Carter Conlon from the historic Times Square Church in New York City. As Paul and Silas began to sing, something in the spiritual realm began to happen. The prisoners were listening. The powers of hell that were holding these men captive began to shake and be broken. The scripture says the doors all opened.
Yeah. Welcome to A Call to the Nation and this week's message from Carter Conlon. Today Carter takes us to Acts chapter 16. Here we find Paul and Silas stripped, beaten with rods, and thrown into prison. But instead of turning away from God because of their newly experienced hardships, they instead prayed and sang hymns to God.
And what happened next proved that God puts us not where we'd like to be, but where we need to be. Let's join Carter with his message, Becoming a Prisoner. Yeah. Acts chapter sixteen. I'm going to read two verses, verses 25 and 26.
But at midnight, Paul and Silas were praying. and singing hymns to God. and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly, there was a great earthquake.
so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's... chains were loosed. We know this today to be one of the great miracles in the book of Acts. Where two men in prison, two men accused, two men beaten with rods, two men.
thrust into the inner prison. Two men in a really, really, really dark Dank. Terrible situation. chose to praise God. Even though in the natural, it was probably one of the worst situations that either of them had ever been in.
And it started out at the beginning of the of the chapter, just a little ways down in the chapter. Where Paul is preaching the gospel, and the church is at verse 5, it says, We're being strengthened in the faith, and we're increasing in numbers daily. He's in ministry, the Apostle Paul. And good is happening. People are coming to Christ.
It's a type of maybe your life and mine. But he gets it in his heart. To change locations. And he said, when they'd gone through Phrygia in the region of Galatia, verse 6, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia. In other words, Paul got it in his heart to, well, let's go to Asia.
They need the message there. We've been here for a while, and maybe things will be a little better or more productive. Or who knows what was in his mind, why he actually wanted to go to Asia. We do know it wasn't the will of God. We do know it was a thought that came into Paul's mind.
He was just an ordinary person like you and I. And I don't know the reasons why, but he thought maybe I should leave where I am and go somewhere else and preach the gospel there. But the Holy Spirit forbade him. He was spiritually sensitive. When he went to prayer, the Holy Spirit said, No, Paul, that's your will, it's not mine.
for your life. And after they had come to Mysia, they tried to go to Bithynia, but the Spirit did not permit them.
So this is number two. Paul gets a second idea. And those that are with him, let's go into this other area called Bithynia, but the Spirit did not permit them. In other words, God often puts us not where we'd like to be, but where we need to be. Because it was just after this that a vision appears to Paul in the night.
Verse 9: And a man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with him, saying, Come over to Macedonia and Help us. You know, we're all like King David. In Psalm 55, King David, now he's destined to be a king. He's destined to rule and reign. He's on a journey, just like you and I are.
I shared on Sunday that we're going to rule and reign with Christ, folks, all of us here. who have trusted in him for our salvation, that is your future. That is your heritage. You're going to live forever in a place where there's no more sorrow, no more tears, no more sighing, no more sickness. No more loud music.
Well, maybe there'll be praising next door, but no more ungodly music playing in the apartment next door to you. No more lying neighbors. No more backstabbers. None of them are going to be there. David found himself on this journey to ruling and reigning.
As a king, in a place that he didn't want to be. And quite often, that's the way our lives are going to turn out. We end up in places that we'd rather not be. In Psalm 55, At the end of verse 5, he says, Fearfulness and trembling have come upon me. And horror has overwhelmed me.
This is David on his journey.
So I said, Oh, that I had wings like a dove, I'd fly away and be at rest. Have you ever thought that? Have you ever prayed that? Oh, God. Yeah, get me out of here.
I wish I had wings like a bird. I'd fly. And if I could get myself to another place, would I ever be at rest? Have you ever thought that? Oh, if I just had that job.
If I just had that relationship, if I could live in this city, if I could be this kind of a person, I would fly away and be at rest. Indeed, David says, I would wander off and remain in the wilderness. I would hasten my escape from the windy Storm and tempest. You see, the error of many people is that they believe that the presence of God means the absence of trouble. That is not true.
And anybody who preaches that is preaching another gospel. They're not preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. Christ himself told us that in this world you shall have tribulation. You will encounter trouble. There will be difficult moments.
