Light in the darkness.
"But about midnight," etc. Power of facts to speak for Christ. The miracles of Christ accompanied his message. "Believe the works." We must push this evidence of facts on unbelievers, because they are not prepared to open their hearts to the truth.
I. A BRIGHT EXAMPLE OF FAITH.
1. It overcame fear, shame, suffering.
2. It lay hold of the future—praying and praising, under the influence of hope. The time was midnight, but there was morning in their souls.
3. It was faith which was proved by experience; they remembered past deliverances. "His love in time past," etc.
II. GOD WORKS WITH HIS PEOPLE.
1. He opens their lips, when the world would shut them. The inner prison and the stocks cannot silence truth. The audience is there—the prisoners and the Roman jailor.
2. Fellow-workers called in. "The earth helped the woman" (Revelation 12:16). God is doing much under the surface of events. Streams of providential government unite with streams of spiritual influence. The revival of intelligence and humanism preceding the Reformation. The two great currents of the eighteenth century, spiritual and political; and now science helps the advancement of Christianity.
3. Leave God to find opportunity for us. Be patient, and hope to the end. The trouble of Christianity to the world works out peace.—R.
A remarkable conversion.
"Then he called for a light," etc. The significance of the jailor's case, as a Roman, and almost instantaneously converted, as illustrating the comparative religious freedom of a Roman colony, the openness of the Gentile mind to impression, the yearning of the heart after a true religion prevailing at that time in the better class of people.
I. AWAKENED ANXIETY.
1. A realization of personal dangers and need.
2. A forsaking of all other refuges.
3. An appeal for help to those who, by their confidence and peace, showed that they had a better hope.
II. SINGLE-MINDED INQUIRY.
1. Different from mere curiosity or speculation.
2. Ready humbly to wait for brotherly sympathy and direction.
3. Casting the will as well as the mind on the truth. "What must I do?"
III. RISING FAITH.
1. Salvation possible, therefore sought after.
2. Self-surrender at the feet of the messenger, as expressing desire for the message.
3. Doubtless "the way of salvation," of which the city bad heard, was something definitely before his mind as something to be found. Why is not such earnestness universal?—R.