| “Is any happy? Let him sing psalms” (James 5:13 JND). |
| “And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them” (Acts 16:25). |
| We usually expect people to sing when they are happy. The first recorded singing in the Bible is when the children of Israel had crossed the Red Sea, and were delivered from Pharaoh — the one who treated them cruelly. No doubt they were very happy to be free! Then we find in our first verse today that the Lord tells us, through James, that if we are feeling happy, we are to sing. As I am running errands in stores and other public places, I occasionally hum a tune to myself. Sometimes people overhear it, and say, “You seem very happy today!” We expect people who sing to be happy. |
| But here in our second verse we find two men singing who were not in a very good situation. They had been falsely accused, publicly beaten in the marketplace, and then imprisoned, with their feet in the stocks. Stocks were usually made of wood, and then locked around the ankles of the prisoner, so that he could not possibly escape. The stocks were sometimes placed in public places, so that the people could see those who were in them, and make fun of them. But these stocks were actually in the prison. |
| You and I would not feel like singing under those conditions. Their backs were sore and bleeding from the beating they had received, and now they were in prison, not knowing what would happen to them. How could they sing after all that? |
| They could sing because they were happy in their souls. They knew that the Lord had allowed all this, and that He could deliver them. Then they began to sing in the middle of the night, at midnight. It was probably pitch dark in the prison, but they continued to sing, and the other prisoners heard them. Then the Lord stepped in and did a remarkable thing. He allowed a big earthquake, and it shook the prison so violently that everyone’s stocks came loose, and all the doors opened. |
| The jailor was about to kill himself, for if the prisoners escaped, he was held responsible. He would likely be executed. But no one had escaped, and that very night the jailor was saved. You can read this story in Acts 16, and how the jailor got saved. Paul and Silas had been badly beaten, but they sang in spite of this, and the jailor got saved. It was worth it! |
