Acts 16 part 3
The Meaning of Life
16 As we were going to prayer, a certain girl having a spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much gain by fortune telling. 17 Following Paul and us, she cried out, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us a way of salvation!” 18 She was doing this for many days.
But Paul, becoming greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her!” It came out that very hour. 19 But when her masters saw that the hope of their gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas, and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers. 20 When they had brought them to the magistrates, they said, “These men, being Jews, are agitating our city 21 and advocate customs which it is not lawful for us to accept or to observe, being Romans.”
22 The multitude rose up together against them and the magistrates tore their clothes from them, then commanded them to be beaten with rods. 23 When they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, charging the jailer to keep them safely, 24 who, having received such a command, threw them into the inner prison, and secured their feet in the stocks.
25 But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. 26 Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s bonds were loosened. 27 The jailer, being roused out of sleep and seeing the prison doors open, drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. 28 But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, “Don’t harm yourself, for we are all here!”
29 He called for lights, sprang in, fell down trembling before Paul and Silas, 30 brought them out, and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
31 They said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” 32 They spoke the word of the Lord to him, and to all who were in his house.
33 He took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes, and was immediately baptized, he and all his household. 34 He brought them up into his house, and set food before them, and rejoiced greatly, with all his household, having believed in God.
People have all kinds of ideas about the meaning of life. What is my purpose?
Those who believe that this life is all there is, think that the meaning of life is to grab all the gusto you can while you are able. “Eat, sleep, and be merry, for tomorrow you die.”
Some who espouse a “scientific” viewpoint might say that there is no meaning to life. I read an article in Psychology Today that said this;
The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that the entropy of a closed system such as the universe increases up to the point at which equilibrium is reached, and God’s purpose (spoken facetiously I believe) in creating us, and, indeed, all of nature, might have been no more lofty or uplifting than to catalyse this process in the same manner that soil organisms catalyse the decomposition of organic matter.
Did you get that? What he’s saying is that we are nothing more than worms turning dirt into fertilizer.
Others believe that somehow, after death, either as a ghost, or in heaven, or by reincarnation, they will live on. So, they consider that their actions now will impact the next life, either by judgment, or karma. So they live their lives trying to do good things that will impact eternity. Now these systems of thought come in a number of packages; Belief in God, the devil, enlightenment, or whatever.
So they all have different ideas about the purpose of life. And many have come to the conclusion that there is no one answer to the question “What is the meaning of life?” They believe we can only answer the question, “What is the meaning of my life?” And they have to come up with that on their own. So some invest their lives into a religion, or happiness, or the acquisition of wealth, or politics, or health, or some cause.
If, for example, the meaning of life is just to be happy, good, rich, or powerful, then you spend your life in pursuit of that happiness, goodness, wealth, or power. You seek that which you believe will make you happy.
But what happens when a person invests their whole being into something, and then they lose it? It can lead to despair, anger, suicide, or sometimes, it leads to a desperate search for the truth.
I was tossing in my bed one night before this sermon thinking about the Christian hymn, “On Christ the Solid Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.”
The song pictures Jesus as a monumental Rock on the side of a cliff. And then, we imagine a landslide. The entire side of the mountain gives way. But one part remains intact. The Rock does not move. That’s the picture of building your life on the purpose of knowing Christ, as opposed to all else in the world.
I’ve grown up believing that the only true purpose for living is in Jesus Christ. So when I sang that song, I emphasized the first phrase, “On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand.”
But this week, I really started thinking about that second phrase, “All other ground is sinking sand.” What the song says is that any other purpose, any other thing that we stand on, will eventually fail, it will slide away. Whether it is family, or government, or riches, or health. All other ground is sinking sand.
That is our story today. It is about people who are building their lives on sinking sand. And I’m going to break it down into “life purposes,” because there are a number of them illustrated in this story. Life Purposes, they are 1. Piety Religion 2. Prosperity Wealth 3. Power 4. Inner Peace
I. Piety Religion
People build their lives, set as their life’s purpose, religion, spirituality, some system of thought about things that are bigger than me, that are beyond this physical world. And a great illustration of that is in this girl in Acts 16.
16 As we were going to prayer, a certain girl having a spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much gain by fortune telling. 17 Following Paul and us, she cried out, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us a way of salvation!” 18 She was doing this for many days.
