71. Sermon: The Power of Praise

Welcome back everyone to the For Freedom podcast. This is a podcast that tries to bring the message of Galatians 5.1 to the area of spiritual abuse within the church while also relying on the sufficiency of scripture for answers. I am here with the co-host of the podcast, Big James Safer over in North Carolina. How are you doing, James? John, I'm doing well. We had a good late night last night talking with the network and I got to go on my wife's 33rd birthday. I took her out to Outback and went to an escape room. We escaped fine and I had a blast doing all that. Oh, did you make it out? We did. We did. I've only done an escape room one time with a large group and we didn't make it. We had 22 minutes left. It was an hour room. Oh man, you guys like crushed it. Dude, we were on top of it. Yeah. Yeah. So, Allie said that she really enjoyed that one and there's four more or three more in that facility that we were at and they're working on a fifth one and they all look really good. One's only a 30 minute one so it's a little more intense and time wise. But yeah, we're looking at going back and doing all of those and really enjoying them. They're a good time. They're a good time. You know what else is a good time too is axe throwing. My daughter and I did that on a date one night. They had that there too. They had it at the same facility. Oh yeah. All right. It's actually, I found out it's something I'm good at. Like, you know, I'm not very good at many things, but axe throwing I can do. He's better at axe throwing than he is preaching guys. Come on. Well now, come on. All right. Well, we're excited today. We wanted to drop this intro today. We're, we've got two more episodes. We're going to drop this this Thursday and then in two weeks we're going to drop one more episode and then we're going to take a summer break. But today's episode is going to be a message preached by James. We've already dropped a message before by me, but this is going to be one from James. Before James introduces it, we want to cover just a couple of announcements that we want to we want to give to everybody. James mentioned that we were just on a group Zoom call with all the podcast networks of the RFP network and we are excited and want to invite you to come be with us in November at Danville, Virginia at Hope Church for the RFP network camp meeting. And so we're looking for it. It's really going to be like a gospel conference. And so we are excited about this. James, tell them a little bit about it. They've got a theme ready, which is exciting. And we're not going to release that. We can't take, yeah, we're going to let the guys reveal the theme. Right. I think they're going to reveal it on Friday's episode. I think, maybe not. I know they're working on some graphics for it, but we're excited about it. We're going to have a couple of sessions, some possible breakout panel sessions, which is going to be pretty exciting. And some really good speakers. I know you already know about Craig Edwards and he's going to be coming and giving the final message. But they're in talks with a couple other guys. And I liked what one of the guys said last night. I can't remember who it was. This isn't going to be a joking time where we're going to get together. We're going to have fun. We're going to have a great time of fellowship, but we're going to have some great preaching. We're going to have some great worship music. We're going to have some great time of fellowship in the word and fellowship in worship. It's not just going to be a comedian session where we're going to see how many jokes we can break, but we're going to get to some media, some things. And I'm really excited about that. It was going to be in Danville. I think John said that. And $50 to register, probably the cheapest conference you've ever registered for. It'll be Thursday night and Friday all day, Friday morning and Friday night. And I believe that is going to include maybe a meal. And then you'll be in charge of getting your own lodging as well. So it's going to be a great time. We're excited about it. We're excited about being able to fellowship with the network and being able to meet and talk to some of you. At our last meetup that we did, we did some live recordings with individuals. We'd like to do that again. We'd like to maybe try to get some of your stories on our podcast and get some of you guys to talk to us in person. We'll be bringing some free books as well. John doesn't even know about that, but we're going to be bringing some free books and be giving. Well, I mean, we haven't talked about it, but as I've already thought the same thing, James, because we, we, we can't, you know, it's impossible for us to come loaded up with stuff to give to everybody. But if we have any type of resources we can give away, we want to give away. So we're going to try to bulk up on some things and have some things to give away for you while we're there. Definitely. Definitely. So come register. You can register online at the RFP webpage as soon as it's open. I don't think registration is live yet, but it's getting real close. And so you can go there and register once it's available and we are looking forward to it. Oh, can't wait. November 3rd and 4th. That's a Thursday. Starts about Thursday evening after around five o'clock, somewhere around that time. And it's going to go all day Friday into Friday evening. And then, um, uh, it'll officially be over about Friday evening, but there may be like just a little bit of casual greet meet and greet, like just, uh, uh, get together with people and just chill out on Saturday morning at breakfast time. But, um, other than that, I think some people will be heading out, uh, Friday, but, uh, uh, we'll, we're looking for, we, uh, I seriously cannot wait. It's