by God,' for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone." Cruel turns in life are not "acts of God," at least not in the sense of being stumblingblocks thrown into the path of the faithful to see how they will react to them. When such adversities appear, in due time God will act to reduce them and bring success to those who love Him and continue steadfastly in the faith.
