They Sang

Acts 16:23b-25 The jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. 24 Upon receiving such orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks. 25 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.
 
WHAT would you do if you had been judged guilty without a trial, beaten, flogged, put into a prison’s most inner cell and shackled to stocks? Hopefully you would pray as Paul and Silas did. But would you sing hymns, too? We don’t know the words to their hymns, but we can believe they sang praise and thanksgiving hymns to our Lord. This is the kind of response Paul preached: 1 Thessalonians 5:15 Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else. 16 Be joyful always; 17 pray continually; 18 give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.  
   These are easy words to preach, but very difficult words to live! When we remember that Paul had once had the authority to cause great suffering among Christians, this unfair prosecution could have been extremely difficult for Paul to accept. How was it possible for Paul and Silas to so faithfully respond to their suffering?
   You could say they have had much opportunity to learn. We have read that opposition encountered Paul and Barnabas, then Paul and Silas wherever they went. The evangelists expected opposition. Jesus, too, said to Ananias in Acts 9:16 “I will show him (Paul) how much he must suffer for my name.”  As his new life in Christ began, Paul had spent three years in study and retreat to more personally know the Scriptures’ pointing to the Savior. He would have also come to more personally understand Jesus’ obedience to suffer to redeem his life.
   For about 20 years, Paul had experienced many obstacles. And he had experienced a very personal, deepening relationship with his Suffering Savior. The more diligently Paul and Silas had preached the gospel and the more assuredly he had stood before his persecutors, the more the men could truly be joyful and give thanks in all circumstances. Paul and Silas had lived God’s goodness through all types of conditions.
   Their singing response to pain and suffering is a faithful response to God’s enduring, eternal love. In every aspect of their life, they knew they belonged to God. What did their earthly circumstances matter? Jesus had saved them.