But Paul, becoming greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her!” It came out that very hour.
So, we left off with this story last time, and it connects us to the continuing story of Paul, Silas, Timothy, and Luke, and their missionary effort in the city of Philippi in Macedonia. You remember that they had traveled over a thousand miles, following the leading of the Spirit, and He had directed them to cross the Aegean Sea and come into Greece. And when they arrived, they went on the Sabbath day down to the riverside where certain women met at a Jewish place of prayer. At least one of those women was a Gentile, a God-fearer. A woman named Lydia, who heard them teach about Jesus, came to believe, took the gospel home to her household, and they all believed and were baptized.
But we learned last week that on their way to this place of prayer, they had been met by another woman. She is not named, but we’re told that from the first encounter with her, she began following them around, crying out, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us a way of salvation!”
Well, that actually doesn’t sound bad does it? She was telling the truth about them. They were servants of the Most High God, and they were proclaiming the way of salvation. So why was Paul annoyed?
Because this woman wasn’t saying these things of her own accord. It tells us that she had a spirit of divination. A Python Spirit. As I mentioned last time, she would have been one of the many priestesses who were part of the worship of the false god Apollo, who was supposedly giving her the supernatural ability to tell fortunes, tell the future, consult the dead, etc. She was wrapped up in an occultic religion that consulted demonic spirits.
And despite the fact that she spoke the truth, Paul couldn’t allow her to be in any way associated with their message. Because that could lead to her having credibility among the new Christian converts in Philippi.
It says finally, Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her.
Now, we read that, and it sounds very much like many of the other times in the gospels where Jesus cast out a demon. But this is different. This one is different. This woman wasn’t like, for example, the Gaderene demoniac, who Jesus met outside of Galilee. Remember, the Gaderene demoniac, was essentially a wild man, running around crazed, living in the tombs, terrorizing the community. They had tried to chain him up, and he broke the chains. He cut himself, he could be heard screaming at night. He was possessed by a multitude of demons.
Needless to say, that man was outside of polite society. He didn’t represent anything but a threat to the town.
But this woman was a representative of Philippi’s religious system. She was a part of the worship of Apollo. Let me read for you a paragraph I pulled up about Apollo.
“Apollo is the Olympian god of the sun and light, music and poetry, healing and plagues, prophecy and knowledge, order and beauty, archery and agriculture. An embodiment of the Hellenic ideal of kalokagathia, he is harmony, reason and moderation personified, a perfect blend of physical superiority and moral virtue.”
His father was Zeus, the chief god of the Greek pantheon of Gods.
Doesn’t that sound nice and reasonable, and sophisticated? You see many people, if they believe in demons, think that those who are possessed by them are raving lunatics, walking down the streets attacking people, drooling, and talking to themselves. But that’s not the picture the Bible paints of demon possession. Some who are possessed are very calm, cool, and collected. And this woman carried herself that way.
And people would go to her to consult with the god Apollo, to get supernatural answers to their questions, to get spiritual help with their decisions.
She wasn’t running up and down the streets terrorizing people. She was to be revered, honored, even as they would honor the god Apollo himself.
She represented their worldview. She represented their understanding of the meaning of life; to please the gods, and assure yourself a place in a pleasant afterlife.
And do you know what Paul did by casting a demon out of her? He demonstrated that their system, their answer to meaning was wrong. And worse, he demonstrated that it was demonic. He demonstrated that Jesus Christ is more powerful than the spirit that indwelt her, whether they believed it was a demon, or if they believed it was the god Apollo.
Paul rocked their world through the power of Jesus Christ.
In effect what he was saying was, “On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand, all other ground, is sinking sand.”
Because the meaning of life is not a religious thing. People get caught up in this religion or that one. And really, when someone makes a religion the purpose of their life, they are usually saying one of two things, or both. One is, that their religion will assure them life after this life, and/or that their religion brings “goodness” to the world.
I am making the world a better place, by my religion, and I am paving the way to my reward.
But both of those things, as the meaning of life, are inadequate. Do you know what the meaning of life is? Jesus Christ is the meaning of life.
Do you know what Paul would write to the Philippian church later?
