Thank you, Ray. I kind of sprung that on Ray yesterday, called him up and said, hey, could you play Jesus the same? And he said, well, it's been a long time. I don't know if I remember the words. I said, oh, you'll be fine. Thank you, Ray, for doing that. It is such a tremendous song and it goes so well with our message today. 

We've been working through Acts 16 and several chapters in Acts now, having a really rewarding time studying God's Word verse by verse, learning, seeing the example of the early church and the missionaries and Paul and Barnabas and Silas and Luke and all these guys going out each day and persevering, going through trials to bring the good news to a lost world. And we're going to see that again today with severe trial. And we're going to talk about circumstantial evidence. 

Last week we saw Paul and his missionary team push into the region of Macedonia, bringing the gospel to Europe. They'd been looking for opportunities as they traveled. They're preaching Christ everywhere they go, but the Holy Spirit, you'll remember, kept closing doors. Every time they tried to go somewhere, he'd close the door and he was leading them down a narrow corridor to the sea. And when they had nowhere else to go, Paul received a vision from a man in Macedonia to come over and help them, to bring the gospel to them. 

And the text says, immediately we sought to go over and preach Christ at Philippi. And in Philippi, the women were meeting together by the river for prayer. Apparently there were not enough Jewish men there to form a synagogue, but the women met for prayer in this place, the God-fearing women. And we saw that Paul went to them and he preached the word to them. And God opened the heart of Lydia and she was the first convert there. And she was converted and brought them to her house and she fed them and lodged them and they had fellowship. And it was a beautiful beginning to the gospel mission in this new place, this new territory. 

Well, today in our text we see another woman, this one possessed by a demon and making a lot of money for her masters by soothsaying, fortune-telling, that type of trade. And we find that this is a very different story than one we studied last week concerning Lydia. 

Begin with me in Acts 16, 16, please, and we'll read several verses. 

Now, it happened as we went to prayer that a certain slave girl possessed with the spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much profit by fortune-telling. This girl followed Paul and us and cried out, saying, These men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaimed to us the way of salvation. And this she did for many days. But Paul, greatly annoyed, 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. 

But when her masters saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to 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. Then the multitude rose up together against them, and the magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods. 

And when they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to keep them securely. Having received such a charge, he put them in the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks." 

And we'll stop there. I've given you four points on your outline this morning. First, we see confronting false religion. Second, circumstantial evidence. Third, change in perspective. And fourth, the command of Christ. 

Well, first we see in our text Paul confronting this false religion in Philippi. He'd come there to preach the gospel. He'd already seen fruit and God was clearly working through him to lead people to faith in Jesus, to start a church there, and to bear fruit for his glory. And immediately we see Satan go to work against Paul and his gospel with this slave girl. 

Luke says she was possessed with a spirit of divination and earned much money for her masters by fortune-telling. This was big business then in that community. And it's kind of interesting to note that it's big business in our day as well. 

I was reading some statistics on the psychic industry in the United States and the most shocking one I read was that one in seven Americans have consulted a psychic for fortune-telling. There are large numbers of psychics working in the cities. In places like New York City, some say one on every block. And individually they may not be making a huge income but some are. In 2017, there were 36 psychics who made over a million dollars and six who made over five million dollars in the United States. 

Additionally, there are those who write books on the subjects, they give seminars, they're making a great profit through fortune-telling and horoscopes and tarot cards and all these kinds of things. It's big business in our culture as people search for answers and truth concerning their future. But what a strange place to look. You know, what I think we don't realize is how accepted these things are becoming in our culture, how normal and legitimate they seem to many Americans. 

Well, it certainly was big business in Philippi and these guys had a slave girl who had a demon who could tell people what they wanted to know and this was a false religion in that city that was prospering, that was making lots of money and was very popular. But as with all false religion, it was demonic in nature. I think this is an important point for us to understand. 

Turn over to 1 Corinthians 10 with me, please. 1 Corinthians 10, Paul writing to the believers in Corinth about idol worship, having fellowship with false worship. In verse 19, 1 Corinthians 10 19, he says, what am I saying then? That an idol is anything or what is offered to idols is anything? Rather the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. And I do not want you to have fellowship with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the Lord's table and the table of demons. Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He? 

I think this is a great question for us. It's been very practical in my life in understanding partaking and fellowship with false worship and false religion. Are we stronger than He? Do we know better than God? This is such an instructive passage because what it tells us is that all false religions, false teaching, do not come from God, but they come from demonic sources. So if a religion teaches a false gospel, a false way to God, then it is satanic, my friends. It's not just a little-often doctrine, it's not well-meaning and all of that, but demonic, satanic in its source. 