As the Apostle Paul said, we were pressed beyond measure in Asia. We despaired of life. We had the sentence of death in ourselves. We were brought to the place where we had to trust in Christ who raises the dead because there was nothing left of ourselves that could have given us the strength to survive in this place. I'll tell you, my brother, my sister, yes, there's difficulty in the Christian life.
Yes, you're going to face storms. Yes, you're going to face trials. Floods are going to come your way of ungodly things, but God has interwoven the honor of his very name in keeping you. Jesus said, You are sealed in the hand of my Father, and nobody can take you out of my Father's hand. Paul said, I am persuaded, I am convinced that there's nothing of heaven, nothing of the earth, nothing of darkness, no principality, no power, no mountain, no valley, nothing in this world that is existing, nothing that is to come that can separate me from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus my Lord.
Elsewhere, Paul said, I am persuaded that everything I've given to him, he's able to keep until that day. that he deposits me literally at the throne of God. I am in the hand of God. I am in the will of God. I am going to glorify Him when I understand it, and I am going to glorify Him when I don't.
I'm going to glorify him when it gives me pleasure. I'm going to glorify him when it gives me pain. My song is not going to be dependent on my circumstance. And I'm not going to look for a quick escape. I'm going to look for God in the midst of my situation.
I'm going to look for the victory He promises to give me and the song that He's given me to sing. You see, you and I are not called to live for ourselves. And I'll say it again: those who preach the gospel that the cross of Jesus Christ is all about something of self are preaching another Christ and another gospel. That is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are called to live our lives for the benefit of others.
For the sake of other people around us, it's not just for us. Yes, God will bless us. Yes, God will. Will help us. Yes, God will deliver us and God will set us free, but there's a divine purpose and a reason to all of this.
I'm not called just to quester myself away and let the rest of the world just go on its merry way into eternity without God. I'm called of God to be where God wants me to be. For the sake of other people. I want to ask you a question right now. If you weren't as a testimony of God where you are today, who would be there to testify of Christ?
If you weren't there, God put you in that kitchen. God put you with those other dishwashers that are washing dishes. God gave you that broom. God put you in that classroom. God put you in that industry.
God put you there. For a divine reason. There has to be a testimony of the goodness of God everywhere in this society. We are salt. We are light.
We're not meant to be hidden in a bushel under a bed. We're not meant to be covered. We're supposed to be in a visible place where the life of Christ and the glory of God can be seen. through you and through me to people who live in darkness. all around us.
It's in this context that we find Paul and Silas. This is, in the natural, this is a really bad day. They've obeyed God. They've gone to Macedonia. They've encountered a woman at the riverside called Lydia.
She's opened her heart and her home. They've gone in and established a fellowship in her home. There's a young slave girl that's been set free from demonic power. Things are beginning to happen, but then they're brought before magistrates, they're beaten, they're accused, their clothes are ripped off, they're beaten with rods. The scripture says they laid many stripes and whip marks on their backs, 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 stocks. It just doesn't get any worse. I don't know if there's anybody here who can say my life is worse than this. You're here, you're not in prison right now, that's for sure. Your back is not beaten raw, your feet are not in stocks, you're not in a prison in those days.
There's no television there, there was no internet there. There was no cafeteria there. It was dark, it was dank, there's no light, it was wet, it was the most horrid place on the face of the earth. In the inner prison is where you put the worst of the worst. Criminals.
So Paul and Charles They had A choice that they had to make. Do we sing the blues? Do we lament? Do we lay down on the cold stone and goes, oh nobody knows the troubles we've seen. Nobody knows our sorrow.
No, that's the song everybody else was singing in the prison. David the Psalmist said, I waited patiently for the Lord. He inclined to me and heard my cry. He brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet on a rock and established my steps.
Now, it doesn't mean, because we already read the words of David, it doesn't mean his circumstance was ideal at times, but his feet were on a solid place. And he knew his steps were established by knowing that I am in the will of God. I am placed in this world for a divine reason. It's Christ in me that will be seen. And God, I believe, as Paul could say, that all things work together for good to those who love God and are the called according to his purpose.
Paul could honestly say, Silas, I don't necessarily understand the reason we're here. I saw a vision. And in that vision, there was a man. It was a man. Who appeared to me and said, Come and help us.