Philippians 3: 7 But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. 8 Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, (all my religion is rubbish) that I may gain Christ
Paul was talking about his former religious life. His prior Jewish moral code. He is saying that all of it was worthless. That he had to set it all aside to gain Christ, the one true purpose for living.
The meaning of life cannot be found in religion, good deeds, but only in Christ. Everything else fails.
Well, where else do people look for meaning?
II. Prosperity Wealth
So Paul cast the demon out of this woman, and now her supernatural ability is gone.
19 But when her masters saw that the hope of their gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas
Let me stop here for a moment and share with you a couple of thoughts I had. First, isn’t it sad what becomes of this woman? It’s wonderful that the demon is cast out. But you want the story to end like the story of the Gaderene demoniac. Remember that after Jesus cast out the demons from that man, he was found sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. He became a follower of Jesus. It says that he wanted to go with Jesus and His disciples when they left the area, but Jesus told him to stay and bear witness in the community to what God had done for him. That’s a great story. But what’s the end to this woman’s story. She was a slave. And when those who owned her saw that she no longer could channel demonic spirits, and tell fortunes…they seized Paul and Silas.
She’s no longer in the story. She disappears from the pages of Scripture. She is cast aside.
Now I said last week that probably that means that she did not become a believer. We don’t know for sure. Maybe she did. Paul and Silas were immediately grabbed by her masters, so they can’t sit down with her and share the gospel. But Timothy and Luke were not arrested. Maybe Lydia herself came along and helped scoop this enslaved girl up off the street, and shared the gospel of Jesus Christ with her. And maybe she was converted, but had to get out of town because of what she had been, and so disappears from the Biblical record. We don’t know. One day we’ll know, we may see her in glory.
But once her ability to make money was gone, her masters were done with her.
And this is a great illustration of where some find meaning in life. There are some whose entire purpose for life is to acquire more wealth. They are obsessed with it. You might say, well that’s not me, I’m poor. But, you can be obsessed with money, as a rich man or a poor man. There are some very poor people who got that way by trying to “get rich quick.” It can be gambling, or some wealth scheme. And there are filthy rich people who can not get enough.
1 Timothy 6:9 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition
That was who this woman’s masters were.
19 But when her masters saw that the hope of their gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas, and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers.
So, they grab Paul and Silas. It literally says that they dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers. They react to their loss of wealth with violence. They never cared for the life of this woman.
Again, I can’t help but think about the Gaderene demoniac. After Jesus cast the demon out of him, it says the whole community heard what happened and came out to see Jesus. But after they saw Him. They asked Him to leave town. Why? Because Jesus had cast the demons into a nearby herd of pigs, and the pigs, driven mad by the demons, ran headlong off a cliff and died in the fall. The people of the town weren’t at all impacted by the fact that this wild man that they couldn’t get under control, was now sane, and saved. They were worried about the loss of income from the herd of pigs.
But what happens when their wealth is taken? They react with violence.
20 When they had brought them to the magistrates, they said, “These men, being Jews, are agitating our city 21 and advocate customs which it is not lawful for us to accept or to observe, being Romans.”
Now I can’t help but laugh here a little. They accuse Paul and Silas of agitating the city. All Paul did was turn around and speak to this girl who had been following him for days. And when the demon went out of her, her masters reacted violently, grabbed Paul and Silas, dragged them across town, incited a mob to violence, had them publicly beaten, but they said that Paul and Silas were agitating the city.
22 The multitude rose up together against them and the magistrates tore their clothes from them, then commanded them to be beaten with rods. 23 When they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, charging the jailer to keep them safely,
These men, being Jews…anti-semitism was a powerful sentiment in the Greco-Roman world.
So, they accuse them of agitating the city. You know what, probably true. They preaching a new faith. The first people they went to were women. Women were not allowed to change religions without the permission of their husbands. So, Paul’s group could have upset some households in the days they had been there, preaching their women’s liberation. Now, they’ve destroyed the work of a prominent medium. A cornerstone of the worship of Apollo.
And they accused them of advocating customs which were not lawful for Romans. Now this was also true. If you look at the writings of Cicero and Tertullian of the time, it was illegal for anyone in the empire to participate in any religion that hadn’t been approved by Rome. And Christianity hadn’t gotten that official stamp of approval.