And it's important that we understand this. And this is what we see here in the case of this soothsayer. 

I'd like for you to notice just a couple interesting details in the text. Look at verse 17, it says, "...the girl followed Paul and us and cried out saying, these men are the servants of the Most High God who proclaim to us the way of salvation." It says she did this for many days, and then Paul finally turned and cast the demon out of her. This is most interesting, but what's going on here? Why is she following them around? Why is she making this statement of truth concerning who Paul is and who his friends are and what they're saying? She's no longer practicing the trade for her masters, it says this is going on for days, continually. I'm sure her masters were not happy about it, but they were unable to stop her from endorsing Paul and his message of the gospel. 

It was as if she were possessed, and she was. But why does this demon want to give legitimacy to Paul? Why does this demon proclaim truth? Well, my friends, all false religion and teaching wants to gain credibility by saddling up to the truth, by associating with the truth, with some elements of the truth. And after the fruit that the gospel is bringing forth in Philippi, in the beginning of the church there, Satan is consumed with infiltrating the movement, bringing lies in to corrupt the gospel. And the only way he can do that is to get in, to gain some element of legitimacy. 

This is perhaps the greatest danger to the church, to the gospel. It's really the only thing that works for Satan. It's what we saw happening in Corinth as well. Turn over to 2nd Corinthians 11 and look at Paul's warning. 2nd Corinthians 11, verse 2, Paul writes, "...for I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy, for I have betrothed you to one husband that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest somehow as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you may well put up with it." 

Look at verse 12, he says, "...but what I do I will also continue to do that I may cut off the opportunity from those who desire an opportunity to be regarded just as we are in the things of which they boast. For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works." 

False teachers like to get into the church. They like to gain an endorsement from the believers, the leaders, and bring in some false teaching to corrupt the truth, masquerading as angels of light, but they are actually false teachers. This may seem like an odd circumstance with this demon-possessed slave girl, but you see, this was accepted religion in that city. This was an accepted place to find truth, to seek out what would happen in their future. 

We see the same thing in our culture today. The so-called Christian denominations who teach a lot of truth, but who preach a gospel of works and sacraments for salvation. They like to get close to evangelicals. They like to work together on common ground. They like for everyone to believe that there is really no difference so that they can gain credibility and corrupt the truth. 

And Satan has been amazingly successful in our time in the church to accomplish this work, and it has resulted in amazing confusion, a corrupting and clouding of the gospel so that believers are confused as to exactly who is a Christian and who is not, who speaks truth and who speaks lies. You see, Satan wants to get close to the truth, to get into the church and corrupt it with lies, and it is incumbent upon us, as it was Paul, to confront these false teachers, to expose these lies, and to warn the brethren against them. 

That's what we see here. Paul wasn't going to allow this to go on. He was distressed, the text says. And he speaks directly to the source, to the demonic influence, and he casts out the demon, ending any legitimacy or association with Paul that it was trying to gain. And in so doing, Paul and Silas were suddenly not very popular. 

And this is another reason why the evangelical church will not confront false teaching in our day. Because there's a cost. Because it makes you very unpopular. Look at verse 19, but when her masters saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to 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. 

And then the multitude rose up together against them. And the magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods. And when they'd laid many stripes on them, they threw them into the prison, commanding the jailer to keep them securely. And he put them in the inner dungeon and fastened their feet in the stocks. 

The demon had been thwarted in his pursuits, but what was the reaction of the leaders, the masters of this little enterprise? What's the real threat to false religion on the human side? It's a loss of power and money. Their profit was threatened. That's what they fear the most, my friends. This is why they killed Jesus. Because he threatened their religious enterprise. 

And when they saw that Paul ruined their profit margin and threatened their enterprise, then persecution came. And it came with force, and it came with vengeance. It says they seized them and they laid many stripes on them. These were the lictors, the police or enforcement agents who carried a bundle of hardened wooden rods that they would beat men with, often crushing their back to a pulp, injuring their internal organs, and very often causing death. And Paul experienced this three times, he tells us in 2nd Corinthians 11. 

Let me ask you, do you think the truth spoken boldly is a threat to false religion? It's enough to get you beaten and fastened in the dungeon in stocks. And these stocks in this dank dirty old dungeon were the kind that stretched out your legs to the maximum in order to cause you to cramp. I wonder if you've ever had a good hard day of work like Doug Foley has every day. You ever had a good hard day of work and you go to bed only to wake up in the middle of the night with a large muscle cramp. I've seen Doug hop around a couple times. You're hopping around in the room in the dark, hollering, trying to get the cramp to subside. 

