Midnight Prayers and Unfathomable Grace | Disruptive Presence 83

David: 0:05

Hi and welcome to the Two Texts podcast. I'm here with my co-host, john Andrews, and my name is David Harvey. This is a podcast of two friends from two different countries meeting every two weeks to talk about the Bible. Each week, we pick one text to talk about, which invariably leads us to talking about two texts and often many more. This season we're taking a long, slow journey through the book of Acts to explore how the first Christians encountered the disruptive presence of the Holy Spirit.

John: 0:40

David. We're still in chapter 16, and I am loving that, and our last conversation finished with the young slave girl being exercised of the demon, all hell breaking loose in the city and we saw some incredible ideas of the power of the gospel impacting that world. But of course, as positive as all of that is on the impact on Lydia, on the impact on the slave girl, there were incredible negative repercussions in terms of the economic impact that the gospel had on the situation and then a persecution and we essentially saw Paul and Silas severely beaten and flogged and then put into prison, and not just into prison but in the inner cell of the prison. I think you reflected last time I thought was gorgeous. Luke wants to make it clear like not only in chains but in the inner cell and in stocks.

John: 1:37

And of course, I love the illusion to sort of being nailed or connected to or bound to the tree and the image of a bound person to a tree, sort of in slavery and yet also free, and that beautiful illusion you brought to Jesus in Galatians, which was absolutely gorgeous. If our listeners have missed any of that, you should go back and listen to that. So we're going to jump into the prison experience and see where we go with all of that. So would you like to read that little bit of the story? Next little bit of the story.

David: 2:11

It struck me, as well as you were saying that there, John, that we're looking at two inverse trajectories. As the spirit is bringing freedom to these people, Paul and Silas are getting less free. They're being grabbed, they're being bound, they're being flogged, they're being arrested. Now they're in an inner-moselle, nailed to a tree, which is the gospel trajectory, that Jesus is trajectory which is towards death, and slavery is our trajectory towards freedom. So I mean it's beautiful when Paul says I am crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live for Christ, that lives in me. You see, it's like it's really physical for him actually isn't it.

David: 3:01

Yeah, wonderful.

David: 3:03

So, what do you do when you're nailed to a tree in the inner-moselle? Well, acts tells us in verse 25 of 16, about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was an earthquake so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's chains were unfastened. When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted in a loud voice do not harm yourself, for we are all here.

David: 3:45

The jailer called for lights and, rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them outside and said Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they answered believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household. They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house At the same hour of the night. He took them, washed their wounds and then he and his entire family were baptized. Without delay he brought them up into the house, set food before them and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God Great story. I love this text so much.

John: 4:29

It's stunningly, stunningly, stunningly good, isn't it? It's just. I mean, I have read that hundreds of times. I have heard it read and just listen to gain intended to you as you were reading. I have preached from this and talk from this and heard it preach and talk, and it's still. I'm still not bored with it is just. I mean, I mean I could spend a whole podcast just on the opening statement of first five years. I just you just go. Goodness gracious me.

John: 4:59

It is Such a paradoxical and dynamic moment at midnight and of course we know from the previous verses they're bound up in the inner cell. So that's the darkest, most miserable, horrible is place to put these guys. And it's also midnight and the whole scene set okay, intercell, midnight, what's going to happen? And then this happens and it's just, honestly, I can't. I know maybe some of our listeners think I we make this stuff up, but I get really emotional just like reading that again. And I know in my own experiences where I've had midnight moments or I've had difficult moments and and the last thing at times when you have a midnight moment is feeling Like you want to open your mouth and say anything positive, let alone pray and sing him to god.

David: 5:53

Oh my goodness, yeah, it's. I mean in the, in the anglican spiritual tradition, there's this there are Prayers for the middle of the night, right, the night watch prayers. And I I have been trying recently, john, because I'm not always the best sleeper, and it's amazing how often I've been. Maybe people that don't sleep well will relate to this I wake up in the night and I'm like, oh my goodness, what do I do? I wake, I wish I was sleeping and then you spend maybe an hour tossing and turning Saying I should really sleep, I should really sleep and I've.

