Acts 16:19-26 And when her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas… It is always easy to have an excellent prayer meeting when the heart is right. There were three persons attending this one there in the jail. The ancient Jews had a saying, "Where two persons meet, there is ever a third." Paul and Silas and Jesus Christ spent the night together (Matthew 18:19, 20). It was a most unusual — I. TIME — "midnight." The Jews were strict as to their stated seasons of supplication; but this was the hour of neither the evening nor the morning oblation. But God never slumbers, He is alive to His children's wants even in "the dead of night." II. PLACE. This was the first time the voice of Christian devotion was heard in those precincts — the earliest dungeon in Europe which held a mercy seat, although it has had many successors. III. POSTURE. It was neither standing, nor kneeling, nor lying on one's face. What a poor time they would have had, if they had been compelled to use a formula or work themselves into an attitude. God does not care for attitudes when only the heart is right, and the spirit true, and the want pressing. IV. KIND OF PRAYER. "Praying, they sang." They set their petitions to music. True prayer is praise, and genuine praise is prayer. V. EXPRESSION OF PRAYER — by tones of old Hebrew melodies such as one hears now in the synagogue: wild, pathetic, plaintive, and fascinating. Match one of David's psalms or Isaiah's anthems to it, and it will move one's heart like a strain from the sky. He who has at command psalm after psalm has wonderful resources of comfort in his times of trouble. VI. REACH OF PRAYER. No doubt God heard it, but "the prisoners" also heard it. These were the "songs in the night" that Elihu told Job about; perhaps the psalm was that where David told of the good his singing did him (Psalm 42:8). And we can have no sort of doubt that the jailer heard everything that was going on. VII. FORCE OF PRAYER. The Lord sent the earthquake in answer, and converted the jailer. VIII. DIRECTION OF PRAYER. Imagine a triangle. The perpendicular line represents the direction of a Christian man's petition: it goes up straight towards God. The horizontal line represents the level pressure of the same force, going out towards those within range. That jailer, no doubt, heard the singing and the praying; it was not addressed to him, but it swept out toward him with lateral force. It is not safe to calculate deliberately upon affecting a bystander by our supplication; preaching in prayers is never to be commended; but a life of prayer, and an unconscious fervour of prayer in an individual instance, may be useful to one who watches it. (C. S. Robinson, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And when her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas, and drew them into the marketplace unto the rulers, |
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