going to be so much fun. So please, please, please make plans. Try to, uh, try to, try to go ahead and plan to come and register for that. Uh, we have a goal of registrants that we're looking for. And, uh, so we're hoping we can meet that goal. We may say some more about that as it gets closer, but, uh, just so excited about this. It's going to be, if you've been to a meetup, this is, uh, this is going to be bigger than, than a meetup and it's going to at the same time have the same flavor of a meetup. So this is a little bit more organized, a little bit more serious than a meetup, but also, um, with the same flavor of a meetup. So, uh, you're not going to want to miss it. Um, but, uh, today we're excited that we're, um, um, James is going to get a chance. You're going to get a chance to hear a message by James. It's, uh, it's, uh, from the book of Acts. James, why don't you say something and just sort of introduce the message? Yeah, I preached this as a Wednesday night, a couple months back here at our church. And, uh, I preached on the power of praise out of Acts. And, uh, I really went through the mindset of where Paul was at, uh, when him and, uh, it was, uh, him and Silas was thrown into prison after helping, um, a slave girl and they delivered her, but then persecution happened. And so I've discussed, uh, the power that praise can happen even during suffering, even during persecution, um, and, uh, go through some thoughts there. And so I'm really excited about it. Um, I hope you guys enjoy it. I'm not a great preacher by any means. Uh, I'll never speak in a revival. I've never been asked to come preach some big homecoming or anything. Uh, but I'm excited for you guys to hear this. And I've, I've enjoyed listening to John preach and I enjoy listening to his message that he put on here a couple months back. And so I hope you get a blessing out of it. Uh, but, uh, John, whatever you want to say. Yeah, I think that you'll really enjoy it. James is a, is a great preacher, I think. And, uh, he's, uh, devotes himself to study and preparation in the word and, uh, really takes the craft of, of, um, exposition and preaching seriously. And, uh, that's what I respect is somebody that takes it very seriously and, and, uh, sees it as an important thing and doesn't want to get up there without doing any adequate prep. So, um, uh, I hope that this is encouraging to you and beneficial to you and it strengthens, uh, your confidence in the word of God. But, uh, that is, that is the introduction, uh, for today's episode. And then, um, we'll, we're going to play the intro. We, we're tweaking the intro and then we'll see you for one more episode before our summer break. I do not mean to be mean. I do mean to be mad. Those that criticize this kind of preaching, they don't like authority. If you ain't got the King James, you ain't got, Hey, you don't have a King James. You don't have a Bible. And it'd be surprised. Son, don't go to sleep while I'm talking. Hey, Hey, Hey, don't, don't, don't you lay your head back. I'm, I'm important. I'm somebody. I love you. You know, I love you. Have I convinced you I love you? Yeah. You better, you better nod your head. Yes. All right. Come on. Put it right there. Stay awake. You listen to me. I still believe it'd be a cold day in hell before I get my family to a woman. I'm a preacher. When you got dressed today, you dressed deity. This is the for freedom podcast, a podcast that is part of the RFP network that seeks to bring freedom in Christ from the spiritual abuse of legalism. Now here are your hosts, John Hollyfield and James Saferit. And so fundamentalism is designed to unpack the idea of authority from scripture. The problem with that is that that's not the defining principle in scripture. It is a part of scripture, but the defining principle in scripture is love. And now I'm not saying that all men who sit under that teaching will become abusive. But what I'm saying is the ones who are abusive will be drawn to that sort of teaching. I don't want to give people just a list of things they can start doing differently until they have a heart out of which they're going to be doing those things differently. But I think bitterness is different from hurt. I would say that hurt or even abuse does not have to result in bitterness. All right, if you have your Bibles, we're going to go to Acts chapter 16. We'll do prayer requests at the end. Several things that I have listed for us today. So Acts chapter 16 is where we're going to be at. Tonight we're going to be talking about the power of praise. We're going to look at the account of Paul and Silas when they were thrown in jail and when the jail was shaken by an earthquake and when God released them. And we're going to look at this situation, this story here. And we'll read several verses, but I want you to get the context of it. And really, we probably need to read more than what I've gotten here, but I'll summarize some of the other things as we go. So Acts chapter 16, verses 22 through 40, we'll begin reading in verse 22. It says, And the multitude rose up together against them, and the magistrates rent off their clothes and commanded to beat them. When they had laid many stripes upon them and cast them into prison, charging the jailer to keep them safely. Who, having received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison and made their feet fast in the stocks. And at midnight, Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God, and the prisoners heard them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundation of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone's bonds were loosed. And the keeper of the prison awakened out of his sleep, and seeing the prison doors opened, he drew out his sword and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had