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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Eric Walsh

The Power Of Praise

We're gonna start in the book of Acts the 16th chapter kind of starting where we left off actually last week.

Scripture says in Acts 16 19, And when her master saw that the hope of their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas and drew them into the marketplace and unto the rulers, and brought them to the magistrates saying, 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.

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.

Our message this morning is entitled, The Power of Praise.

Father God, we thank you Lord for this opportunity to open your word.

I ask now that Lord you speak through me, make me transparent, Lord make me invisible.

Father God, let that which is heard and seen and felt here today be the movement of the Holy Spirit and the presence of our Lord is our prayer in Jesus's name, amen.

They had gotten rid of a spirit that divined as we spoke about last week and in this divination the spirit was able to make great money for the men of a certain town.

This was a town under Roman control and so this was allowable and the men were angry as we just read.

They were so angry that they've decided to turn against Paul and Silas and and to cause the leadership, the government, to grab them and take them captive.

Paul and Silas were taken, the scripture says, and and and and their clothes was ripped off of them publicly and they were beaten the scripture says with many stripes.

This beating and and public humiliation was really just the beginning.

They said that these men teach things that are not lawful for us as Romans.

You see, under the Roman rule, the Emperor was given the title of divinity.

He was supposed to function as God on earth.

So when you opened your mouth and spoke that there was another man who was divine, you went against Roman law.

That's why so many times in the New Testament there's such an upheaval over the preaching of the gospel because in effect the gospel was the antithesis to what Romans believed and taught in their pagan system.

Paul and Silas of course were taken, they're beaten, many stripes put on them, and they're taken to prison and the scripture says they charged the jailer who we would call today the warden.

They were put in jail and he was charged with keeping them safely.

They were afraid that in jail maybe the other prisoners would damage them.

They were afraid that in jail maybe someone would come in and try to cause them to escape.

The jailer was given such a charge because in Roman law if the prisoners escaped or died before they had a chance to be tried under Roman law, the jailer received their sentence.

So when he was given charge over these 2 in the way the scripture describes, literally his own life was given as a bond or a bail on those prisoners.

If something happened to them, he would have to pay the price that they were supposed to pay.

So he took them and the way that they would chain them is that they would chain them and turn them upside down, chain their feet to the walls so that their feet are hanging on the walls and their bodies laid on the ground.

And if you can imagine after they had been beaten so many times across the back, laying now in a filthy dirty prison with what you know as many of you in the medical and nursing professions would know, all of the bacteria and filth and the foul smell of an ancient prison and your back is open, the wounds are still bleeding and burning and stinging and now you're laying on your back on the filthy ground upside down.

I'm sure there were many prisoners in there like the thief on the cross who called out to Jesus, you're supposed to be the Son of God, let us free.

I'm sure there were prisoners who talked to Paul and Silas and said what's wrong with you 2 how could you serve a God that would allow you to wind up in this predicament?

How could you serve a God who would let you get this messed up in here?

Paul and Silas show us something powerful about how our Christian experience is supposed to function.

If you keep reading, the Bible makes it clear.

It says that when they had laid many stripes upon them and cast them into the 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.

But the Bible says when midnight comes, at what might be considered the darkest hour at midnight, the Bible says Paul and Silas don't turn to each other and begin to complain that God has led them into a bad situation.

Paul and Silas don't look at each other and begin to murmur about the condition of the Christian leadership that no 1 in the town came to bail them out or speak on their behalf.

They don't even begin to complain about the condition of the Roman government and how corrupt and foul it is.

In their weakest moment, at the darkest time, Paul and Silas begin instead of complaining or getting angry with God, Paul and Silas begin to pray and to praise.

You see there's power in prayer, but there's also power in praise.

So the scripture, look at what the scripture says, The scripture says, and at midnight Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God.

And look at what the Bible makes sure that you understand, and the prisoners heard them.

Some of these prisoners were probably murderers, thieves, they probably deserved to be where they were.

Yet they heard these 2 men who they knew did not deserve to be in prison praising God even though they were falsely accused.

Those other prisoners must have been thinking what kind of God do they serve?

You see, God allows us to go through some things because how we handle our difficulties function as evidence, it functions as a witness to those around us who may not know God.

You see all of us on earth are in a form of prison as it were.

We live on a sin sick planet that is destined for destruction.

We live in a world that even the richest and most privileged people have to suffer disease and live through the death of relatives and their own death.

