THE PHILIPPIAN JAILOR

THE PHILIPPIAN JAILOR

Acts 16:23-34

We may remind ourselves once more of the reference made by Mark to the fact that the witnesses of the Lord went forward, "the Lord working with them." (Mark 16:20) The door of entrance into Europe had been found in the open heart of Lydia, a woman, a seller of purple, and her home was the temporary base of operations for Paul and Silas and others in this forward movement.

It is quite evident that they remained there for some time. It was during this period that the soothsaying maid followed them as they were on their way to the place of prayer. Such a reference may, of course, refer to a Sabbath activity when they would naturally assemble in the proseuche. If that were so, it would seem as though some weeks had passed, because the writer says that "this she did for many days." On the other hand it is quite possible that Paul, and those associated with him, made the place of prayer the gathering ground to which they went daily, to give their teaching. In either case, the account shows that a considerable period of time was spent in Philippi.

It is further evident that results were following their work, for we are told that after the imprisonment, and the account which occupies our attention now, they remained long enough to see the brethren, and to comfort them ere they passed on their way.

At last the definite antagonism of the underworld of evil manifested itself. The whole account reveals the method of these evil spiritual forces. They first attempted co-operation, and that failing, they adopted the definite method of outward opposition. The co-operation attempted was that of an evil spirit entering into a maid, who following the apostle and those who were with him, declared:

"These men are servants of the Most High God, which proclaim unto you the way of salvation."

It is most significant to observe that Paul acted exactly as the Lord ever did as he refused to accept testimony allowed by this underworld of evil. Indeed we are told he was "sore troubled." The word employed is a strong one, and shows that he was troubled to the point of anger. He knew what is constantly true, that anything in the nature of co-operation offered by the underworld of evil is sinister, and compelled ultimately to do harm. Therefore, he charged the evil spirit to come out of the damsel, and immediately it did so.

This method of co-operation being defeated there began immediately that of definite and hostile opposition. As we have seen in our last article, the opposition in Europe took on an entirely new form. In the Asian cities it had been religious. Now it became commercial. When the masters of this maid saw that because her soothsaying had ceased, their gains were going, they protested, the protest being made not on religious grounds, but rather upon civil and national. They declared that these men were teaching things in that city which were causing a disturbance, and that what they were teaching, the citizens had no right to observe, because they were Romans. Paul and Silas were seized, and brought before the magistrates. They were roughly used, for they tore the clothes off Paul and Silas, and the attendants rained blows upon them. Having done so, they handed them over to a jailor, and commanded that he keep them safely. Being so handed, he thrust them:

"Into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks."

The account presents to us a picture which is really radiantly beautiful of these two men in the inner prison, the dark dungeon in which was no light at all, their feet fast in the stocks, their backs broken and bloody from the attendants' rods, and they:

"Were praying and singing hymns unto God."

The statement does not mean that they were asking anything, but rather that they were worshipping, and their worship took the form of praise. In passing we may say it is a picture of Christianity. Anyone can sing when he gets out of prison. These men sang in prison. There was no human possibility of leaving the prison, at least until the morning. In that connection we are told the remarkable fact that the prisoners were listening, and once again the word "listening" is an arresting word. It means listening with pleasure.

Then as Mildred Cable has so beautifully said, "Something happened." While they were thus worshipping in praise, the Lord touched the land, and it trembled, and the prison doors were flung open. The word indicates the fact that the doors were set wide open, not ajar.

All this leads to our actual account, that of the Philippian jailor. Our first business is to attempt to see him. He was a Roman official, and the title which in our translations we render jailor means quite simply the guardian of the shackles. His business was that of taking charge of the prison and the prisoners in such a way as to ensure their appearance before the tribunal. Thus he is seen as eminently concerned about his duty. Moreover, in the discharge of his duty he resorted to the utmost severity in the case of these men. He was not content with putting them into one of the ordinary cells, but cast them into the inner prison, dark and damp, as those inner prisons always were. Even there he attempted to make assurance doubly sure by fastening their feet in the stocks.

All this reveals concerning him more than that he was a man doing his duty. He was evidently a man hardened in nature. He had no concern whatever about their wounds. Having assured, as he thought, their security, he went into his own house, and went to sleep. Moreover, we may say that the account reveals the fact that he slept soundly. He did not hear the singing. He was comfortable, .and asleep, nothing waking him but the earthquake.

