Articles
Sirs, What Must I do?
It is not common practice these days that you will encounter someone that is willing to talk about religious matters surrounding God and the bible. After all, our society is being taught to hate the truth (the objective absolute truth) and to embrace wayward opinionated ideas that make us feel better about the sin we commit and the things we indulge in. When faced with the real, genuine truth, many people counter it by suggesting they have made up their own truth and that’s what they have chosen to live with. It is a sad thing when one chooses his or her own path in life (cf. Prov. 14:12).
When Paul and Silas travelled to Philippi in Acts 16 they were thrown in prison, but they began to sing songs of praise to God as well as making fervent prayer. The bible tells us that as they were singing many of the prisoners were listening and there was a great earthquake. The jailer, supposing that all the inmates had escaped, withdrew his sword intending to kill himself. Paul, having become aware of the matter, instructed him to stop. The jailer had a couple options. He could have chosen to ignore Paul and kill himself or he could hear him out. The jailer chose to listen to Paul and Silas and what they had to say. Paul and Silas preached Jesus to him and to his family and they understood their need for God in their lives. Keep in mind that these events are taking place in the early morning hours between midnight and 3am. When they understood their need to be saved they did not hesitate, but they immediately obeyed and were baptized. They received new life! A man who was just mere moments from being dead forever is now on the receiving end of eternal life from God. A possibly tragic event was turned into one of celebration and blessing.
An important thing that we can take away from this story is that sometimes we just need to stop, listen and hear people out. If that man had chosen to ignore Paul, he would have been dead. Instead he chose to give up the path he was about to create for himself to hear what Paul and Silas had to say to him, and as it turned out it wasn’t so bad at all. I wonder how many people today and even us at times, if we would forget about ourselves for just a moment and we would hear people out then maybe we could find a way to help them or perhaps they could help us. We have gotten so used to our own truths and ideas that when we come across the actual truth we may very well be blinded by our own foolishness. There is a far better path in life that what we can carve out for ourselves. That path is found in Jesus and it ends in nothing but joy and blessing. Are you willing to give that up? Let’s be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to wrath.
