Troubled

DEVOTION

THE BOOK OF ACTS

TROUBLED

Acts 16:16-18

16 Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. 17 This girl followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, "These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved." 18 She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so troubled that he turned around and said to the spirit, "In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!" At that moment the spirit left her.

NIV

We are at the beginning of a rather long narrative that has several opportunities for us to take a life lesson from. We are going to see throughout the whole of the narrative a lot of action but let us focus in on this beginning situation. Of course we know this spirit that possessed this girl was from Satan and we also know that he or his demons live in the spirit realm and know God very well. They were at one time living in his presence at least before the fall. The demons or spirits know quite well the truth when they hear it and this one was very vocal about it. As far as being able to actually predict the future may be a bit more than most demons can do, or perhaps whatever it predicted it caused to happen, thus entrapping both the owners of the slave girl as well as those who paid them to get a prediction into believing in something other than God. It is a point that we know exists today. Many people are interested in the supernatural, in the spirit world, in haunted places, ghosts as it were, but they are not interested in God. People are drawn to the supernatural, but not drawn to God. In this narrative we see that Paul’s faith in Jesus Christ and his understanding that God was far more spiritually powerful than all of his creation, including that spirit, or demon within that slave girl, that he demanded it to leave, and it did, at once. All the forces of evil must leave when faced with the name of Jesus. Evil cannot take its stand against the name of Jesus Christ. Evil must always give way to the name of Jesus Christ. Yet many in the world are still deceived by evil, by the spiritual forces of Satan. We do not know if there are any like this slave girl who earn money by spirits who dwell within them, but it is quite possible some are living today. But we can be sure many are oppressed by the influence of the evil one and are by default his slaves. Should we be as Paul here, so troubled by all them, that we turn and claim their freedom from Satan in the name of Jesus Christ? Perhaps we should first claim our own freedom from any attempts by Satan or his spirit demons to deceive us. It is temptations which come in many forms that are carried in the hands of demons right to us that we need to make sure we use the name of Jesus Christ to command them to leave, and they are obligated to do so, at once. We should be so troubled at any sign of evil, that we turn and claim the name of Jesus Christ. The question we must ask ourselves is, are we troubled or do we attempt to coexist? Do we attempt to exist separately or independently but peaceable, while remaining rivals or adversaries with evil? If so we should be troubled.