Now, so far, all we've been preaching to is women. Lydia at the shore, the slave girl set free. I don't know who this man was, but it was a man. There was somebody somewhere representing some people that said, come and help us.
Now, they could have said, well, Silas could have turned and said, well, do you think we failed? Do you think we missed something? Did we really hear from God? Paul could have said, I don't know, but I do know that all things do work together. I do know that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.
I do know that God has set the path for our feet. And I choose to believe that we are exactly where we're supposed to be. Why don't we just praise him right now? Why don't we just lift our Voices. to God.
I don't know what they were singing. But whatever they were singing The prisoners Had never heard a song like this before, not in this place. That's the point I'm trying to make When you choose to praise God and you're in the same neighborhood, you're in the same building. You're on the same job. You're living in the same city on the same block among the same kids that are on the same corners, but your song is different than everyone else around you.
You choose to lift your voice. You choose to praise God. And as Paul and Silas began to sing and they began to praise God, As David said, he put a new song in my mouth, praise to our God, and many will see it and fear. and trust in the Lord. And as Paul and Silas began to sing, Something in the spiritual realm began to happen.
The prisoners were listening. I'm telling you folks, the prisoners are listening to you. The prisoners of sin in your family are listening to you. The prisoners in your apartment building are listening to your song. They're listening to your conversation at the elevator.
The prisoners on your job are listening to you. They're listening to what you say in the lunchroom. They're listening to how you sing when you're sorting the mail, or whatever it is you're doing. They're watching everything you're doing because you have a song that they never heard before that's in your life, and as they began to sing. The powers of hell that were holding these men captive began to shake and be broken.
The scripture says the doors all opened. Didn't Jesus say, the Spirit of God is upon me to set the captives free? When we begin to glorify God in the midst of our own trials, something happens in the spirit. Doors begin to open. And the scripture says everyone's chains were loosed.
the things that bound them, the things that put them in jail in the first place. The inabilities that they had to change the way they thought and the way they lived suddenly lost their hold because two men. in the same situation they were in, chose to praise God. chose to sing a song of victory. Oh, it matters.
It matters what you say. It matters what you sing. It matters. Hallelujah. One day I was I came into New York.
I came in on the train and it was a nasty day. Like, you know, one of those nasty days in New York? You know, it happens once a month, maybe a nasty day in New York. It just everybody is cursing on their cell phone at somebody. People on the street are coming towards you and you know they're not going to move.
If you don't step to the side, they're just going to walk right into you and then accuse you of doing something to them. And so I was walking from the station, Penn Station, to the church here. And I suddenly hit me, I said, God. I'm in this world, but I'm not of it. I'm not Thank you, Lord.
God, have mercy on these people, but thank you, Lord, that I'm not. I'm not Part of the spirit of the city is the spirit of the city is not in me, and I began to sing, and I began to sing out loud. And you can do that in New York. You can just sing out loud.
Now, in a small Midwestern town, they'd probably lock you up. but in New York City, you can be totally nuts and you could get along just really fine.
So I just started to sing. And I was singing out loud. By the time I got here, I had a whole song written. I remember I got one of our musicians here, and I said, just let's record this quickly before I forget it. And it went something like this: I walk.
in the presence of God. Where the saints all before me have trod. Day to day by victory greeted. Here I'll never be defeated as I walk. In the presence of God.
Now it goes it gets better. Here's the chorus. In the presence of God, in the presence of God, I walk in the presence of God where I share the joys of heaven. As I give my Jesus reverence and I walk in the presence of God, where I share the joys of heaven. As I give my Jesus reverence and I walk in the presence of God.
I don't know who heard my song, but somebody did. I was singing loud. I was singing loud going down the street in the presence of God. I could just imagine people walking by saying, well, that's different for New York City. That's unusual.
Paul The jailer, the scripture says, came in. Because everybody's doors had opened and he assumed that they had escaped because That would be his worldview. That's the world he lived in. If the prison doors opened, these guys in that inner prison were just. living to get free.
A lot of them would be sitting perhaps even under a sentence of death or hardship. Anyway Took a sword and was going to take his life because it would cost you your life as a prison keeper at that time to lose those that were put under your care. But Paul called with a loud voice saying, don't harm yourself for we are All here. You know, to this man, this was a miracle.
Now, why would these Why would these criminals stay? in their prison cells. It didn't even make sense. To the natural mind.
