Weeping may endure for all the night, and joy shall surely come “in the morning,” but God does not wait till the morning to gladden the hearts of those who trust in Him, and put into their mouths a song of joy and praise. “The Lord will command His loving kindness in the day-time, and in the night His song shall be with me.” Psa. 42:88Yet the Lord will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life. (Psalm 42:8). These holy men were in circumstances of peculiar discouragement and trial, being hindered by Satan from going forward in that cause they so rejoiced in; even the fulfilling of the ministry they had received of the Lord Jesus, “to testify the gospel of the grace of God.” He had, by a vision, guided them into those parts, but had now permitted them to be imprisoned; moreover “many stripes” had been laid on them, and they were cast into the “inner prison.” But their confidence in God was still unshaken, and because His loving kindness was better than their liberty, their lips as well as their hearts praised Him. Dear reader, do you know this loving kindness of the Lord, that enables His people to say, “I will bless the Lord at all times? “You can sing in the evening when the lights are all burning, and your gay companions round you, but can you sing for joy at midnight? When all around is dark and gloomy, what then? Is the end of that mirth “heaviness?” Have you no spring of joy in your heart that makes it leap with gladness, when circumstances are adverse; when sickness and pain are wasting your body; when heavy clouds hang over your prospects, and surrounding things have lost their power to charm you?
Then listen to a simple tale of how a poor unhappy sinner, who had never known true joy, was made to rejoice, with all his house, in newly found pardon and peace with God.
Paul and Silas sang with their bleeding backs, and their feet made fast in the stocks; and the other prisoners hear them, and doubtless they wonder greatly at the unwonted midnight song. But are they the only hearers? The gaoler lives hard by; has not he caught the sound, and crept in the night stillness to the dungeon door, to listen to the vesper melody? Ah, no! he is asleep. He hates the men and their testimony, and the blessed one of whom they testify; and he is right glad to have had it in his power to “thrust them into the inner prison,” and now he has forgotten them in slumber.
But One beside the prisoners hears the midnight song and supplication of these captives. He who “giveth songs in the night,” and who listens ever to the songs of His servants whether raised in prayer or praise, hears “from heaven His dwelling place,” the words of His bound ambassadors down in that dungeon; nor does He listen with indifference, for soon He sends a ministering spirit swiftly down to loose their bonds. An earthquake shakes the prison to its foundations; the massive doors fly open, and the manacles of every person within its walls are instantly unfastened. The keeper wakes in terror from his sleep, and finding what is done, at once concludes that all his prisoners are fled. He knows that none but God could work thus wondrously, and sees that He has interposed, whom in his malice towards His servants he had shown but too plainly, He despised and set at naught. His conscience, as his body, has been asleep, but now he is fairly roused from his indifference, his conscience loudly accuses him, and now he madly plunges into despair and is about to destroy himself. But again God in His wondrous mercy interposes, and He stays the murderous hand. Paul has not fled. He does not count his life or his liberty dear to him, so that, in freedom or in bonds, he may but serve his master’s pleasure. And his master’s pleasure at this moment is that this unhappy slave of Satan shall be delivered from his thraldom, and made to rejoice this night and forever in the knowledge of His beloved Son. So Paul cries out to him “do thyself no harm, for we are all here.” He wished no harm even to the one who had so cruelly treated him, for he was a faithful follower of that blessed One, who, in an hour of still more unrelenting cruelty, had called for only mercy and forgiveness on behalf of his murderers.
The man is astonished; manifestly the finger of God is here also, and he sees it with trembling. His dread despair now gives place to intense desire to know more of these holy men and their doctrine. He calls for alight; and springing into that inner cell falls down before the apostles, whom a few hours since he thrust in there, while, quaking with half abated fear, he cries, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” Ah! interesting question. He has now discovered and confesses that he is lost, and needs, and desires to be saved, and as Christ Jesus “came into the world to save” such lost ones, the ready response is, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.” And the poor penitent does believe, and straightway he is saved, and saved eternally. And now witness the marvelous change that has come over the man. Who can doubt it, for see, the very person whom, in the evening, he rudely thrust into that dismal cell, he has now, before the morning light, brought into his own house, himself washing their stripes, and setting meat before them. But the light of a new day has dawned into his soul, for he who, as the willing slave of his worst enemy, could never before have known true peace, now rejoices with all his house, and the new day shall never know a shade of evening, for “ in ages to come” this saved sinner shall only prove more fully the depths and “exceeding riches” of that grace he first tasted on this eventful night.
Beloved reader, in which of the varied conditions of soul in which we have seen this man do you yourself stand at this moment in the sight of God? Do you, like him, suppose that any interference on your part will hinder his testimony in the world; as if the Creator of the ends of the earth should be thwarted, or His word bound, by casting two of His messengers into an inner prison? By and bye, He will “arise to shake terribly the earth,” and where will you be then, or what shall your puny strength avail you? But are you more like him in his slumber of indifference? Do you suppose that because your sins do not trouble you, they are no offense to God? Ah! your indifference shows you do not know what God thinks about sin. Surely it is no light matter in His sight, or He would not have spared His Son from His bosom, and visited Him with wrath because of it, when in the place of the sinner’s substitute. Sleep no longer with the question of your sin unsettled, lest bye and bye you lift up your eyes for the first time “being in torment.” Again it may be you have been roused, and know yourself a sinner, unfit for the presence of a holy God; and you listen to Satan, who tells you there is now no hope but only despair. So he told the gaoler, and he was about to destroy himself, but there was hope for him in believing the gospel, and so, dear friend, there is hope for you, if with your heart you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. God knows better than you do, all about your sinfulness, but it is He who tells you in His word, that He “so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him, should not perish but have everlasting life.”