fled. But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm, for we are all here. And then he called for a light, and sprang up, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, and brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved in thy house. And they spake unto him the words of the Lord, and all that were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes, and was baptized. And he and all of his house straightway. And when he had brought them into his house, he sat meat before them, and rejoiced, believing in God with all of his house. And when it was day, the magistrates sent the sergeant, saying, Let those men go. And the keeper of the prison told this saying to Paul, The magistrates have sent to let you go. Now therefore depart, and go into peace. But Paul said unto them, They have beaten us openly, uncondemned. Being Romans, they have cast us into prison. And now do they thrust us out privately? Nay, verily. But let them come themselves, and fetch us out. And the sergeants told these words unto the magistrates, and they all feared. And when they heard that they were Romans, and they came and besought them, and brought them out, and desired them to depart out of the city. And they went out of the prison, and entered into the house of Lydia. And when they had seen the brethren, they comforted them, and departed. Let us pray. Father, I thank you for this night. I thank you for allowing us to come into your presence. Allowing us to come into your house to worship. I pray that you'll be with these words that you've given me over the last couple of days as I've been studying. And I pray that you'll help these things that we've got going on in the church. Outreach that we've got going on. And the prayer request that we'll talk about later, Lord. That you would just have your will and way. In the sickness, in the hurting, and even in our nation. We love you, Lord. In your name we pray. Amen. So tonight we're going to be talking about the power of praise. Probably won't go extremely long. Haven't had a whole lot of time to study or prepare for this. With things that have been going on. But I want to talk about our praise and how our praise is very important. I would go as far as to say that sometimes our praise can be the most powerful thing that we can do in our life. We must not lose sight of how powerful that our praise can be. Oftentimes, I wonder if we even praise God enough. When we begin reading through this, it says that after Paul and Silas had done all these things, they sang praises unto God. And they began praying and they began going through this. And so this thought of praise, this thought of where we are directing our attention to, I believe is very vital in our day and age. Not only should we do our praise privately and just to God, but I believe that we as the church need to be praising God outside of the church and around our neighbors and around our friends and around our families and even around non-believers. We should be praising God and rejoicing in what he has done for us. I think sometimes it's easy to come into a church and have a service where we sing and the spirit moves and things are good. It's easy to lift a hand and it's easy to say a praise. But when life happens and we're at work or we're at school or wherever we're at, things can sometimes be not as easy to give praise to God. Things can sometimes be not as easy when we're around our coworkers to just simply voice a voice of praise. And so we're going to look through some things tonight as we look through this passage. A little bit of context because context is key when we look at things. Before this happened, so the reason that Paul and Silas were being beaten and thrown into prison is because there was a woman that was possessed with a demon that was taken into almost slavery by a male and was torturing her and was using her to perform profits. And so Paul and Silas, when they saw this, they chose to take the demon out of her. And so by doing this, the man got mad and chose for the magistrates to come and cast them into jail. And so there is a thought process here. I want you to understand that. But I believe when we begin looking through this, as we look at our praise, the first thing that we see is the prison of suffering. In the first couple of verses that we look there, we see that there is suffering that happens in our life. And we're going to be turning to a couple of scriptures tonight. So have your Bible ready. We're going to go back and forth. But there is this suffering that happens in our life. I don't want to go as far as to say suffering is guaranteed as a Christian. But I believe that there is a measure of suffering that is going to happen in our life. Whether that be natural suffering of pain and death that comes into us as being part of the world. Okay, there's some things that everyone experiences in this world. We all experience death. We all experience pain. We all experience the loss of a loved one. There are times where we go through these things, whether you're Christian or not. Okay, so there is this thought of suffering in the world because we are in a world that is full of sin and full of suffering. And so when we look at Paul and Silas and we look at the amount of suffering they went through, Paul gives some detail later. But there was some immense amount of suffering that if I were Paul, I would have probably given up, just to be honest. Because we're going to look later in 2 Corinthians where it says I think four or five times he was beat almost to death with rods and with whips and stone to death. And so there were a lot of suffering that he went through. But we've got to look at this passage and see specifically how this was. And so the first thing underneath this prison of suffering is this. It was undeserved. It