The development of the account further reveals that he was a man influenced by the fatalistic courage which marked the age. When he discovered that the prisoners whom he had been charged to keep safely, and others with them, were probably escaped and gone, he was prepared to kill himself. It is a well-known fact that Roman officials answered with their lives for the escape of the prisoners. The law demanded that they should do so. This man realizing it, was mastered by courage of a brutal and fatalistic kind, and was prepared to take his own life, rather than face the authorities. This, then, as he is revealed in the process of the account, is the man. In passing we may note how different the type of personality is from that of Lydia.

We now come to watch the method of the great Physician with him. We once more emphasize that which we have been insisting upon that the Lord was still at work, working now largely through His new mystical Body, the Church, breaking in ever and anon with some direct contact. This was so in the case of Lydia, and in a different form is repeated here. His direct action here, of course, was that of His supernatural intervention through the earthquake. How tremendous this was is revealed in the fact as stated:

"The foundations of the prison-house were shaken . . . the doors were opened, and everyone's bands were loosed."

This surely was a supernatural breaking through. The Lord Himself Who came and opened a woman's heart, now to reach this man and this city, convulsed Nature in a touch of mighty power that produced the earthquake.

When the jailor awoke and found the prison doors thus open, he naturally surmised that the prisoners had gone, and he was terrified, and taking his sword, prepared to take his own life. Then out of the darkness of that inner prison he heard a voice. It was a reassuring voice. It was the Lord speaking through Paul:

"Do thyself no harm; for we are all here."

We can only appreciate what this meant to the jailor as we resolutely attempt to put ourselves into his place. He suddenly discovered that in spite of open doors the prisoners were still there. One was speaking, and one of those in the inner prison, and he declared that they were all there. The man who had been terrified by the upheaval of Nature, and more terrified because he thought his prisoners had escaped, now heard this reassuring voice and message.

Now it is evident that a new terror seized him. Calling for lights he leapt into that inner prison, and there he saw Paul and Silas. He had bound them safely, putting their feet fast in the stocks. Now he looked upon them free, the stocks open and the staples and chains wrenched from the walls. The sight brought from him the exclamation:

"Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"

The title he employed as he addressed them marked his consciousness of their superiority, and these were the very men whom he had treated with such brutality but yesterday.

Many evangelistic sermons have been preached on the question of the jailor, and that quite rightly. It is, nevertheless, important to recognize that it was a cry coming out of his sense of necessity, and referred to what appeared to him as his immediate peril. It was the cry of a horror created by all the circumstances by which he found himself surrounded; and it was a cry addressed to men who, undoubtedly, he felt had something that was different from other men, something strange, and something supernatural. Indeed, we may say that the earthquake might have been a natural thing, but that these men were still in the dungeon, and addressed him in terms of such astonishing comfort, revealed the presence of forces that could only be accounted for as being supernatural. A little while ago he was so much afraid that he would have killed himself. Now, with a new fear born of this consciousness of the supernatural, this cry escaped his lips:

"Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"

We ask, what was in his mind? What was it from which he desired to be saved? I do not think had he been asked, he could have answered that question. He was conscious of danger, and in that consciousness he was coming to a new consciousness of himself which was beyond his understanding.

Paul's answer was immediate, and most remarkable:

"Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house."

I have said it was a remarkable answer to the question, and that is especially seen if we keep ourselves conscious of the mind of the jailor. Whatever that cry may have meant, out of confused sense of terror, the answer of Paul was given on the level of its deepest meaning, even though, perhaps, the jailor himself did not understand that meaning. "What must I do to be saved?" was the cry of agony, and Paul confronted that agony with an answer that went to its very heart, and dealt with the condition in which the man was, even though he himself did not perfectly understand it.

We as Christian .people are so familiar with the answer that we may fail to recognize that to the Philippian jailor it must have been a more amazing thing even than the earthquake. He cried to be saved, delivered from peril, hardly knowing what the peril was, and he had presented to him the one way of complete escape and freedom, "Believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved." I recognize that it may be at times a dangerous thing to build a doctrine on a preposition, and yet every student of the New Testament must recognize oftentimes the profound significance of a preposition. Paul did not say, Believe in the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved; but "believe on." Not en, in; but epi, upon. Belief in, might refer to an intellectual consent. To believe upon, suggests complete surrender. Paul was calling upon this man to yield himself to the Lordship of Jesus, and declaring that as he did so he would be saved. The jailor understood later what

Paul really meant, but for the moment the statement was really an amazing one, that whatever the perils were that threatened, there was deliverance in the surrender of the life to the Lord Jesus. The lines of an old hymn occur:

"Venture on Him, venture wholly,
Let no other trust intrude."