David: 6:25

I've found just recently it really beautiful to turn to liturgy in the middle of the night, right, and actually go, came awake. Let me just turn to prayers, and the middle of the night prayers are essentially prayers and hymns that you. I don't sing them my wife wouldn't appreciate that too much, but but I find myself jumping in and just it's amazing how even just five minutes of reading prayers in the middle of the night Just brings your soul back to God. Rest, beautiful, and even I think I'm getting physical benefit from this. As I read this story, I'm like I'm in good company of what do you do in the middle of the night turn to God, absolutely. I hope that doesn't come across that way. It's just I've found some beauty in, in exactly this.

John: 7:12

Absolutely no. No, as the salmon says, I lie down and I sleep and I wake because you sustained me. There's those, it's, it's it. What I love about some of those ancient songs and prayers is that they, they reflect the again, the sort of ebb and flow of human experience and, of course, probably, maybe, I would suspect, every one of our listeners, including me and you, have had moments where we have woken up in the middle of the night, and not always for good reasons Fear, anxiety, worries, thinking about this, that and the other, and actually the darkness, it really can exaggerate those fears, I think. I think the midnight moment can really certainly I've discovered the time drags In the midnight hours and when you're desperate to get back to sleep and you can't, and training your mind to go to those places. I love that. I love that the way you said that there, david, because because it looks really explicit and of course we should remind our listeners that we started off this passage with we.

John: 8:15

There's a lot of we going on, we did this, we did that, we went running, but actually a bit like Paul's experience at Lister, when Paul got stoned and Barnabas sort of seem to get away with it, we've got Paul and Silas in prison, but the other members of the team are not there, so we are. We are assuming that either the jailer later tells the story or that Paul and silence themselves tell the story. To look, but, but I love what Luke includes. He says they were praying and singing him to God. And again, david, I? You've already alluded to it in modern literature, but of course Anyone who's been around the Bible knows that Paul and Silas are probably reaching in their hearts for the Psalms, are probably reaching for the biblical literature that they have, what certainly Paul has been trained in.

John: 9:00

I mean, this has been drilled into him. Yes, and just as Jesus on the cross reaches for a Sam or two, so Paul probably reaches for some Psalms in terms of guiding his prayers and how to pray. And I love, I love Luke's little edition. They sing, singing him to God. Just just in case they're not just singing, they're singing him to God. Yes, I'm just having a sing song, right, the campfire, yeah, but they're reaching for biblical liturgy I think I I gain.

David: 9:26

We would say to our listeners don't build your house on that.

John: 9:36

But I can't think of Paul not reaching for the Psalms, are not reaching for some form of trained biblical liturgy within their context. Is that fair, do you think, goodness?

David: 9:44

yes, and and actually I mean to your, to your point one of the things that I have really learned the Anglican prayer liturgy. So I mentioned, although they are modern in the grand scheme of things, the vast majority like if you play, pray, complain. For example, the if so, so complain would be the night time prayer that you pray before you go to bed. If you pray from start to finish, you can find this apps online will give you complain prayers for the day and it is about. It'll take you about 10 minutes, right, and it's basically you begin with a, with an opening confession, like a confession of your day, of your failings during the day, and you remind yourself of God's forgiveness of that. And then I mean this is literally the order for company tide you pray Psalm 4,. You pray Psalm 31,. You pray Psalm 91,. You pray Psalm 134, right.

David: 10:42

You then read one or two lines from Scripture, you then pray the Lord's prayer, you then do the song of Simeon and then you say Amen. So in one sense we talk about this liturgy of, but actually it's just compiling Scripture together. Now think about that and I'm not trying to make this episode a sales pitch for these old liturgies of the church but think about that, that you're getting ready to go to bed and let me just do three Psalms the prayer Jesus taught me to pray and Simeon's blessing over Jesus. I mean, it's gorgeous, isn't it? It's amazing.

John: 11:16

I can think of worse ways to go to bed. It's funny.

David: 11:19

Exactly, and so I resonate, I think, as I'm learning these things I resonate with.

David: 11:24

Well, here's one of the reasons why I resonate with this and I'm just toying about whether to tell this story or not.