was undeserved. Paul and Silas had done nothing to deserve being cast into prison. They simply helped out someone that needed help. And because they helped out this person, this person got mad and had some authority and chose to put them into jail. And so when I began looking at that, I began thinking of people in Canada, began thinking of people in China, began thinking of Christians all across the world in Vietnam and in Russia who choose to serve Jesus and ultimately they go to jail. And I want us to really be aware that I hope this never happens in America in my lifetime. But I can't see a different option in the way our country is going than this route of where Christians will be persecuted. Where Christians will, because you come to church, will have an opportunity to be thrown into jail. Will have an opportunity to have this happen to us. It happened to Paul. It's happened to Christians all across the world. I don't want us to get in this mindset where we put blinders on and we just forget what's going on around the world. I think we need to be ready. We need to be prepared for things to happen. The only crime they did was help someone. Was take a little girl that was possessed by demons and cast that demon out. And because they did that, they were thrown into prison. They were simply following the leading of the Holy Spirit. And because they followed the leading of the Holy Spirit, this was the result of it. And so we have to ask ourselves, are we going to disregard what the Spirit wants us to do because of the consequences that could happen? Or are we going to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit no matter the result? No matter the consequences? So I looked and we went through this. We watched the news. If you were in any amount of aware of the news last year when California was commanded not to go to church and pastors were receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars of fines because they went to church. And we would have, 10 years ago, would have thought that would never happen in America. But it happened. And so I don't want us to think that this is just something that happened 2,000 years ago when Jesus lived and it's not going to happen again. Church, we have to understand that this could very well happen in our lifetime again. And so we need to be prepared because our responses to these actions are going to choose a lot of things in our life. And so the first is it's undeserved. This prison that they got was undeserved. We can see that plainly in Scripture. Verse 22, they rose up against them. They began to beat them. But in the second point here in this next verse is it was unbearable. In verse 23, it was unbearable. If you have your Bibles, we're going to flip over to Corinthians, 2 Corinthians. And Paul gives an account of what happened specifically in his life as a Christian. And so it's unbearable. This is the verse I was talking about. If I were Paul, I don't know if I would have been able to sustain this. But in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, verses 24 and 25, if you can't turn there or you want to write it down, it says this. Of the Jews, five times received I 40 stripes, save one. So he received 39 lashes or 39 beatings with a whip, 39 times, five times. Five different occasions. I don't know if I would have been able to do it after one occasion because it is a very, very, from what I can tell in history, a very excruciating process. Then it goes on in verse 25. Thrice I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I suffered shipwrecked. A night and a day I was in the deep. I was in the deep often is what one version says. And so we have to see that there were multiple times where he was beaten with rods. He was whipped. He was stoned. There were things that happened to Paul that were unbearable to the human race. But yet he said, I am going to continue on. I'm going to continue to do these things. Because when we look at verse 25 in just a minute, when we get to this point and he says that they prayed and sang praises, we have to understand the thought and the process that he was in. He just didn't get thrown into prison in Alexander County where they have a bed and they had all these luxuries and they have a TV on the wall. They bring three meals by. No, it says they threw him in the inter-dungeon, inter-prison. This was literally a dungeon. It was dirty. It was filthy. It was no bed. Okay, when I began thinking of this and studying through this, my mind went to he was just beaten 39 times with lashes. They had stripped him naked, the Bible says. So he has open wounds on his back and they threw him into a prison. It wasn't like, let's walk you in gently. I almost imagine they literally picked him up and threw him in this prison. After he had been beaten, after he had these scars, these open wounds, and now he's in dirt. Okay, we get that context because later on the jailer says that he cleaned him and washed his wounds. So there was dirt in his wounds. So he was beaten. He was tortured almost and then thrown into this dungeon. And if that wasn't enough, imagine all the comforts are going away, but there's really not any light. I mean, that's the part for me. I'm hurting. I'm in pain. There's no clothes on my body. But then I can't even see anything. I can't see the people around me. I don't know what's crawling on my foot. Like I began thinking through this and putting myself in this story because this is what Paul was going through. This is the setting that he's in. As he's writing this, as he's telling the church here in Rome, as he's writing this letter, he's saying, this is what I was in. The comforts were gone. I was in a dirty, dark prison. There was no one around me that I could really even see. Because then we get to this point of number two, the praise