We all in effect are prisoners on this planet and Satan being the being kind of in control at least for the moment it would seem, likes to make sure we know that God has left us here sometimes and your situation could be better if God did something different.

But I'm here to tell you that you serve a God that when you open your mouth and pray and praise, God listens and moves.

Ah you see sometimes you have trouble on your job because how you respond to how they treat you on your job is going to be some of the most profound testimony of what Christ is doing in your life for someone who may not know him.

Sometimes even in your marriage, in your home, there will be difficulties.

How you respond to your own family members, maybe your own spouse, might be the testimonial needed to convert that person, the Holy Spirit working on them.

And when they see how you live differently than they live, maybe that is what is needed.

I watched my grandmother who was raised Adventist.

I watched her for many years deal with a very difficult husband.

You know, my grandmother's mother was actually converted from the Anglican Church in Jamaica to being Seventh-day Adventist, and so she took these Adventist truths very very seriously.

How she married my grandfather I guess I still haven't figured out.

I'll ask you when I see her over Thanksgiving but this guy would come to pick us up he had this long blue Cadillac and he'd be smoking his pipe and he knew Adventist didn't smoke so he made sure to light up his pipe right before he got to the churchyard.

And he would be playing music from the 80s.

He'd be jamming Billie Jean, Michael Jackson, pull up to the church house jamming, and his hat tip to the side, just chilling.

My grandfather, And he would drink like a sailor when he got a chance, and curse even worse than a sailor when he wanted to.

And he knew my grandmother kept the Sabbath.

And there were times he would come home late in a drunken fit and have her cook a whole meal knowing she had to get up in the morning and go to church and be a deaconess.

She probably could have justified divorce a thousand times, but she stayed there And she was faithful and she preached and she shared the word and she raised the children in God's love and in his fear.

And my grandfather eventually fell ill in his older years and had a stroke and a heart attack within a short period of time.

And the prayers of my grandmother and of the family are what sustained him and he lived.

And I can tell you that after he became ill and he looked at what he had done in terms of kind of tormenting her all his life, when the next time she was going to church and he was able to go, he went during a week of prayer and he was baptized into the Seventh-day Adventist Church and lived the last 7 years of his life a more strict Adventist than most of us.

I'm telling you that even when you're in a predicament that is that is chronic and grinding and and difficult if if you stay where God wants you to stay and if instead of complaining you learn to pray and praise God you will be amazed at who and what and where God will show up and and those who are chained to sin how he will lose them from the bondage.

Oh too many of us are quick, the job is difficult and and you know you you can't get along with your boss so so you're telling your boss where to go and how to get there fast.

But when we're Christians we don't respond like everyone else.

When you're Christians even when you're not being treated fairly you don't just you don't you don't shout out.

Not that you don't stand up for yourself, not that you don't allow justice to work, but you're not quick to talk bad to people because you represent the 1 who went to the cross.

And the scripture says, he uttered not a mumbling word like a sheep before her shears is silent.

Some of you are in classrooms on this campus where it's it's not easy, but don't complain about the teacher, praise God.

Let everyone in the room know that you serve a living God who will get you through that class.

Let them know that you serve the kind of God who even when your brain cells can't perfectly digest the information, you serve the God who invented the information in the first place.

And so you don't panic over tests, you just pray and praise when test time comes and of course you study.

You know you're asking God for miracles, you got to work with him you know.

He said remove the stone in front of Lazarus's tomb.

God begins to work and instead of complaining they praise God and and and the Bible says in verse 26 and suddenly there was a great earthquake.

You see you serve the kind of God that when you pray and when you praise you see that's 1 of the reasons I believe that there's such a controversy in the church over music.

Because the scripture, the last 2 Psalms and many other Psalms this text here I believe as well Shows us that God unites with our praise to him our musical praise to him Bible says that God inhabits the praise of his people The truth of the matter is the devil is working to to cause the contention and and the infighting over music because if music is made a point of contention it's hard to be contentious and productive at the same time.

And so the enemy works to try and mess it up and and confuse us and and tries to bring in the secular music of the world into the church.

Because if God's music is sung the way it is supposed to be sung every time a hymn or a spiritual or an anthem is lifted every time it happens the angels of God can unite with us as we praise him.

And I'm telling you what I'm learning in church is that it is about us being balanced in Christ Jesus.

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The Power Of Praise

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