April 15, 2009 - Acts 16

When do you sing?  It is tax day, are you singing?  Do you sing at midnight?  Do you sing when things are going well or are you more likely to sing when things are going poorly?  In Acts 16, we see Paul and Silas at the end of a very long and trying day.  Paul had become so ‘troubled’ that he cast a spirit of divination out of a girl.  That action caused an uproar that led to Paul and Silas’ arrest, beating, and imprisonment.  But when we find them at midnight in the prison, do you know what they are doing?  That’s right, they are ‘praying and singing hymns to God’.  We all probably know the rest of the story, there’s an earthquake, no prisoners leave, the jailer is so impressed that he asks Paul and Silas what he must do to be saved, and immediately he and all his family were baptized.  It’s a great story, but my question is this, would we have missed the rest of the story were we in Paul and Silas’ place because we failed to pray and sing at midnight?