Well these stocks induced this cramping, and they couldn't stop it. You couldn't move to relieve it. They were beaten to a bloody pulp and they were fastened in a torture device in the darkest, nastiest inner dungeon. This, my friends, was their circumstance because of the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Now, what I want you to notice is their attitude and their reaction to this circumstance as we see a most vital lesson that I will call circumstantial evidence. Look at verse 25. It says, but at midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God and the prisoners were listening to them. 

It says they were praising. They weren't singing, woe is me, I'm so blue. They were praising God. They were thanking Him. As I studied this passage, this verse just stunned me. Ponder on it, my friends. Think about what it means, the implications, the applications for us. 

I really think this verse corrects a whole pile of errant thinking in the church today and in my mind as well. You've seen the circumstance that Paul and Silas were in, what they had experienced because of their witness for Jesus, but how...how in the world can they have such a spirit, such an attitude, such a reaction to these circumstances? 

I want you to pay close attention. I want you to hear me on this. I believe that what we see in the church today, by and large, what we often think, how we feel, our attitude, even our faith, is a circumstantial faith. The evidence of my faith expressed in praise and worship and words and actions is very often related to or correlated with my circumstances. 

I see this all the time in the church. This thinking pervades the church. And my friends, it's not based in truth and understanding, it's not biblical. The idea in thinking, the doctrine revolves around the subject of God's favor toward me. If God's favor or blessing is on me due to whatever I may or may not be doing, then my circumstances, my physical, worldly circumstances will be favorable according to my thinking and my standards. 

In other words, if I'm good and God is blessing me, things will go well with my circumstances. I'll be happy, I'll be healthy, and I'll have plenty. This is most blatantly expressed in the word faith movement today. But I'm convinced that this type of thinking has infiltrated the church to a point that when we look at this event in the life and ministry of Paul and Silas, we cannot even possibly conceive of how they could worship and praise God in light of the horrible circumstances they find themselves in. 

You see, it's an errant understanding of God's favor, of God's blessing, because God's favor is not measured by our worldly circumstances. I've got some news for you, my friends. God has blessed us. God has bestowed upon us His favor in Jesus Christ and our salvation in Him. We are blessed, we are favored, and God's high calling and purpose for our lives is not to live a stress-free, happy life of wealth and pleasure in an affluent and carefree environment. 

His high calling for us is to be conformed to the likeness of Christ, to show the power of the transforming gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives, by His power and life in us, for His glory, and for a witness for Him to bring men to faith through the preaching of the gospel. And my brothers and sisters, our circumstances are irrelevant. 

It's not that they aren't hard. It's not that they don't hurt. It's not that God doesn't care. It's not that His grace isn't sufficient, but they are irrelevant concerning our high calling, concerning why we're here, concerning our salvation, concerning the peace that we have that passes understanding, concerning the joy that abides because of our salvation, not because of our circumstances. 

How can Paul and Silas be singing hymns and praising God in such a circumstance as we have never even conceived in our minds? Here's the key, my friends. The praise and worship is based on who God is, who Jesus is, and what He has done, on their secure salvation provided in Christ, and the surety that God is working out His will in their lives for their good, working all things together for the good of those who love Him, and the hope of their calling, the promise of the resurrection, and eternal life. 

These things never change. These things are true today and every day because God does not change, and His promises are true and sure. Listen to Paul's words in 2 Corinthians 1.18, he says, but as God is faithful, our word to you was not yes and no, for the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, by me, Silvanus, and Timothy, was not yes and no, but in Him was yes. For all the promises of God in Him are yes, and in Him, amen, to the glory of God through us. 

Now, He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us in God is God, who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee. Did Paul have a reason to praise God when he was living in relative comfort, teaching and bearing fruit, seeing converts in the various cities, he spent three years in Ephesus, he spent a lot of time in Corinth, a time of peace and plenty, did he have a reason to praise God then? Yes. 

And what was the basis of his praise? It was God, it was Jesus, it was His salvation, it was all the promises that are yes in Christ. And did he have a basis to praise and worship God when he was in severe pain, having his back laid open and bleeding and experiencing excruciating cramps in his legs and sitting in the stocks in the dark, dank prison dungeon simply for telling the truth? Yes. 

