Taking A Stand

 DEVOTION

THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES

TAKING A STAND

Acts 16:35-40

35 When it was daylight, the magistrates sent their officers to the jailer with the order: "Release those men." 36 The jailer told Paul, "The magistrates have ordered that you and Silas be released. Now you can leave. Go in peace." 37 But Paul said to the officers: "They beat us publicly without a trial, even though we are Roman citizens, and threw us into prison. And now do they want to get rid of us quietly? No! Let them come themselves and escort us out." 38 The officers reported this to the magistrates, and when they heard that Paul and Silas were Roman citizens, they were alarmed.   39 They came to appease them and escorted them from the prison, requesting them to leave the city. 40 After Paul and Silas came out of the prison, they went to Lydia's house, where they met with the brothers and encouraged them. Then they left.

NIV

Just go away quietly into the night, or something like that was what the magistrates wanted Paul and Silas to do. The townspeople had gotten all worked up by the owners of the slave girl that Paul and Silas had cast the evil spirit from. After they had been flogged and put in prison the town had settled down and everyone wanted the troublemakers to just leave. But Paul and Silas were not content with being the guilty parties in all this and wanted a formal apology from those who had them flogged and jailed. What do we learn from this narrative? Is it just as simple as to stand firm, to stand our ground, to take our stand against the forces of evil in this world and in the heavenly realms? There are always going to be people, and perhaps we might limit those who oppose the gospel message to the magistrates, or the officials of the land. What we have is almost entirely a humanistic world, which stands against God being in control, or perhaps even opposed to the existence of God. There are those who would not take too kindly to God interfering with their plans for their idea of the future. However, the question is whether we would be persecuted in some way for standing up boldly and declaring their wrongs, as Paul and Silas did. There is evil all around and do we just allow it to exist when we are in its presence, or should we take action as Paul and Silas did by casting the evil out. Maybe it requires that we be troubled by that evil as Paul was. Maybe we have just settled on allowing evil to exist without standing our ground against it. This may not be just in a personal sense, that we take our stand again any evil coming for us but standing our ground again all evil in this world. However, the evil did move directly toward Paul and Silas. So maybe it is that we should not stand against all evil, but just that which affects us. Even in their release, they did not want to just disappear, they wanted the evil perpetrated against them to be exposed and they stood their ground until it was corrected. This is not about knowing that we are Christians by the footprints on our faces. This is about taking our stand, and standing firm, and standing our ground against evil.