David: 11:33

But one of the things I'm noticing, john, let me say it like this if you do that enough, you actually start to memorize this stuff, and here's what's gorgeous about that is that then one day, you find yourself without your prayer book or without your Bible, and guess what's written on your heart. And so Paul and Silas do not have a scroll with them in this, they are fastened to the tree and all they've got is their wounds from being beaten up, and but what's in their mind and in their heart has been inscribed in them since they were little children that you learn these words, you sing these songs, you memorize these scriptures. I mean, I don't think I'm making that point up here. I think that's the point, isn't it? And I have my liturgies, you have your liturgies, our listeners will have theirs. But one compelling reason about doing certain things all the time is that you memorize them so you will know what to say when you don't know what to say. Right?

John: 12:35

Absolutely so good. No, you're not driving that too hard at all, and I always find it humorous and ironic with our background. We're both sort of card carrying Pentecostals, really Totally, and yet we're more probably I mean you, probably more than me but in terms of advocates of learn scripture, memorize scripture, confess scripture, make it part of the well worn routines of your world. Because when you can't think of what to pray, or when you the internet goes off and your favorite Bible app won't speak to you yeah, or you've been stripped naked and so there's no word to hide your Bible Then what's in you comes out of you.

John: 13:21

And again, I made an allusion to Jesus on the cross, but you know it again, it's not lost on me that Jesus says some significant things that have biblical nuance to them, and I mean some are quite explicit. But of course he literally quotes Sam 22 on the cross, and I don't think he's just quoting a verse, I think he's he's pointing to some, a much deeper idea that's going on on the cross. But the fact that Jesus, god in flesh, torah embodied, is reaching, is reaching for an ancient song to help him in a moment of suffering. And we're now seeing Paul and Silas and a low Luke is not explicit in telling us what they preter sang. You're putting two and two together and I think we're coming up with a pretty comfortable and confident for here that this wasn't well, what shall we pray? But it was reaching for things they've prayed a hundred times, reaching for ideas that are I mean, without being too personal I, we were just facing something recently and I literally found myself awake at five o'clock in the morning.

John: 14:32

I was due to get up slightly after that, but I was wide awake. In fact, to be honest, it was 430. But I, as I opened my eyes, the pressure of this thing was on me, intellectually, mentally, emotionally, and I immediately, out of my spirit, started speaking to me the confessions that I have learned and memorized and simply spoke them onto God in the darkness. And and it does change things, doesn't it, david? I mean it does it does help you hold steady. If nothing else, it helps you hold steady in the darkness, but it can actually help you find a light in the darkness and allow the light to appear, your own soul in the darkness.

David: 15:15

Yeah, my goodness, john, I mean the look, look, look at this right Jesus to his disciples. Verse 25 of John, chapter 16, john, chapter 14,. Sorry, forgive me all this. I have spoken well still with you, but the advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

David: 15:52

He's like, oh my goodness, like that's what we're seeing in in Paul and Silas right here. It's like everything is wrong with this scene. They are, they're in a Roman prison, the city is against them, they're beaten, broken, nailed to a tree or well, attached to a tree, and what's coming out of them is the things this disruptive presence of the spirit is bringing to their memory. You know, and so good. And so as a Pentecostal, I mean, and you actually, you know I realize I'm a complex, complex soul sometimes, but I've been in Pentecostal churches my whole life and I love my Pentecostal experience and all of my journey has been about just realizing that the spirit runs deep in the history of the church. So learning from and converging with all of the other traditions has been really, really, really good for me. But I am absolutely, like confessionally convinced that the spirit can drop something brand new into your heart if the spirit needs to. But I also think it makes good sense to stuff your heart with as much good stuff as you can so that either the spirit uses that to bring it back to your memory or it's just in there so that when you're kind of poked you bleed. Like can I say this, and please listener, here's zero guilt with this.

David: 17:17

But as John was speaking just there, john, you, I was thinking about how often in a really scary moment, the average human right. Think about how often really scary, terrifying moments, we slip out a swear word or we or we, or a cursing, or I think so. And Jesus when, when stabbed on the side of a tree, leaks scripture, I mean, but think about this. What leaks out of us in those terrifying, panicked moments is and I say this, they don't take any judgment for this I mean this is graceless, I can. It leaks out of us because we've put it in at some point, we've meditated on something ungodly at some point We've we've let it sit in us so it's become our reaction in bad moments and maybe we can control ourselves in our better moments. But it sneaks out in those moments. What would it look like to so marinate yourself in just the Psalms? Right, just marinating your Psalms, so that they are, they are your reactive responses? I think there's, I think there's profundity to that.

