Acts 16:16-34

When I was little the kids in my neighborhood used to play a game we called "release the peddlers." It was like a combination of tag and capture the flag. The person of persons who were it would tag the other players. When a player was tagged they were put in "Jail." They would stay there until the person who was it had captured everyone. But if one of the free people touched base then all those in jail would be freed. When this happened the person who freed them would shout "Release the peddlers." And all the children would run in every direction.

Reading our passage from Acts makes me think of that game. In this passage everyone goes free. Basically through Paul God says "Release the peddlers." It is all about people being set free.

Of course we can see that Paul and Silas are set free. But they are only the tip of the iceberg. Many others are set free in the course of events. God working though and around Paul is releasing the peddlers and the Devil, who is it, is losing the game!

The first peddler to be released is the slave girl. We are told that she had some kind of evil spirit. This spirit gave her the ability to tell fortunes. So her owners would sue her to make money. People will pay if they think that the can learn their future.

Not only was she a slave to men who used her to make money and I am sure gave her none of the proceeds. But she was also enslaved to an evil spirit. The evil spirit knew that Paul served the one true God and would harass Paul probably hoping to drive him away. But instead Paul cast the demon out of the girl. She was freed from her spiritual and economic slavery.

There are a lot of people who are enslaved to evil today. There are people enslaved alcoholism and addictions. There are those who are enslaved by hatred and prejudice toward others. There are those enslaved by materialism. And there are those, like the men enslaving this girl, who were taking advantage of them.

This is what led to Paul's imprisonment. When the slave owners realized that they could no longer make money off the slave girl they went after Paul. They had them arrested and accused them of creating a disturbance. They also appealed to anti Semitic sentiments in the community. Why else would their charges against Paul include the fact that he was a Jew? As a result Paul and Silas were beaten and then thrown in Jail.

You would think that Paul and Silas would be distraught. I mean if someone had unjustly beaten you and thrown you in jail would you be depressed? But instead of weeping and wailing Paul and Silas were singing. They were praising God! Many people in that situation would be blaming God and asking God if He had abandoned them. But they were praising God.

That is when God went to work. First God shook things up. God's power was greater than any chains physical emotional or spiritual which bind us. So God shook the jail and released Paul and the other peddlers.

I think Paul and Silas knew that something like that could happen if God chose to make it happen. That is what they praised God in the jail. In the same way people today are often imprisoned by injustice and circumstances. But we need to remember that God can shake the very foundations underneath the structures which imprison people. God can transform social and economic structures and set people free. So we need to praise God for the liberation he will give us.

This led to the next set of peddlers set free. When God shook the prison and Paul and Silas's chains fell off so did the chains of all the other prisoners. When the jailer realized what had happened he was ready to commit suicide rather than allow his superiors to torture or even crucify him for not keeping the prisoners in prison. But Paul and Silas and the other prisoners did not run. They were all there so Paul called in the darkness and told the jailer not to harm himself.

Paul and Silas's actions witnessed to the jailer. He fell down before Paul and asked how to be saved. Then the jailer and his whole household believed in Jesus and were saved. God had worked through Paul and Silas' praise and their being freed to free not only jailer but his whole family.

The whole human rave is enslaved to sin and death. But Jesus can free any who will accept the gift of freedom. It is just a matter of believing in Jesus and being saved. If we will but trust in Jesus he will take away our sins and give us eternal life.

"Release the Peddlers!" Everyone is set free. God sets free those who are enslaved to evil spiritual and economic forces in our world like the slave girl. God frees those who are imprisoned by injustice and prejudice like Paul and Silas. And God sets free all those who are imprisoned to sin and death.

So praise God. I know that there are still many who are imprisoned and have not been released yet. But even when we are imprisoned we need to praise God. Paul and Silas show us that win faith we need to lift up God in praise because we know that he will set us free.

But most of all we have to put our faith in Christ. If you are still imprisoned by sin and death then let Jesus set you free. Let him release you from your prisons, spiritual, emotional, social and material. Then run in joy when Jesus shouts "Release the Peddlers!"

Revelation 22:12-21

The book of Revelation is probably one of the most misunderstood and misused books in the Bible. Ironically it is also one of the most read. I run into a lot of people who say that they have read it and most of them have read it more than once. Yet few claim to understand it. Those who do claim to understand it, often differ on what it means. One claims it says one thing and they have a long list of verses to back up their interpretation while another, with an equally long list, claims it means the exact opposite. And then there are those who want to decode it so that they calculate the exact date and time of Jesus' return.

