At Midnight

Acts 16:^23-24 “They were severely beaten, and then they were thrown into prison. The jailer was ordered to make sure they didn’t escape. So, the jailer put them into the inner dungeon and clamped their feet in the stocks.”

Apart from the pain of accusation, Paul and Silas also felt the pain of arrest. The pain of arrest is being confined by a stronger force. You can only be arrested by someone or something that is stronger than you. So, it is being confined by a stronger force and put in a position where you do not have the freedom to do what you want to do. People that feel the pain of arrest say things like, ‘If I had my way, I would have done ABC’. Guess what? As a child of the Most High God, you will have your way. We may not be under arrest but sometimes we feel confined. I have had single ladies say to me, ‘Pastor, jokes apart, if I were a man, I would be married by now.’ ‘What do you mean’, I ask. ‘I will just pick one girl and marry her’. ‘Is that how it is done?’ If you pick just any girl and marry her, you will eventually have to run from that girl. Do you know that there are some very crazy girls? They go to church, but they are crazy. You cannot just pick any girl.

Back to Paul and Silas, they felt the pain of accusation and they felt the pain of arrest. For everyone reading this today, God wants to turn your place of pain into a point of praise. In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth that will be your story. God wants to turn that place of pain into a point of praise, He wants to turn it around so that what will come out of your mouth will be praise songs, singing and dancing. Acts 16:²⁵ “Around midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening.” Note that at midnight Paul and Silas were not crying, they were not complaining, they were not murmuring, they were not perplexed. What are you doing at your own midnight hour, what are you doing? Paul and Silas were not sitting on the floor with their hands on their heads saying, ‘We are finished!’

At midnight, Paul and Silas were singing hymns to God. I could not help but wonder what the prisoners were thinking when they heard Paul and Silas singing hymns to God in their situation. They probably thought, ‘Did these men not say they were men of God? Did they not say that they are serving a big God? Now look at them, they have been rubbished and are on the filthy floor in the dungeon with us that were criminals.’ There was probably faeces on the floor going by the reputation of the dungeons at the time. The inmates were most often the worst of the worst murders, hardened criminals. And Paul and Silas say they are in the dungeon because they are serving God. What will they be thinking? How were Paul and Silas feeling? Guess what? Paul and Silas were feeling grateful because they were singing hymns to God. The bible did not tell us the exact songs they were singing but I always try to immerse myself into these sorts of situations. I know that they were not singing, Que sera-sera, whatever will be will be. Neither were they singing, nobody knows the troubles I’ve seen, nobody knows my sorrows.

Prayer [song]: I will sing to The One who’s got my back. I will sing to The One who reigns on high. I will sing to The Everlasting King, He never fails, He never lies, He’s always there… Amen!