Prison Bars and Deliverance

Today's Reading: Acts 16:16-34

This passage is an account of Paul and Silas in prison. The had cast an evil spirit out of a young girl and the slave owners who were making money off of the girl hauled Paul and Silas into the marketplace where they were "tried" and then flogged and thrown into prison. They were shackled and put into an inner cell as an extra safeguard against escape.

As they were singing and praying around midnight, an earthquake shook the ground, the prison doors flew open and all the prisoners' chains fell off. The jailer was so distraught that he was going to kill himself on the spot until Paul stopped him because none of the prisoners had escaped.

Scripture doesn't record what Paul said to the jailer about his deliverance. It was probably a testimony about how they were singing and praying and God intervened to set them free. Through that testimony, this man and his whole household came to know Jesus and were baptized because of this incident.

I've never been in a jail cell. Not a physical one anyway. I have been in a stronghold of sin that seemed as unbreakable as the most solid prison cell I can imagine. And although there wasn't a physical earthquake the day I received deliverance, the ground underneath my feet did seem to have shifted as my eyes cleared and my heart sang for the first time in months.

You may well know someone who is in bondage...maybe in a physical jail cell. Maybe just locked in a whole heap of stuff that seems like it will never let go. But just as Jesus delivered the young girl from her demon and the jailer from his distress through Paul and Silas, He can deliver anyone who turns to Him. All we have to do is tell them the story of our own deliverance. Jesus will do the rest.

- Holly Barrett