Believing in Jesus never brings salvation to the human soul. It is possible to believe in Him, in His idealism, in His intention, and yet still be in the place of peril. It is when the soul of man steps off and trusts Him wholly that he finds perfect safety.

It is interesting in this connection to observe that Paul did not tell this man to repent, and if we ask the reason why, the answer is to be found in the fact that he was already a repentant soul, that is, his mind was changed. The very question he asked showed this. Paul's own formula later for salvation is expressed in the words, "Repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ." This man, however, had already given evidence of a complete revolution, a change of mind. Last night they were prisoners, and he had bound them, and put their feet in the stocks. Today they were addressed as "Sirs," there, by a man with a changed mind, and a changed attitude; that the apostle was able to say, "Believe." The command was that he should obey the state of mind produced by the terror of his soul, and cast himself out upon the Lord Jesus, and there find deliverance.

That, of course, is not all that Paul said to him. Luke gives us no details of what followed, but he does say that:

"He spake unto him the Word of the Lord."

That evidently means that having called him to complete surrender on the basis of his change of mind, he then interpreted to him what he meant by salvation. There can be no doubt that he told him about Jesus, and how His Lordship was based upon His teaching and His atoning death. Thus Christ, the great Physician was approaching the Philippian jailor with healing.

The result is revealed in the account of what happened immediately. The man is seen as an entirely changed being. This is evidenced by the fact that he brought Paul and Silas into his house, and washed their stripes. Last night we saw him a man so hard, so callous that he had no thought for their wounds and their sufferings. But now he is seen mastered by a great tenderness, so that with his own hands he is attempting to remedy the brutality of the night before, and washing their stripes.

Moreover, we see him making his confession, as the whole effect was so great that all in his house joined with him. He was baptized and all his, immediately into the Triune Godhead Who had been active in this jailors deliverance. Thus they were enrolled among the company of those who, having believed on the Lord Jesus, were saved.

Then Luke adds another touch, full of suggestive beauty, "he set a table before them." This man, unquestionably a Roman, would in all probability be entirely ignorant of the Old Testament, but I cannot read this statement without being reminded of the great singer who speaking of God said, "Thou preparest a table before me." This very thing this man is now seen doing for others. He had become God-like, having washed their stripes; he spread a table before them.

How beautiful is the final scene. He:

"Rejoiced greatly, with ail his house, having believed in God."

Paul had said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus," and he had done it, and that meant he had believed in God, the God of the earthquake, the God of the supernatural actions, and the result of this belief in God was the banishment of all fear and terror, and the coming to him of a great rejoicing.

The sequel is full of interest. We are told that the jailor still kept them, and kept them safe. He produced them in the morning when they had to appear before the tribunal. He was still carrying out his duty, but he was in himself an entirely new man. It is noticeable, necessarily, that being thus free, Paul and Silas remaining with him was voluntary on their part.

Then comes the account of Paul's magnificent independence in the presence of violated justice. He stayed with the jailor so that the jailor was able to produce his prisoners, but as the representative of his Lord, he made his protest against the unjust action of the Roman authorities.

Thus the great Physician is seen on His way into Europe. He opened a woman's heart, and He shook the earth to reach the soul of the jailor. The contrast in types between these two persons is outstanding, a woman, and a brutalized man.

The contrast in method is equally arresting. He opened the heart of the woman mystically, but definitely. He shook the earth to arouse the man. Whether it was Lydia or whether it was the jailor, we have exactly the same result, that of a new creation in Christ Jesus. In the case of Lydia we see humanity healed in answer to the quest after truth, which until Christ came through His messengers, she had not been able to find. In the case of the jailor we see humanity aroused from carelessness and brutality, and changed into a man of compassion and tenderness.

Thus He passed on His way into Europe, the great Physician, meeting the woman, meeting the man, and through the members of His Body, dealing with each in healing and saving.