Never Silenced

DEVOTION

THE BOOK OF ACTS

NEVER SILENCED

Acts 18:7-11

7 Then Paul left the synagogue and went next door to the house of Titius Justus, a worshiper of God. 8 Crispus, the synagogue ruler, and his entire household believed in the Lord; and many of the Corinthians who heard him believed and were baptized. 9 One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision: "Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent. 10 For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city."  11 So Paul stayed for a year and a half, teaching them the word of God.

NIV

There is always going to be opposition to the message of Jesus Christ, but here we see that the Lord assures Paul that he will be with him and that he should not allow any opposition to silence his voice. The Lord also assured Paul there were many other believers in that city and he would not be the only one so to some degree there is strength in numbers. Perhaps the idea was that because of so many who the Lord had in that city it would be difficult for a few who opposed the message to stir up the crowd against Paul like in those other cities. That does seem to hold true today in that when we are just one voice and among a large group of nonbelievers, they all seem to gang up against our message, but are a bit more reserved when we are a whole church bringing a message. But the point here is still about not being silent, and it is not because of many other people, but because the Lord is with us. It is good to have a support group of others who believe the same way we do, but it is far more important to know that the Lord is with us. As human beings we have a whole host of skills and talents which the Lord has bestowed upon us. It can appear we can accomplish many things in our humanity, evidence being in the many things non-believers do. But if we are going to be effective in sharing the gospel message we cannot do that simply in the flesh, we need the power of the Holy Spirit, and we need the Lord to be with us. The Lord desires for us to keep speaking, keep talking about the message, to not be silent, to find a way to share his great gift of Jesus Christ. It is not a message about rules and regulations, or a message about hope and change, or a message about giving up a lifestyle, or a message about being good, but it is a message about the gift of God, Jesus Christ, who died for our sin so that we can have eternal life. It is a message about a free gift that we cannot earn nor can we repay. This message should never be silenced.