of the believer. I think too often we as Christians began to look at our suffering and we take our eyes off of our Savior. We began to look at the things that are around us and the problems that are in this world. And our mind gets blurred by almost what Peter did when he was walking on the water. And his eyes began to look at the waves around him and everything that was going on. And his eyes got off of Jesus. And then that's when the problems started happening. And I think too often the suffering comes and the pain comes. And like I said at the very beginning, it's going to come. It's part of this world. It's part of the world that we live in. We get our eyes just fixed on the suffering and we don't get our eyes fixed on the Savior, as Hebrews says. And so we must get to this point where we praise God during the times when it's not convenient. We must get to the point where we say, God, I want to praise you even when I don't want to praise you. Okay, we know it was dark by verse 25. At midnight, okay, this is very dark time. It's the darkest time of the night. Paul and Silas began to pray. Now, I've already explained everything that just happened. Where they were at, the situation they were in, the suffering that they didn't deserve any of it. How many of us would have been like, yeah, hey guys, let's have a prayer meeting real quick. Like, let's just get around and pray to God and start singing praises. Like, I don't think that I would be in that mindset. I'm just being honest tonight. I began to see this and hear this and read this and Paul and Silas, after they just got beaten, they said, hey, let's pray to God. Let's have the mindset of thinking to what Jesus would want us to think. If you have your Bibles, you want to turn to James chapter 5 or I'll just read it to you. You can write it down. James chapter 5 verse 13 says, Paul very well had read this chapter, had read this book of James. James was the pastor at the Jewish church. And so he was writing this down and Paul, several occasions in Galatians, had intercourses with James. So I'm sure James had said this to him. Hey, Paul, there's going to be times where you're going to be afflicted. You probably need to just start praying. Paul, there's going to be times where you're not going to want to be married, just sing praises. And so we see this from James. He was probably preaching a sermon to Paul one day and he heard this. And in Acts, what does Paul do? He's afflicted. He prays. He's suffering. He sings praises. Okay, we know that Paul was an astute of the scripture. Psalms 50 says this. Psalms 50 verse 15. And they that call on me in the day of trouble, I will deliver them. And they shall glorify me. So Paul's in this situation. He suffered. He's been thrown in prison. He's heard what James said. He's read what was in Psalms. He knows the scripture by memory. And he says, you know what, guys, we need to pray. That's what the Bible says we should do. Let's pray. That's what the Old Testament says. That's what our pastor in the Jewish church in Jerusalem says we should do. So let's begin to pray. Despite their injuries, despite their unjust treatment, they never lost sight of their faith in who God was and what God was. They never lost that sight. They still believed that he was in control. They still believed that God was going to take care of them. They did not gripe. They did not complain. They just simply brought their prayers into the presence of Jesus. We must get to the point where we put off of our pain and we put on God's presence. We put on this praise that only God can give us. If our faith doesn't fail, our response will be pleasing to God. If our faith doesn't fail, our response will be pleasing to God. Hebrews 11.6 says this, which I believe was a sermon that Paul preached one day and someone wrote it down. So I believe these are his words. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong because we don't know who the author of Hebrew is. But Hebrews 11.6 says this, if I get to the right page. But without faith, it is impossible to please God. For he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him. So this faith that we have in God, this faith that we believe that he is who he says he is demands a response to us. We must put off the pain and we must put on God's presence in our life. So the first is our, it is preceded by prayer. I don't know if I ever said that, but it is preceded by prayer. The second thing is it is produced by the Holy Spirit. This praise from the believers. We ask ourselves, okay, how did Paul have this moment of praise? How did he have this moment of, of praying? Well, first it started with prayer and then that began to overflow into the Holy Spirit and allowing him to have this praise. You see, if you, if you've read through the fruit of the spirit, we, we know that we could probably list all of them in here, but one of the fruit of the spirit is joy. And so if the Holy Spirit is inside of us, that joy should be overflowing no matter the situation, no matter the pain, no matter the heartache, joy should come through at some point. Now I know I've lost loved ones. I've been through pain. I've been through the, the, the fear as a child of my dad having cancer and, and my mom and the doctors telling us that that was going to be my dad's last Christmas. We went through that whole, that whole process where he was diagnosed with cancer in about August or September. And he had to stop working because he went on an extreme amount of chemo and he was in stage four cancer. And the doctor said, Deborah, that's my mom. She said, your husband will not be here after Christmas. Gave him four months to live. And as a five, six year old boy, I remember those things. I remember us sitting there at Christmas on Christmas day, sitting around a tree of zero