So he came, he called for a light, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. And he said, what must I do to be saved? You see, all this starts happening because they chose to sing. In their situation, they chose to praise God. They chose to trust God.
So Paul 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 he washed their stripes, that means their backs, their wounds, and immediately all he and his family were baptized. He set food before them in his house and rejoiced having believed in God with all his household.
So in order to be a jailer back in those days, you had to be mean. You had to be meaner than everybody else. And I'm sure there was not much compassion in this man's life, and his family were used to that. You can't turn it off. In a job like that, and come home and suddenly be Mr.
Nice Guy and Mr. Kind, he probably was very much the same with his family. And when his wife and his children saw the tenderness suddenly in this man, and he's washing the backs of these prisoners and he's giving them food and he's rejoicing, it was easy for them to come to Christ. They saw a miracle happen in their father. And their fathers saw a miracle happen because the prisoners didn't leave their cells.
And the prisoners' doors opened because two men chose to sing. in the midst of their pain and in the midst of their difficulty.
Now the interesting thing is, the next day Paul and Silas are back in the prison. And they went there voluntarily. They went there for the prison keeper's sake. You see, because if they were gone, It could have cost him his position or even his life. You see, we're not called to live for the benefit of ourselves.
And Paul and Silas knew this, so they voluntarily go back into the prison, and they're there the next morning.
Now, the scripture tells us that the prisoners didn't leave. I was always curious about that. Why didn't they leave?
Well, some people just like being imprisoned, I guess. You know, I've encountered that before as a police officer and as a pastor, that there's certain people that they can't function. In mainstream society, no matter how hard they try, they're more comfortable in prison than they are being free. That's always a possibility. In some cases, the arguments in their minds against their freedom were stronger.
than the opportunity to be free. You'll even find that in the church sometimes. People are bound, and we're telling them as pastors that you can be free, but they're so used to being bound, and the arguments against their freedom are so strong that they find it hard. to come out of their place of imprisonment. But most likely, and this is what I believe in my heart, The presence of God.
Became so precious to them that they were unwilling to forego it even for their greatest desires. Here's what happened. They once thought that freedom would be when they got out of the prison cell. But through the praise of these two men, the freedom of God came into where they were. and they were not willing to forego it.
Freedom is where God is. Fulfillment is where God is. Life is where God is. You know, I don't think Pastor Tim, any of these men had ever experienced the presence of God. And when the presence of God came into their cell, I can just see that presence being so thick and so rich.
And the doors are open, but they're saying, I don't want to leave here. I've never experienced anything like this before. And having studied this chapter of scripture, I truly believe. that the man who appeared in the vision was the jailer. And the us that he said, come to Macedonia and help us were the prisoners.
Your attitude makes a difference. Your faith, your joy, and your victory. In your circumstance, Will influence those around you and teach them that they too can find the victory of Christ right where they are. Most everybody who lives around you in your circumstance is thinking the same way. that others think if i could just get out of here how happy i would be If I could get out of this neighborhood, out of this family, out of this life, out of this job, that's most people, not all, but most.
Live that way, think that way, feel that way. But when you choose to praise God, living in the same circumstance that they do, it brings something of God into their situation. And suddenly they begin to realize, victory is right here where I am. I don't have to leave here. I don't have to be somewhere else.
I don't need another job. I can have that song too that I heard. I heard a song that has changed my life. I heard a song that has opened my prison door. I heard a song that has taken the shackles off of my hands.
I heard a song that can bring me hope right in the midst of my place where I live, my struggle, my trial, my family, whatever it is that I find myself in. Oh, hallelujah. God, help us to find that song in this generation. We need to start singing that song of victory. Find that song now.
Sing it on the way home. Don't just sing it in church. Singing when you get home, singing when you go to bed, singing when you get up in the morning. Sing it in the hallway. Sing it when you're waiting for the elevator.
Sing it when you're walking down the street. Sing it in the workplace. And you watch, prison doors open, shackles start falling. And suddenly, people find that through your song, God has come to where they are. Oh, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah.
Thank you for joining us this week for A Call to the Nation with Carter Conlon from Times Square Church in New York City. For more information, log on to tsc.nyc. That's tsc.nyc. You can count on a powerful message each week on a call to the nation with Carter Conlon.
