“The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”

Scripture text: Acts 16: 16-24

We’ve been following Paul and Silas on their journey through Macedonia. They had begun to head for Asia, but the Holy Spirit turned them around, and they willingly went to Europe.
But when they got there, their ministry in Philippi didn’t seem to go anywhere - they couldn’t even find a suitable place to pray and worship! No synagogue, no house church, no fellow Christians - they had to be content with sitting on a river bank, surrounded by a number of Gentile women. And Lydia and her household are the only ones, so far, who are reported to have accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior.
The mission to Macedonia seemed to be an outright failure, or at least it was by any measureable standard, and it was about to get even more interesting. But before we turn to the Word to begin our look at the current dilemma of Paul and Silas, we all need to be reminded that neither mission nor ministry seldom turn out the way we think it should. Sometimes our faithful efforts seem to fall upon deaf ears, and other times, the success is far more than we could ever imagine. We need to remember that the apparent outcome has nothing to do with us or our efforts - it all hinges on what God’s need is at the moment.

Read Acts 16:16-18

The slave girl had a spirit within her – a demonic spirit – and it allowed her to see into the future. And this demon had allowed her to know just who Paul and Silas followed. But if the demon was proclaiming Jesus Christ, why would Paul want the spirit to leave the girl? You might think that it shouldn’t matter who is claiming the Lordship of Jesus, as long as His Name is being raised up.
But the point is that it does matter. If Paul had allowed this false praise to go on much longer, the people of Philippi could very easily have begun to associate Jesus with the Greek and Roman gods that they worshiped every day. To allow that spirit to continue much longer would have been an outrage. Philippians 2:5-11 tells us that one day, “at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow, in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” - but that day has not yet come. When it does, everyone will truly know and acknowledge Christ’s Lordship. For now, they do not.
So Paul commands the spirit to come out of the girl, and it obeys. But you can imagine the effect that this will have on her – she no longer has the power to tell the future, and therefore, has lost much of her value to those who own her. We aren’t told what becomes of her, but we can assume that as far as her servitude goes, her higher standing in the household just went out the window. Paul has just blessed her greatly, but it won’t necessarily improve her position in life.

Read Acts 16:19-21

The slave owners had just lost a major source of income, and they were not happy! But the charge that they level toward the apostles is odd. They don’t claim loss of income – they claim that these Jews are attempting to convert the Roman citizens of the community to an illegal religion.
For Romans, there were hundreds of legitimate gods and you could worship anyone that you wanted to, as long as you also paid homage to the emperor. But Judaism, including the Christian sect, didn’t see it this way. For them, there is only one true God, and all others are false, including any worship of the emperor of Rome!
This isn’t all that dissimilar to the charges that were leveled at Jesus. The charge on that bleak Thursday was that He said He would tear down the temple and rebuild it in 3 days. Never happened! And the same thing was happening here. Paul and Silas were said to be advocating customs that were illegal for Romans to follow. And yet, Paul was a Roman citizen, and he was the one who was preaching Jesus Christ! and many Romans, civilians and military alike, had already started coming to Christ.

The problem in Philippi as I see it is this: The Good News of Jesus Christ was disrupting the lives of a few of the wealthy and powerful, and they didn’t like it! And so, they trumped up some charges, spread a few false rumors, incited the crowds to join them in the protest,
and they were off and running.
Not much different than today, is it? For some reason, the gospel frightens people. The truth doesn’t make sense – it seems to easy, or too hard, depending on the day. We want salvation without giving up the life we presently have. We want Jesus to grant us every wish that we can come up with, but have no intention whatsoever to grant Him even one request in return. We want the glory of heaven, but expect to avoid the pain of earth. We demand that God blesses us richly, without the need to surrender our allegiance to Him.
And when the truth of the Good News begins to settle in and people realize that the depth of Christian faith is over their head, they go running for the hills instead of trusting that the Holy Spirit will keep us afloat! Amen?

The owners of the slave girl were angry at Paul for destroying the “good thing” that they had going for them, and were scared at what these men might do next. They had to do something, so they brought these charges against them.

Read Acts 16:22-24

They were stripped and beaten and flogged within an inch of their life, and thrown into the deepest part of the prison. Maximum security. Solitary confinement.

Paul and Silas nearly died, and why? Simply this – they loved Jesus so much that they wanted to share Him with others.
These good men had come face to face with evil at work in that young girl’s life, and the power that was in them triumphed over the power of Satan that was in her. They came face to face with the ugliness of earth in the lies of the slave owners, and even though they suffered at those ugly hands, they still were victorious!

Now you may think that this is a little strange – how could there possibly be a victory when they were beaten severely, and thrown into jail! Remember what we said earlier – the victory is never ours – it’s Christ’s. And in Christ, there is never defeat!
I would like to offer two quotations, just so you know that this isn’t only my idea!

First, by Buel Kazee:
“Faith is not trusting God to get something; faith is trusting God when there seems to be nothing left. When everything is gone with no hope of restoration and when there is nothing on which to base your faith; then [the faithful will] still trust God.”
--Buell Kazee, storyteller, ‘Faith Is the Victory’ (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 1983), 149.

And the second by Billy Graham:
“The forces of hate and violence must not be allowed to gain their victory not just in our society, but in our hearts. Nor must we respond to hate with more hate. This is a time of coming together.”
-The Rev. Dr. Billy Graham, prayer service, Oklahoma City, quoted by Joanne Lynn and Joan Harrold in Handbook for Mortals: Guidance for People Facing Serious Illness (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 172.

Are we willing to be the kind of Christians that Paul and Silas were? They went willingly to a place that they had no intention of going to, they spread the word of Jesus Christ wherever they could, even if the time and place didn’t make much sense to them, they freed a young girl from the control of an evil spirit, and were rewarded for their good deed by being beaten and sentenced to prison.
And do we read of any overt resistance on their part? Not a bit. They accepted the situation that came to them, knowing that they were where God needed them to be at the time.

The goodness of heaven, when confronted by the evil and ugliness of earth, can never loose. That doesn’t mean that everything will be bold and beautiful in our lives – remember that Jesus’ life here was anything but glamorous. He brought the hope of eternal glory with Him, but few would accept it. And what this means it this - that Jesus Christ will be glorified by our faithful service, and that one day, we will share in His heavenly glory. And that is a victory that will never, and can never, fail.