presents and people from churches all across the community, knocking on our door and bringing us Christmas presents. Don't know how they found out our sizes, but I remember sitting there being overwhelmed with joy, been overwhelmed with this thought of how, who are these people? Why are they coming to my house? But at the same time, in the back of my mind, knowing that this is going to be the last Christmas with my dad, like it's joyful, but at the same time, it's, it's hurting. And miraculously, God was able to see the victory. And my dad lived through that, that experience. And he, he didn't die of the cancer and he came through a full recovery. And now 30 years later, he's riding a bike all across America. And he was just over in Kansas because he's retired now. And, but, but we see that and we saw the pain. We saw the hurting. And I understand some people, they don't make it through that. There's still pain there, but there has to be a moment where we begin to understand that true praise is often born out of sacrifice. When Paul began to go through this sacrifice of hurting and pain, the joy came through that. The praise began to come through there. The response of Paul in Romans eight, I'm going to read this Romans eight, 15. My fingers work. Romans eight, 15 says this. Normally I put all my verses in here, but I didn't today. Romans eight, 15, four. If you have not received the spirit of bondage again into fear, but yet you have received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry, I'm a father. We have not received the spirit of bondage. Paul is saying the Holy Spirit can only be the one that produces this praise, but also the Holy Spirit allows us to understand that the bondages that we're in have been taken off. In Christ, we will always be free. In Christ, we will not have to bear the bondage of this world, the bondage of sin. And so there's the praise of the believer. There's the prison of suffering. And third, and lastly, we must look at the power of God. And this is verses 26 to the end of the chapter, the power of God. And really we began to see, because we spent the majority of our time on these first four verses, I want you to really understand the context because this prison that they were in was more like a dungeon. It was more like just a rock that they had kept carved out on the inside. And they had just put walls up and bars up and made a prison. And so when we begin to see the power of who God really is, I'm not going to turn to this scripture, but you can look it up or write it down. Colossians 1, 16 through 17. I've preached a message on that recently through the nature of who God is. And that's this next point, the power over nature that God has. It goes through and it begins to talk about how God is the creator of all the world. And that this world has no power on him because he's the creator of it. Okay. If you, if you work with your hands, if you create things, your creation typically isn't more powerful than you. Okay. You have, you know how to shut it down. You know how to destroy it. You know how to, to tamper with it, to make it stop. And God in that same way said, I created this world. I created the universe. And so therefore I have the creation over it. And so when we look at the power of what God did here, it was very miraculous because in this moment, they're in prison. They've been bound up. They've been thrown into the inner dungeon. They began praying. They began praising. And all of a sudden God sends an earthquake to release Paul and Silas from their bonds. This inner prison was one of the most secure places that you could be. So this earthquake must have been a very powerful earthquake. Okay. And yet God said, this is but a small thing for me to open up this prison. The world is absolutely nothing to me. And I'm just going to move a little bit and allow this earthquake to happen. And this earthquake happened and opened up and I'm going to allow this very small thing to shake, to allow two of my servants to be free. And so when we begin to see his power over nature, we begin to see that there is nothing in this world that is more powerful than God. There is nothing in this world that can overtake us to take us away from the power of who God is and what he has done for us. Church, even the power of death that happens in our life. I was talking to Randy just a minute ago this morning and he said, I've worked at Adams for a very, very long amount of time and for two or three or four years, whatever it was, he said, and we've never seen this much an amount of death in our community. And it, some of it's from COVID, but some of it's just people get old and people die and that's part of life. But even that the Bible says that even in death to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. So even in death, we cannot be separated from God. God, that's an encouragement for us. The Bible says in Psalms, I believe it's in Psalms that God glorifies in the death of his saints. He is honored when that happens. And so even the power of death has no hold on who God is. So the power of God, the power over nature. And then really, this is the point that I want to really allow us to drive home because we've talked about a couple of things. The power of his salvation, his power in salvation. The jailer came to them and said, listen, I've been in jail. I've been in this area. I'm sure that his hard heart had been hardened even more. You can imagine if you've been around criminals, if you've been around people who are reprobates, or if you've been around people who are just bad people. Okay, people are bad. We are that way by nature. And so when you begin to work around them, you begin to work in prison or you're in law enforcement, you begin to see the worst of the worst. You begin to almost give up on humanity. And