And what was the basis of his praise? God, Jesus, all the promises, the truth of His salvation, the truth of Romans 8, 28 and every other promise of God which is yes in Jesus. Do you see, my friends? God's favor is not something we are seeking. It's not measured by our ease in our life and favorable circumstances and health and wealth and prosperity. 

When persecution comes, when something breaks, something goes wrong, when our health fails, when things are just a mess, when you walk out onto the road in front of your house and there's 50 sheep standing on the pavement and someone left the gate open, this doesn't mean that God is not blessing us. It doesn't mean that God is mad at us. And when all is great and our bank accounts are fat and life is good, this is not a barometer of blessing. 

Get this now, He has blessed us. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. Trust in Him, from sin He sets you free. We're thankful for every good gift that comes down from above, every day. James tells us we need to be thankful, we need to count it all joy for every trial that comes. Paul tells us in Romans 5 that he's working through those trials like a press to squeeze us and bring out the essence of who we are, to conform us to Christ. 

My friends, these things, this salvation in Christ, these promises in Jesus, they are accomplished. And now we can trust God and His Word, that He's working out His will in our lives and very often through trial and tribulation and suffering. And from a worldly perspective, very unfavorable circumstances. The evidence of Paul and Silas' faith was not circumstantial. It was based in the unchanging God that they knew and loved and they worshiped in thankfulness because of their salvation that never changes, Jesus would never leave them or forsake them, He will come and take them to be with Him forever and He was working through them for His will and purposes in this very event. 

And this is what they most wanted. This is why they could praise and worship, because their faith was not in their circumstances or worldly blessings, they did not measure their relationship with God based on their health, wealth and prosperity, but on who God is and the promises He made to them in Christ. 

Now let's see God work in amazing ways through their witness in that prison environment as we see a change in perspective. Look at verse 25, please. But at midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God and the prisoners were listening to them and suddenly there was a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison were shaken and immediately all the doors were open and everyone's chains were loosed. 

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. But Paul called with a loud voice saying, do yourself no harm for we are all here. Then he called for a light, ran in and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas and he brought them out and said, sirs, what must I do to be saved? 

So they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your household. Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house and he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes and immediately he and all his family were baptized. 

Now when he had brought them into his house, he set food before them and he rejoiced having believed in God with all his household. We see here an amazing event in the life and ministry of Paul concerning this man, the Philippian jailer, this man for whom Jesus died. 

What I want you to see is how salvation, how faith in Jesus, how God's power and promise completely transformed this man in a moment. How he thought, how he acted, who he was. He was a hardened old jailer, likely a former Roman soldier. He was indifferent to these people, doing his job, paying no mind to the prisoners or their stories or their plight such as in the case of Paul and Silas. 

They came in beaten by the lictors, in bad shape, covered in wounds and he just took them like all the others and fastened them in the stocks to keep them secure and he went and had a nap. But then God intervened in this situation, bringing a very focused earthquake occurring specifically at the place of this prison and opening the very chains that held Paul and Silas and the other prisoners fast and blew open the doors and the jailer awakes and he sees the doors open, he assumes the prisoners are gone, he draws his sword and he's going to end his own life. 

This is where we find this man. That's a pretty dire circumstance, isn't it? But Paul informs him that they're all there, that he should not harm himself and God was working in this man, he was working through these circumstances and he runs to Paul and Silas and he falls down before them and he says, "'Sirs, what must I do to be saved?' 

Have you ever wondered why he didn't run to another prisoner? There must have been something special about Paul and Silas and their witness. And we know that there was, we've been studying, they were singing hymns, praising God. So he asks them, "'What must I do to be saved?' And the most important question is answered with the most important answer, "'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your household,' he says." 

Now, this does not mean that when a man gets saved, his whole household also gets saved. Please notice verse 32. It says, "'And they spoke the word of the Lord, the gospel truth, to all in his household. They preached the gospel and they told them, "'If you believe, you'll be saved, all of you.'" We say that today, don't we? That's our message. And they individually heard and they individually chose to believe and all who believed were baptized in an act of obedience and testimony immediately after coming to salvation in Christ. 

In verses 33 to 34, we see an amazing change of perspective. The indifferent, hardened, sleepy jailkeeper who couldn't care less about these prisoners and their pain and suffering, who only induced more suffering by putting them in the stocks and stretching their legs and causing them to cramp, was moments later washing their stripes, nursing their wounds, taking them to his home and feeding them and caring for them. What in the world happened to this guy? The evidence for his faith was real and genuine. 