John: 18:18

Actually, that what we're seeing in this, in this passage in Fallen Silas, Completely, completely, and and and it it's sort of I mean that beautifully, I think leads us to the, to the second part of the statement, and and again. My goodness, we don't want to argue from silence here, but it says and the other prisoners were listening to them. I love that, yeah, like, like, you're sort of going, I would, I would, if I was a betting man, I'd put a large amount of money on it. They've never heard a song like this. They've never heard, they've never heard that sound coming out of that prison or or that inner cell. Because because we could only imagine what sort of sounds and words and curses and blasphemies would come out of a place like that, where maybe someone you know, even if they're guilty, they still feel the sense of pain and abandonment, but, but, but, like Paul and Silas are in the inner cell and they're completely innocent of what they're being accused of. They're not, they're not subversive, socially disruptive people, they're not trying to pull Rome down, they're proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus. So they could be sitting in that inner cell like Monin about. Well, this is injustice and we don't deserve to be here and you should get us out of here and calling down curses from heaven on everybody around them. And yet the prisoners are listening to prayers and hymns to God and and we're not one of the frustrating things I find in this story with Dr Luke, who's so good on the detail, he doesn't tell us anything about any any other prisoners.

John: 20:05

What happened to the other prisoners? We're not told. He focuses on the, the experience of the jailer. But you're going like that's bound to have had an impact. I mean, what happens next, of course, will have an impact, but just hearing and and again. Forgive me if I'm overcooking it, but as they start to pray and sing, here's what I think may have happened the other noise in the prison settles down when people go. Who's that? What's that? Someone's singing, and they're listening not just to someone singing but singing hymns to God, to God, and I do you know what, david, I do you know? It's just overwhelming. I find it. I find it so challenging and I find it so uplifting that in our dark moments maybe we could sing a song to God that other people hear and go. What is that? I've never heard that before. And high on earth can you sing that song when you're there? Wow, do you know what? I just overwhelms me.

David: 21:12

I really I mean I've given up all hope of us now getting beyond the first verse in this episode. So so let me just double down on us not moving quickly. So, in Incomplain, one of the prayers that is prayed every night is Psalm 31, right? So here's things. We I think you and I would bet the house on Paul knows Psalm 31, right? Okay? So imagine, imagine.

David: 21:40

So you've got these, you're in this Roman prison in Philippi and there's two men are beat up, chained to a tree in the middle of it, or some post in the middle of it, and then you start to hear and you, o Lord, have I taken refuge? Come on, let me never be put to shame. Deliver me in your righteousness, incline your ear to me. Make haste to deliver me. Be my strong rock, a castle to keep me safe, for you are my crag and my stronghold. For the sake of your name, lead me and guide me. Take me out of the net that they have secretly set for me, for you are my tower of strength. Be your hands that command my spirit, for you have redeemed me. O Lord, o God of truth, like I'm getting some tears, john, absolutely.

John: 22:32

Me too, that is that is Imagine hearing that Awesome yeah.

David: 22:38

Awesome. And like imagine sitting in that cell. Oh my goodness, just hearing that for the first time.

John: 22:47

Yeah, and of course we, our listeners, may have heard the echo of the words of Jesus himself on the cross Into your hands, I commit my spirit, you go. I've heard that before. Yeah.

David: 23:01

Yeah.

John: 23:02

Yeah, we have, we have. It's the man hanging nailed to the cross is reciting the Psalms. And now we're in X 16 and two men nailed to a piece of wood.

David: 23:15

Yeah.

John: 23:17

Or she into a piece of wood, or also reciting that's just, that is honestly. I am a mess. Now I am struggling to compose myself, but that was simple. I mean, that is minister to my soul. As you, as you read those words, I am going. Well, in fact, I quickly grabbed a Bible and literally caught up with you as you were reading and you go oh, that is beyond stunning. That is truly awesome, yeah, awesome.