this prison guard, this jailer was in that way. He said, there's no way repentance can happen for man. These people are just horrible people. And he had this spirit of just probably, I'm just sort of reading in my thoughts here, this thought of they're not going to change. These guys are in here. They're bad, whatever. They're singing. You know, they're probably drunk. They're probably in here singing anyways. Like, I've seen this before. It's no big deal. And it even got to the point where he wasn't, he was so unafraid of them, he fell asleep. It's like, hey, they're not going to do anything. They're just going to ramble on. They're going to moan. They're going to talk. I'm just going to fall asleep. This earthquake happens. He sees it happen. He wakes up. The gates are open. And he wants to kill himself. And Paul says, wait, stop. We're all still here. And I believe in that moment, this man said, I've seen a lot. I've been through a lot. There's something different about y'all. What is it that's different to you? And he uses the words here, what must I do to be saved? And he said, it's very simple. Just believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Like, that's the gospel. Oh, we get this whole thought up of the gospel is this huge, big thing, but it's simply turning and believing in Jesus. His whole family also received Christ. I began thinking of that as a dad. I had to take a moment back and I had to step back and I thought, and I wrote this down. Dads, your faith affects your family more than you realize. This one man got saved and it says his entire family stopped what they were doing and they turned to Jesus. I think the statistic, you can find any statistic to match whatever you want these days. There's enough polls and things out there. But I think the statistic is if a child accepts Jesus and that family is not in church, 5% of the time their whole family turns to Jesus. And if a mother accepts Jesus and begins attending church, I believe it's like 15% of the time the entire family unit will turn to Jesus and come and make a profession of faith. But the statistic is if a father, an unchurched, a lost dad comes to know Jesus, 83% of the time the entire family unit will begin coming to church and will make a profession of faith. The power that dads have in a family is incredible. And we take it for granted so often. So often I take it for granted. And even tonight, kids were here and they're doing tutoring and so they were done with their work. And so my son came in and I began helping him with his homework. I began helping him with his spelling words and his Bible verse. And he began to get frustrated and he began to get angry. And I said, Brody, just go to the bathroom, wash your hands off, wash your face off, process what's going through. And so I went back into the bathroom a little bit later. Nick was in there, so he was watching the kids. And I said, son, what's going on? He said, I'm just frustrated, dad. I just had a long day at school. And I said, do you not think that I want you to do well? Well, I missed four of those questions today. I said, that's why we're studying. So we can get them right. And I began talking through with him and I gave him a hug. I said, go wash your face, go dry off, go get a snack. We'll come back in a little bit. He went back in and his entire attitude was changed. Just because I took a little bit of time to spend and say, listen, there is better things that you can do. You don't need to get frustrated. You don't need to get angry. And so our dads, we have this amazing ability to affect our families. When you were in a bad mood, your whole family is typically in a bad mood. I know because I'm a dad. I know when my family gets in a bad mood, when I'm in a bad mood. Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm the only one. I'm on an island. When I get mad, my whole family gets mad. And I need to work on that. I don't know. But let's get back to the power of salvation here. Bring in our thoughts here. We see three people in this story that was stuck in bondage. This is where I really want to get to. Because as I was studying this and as I was seeing this, three people were in bondage. But many people around them experienced the praise of these saints. They experienced the praise of Paul and Silas. But three people were the ones that were set free from their bondage. The first one is this, the demon-possessed girl. She was stuck in a situation that she had no control in. She was possessed by a demon and mistreated and abused. And Paul and Silas redeemed her from that situation. Stopped and cast that demon out. And we don't have that these days. The Bible doesn't tell us how to cast out demons. I think if that were something that we should do as Christians, it would be in the Bible to tell us how to cast out demons. But it's not, so we don't have to worry about that. And so this demon-possessed girl was set free. She was redeemed. And as far as we know, she lived a great life. We don't know how her life ended. The second person that we see that was in bondage was the servants of God. They were wrongfully imprisoned. And they were set free. But then the third was this jailer who had a hardened heart. Who was hardened by his works. And hardened by what he did. And I really got, this is the point that really stuck home with me. Because so often as Christians, we get stuck in a me-centered reality. We get stuck in what I want to do and what affects me. And so that's what I'm going to do. But Paul and Silas, if they had not been faithful in the simple drawing out of the Holy Spirit to cast out this demon, to perform an act, okay, we have, we can, my mind's going in a hundred different ways right now. We have this same ability. We don't cast out demons. But how many times can we invest in a