THE RISE AND FALL

SONGS AT MIDNIGHT

Acts 16:16-34

In the midst of difficulties,

the song of faith sets us free.

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A sermon pr= eached by

Dr. William= O. (Bud) Reeves

First Unite= d Methodist Church

Hot Springs, Arkansas

September 2= 1, 2008

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When I= was growing up, comedian Red Skelton’s TV show was one of the programs we almost never missed. He did g= reat characters and slapstick comedy and sometimes laughed at himself so hard he couldn’t do his routine.

One of= my favorite Red Skelton stories is about the time he wanted to buy his wife something special for her birthday, but he had no idea what to buy. So he asked his secretary if she h= ad a suggestion, and she told him about a new perfume that had just come out cal= led “Romantic Thoughts at Midnight.” Red decided that would make a perf= ect gift.

He wen= t to the department store and found his way to the cosmetic section. When he got there, he started look= ing around for this exotic new perfume, but he couldn’t find it anywhere.= He looked and looked, but it just wasn’t there. Finally a saleswoman came up to he= lp him. She looked like she was = near her retirement from the retail industry.&n= bsp; She asked politely, “Can I help you with something?”

Without thinking, Red Skelton said, “Sure.&n= bsp; Do you have ‘Romantic Thoughts at Midnight’?”

The wo= man answered, “Pardon me? W= hat did you say?”

Red re= peated, “Do you have ‘Romantic Thoughts at Midnight’?”

The wo= man looked at him and said, “Buddy, at my age I have to drink black coffee to ma= ke it through the 10 o’clock news!”

In our= Scripture today, we find our heroes of faith in one of those “midnight” t= imes of life, when not only are romantic thoughts hard to come by, but any thoug= hts of joy or peace whatsoever.

Back d= uring World War II, when the Nazis were trying to exterminate the Jewish people in the death camps, one of the Jewish women they imprisoned was the niece of Gustav Mahler, the great composer. She was an accomplished musician herself. When the S.S. guards discovered wh= o she was, they decided she was too valuable to execute immediately. They had a concentration camp orchestra, if you can imagine such a thing. They had all these talented, distinguished musicians from all over Europe, now imprisoned and marked for death. They gave them instruments and required them to perform beautiful music. They were forced to pl= ay for their captors and as their Jewish brothers and sisters were unloaded from b= ox cars and sent to the gas chambers. Reflecting on that experience, Mahler’s niece said, “We would gladly have taken our instruments and smashed them on the ground, bec= ause there was no music in our souls.”

That m= idnight feeling of despair was shared by their Jewish forebears many centuries earl= ier, when the people of God found themselves in exile in a foreign land. Far from home, surrounded by stran= gers, separated from friends and family, their homeland destroyed, the Psalmist s= ang one of the saddest songs in Scripture:

By the rivers of Babylon--there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion.

On the willows there we hung up our ha= rps.

For there our captors asked us for son= gs,

and our tormentors asked for mirth, sa= ying,

“Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”=

How could we sing the Lord’s = song in a foreign land?

If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither!

Let my tongue cling to the= roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you,

if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy.= = [1]

Songs = at midnight. Songs of despair, disappointment and defeat.

Then t= here was Paul and Silas. Certainly the= y had reason to be depressed. They = had been preaching the Good News of Jesus in Philippi, a major Roman city, the first mission field in Europe. Everything was fine until they beg= an to be harassed by a girl with a demon. She would follow them and shout out, “These men are the servan= ts of the most high God!” = Which was true, and good press, but it disrupted the flow of the service. So Paul cast the demon out of the = girl, and things calmed down.

Unfort= unately, this girl was an income producer for some of the Philippian businessmen—sort of a side-show attraction. So these men had Paul and Silas arrested, beaten, and imprisoned, left in the inner darkness of the Philipp= ian jailhouse. Then Acts says, &#= 8220;About midnight Paul and Silas were pra= ying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.R= 21;= = [2] What? No despair, no defeat, no li= cking of the wounds, no complaining about the injustices they were suffering for = God?

Don= 217;t miss the miracle here. ItR= 17;s not the earthquake that opened the doors of the jail; earthquakes happen all the time in that region. The miracle happens when Paul and Silas, beaten and bloody, are able to summon = the courage and the strength, right there in that dungeon, to pray and sing son= gs of praise to God. Songs at midnight—there’s your miracle!