I won't be doing that this morning but I do plan to reveal what revelation is all about. The book of Revelation is 22 chapters long or 404 verses. It contains: 7 letters to 7 churches, 4 creatures with 6 wings, 1 lion that is actually a lamb, 24 elders, 7 seals, 144,000 sealed saints, an un-numbered multitude dressed in white, 7 trumpets, 3 woes, 4 horsemen, a woman giving birth, a dragon, 2 beasts(one with 7 heads and 10 horns), the number 666, 7 bowls of God's wrath, 2 witnesses, a tree of life, a new Jerusalem with 12 gates and 12 foundations, a new heaven and a new earth.

I hope you all brought plenty of paper to take notes and your lunch because we could be here a while. Just joking! I could never cover all of that in one sermon. Once I taught a 20 week class on Revelation and only scratched the surface. What I want to do today is put it all into perspective. As I have told Bible Study groups, I want to give the big picture, because once you have the big picture the details fall into place much easier.

The context of the book of Revelation is the persecutions of the early 2nd century. Some believe it was written during the reign of Emperor Domition. The church was under fire because Christians refused to call Caesar "Lord." Many were being martyred as examples to everyone else. New and grotesque ways were invented to punish these Jesus people. Christians were fed to wild beasts. They were set ablaze and used as torches.

But some of the old ways were used too. Ways like crucifixion and imprisonment. That is where the Book of Revelation begins. On a hot barren prison island called Patmos where John was imprisoned on account of the Word of God.

The Book begins on a prison Island in the 2nd century but it doesn't stay there for long. After brief but poignant greetings to the churches in Asia Minor, Jesus takes John up to heaven. With a literal cast of thousands, John is shown "what must soon take place." The images that follow are bizarre and frightening. They include angels and demons, beasts and dragons. That is the content that most disturbs people.

The vast middle section of Revelation that contains all these frightening images is disturbing but these images seem to fall loosely into two categories: images of judgment and images of vindication. The first, images of judgment, are truly frightening. And Revelation pulls no punches. It depicts the world in all its sinful ugliness. In Revelation the world is a sinful harlot that is drunk with the blood of the martyrs. The world is an awful beast that tries to devour anything good that is born into the world.

In these images God's judgment is poured out upon that evil. Early in the book John is shown a vision of the martyred saints of God calling from beneath that altar. It was a common practice in the early church to bury a saint or martyr under the altar of a church. And all these saints are calling to God to bring judgment on the world. And adjacent to that the prayers of the saints on earth are brought before God. I imagine John and others were asking God, "How long will you let this persecution go on?"

The world is truly an evil place. There are forces in our world that try to stomp out any fires of love or hope that God starts. How long will God let this keep happening? So the book of Revelation reassures us that this state of affairs will not go on forever. There will be a judgment and God will bring an end to the evil that pervades our world and injures all that is good and righteous.

This is where the images of vindication come in. God will protect His own. They will be sealed. They may suffer physically, they may be mauled by wild beasts and their bodies burned, but they will be vindicated.

They will stand before God in heaven with white robes and branches of victory. They will have their prayers answered. The evil that seems to be in charge in this age will be destroyed. It will be thrown into a lake of fire. Every evil power and principality will cease to exist.

And all will be made new. God will create a new heaven and a new earth where evil is absent and all is full of God's glory. And God will wipe every tear from their eye. The sun shall not smite them by day nor the cold by night. And the full glory of God will dwell with humanity.

This brings us to the final chapter of Revelation. Consider where we started. A prison island on Patmos with the Christians being persecuted: a literal Hell on earth. And look where we have ended up: a literal Heaven on earth!

This is the point of Revelation summed up in the last chapter. Jesus is coming again to judge this wicked age and vindicate the persecuted church. And those who stand strong will be rewarded. They will enter this New Jerusalem and dwell eternally in the pure glory of God.

But the book doesn't really end in that blessed future. It ends in the here and now. The final words are a call to follow Jesus in the present not to merely look toward heavenly glory. It addresses the reader and says, "Come, let anyone who wishes take of the water of life."

Revelation can be a book of judgment or a book of vindication for you. It's your decision as to which it is. If you choose to serve the world it is a book of judgment and let me tell you there will be a judgment for this evil world. But if you choose to serve Christ, it is a book of victory. Which will it be?