So they accuse them, then what happens? Immediately, no trial, the multitude, the mob, and the magistrates tore their clothes off of them, stripped them naked, and had them beaten with rods, “many stripes.” These rods were like long dowel rods. Paul and Silas would have been bound to a pole, or rock, and the rods would be whipped at full force across their bare backs. The Jewish law said that such a beating had to be limited to 39 lashes, but there was no such limit in Roman culture. It just says that they were lashed with “many stripes.”
Do you get this? This is the kind of violence, and hate that comes from some people when you mess with their source of wealth.
And now that source is threatened, and they can feel the ground beneath their feet giving away. It’s because wealth is not a sure purpose for living. Mostly because of an old saying, “You can’t take it with you.”
Wealth, as a purpose fails.
“On Christ the Solid Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.”
Paul and Silas were undermining the meaning of their lives. They were demonstrating how empty their religion was. And even in the beatings, they showed that it is only in Jesus Christ that we have true purpose.
Well, these men that owned the slave woman were living for money. But there is another group here who have another purpose for living; power.
III. Power
Let’s go back a couple of verses.
20 When they had brought them to the magistrates, they said, “These men, being Jews, are agitating our city 21 and advocate customs which it is not lawful for us to accept or to observe, being Romans.”
Let’s look for a moment at these people called magistrates.
Now first off, this is something I mentioned earlier when we first read that Paul and his team go to Philippi. Philippi was a Roman colony. That was a position of special privilege for the citizens of Philippi. It basically meant that, because Rome viewed their city favorably, it gave the city 3 privileges; self-government, no taxation, and Roman citizenship. Philippi held a place of honor in the Roman empire. And part of the reason for receiving that honor was “keeping the peace.” Rome highly valued peace. Now they often achieved it with an iron fist. But if a city, like Philippi could keep the peace, Rome was pleased, and gave them these privileges.
Now who are these magistrates? They were governing authorities whose job it was to keep the peace. They called themselves praetors. Under them were guys called lictors. Basically, the lictors were the police who walked around with clubs, and they hit the people that the magistrates or praetors told them to hit.
And that’s what happened with Paul and Silas.
22 The multitude rose up together against them and the magistrates tore their clothes from them, then commanded them to be beaten with rods. 23 When they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, charging the jailer to keep them safely,
They had them beaten. Again, no trial.
But I want you to note that these people highly prized their power and position. They had the power to beat who they wanted to, to imprison who they wanted to. They had a decree of self-rule from Rome. They were Roman citizens. And these magistrates were the elite among the elite.
Some people think that the meaning of life is in power and position. Political advancement. Getting to a place of privilege in society. They consider themselves to be in a class above those around them.
Now, as soon as I say that, most of us begin to paint a stereotypical picture in our minds. We know the sort. We have a picture of their gender, their race, their income, their political party, their profession, and where they live. But, as it’s not just the rich who are enslaved by a love of money, it’s also not just one sort of person who craves power, position, and prestige. There are some who have it, who are not enslaved by it. And there are some who don’t have it, who pine for it, think about it. They are consumed with the idea that if they could just unseat the powers that be, and replace them with themselves, or others like them, that would give their lives meaning.
And if they ever get power, they use it to lord over others, whether it is their family, or at their jobs, or in the highest seats of government.
But, as we’re going to see in a moment, Paul and Silas shake up this as a source of purpose. Paul and Silas, at this moment, are at the bottom of the totem pole in terms of power. They are thrown into prison.
23 When they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, charging the jailer to keep them safely,
They are at the bottom. But, as I said, power is not our purpose. It wasn’t the meaning of life for Paul and Silas. If it had been, going to jail would have been cause to despair. They had true meaning, because their lives were built on the solid rock of Jesus Christ.
Psalm 18:2 The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; My God, my strength, in whom I will trust; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
Psalm 18:31 For who is God, except the Lord? And who is a rock, except our God?
Psalm 18:46 The Lord lives! Blessed be my Rock! Let the God of my salvation be exalted.
Power and politics fail.
On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand, all other ground is sinking sand.
Well, we’re going to stop there. Next time, we will meet a man who had all of his life’s purposes slip out from under him. And in the end, he lunged for the Solid Rock that remained unmoved in the landslide of meaninglessness.
Let us pray