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I wonder if Paul or Silas ever asked that question?
Perhaps. That familiar story of the conversion of the Philippian
jailer begins with Paul and Silas curing the madness of a young
woman of the city whose insanity had been used by some
unscrupulous men for their own personal gain. There was the
belief in those days that insanity was a strangely special gift
from the gods, a tool which they used to convey their messages to
mere mortals; it was based on the idea that since the insane girl
had no mind of her own, the gods could put their own divine
thoughts out on earth through her. Thus, she was thought to have
a gift for soothsaying or fortune-telling, a most marketable
commodity in that era and indeed in ANY era. Obviously, since
she was insane, she was not the one to do the marketing, nor was
she the one to profit from it. So when she was healed, those
wonderfully SANE people who had taken advantage of her were
suddenly out of business. They did not like it, trumped up some
charges against Paul and Silas, had them beaten and thrown into
jail. "What is this world coming to?" they might have asked.
Needless to say, the missionaries were not all that happy
about being thrown in jail, but they made the best of the bad
situation, even to the extent of spending half the night singing
hymns and praising God, despite the fact that they were locked up
in the deepest part of the dungeon, in stocks, chained in an
upright sitting position with a chain around the neck as well -
if you nodded off to sleep, you would begin to choke. The song?
Who knows? But perhaps, "The LORD is king! Let the earth
rejoice;" or something like that. We can read the minds of their
fellow prisoners who listened to the midnight concert: "What is
this world coming to?"
Suddenly, an earthquake...a not uncommon occurrence in that
part of the world...that shook the prison so much as to let door
locks come undone and chains become unfettered. When the tremor
was over, the jailer, who had been asleep when the quake hit,
came rushing in expecting to see the prisoners gone and ready to
run himself through with his own sword; after all, a jailer was
responsible for keeping prisoners in prison, and the punishment
which was scheduled for anyone who might escape would then be
brought down on the warden. Death was the easier way out. But
Paul shouted to him that there was no necessity for that: the
prisoners were all present and accounted for.
You can imagine the sense of relief that the jailer must
have felt but apparently, he felt something more. His response
might have been to dash around and put all the chains back in
place and lock all the doors, but instead he came up with a
question: "What must I do to be saved?" No, this was no
theological inquiry; his concern was not salvation from sin but
salvation from his situation, and who could blame him. But
Paul's answer was not temporal; it was eternal: "Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved." And ever since that
night, it is the answer we have all heard when we finally
acknowledge our own need.
"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved."
What does that mean? You can be sure that the jailer wondered
about it. What is this BELIEF, this FAITH, that can SAVE?
First of all, it is rational. Someone once asked a
youngster for a definition of faith and got the response, "Faith
is believing something even when you know it isn't true." Cute
answer...but wrong. That is not faith; that is stupidity.
Actually, exactly the opposite is true.
If you drive up to a busy intersection in your car, see that
the light is green, and proceed on through, you exercise a
certain faith based on reason that another car coming in your
direction from the right or left will stop on the red and let you
through. You have a certain faith in the system that tells you
that only those who would drive responsibly to the extent of
honoring reds and greens would be given a license. To be sure,
that faith is not always vindicated, but most often it is. In
effect, you are willing to put your life on the line because you
have that kind of faith.
One thing should be noted here: faith does NOT require 100%
understanding. A young gentleman of profound intellect and high
culture announced to a group of friends one day that he would not
believe anything he could not understand. An old farmer chanced
to overhear the remark and, turning to the young man, he said "As
I was riding into town today, I passed a common on which some
sheep were feeding. Do you believe it?"
The young man nodded that he did.
"Not far from the sheep," said the farmer, "some calves were
feeding. Do you believe it?"
"Why not," said the young man.
"Not far from the calves, some pigs were feeding," the
farmer went on. "Do you believe it?"
"Of course," the young man replied.
"Not far from the pigs, some geese were feeding. Do you believe it?"
"Yes."
"Well," said the farmer, the grass that the sheep ate will
turn to wool; the grass that the calves ate will turn to hair;
the grass that the pigs ate will turn to bristles; and the grass
that the geese ate will turn to feathers. Do you believe that?"
"Yes," the young man answered promptly.
"Do you understand it though?"
"No," the young man replied.
"My friend," said the farmer, "if you live long enough, you
will find that there are a great many things you will believe
without understanding."(1)
To put that into the context of our adventure into traffic,
there is no need for us to understand the workings of the
computer that changes the lights from red to green to let those
lights govern the way we travel. To immerse ourselves in the
details of the electronic operation might be an interesting
intellectual exercise but not much other than that, at least as
regards the way we drive.
And that brings to mind something else about faith: it is
more than a mere intellectual exercise. You might say to
yourself that the rules of the road demand obedience to reds and
greens and that such an order is good for all of society. But
upon coming up to a red light yourself, if you decided to ignore
it and dash on through, your agreement to the concept would be
totally worthless. Your agreement has to mean something.
Which says one more thing about faith: it makes a difference
in the way you live. If you did NOT believe that people will
routinely obey the rules of the road, you would not dare to cross
another intersection ever again - it would be suicide. And if
you believed that strongly enough, you probably would never leave
your house, much less go out on the road. What you believe makes
a difference.
To move all that up to a higher plane, faith in Jesus Christ
must also be rational even if we do not have 100% understanding.
