Acts 16:25 KJV
And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them.
Two things struck me this morning.
Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises.
These are not the best of circumstances. They are in prison, chained to the stocks. They have been beaten and mistreated. They do not know what the outcome of all of this will be. It could mean the end of their lives.
Yet the prayed and they sang praises unto God.
And they are vocal enough that the second thing that struck me happened
The prisoners heard themIt is midnight. I do not imagine that everybody wanted to hear them, at least at first. But the word here means more than that they simply were in earshot. The word means they listened intently.
One of the more interesting things in the Bible to me is that, though it is obvious that God was doing powerful things in the world through the Christians, it was not as if God was making it easy on the Christian. Life was hard, and it was even harder if you were a Christian. But they persisted cheerfully through their hardships and God used them in powerful ways. Perhaps the reason why we see so little real spiritual power today is because we want that power to make us comfortable, not to make us useful.
And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them.
Two things struck me this morning.
Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises.
These are not the best of circumstances. They are in prison, chained to the stocks. They have been beaten and mistreated. They do not know what the outcome of all of this will be. It could mean the end of their lives.
Yet the prayed and they sang praises unto God.
And they are vocal enough that the second thing that struck me happened
The prisoners heard themIt is midnight. I do not imagine that everybody wanted to hear them, at least at first. But the word here means more than that they simply were in earshot. The word means they listened intently.
One of the more interesting things in the Bible to me is that, though it is obvious that God was doing powerful things in the world through the Christians, it was not as if God was making it easy on the Christian. Life was hard, and it was even harder if you were a Christian. But they persisted cheerfully through their hardships and God used them in powerful ways. Perhaps the reason why we see so little real spiritual power today is because we want that power to make us comfortable, not to make us useful.
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