23/10/2018 - BE CAREFUL WITH HURRIED DECISIONS

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And the keeper of the prison, awaking from sleep and seeing the prison doors open, supposing the prisoners had fled, drew his sword and was about to kill himself. Acts16:27

The jail keeper’s lack of interest in the faith in Christ can be seen in the fact that he slept, when Paul and Silas prayed and sang hymns to God.  He did not know that the apostles’ attitudes would move heaven and earth and then the Lord would provide a way to free them from that place.  The night would be steeped in a lot of work, because the divine intervention changed everyone’s plan and this way the Father was glorified.

The people who are indifferent to God and his interventions “sleep’ while He blesses those that seek His face.  For this reason, they do not seek the exact moment when the Lord’s blessing is manifested.  It is important to keep watch and pray in order not to fall into temptation and miss out on His intervention, because what He does for somebody else He will also do to us.  The Most High’s children will never be abandoned.

The jail keeper knew that Paul and Silas were servants of the Lord and had been lashed unjustly.  The authorities acted without the least fear of God.  The good that Paul had done to the fortuneteller should have been recognized, and he should have been complimented by the magistrates of that town.  However, for the sake of evil or any other motive they ordered that the apostles be lashed for having done good.

To harm the servants of God is dangerous, because He avenges His people.  Today, if He does nothing with those that harm His own, it is only because He is doing something greater– the salvation of the lost.  As for the apostles, they understood that this was part of the suffering of Christ for having carried out the will of God. Those who don´t understand the reason of our joy in suffering for the love of Jesus, are not perfect in faith. 

We should never rush in haste to judge anyone.  Even though apparently some decision appears to have come from Heaven, we must wait for God’s manifestation. Paul and Silas did not curse the magistrates at Philippi, or those that used the lash, but they trusted in the Lord’s intervention at the right time.  So they sang hymns and prayed until the Lord sent the earthquake.

When the jail keeper awoke and saw the prison doors open, he drew out his sword and wanted to kill himself, for he thought that the prisoners had fled. He was hasty to judge and only did not kill himself because Paul shouted to him and all that were there (v.28). That was a work of God and they were only instruments to be used by Him. The best was yet to come! When God acts, His plan includes blessings for all.

The keeper asked for light and going into where Paul and Silas were, he bowed down immediately and asked what was necessary for him to be saved (v. 29,30).  The prayers and the hymns had convinced him that God loved him.  Even having gone to sleep, he woke to the living reality of salvation.  That night he and his family were baptized.  Halleluiah!

In Christ, with Love,

R. R. Soares