How could Christ's sacrifice take care of all the sins of
humanity past and present? How does one win victory over death
by dying? Why could not God have just said to the whole world,
"I FORGIVE YOU," and let it go at that without having to go
through the cross? Why would a God who loves us so much as to
send Jesus to die for us let ANYONE perish? Big questions...and
lots more where they came from. There ARE answers to them, and
it is a stimulating study to search them out, but the answers are
not really necessary to our faith.
But faith in Jesus Christ is more than just an intellectual
exercise. Faith in Christ will make a difference in the way we
live. What happened to that Philippian jailer when he came to
faith? Scripture says, "he took [Paul and Silas] and washed
their wounds; then...He brought them up into the house and set
food before them;" This same man who, only hours before, had
been content to let these missionaries languish in the worst
filth his prison could offer now was treating them as honored
guests. Faith made a difference to him...as it must for anyone.
To be sure, an understanding of what faith is can be helpful
to us but it can also be frustrating if, for all our knowledge
about it, we do not know how to go about getting it. The
glorious message of the scripture is that we do NOT go about
getting it; it is a gift that is given to us by God. "For by
grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own
doing; it is the GIFT of God."(2) And God gives us that gift
through the circumstances of our lives.
See how it works. The Philippian jailer came by his faith
through a particular series of events. Had it not been for the
fact that there were those in the city making money by taking
advantage of a girl who was insane, had it not been for the fact
the Paul and Silas had been traveling there, had it not been for
the fact that they had healed the girl by God's power, had it not
been for the fact that they were arrested because of it, had it
not been for the fact that this man had accepted the job as local
jailer, had it not been for the fact that there was an earthquake
that night, this man might have never come to the faith that he
did. EVENTS! God uses the events of our lives to bring us to
faith.
Some of us were led to a particular church or camp or
conference or meeting so we might hear the Gospel and respond.
Others were placed in Christian homes where Christ was the head
of the house and where his Lordship was a part of everyday life;
coming to a saving faith was a natural as having breakfast.
Still others came by their faith through the witness of a friend.
God uses the circumstances of our lives to give us the gift of
faith.
Note something else. The Philippian jailer did not come by
his faith all alone. He had Paul to help him. For all his
willingness to trust Jesus Christ as Lord of his life, he would
never have been able to do it until someone first TOLD him about
Jesus. There is every likelihood that until Paul and Silas came
along, this jailer had never heard the name of Jesus mentioned.
The point of it all is simply this: NO ONE comes to faith all
alone.
What a challenge that is to all of us who claim to belong to
Jesus! If we realize that there are friends out there who would
respond to the Gospel IF WE BUT TOLD THEM, how can we be content
to sit idly by and let them go on as if we had no news for them
at all? Paul and Silas could have kept quiet; they had every
reason to sit in sullen silence after what had happened to them.
But they did NOT, and that jailer was changed for all eternity.
One thing more: the jailer was willing to respond. He could
have reacted by ignoring what Paul had said. "Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved??? You must be kidding.
The only thing I will believe in is NEW LOCKS that will not come
loose every time there is a tremor around here." But that is not
what happened. In his willingness to listen to these men, he
took them into his own home so that the rest of his family might
hear, and the scripture says that they ALL came to believe.
And note that one very important thing: the faith of the
jailer made a difference in the way he lived. If what his faith
amounted to was nothing more than intellectual assent, he would
have been content to hear the missionaries there in the prison,
agreed that this Jesus of whom they spoke was indeed a remarkable
man, then let it go at that as he went about restoring order in
the jailhouse. But it was more than that: he brought Paul and
Silas out of the dungeon, cleaned their wounds, fed them and had
them share their message with his entire family. His faith made
a difference in the way he lived.
God's gift of faith is rational, despite being sometimes
beyond understanding. It is more than an intellectual
affirmation. And it makes a difference in the way we live.
Sadly, all too often the cry of our heart is "What is this
world coming to?" There is SO much wrong out there. But our
faith reminds us that what we see around us is not the whole
story. In the same week of the Oregon shootings, announcement came that
Ferncliff Presbyterian Camp and Conference Center in the
Presbytery of Arkansas, working through the Jonesboro Ministerial
Alliance, is developing a special week of camp for students of
Westside Middle School later this summer. A life-affirming
program is being planned with resource specialists who have
special sensitivity and expertise in working with children who
have experienced trauma. The curriculum and activities will
emphasize hope and healing in the rejuvenating environment of nature. Who is paying for this? You and
I...through Presbyterian Disaster Assistance and a $5,000 grant
from the One Great Hour of Sharing offering that we took in on
Easter Sunday.(3) Why did we give that money? Did we have more
than we needed? No. It was just one more small way in which our
faith made...and continues to make...a difference.
"What is this world coming to?" The news reports are not
encouraging. Then we remember those words of the Psalmist and
despite all the evidence to the contrary, in faith we shout along
with Paul and Silas, along with a Philippian jailer, along with
millions more who have come to put their trust in Jesus through
the centuries, "The LORD is king! Let the earth rejoice." That
is a faith that makes a difference.
Let us pray.
O Lord, we are grateful for the gift of faith, grateful for
the difference it makes in our lives. Our prayer is for those
who have never experienced it. We pray that they might receive
it gladly, the way that jailer of old received it, and that they
might know the difference it can make in their own lives, both
now and for all eternity. We pray it in the name of the one who
died that we might live, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen!
1. Walter B. Knight, ed., Knight's Master Book of New Illustrations, (Grand Rapids, MI:
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1956), pp. 185-186 2. Ephesians 2:8 3. Rina Arauz, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance Situation Report Update, Jonesboro
Shootings, via PresbyNet, May 20, 1998
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