He rejoiced with Paul and Silas, he rejoiced with all his household because of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And in his actions, his new life was manifest and in this we see the fulfilling of the command of Christ. I think it's so important to see the change in this man, how evident his faith was, what Jesus did in him in this moment of time. 

Turn over to 1 John 3 with me, please. I want you to look at the command of the New Covenant as John the Apostle gives it to us in 1 John 3, 23. He writes, and this is His commandment, that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another as He gave us commandment. Now He who keeps His commandments abides in Him and He in Him and by this we know that He abides in us by the Spirit whom He has given to us. 

I want to look at these two points, these commands of the New Covenant as we see them manifest in the Philippian jailer because of his genuine salvation. He believed Jesus and he showed love to the brethren, specifically to Paul and Silas. First he believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, just as they told him to do, that he heard the gospel, he heard the truth, they preached the word to him of Jesus' death, burial and resurrection and my place for my sins and they implored him to believe, to take that for himself, to trust in Jesus. 

And this faith really revolves around two things. Who Jesus is and what He has done. Also in 1 John and chapter 2, John tells us that liars and antichrists are those who deny Jesus. They deny who He is, the Son of God, the Christ, and they deny what He accomplished, that He fulfilled, He satisfied the wrath of God in His one-time death on the cross in our place. He was buried and He rose again. 

You see, to deny who Jesus is, that He is God, that He is the Christ, is to deny the gospel, to deny Jesus Himself. And to deny what He has done is an equally fatal error. And this is what we see so much today in the Christian denominations. They say that He's God. They say that He's the Christ, but then they deny what He has done. They teach that His death is not the full satisfaction for our salvation, that we must contribute to our salvation by good works and observing of days and sacraments and religious rituals in order to complete what is lacking in the work of Christ. 

That's actual language from doctrine, that we will complete what is lacking in the work of Christ. How does that strike you, my brother, my sister? You see, if we do not believe that it is finished, if we do not understand that Christ suffered once for sins, that He by Himself purged our sins and then sat down at the right hand of God, and that there's nothing left to accomplish, that it is done, it is finished, then we teach a false gospel, a false way of salvation. 

We deny who Jesus is. The Philippian jailer believed who Jesus is, and he believed, he trusted, he took for himself, he received what Jesus did in His place, what He finished at the cross in His death, burial, and resurrection. He believed who Jesus is, and he believed what Jesus had done, and he trusted in Him alone, and that's why he was saved. Anything else would be denying Jesus. 

So we see that this man fulfilled the new covenant command to believe, and then because of his salvation, we see that he was now able to love, to exhibit agape, self-sacrificial love, taking Paul and Silas and washing their wounds and feeding them and caring for them. And this was such a drastic change in this man, in a moment, and it's because in an instant having heard and believed, God changed this man and made him a new creation. He took out his heart of stone, He put in a heart of flesh, He caused His Spirit to dwell in him, He quickened his spirit and gave him a new spirit. 

And thus he was now able to love, something that he could never do before as a man in Adam. So we see in our text this morning, a confronting of false religion. We see circumstantial evidence, the evidence of Paul and Silas' faith was not based on their circumstances but on the truth of who God is and what He's done in Christ. We see a change in perspective that when a man believes and turns from his own self-righteousness, his religion and turns to faith in Jesus Christ, that God does a work in him, He changes him, He crucifies that old man, He unites him in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus and raises him to a new kind of life. 

And this is evidenced by how he lives and what he does. And we see the command of Christ fulfilled, the will of God for every man to believe Jesus Christ and to love one another. What an amazing text before us this morning, so clear, so important, not only for the gospel and salvation by grace through faith alone, but also for the example of Paul and Silas in the Christian life, a life of thankfulness, praise and worship because of what we have and who we are in Christ, because of His marvelous grace and favor toward us in Jesus. 

I pray that these words will be an encouragement to you, that they might bring clarity and understanding concerning the gospel, but also concerning the day-to-day life that we now live in Christ. And I just want to close with Paul's summary words, a verse we love so much in Galatians 2.20 when he talks about the Christian life and he says, here's the explanation of my life now, in the new covenant, having come to faith in Christ. I have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. 

The Christian life is a life of thankfulness for the blessing that we have in Jesus. Let's close in prayer. 

Father, we're so thankful for this event that You've recorded and preserved for us of this man, this jailer, who through all these circumstances that You allowed and orchestrated was brought to faith in Jesus. Thank You for the gospel, thank You for the truth, and thank You for the new life that we have in Christ and the fact that Your grace is sufficient for every day. Help us to bring glory to You and to be a witness in all that we do, in Jesus' name. Amen.