David: 23:48

And of course we don't just to be absolutely clear, because we don't know that it was that Psalm, but that Psalm falls into the category of the nighttime Psalms, the Psalms that speak of those things, and you're right to point out the fact that Jesus salutes to this Psalm. It's probably one of the Psalms that sits high on the Christian allusions as well, and this gorgeous sense of where the Holy Spirit shows you something that these men are free, that they are chained but also free. So the next move of the Spirit is just to make physical what was very clearly true already. Yes, that they are not, my goodness, they're different, aren't they? They?

John: 24:41

are, and I think again, that is this gorgeous idea that we've moved from a young woman set free Now, whatever happened to her, we're not quite sure. Set free, but then the men of God who helped liberate her end up in bondage, but they are free. This verse, verse 25, is one of the most dynamic statements of freedom. I mean, it's a worship seminar without the band, isn't it? I mean, it's all you have to do in a worship seminar stand up and reflect on this verse that we've just talked about for the last 20 minutes or so, and you're going right. What else do we need here? This is like amazing. So you do get this incredible sense again of juxtaposition.

John: 25:29

We've got now changes of position in the story again, where these men, to all intents and purposes, are bound and acting like they're free. And again my mind goes to Jesus on the cross, who, to all intents and purposes, looks like a failure, and yet he is the victor. And you're going. Oh, my goodness, gracious me, this is. And Jesus and these men are connecting to the same ideas in their darkness, they're connecting to the same ideas in their pain, and they're connecting to the same ideas in their what looks like their failure and bondage. And yet we could argue all three men are free. They're totally free in those moments.

David: 26:16

Wow. And then I love this about Luke. We talk about Luke's detail. Suddenly there's an earthquake so violent, the foundations of the prison were shaken and immediately all the doors are opened and everyone's chains were unfashioned. And he doesn't tell you this was a move of the spirit. He just knows that. You will realize this was a move of the spirit If you read this text and think well, my goodness, that was lucky and it's funny how it's like there's an earthquake.

David: 26:42

Well, they do happen. Coincidentally, and we know that. I mean, my goodness, it's not that long after this that the Pompeii eruption happens, or it's around. My goodness, I'm doubting myself there. It's around this time that the Pompeii eruption happens. So we know that there's earthquakes in this area. But notice this like the doors open, that's a little unusual in an earthquake Everyone's chains becoming unfashioned. Yeah, that's not normal earthquake. If your chain chains at the start of an earthquake, you're just in chains at the end of the earthquake. That's right. Luke is so confident that he has properly embedded us into the way of the Spirit that, with all of the pieces of detail he gives us, he doesn't need to tell us. Oh, by the way, you know what this is Exactly. What's going on here? This is just God being God, and if you've not learned that, by chapter 16.

John: 27:37

Absolutely true. It's beautiful. And in fact, what's striking if you follow that trajectory, the only time from verse 25 to the end of the story where God is explicitly mentioned is in verse 25. Singing and praying hymns to God Everything else it's implied. He's implicit.

John: 27:58

It's that hidden in plain sight stuff we are assuming. Right, the Lord is moving, that the Lord is doing this, and actually the whole thing again shows that their lives are so intertwined with God that we're now almost reading things synonymously. Oh well, that means that, doesn't it? Yes, and this means this, and that must be connected to that, and I love your language of embedded. But those ideas are now synonymous in us and you would have to do gymnastics with the text to assume that the earthquake was anything other than the supernatural intervention of God. And is that suddenly, because they were praying and singing hymns to God? It's a gorgeous thought that actually their prayers and their praises invite him into the space and he's beside them and he's with them and he's inhabiting the darkness and he's there in the midst of the dankness and the dampness and the awfulness and the brutality of a Roman prison, and he is there beside them and I just love that idea that this is synonymous with who God is and what God does.

David: 29:25

So that's it for this episode. We know that there's always more to explore and we encourage you to dive into the text and do that. If you liked this episode, we'd really appreciate it if you rated, reviewed or shared it. We also appreciate all of our listeners who financially support the show, sharing the weight of producing this podcast. If you'd like to support the show, visit to textscom. But that is all for now. So until next time from John and I, goodbye.