Called to Serve

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ASI Southwest

Eric Walsh

What to do at Midnight? Serving God in Times of Persecution

A message tonight is entitled What to do at midnight?

What to do at midnight let us pray father God we thank you Lord for this opportunity to study your word We thank you Lord that you are the God of the universe Once again, I ask that you make me just a rusty old nail, Lord.

Lord, again, I ask that you hammer that nail into the wall with your Holy Spirit.

And then, Lord, hang a portrait of Jesus Christ upon that nail so that I'm not seen tonight Instead father God let us hear a word from the throne room of grace Is our prayer in Jesus's name?

Amen We'll start tonight in the book of Acts, the 16th chapter, 1 of my favorite stories of Paul and Silas, found in the book of Acts, chapter 16.

Verse 16 says, and it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her master's much gain by soothsaying.

The same followed Paul and us and cried, saying, these men are the servants of the most high God, which show unto us the way of salvation.

But Paul, Paul being grieved, turned and said unto the Spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ, come out of her.

They're preaching the gospel, they're traveling around and doing their work.

A young lady begins to follow them and she cries out constantly over and over again that in fact these are the servants of God and they're bringing us the way to salvation.

The problem is she keeps saying it over and over and over again to the point where it becomes a distraction for those who are actually trying to hear the gospel.

Just because folks say the right thing doesn't mean that it has the right effect.

And the other thing, of course, the Spirit of Prophecy tells us is Paul did not want the endorsement of someone with her track record.

Because it was her job to actually predict the future.

And the spirit she used to do that was not of God.

So Paul was like, I'm not sure I want to be endorsed by someone possessed by a demon.

So finally Paul says, okay, that's enough.

He turns as he is grieved, the scripture says, and in the name of Jesus, he said, listen, the spirit that's in you needs to come on out.

The Bible says the spirit came out the same hour verse 19 and when her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone they caught Paul and Silas and drew them into the marketplace under the rulers.

So here this young girl has what they call a spirit of divination.

So in California, we have, I don't know, maybe it's all over the country, there's a California psychics advertisement.

Does that come on everywhere in the country or just in California and people call in you know They used to they've been doing this since the 80s But they call in and they spend you know how much money it costs and the person on the other line Is supposed to be able to tell you what's gonna happen in your future Now I don't know what would make you think someone on the other line could tell you what's going to happen in your future.

And they call it, and it's actually quite lucrative.

The Spirit of prophecy tells us, and even if you study people who've studied this, that there's a few ways that this happens.

I mean, some of these people just really speak very vaguely.

I was watching 1 show, and the guy was like, there's someone in your life, someone, a Peter, a Paul, a Daniel, there's someone in your life with a name like that.

Of course, there's people in my life with names Everything I got nameless friends.

But in a deeper spiritual context remember Satan I want you to hear this Satan cannot read your mind Did you get that He can't read your mind, but he can read your face.

So what Lucifer does, Satan does is, he will try to predict your future and if you submit your will to someone who does this kind of stuff, you give him power.

And now He can direct you in a way that 2 years later 6 months later 6 weeks later.

You're saying wow That's just what the psychic or the witch said or the order whoever said Because when you give it over Satan has the power to mess with you by knowing what you like and what kind of decisions you make and also being able to mess with your circumstances.

Let me submit to you that 1 of the big dangers in these last days is this rise of spiritualism.

And more and more Americans are getting caught up in the idea that somebody is going to be able to help them find a perfect future by spiritual means.

The fastest growing religion, up until a few years ago, there may still be so, The fastest growing religion in the United States is Wicca and witchcraft.

I was in London preaching summer before last.

And 1 of the pastors said, listen, here in London, for every Christian pastor, there are 30 witches.

They come together and pray that our meetings will not be successful, that our services will not be successful.

So in fact, Speaking back to the prayer ministry that that we were talking about that we were doing in the mornings here It is critical that if you're going to come together and have meetings that you are Absorbed in praying and fasting before you enter the meetings because even though you think in your community This is not happening.

The truth of the matter is it is happening everywhere Paul said listen that demons got to come out the guys get mad.

She was our locals 1-900 psychic He just cast out the spirit we're not gonna make any more money So they grab them and you know Let me tell you something people don't let you get away with a whole lot of stuff don't mess with their food and their money people will come after you and brought them to the magistrates saying verse 20 these men being Jews do exceedingly trouble our city and teach customs which are not lawful for us to receive, neither to observe being Romans.

That verse says that in that time, in the time of the ancient Romans, it was a world of religious intolerance.

It was against the law to speak anything that would contradict the divinity at many times of the Roman Emperor themselves or of any of the pantheon of gods.

And so this was a religious liberty case and teach customs which are not lawful for us to receive, neither to observe being Romans.

Verse 22, and the multitude rose up together against them.

And the magistrates rent off their clothes and commanded to beat them.

And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailer to keep them safely.

Paul and Silas are beaten within an inch of their lives by a mad crowd.

After they are beaten, kicked, spat upon, abused, they're taken and locked away in a prison.

And the warden of the prison has the job of keeping them there and not allowing them to miraculously escape.

Verse 24 says that when this warden gets them, that the warden, who having received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison and made their feet fast in the stocks.

By pushing them in the inner prison, what that means is there was a room inside the prison that had no way to the outside.

It was dark This was the room where there was nowhere for you to relieve yourself If you had to go to the bathroom where were rats and bugs and roaches What would would sit and develop it was the place you put the most hardened most dangerous?

Criminals that you were worried would escape.

Because even if you get out of the inner room, you'd still be inside the prison.

So they took him and threw Paul and Silas in there.

And you can see a picture of what it would have been like.

Their feet would have gone through these holes so that they were stuck on the ground, unable to stand up.

If they had to go to the restroom, they couldn't even get up to relieve themselves.

And so When you look at this, you have to really, the picture, you need to see where they are.

They're in the inner prison, in a room full of filth, excrement, rats, bugs, there's no light.

The stench of whoever was there last week is still in the room That is the condition Paul and Silas Find themselves in they are imprisoned for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Now, I'm going to talk a little bit about some of the things I went through.

I can't do the whole thing tonight, but I do want to talk about what's going on around the world.

Because there's a real debate going on, if you watch even the nightly news on the cable networks, as to whether or not Christians and other religions even, but definitely Christians, are we being targeted for persecution?

We as Adventists talk a lot about that, But the question I want you to ask is, has the world come to a place where there is an intolerance and an attack on Christianity itself?

Well, the first place I want to go to is China.

And what you find if you go to China is that the Prime Minister of China and the Communist Party has already begun to shut down churches who do not join the communist-approved national church.

So the Rongoli Church in Guangzhou, southern China, was stormed by more than 60 police and government officials at around 10 a.m.

It's the third unregistered Protestant church to be closed down by Chinese government in recent months, according to the South China morning post.

A church member said halfway through the children's Bible class we heard the footsteps of dozens of police and officials stomping up the stairs.

The church closure comes after Chinese authorities closed down the prominent 1500-member Zion Church in Beijing and the Chengdu's 500-member early reign covenant church last week.

Right now in China, it is very dangerous to run a church that is not sponsored by and approved by the communist government.

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What to do at Midnight? Serving God in Times of Persecution

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