child that's abused or invest in a child that's hurting? Okay, when we go into the schools and we're able to be in there and we spend just a little bit of time with people who are hurting, we're doing what the saints were doing. We're investing in children. We're investing in people that were hurting. When we don't do that, we're investing in ourself. We're investing in what we want to do. And so Paul and Silas had the opportunity to help this young lady out. They helped this girl out. So they did. They cast this demon out. They helped this abused victim. And then that life was changed. But if they would not have done that, this is what my thought was. If they would not have helped this young lady out, their life would have not had the suffering. They would have continued on in their missionary journey and they would have preached and they would have done some things. They would have never been thrown in jail. And then the jailer who was stuck in this situation, whose entire family was lost, would have never heard about Jesus. The pain that they endured, the suffering that they had, that they indwelled upon their body, had a blessing that was immeasurable that they would have missed. But they chose to help this young lady out. The suffering happened. And because of all that, they didn't know the end of it. They did not know that this jailer would come to know Jesus and his entire family would be saved. And his entire family would be baptized, it says, and they were baptized. They came into the family of Jesus Christ because they simply had a choice to make. Who am I going to influence? Who am I going to invest in? Who am I going to pour a little bit of myself into to allow their life to be changed for the sake of the gospel? These three people specifically were changed. Now there were other people in this story. There was the man that was abusing the girl that also heard the praise of Paul and Silas, who wasn't changed. There were magistrates and sergeants that came and also heard the praise of Paul and Silas. They weren't changed. And I say that to say this. Our job is not to worry about who's going to be changed. Our job is to simply just go out and invest in other people and see what happens. I just had Gwaltney Landscaping come out and they had to redo some stuff that got washed away in the big flood from last year when I had my house built. And they went through and they did all the tilling and they did all the plugging, which I don't even know what they did. I wasn't even there. And then they began to cast seed out. And this is what he told me. He said, we may get a rain that's going to be a hard rain in a couple of days. And I don't know how much of the seed is going to stick. It's just part of part of sowing seed. It's part of sowing seed is we don't know what's going to stick. Our job is just to sow the seed and to tell others about the good news of what God has done for us. So in conclusion, my last couple of thoughts before we pray is this. Are we going to trust God when things go wrong? Things are going to go wrong. Okay, we're in a depraved world. We're in a world that is full of sin. Okay, we thank our mothers. And fathers of Adam and Eve for that. Okay, they had a choice and they made that choice. And so therefore, things are going to go wrong in this world. How are we going to respond? What's going to be our response when things go wrong? My second question is this. May we always praise the name of Jesus. Are we always going to praise the name of Jesus? Hebrews 13, 15. I think I read it earlier. I'm going to read it again. Hebrews 13, 15. It says this. By him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually. That is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. By him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually. That is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. Are we praising God in our situations? Begin to think of this. And this will be my last thought, my last thing before we go into prayer. But a person who cannot praise God alone in his own backyard will be very hard, and I would almost go as to say, would never offer praise elsewhere. You see, it's easy to offer praise when you're around believers. But yet, sometimes that's still hard. Sometimes that's still difficult for us in a family setting. When the spirit is moving, as I said in the beginning, and our choir is singing, and Harold's preaching, or myself is preaching, it is still difficult for us in those moments to offer praise to God. And I believe the most important reason is because we aren't giving praise in our quiet time. We're not on our own in our own backyard, or however you do your prayer time, or however you do your alone time with God. If we aren't praising God in those moments, very rarely are we going to praise God in the moments of other believers, or even non-believers. Remember, it's very easy in here. It's not so easy when you're around your co-workers, and when you're around people who don't know Jesus, and they're like, man, you're one of those crazy fanatics. You're one of those crazy people that love Jesus. That's when it's hard. That's why we've got to start personally before we can do it publicly. And so that is the power of praise. It is something that is extremely vital in our life, and it's something that is often talked about throughout Scripture. I think I went through like 10 Scriptures just now that specifically talked about praise. And so we must get to the point where we're church, we are praising God outside of these walls and around other people. Thanks for listening to the For Freedom podcast. To find more content like this, please visit RFPNetwork.org. To find more podcasts like this one, resources, and meetups to encourage you on your journey. 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