So wha= t makes the difference? Why does one = group hang up their harps and cry, “How can we sing the Lord’s song i= n a foreign land?” And Paul= and Silas sing songs in prison at midnight.&nb= sp; The answer, I believe, is this.&nbs= p; In between the Baylonian exile and the ministry of Paul, there was a= Man. There was a cross. There was an empty tomb. Jesus experienced his midnight mom= ent at Calvary when he cried out in agony, R= 20;My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”= [3]<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> He died, but he rose again. He promised to be with his discipl= es forever. So we have the coura= ge of hope. So we can sing songs at midnight.

And we= do have our midnight moments, too, don’t we?= Even the most positive person with the most successful life imaginab= le has moments when the world comes crashing in, and it’s hard to find t= he strength and the desire to carry on. Every family has tragedy and trouble. It could be a death, a disease, a divorce. This week it could b= e the stock market and economic hardship. Every life has disappointments to face, and we have to find a way to claim the peace and joy God wants us to have, even when we feel beaten and bloodied by life, shackled in the darkness while the clock strikes twelve.<= /p>
I thin= k about Charles Wesley, brother of John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist moveme= nt in England. Charles was 39 years old before he= fell in love with a beautiful young lady named Sally Quinn. Sally was only 19 years old, but C= harles persuaded her father to let them marry, and he adored Sally with all his heart. He was so proud of his lovely young bride.

But af= ter five years of marriage, Sally was stricken with smallpox, a horrible, disfigurin= g, often fatal disease. After we= eks of fever and sores covering her body, Sally recovered. But it might have been less cruel = if she had died. Sally’s young= face had lost its beauty; it was now covered with the scars of smallpox. In fact, when she and Charles met = new people, many of them mistakenly thought Sally was older than Charles.

Nevert= heless, Charles and Sally had eight children together. But five of them died in childhood= . Can you imagine burying five of yo= ur children? Of the three that survived into adulthood, not one of them made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ before Charles Wesley died. None of them believed in the Lord their father loved and served with= all his heart until after he was gone. What a disappointing life!

In fac= t, Charles Wesley was so depressed he wrote over 6,000 hymns of praise to God. It was Charles Wesley who wrote, “O for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer’s pr= aise, the glories of my God and King, the triumph of his grace!”= = [4] A lesser-known verse puts it so we= ll: “Jesus, my all in all thou art, my rest in toil, my ease in pain, the healing of my broken heart, in war my peace, in loss my gain, my smile bene= ath the tyrant’s frown, in shame my glory and my crown.”= = [5] You know what that is; it’s a= song at midnight.

This i= s the consistent witness of faith. = We can sing songs at midnight. Faith= will triumph! Love will be victori= ous! God wins! Therefore we can overcome whatever problems have us imprisoned at this very moment. Do you believe that? Then you can be free. Faith leads to freedom in the dung= eons of despair.

Paul a= nd Silas had been praying and singing songs in the Philippian jail, and the other prisoners were listening to them. All of a sudden, there was an earthquake. It shook the shackles right off th= eir feet and opened the doors of the prison.&n= bsp; When the jailer came running, he saw the doors opened and assumed all the prisoners had escaped. He= drew his sword and was about to kill himself when Paul shouted out, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all h= ere.”= = [6] Nobody needed to escape. They were already free.

Even in prison, Jesus Christ can set you free.&nbs= p; Several years ago, there was an Upper Room devotional written by a man named Wayne Brinkley. By the time = Wayne was 40 years old, he had served t= ime for murder and robbery. He es= caped, killed another man, and was convicted of another murder, which put him in solitary confinement. He thou= ght his world had come to an end. There was no one to turn to. But th= en he remembered someone he had turned his back on years before—Jesus Chris= t.

Writin= g in The Upper Room, Wayne Brinkley sai= d, “When I picked up the Bible in that lonely cell, …I asked Jesus= to take control of my life, I felt the Holy Spirit touch me, and I knew that Christ, the light of life, had come into my life. I knew I would never walk in darkn= ess again. After four times in pr= ison, having spent 25 years of my life locked up, I was finally free. Jesus had s= et me free. Even though I am still = in prison, I am free. I live every day for Jesus. Jesus can set us free when we let = him control our life.”[7]

All it= takes to find that freedom, all it takes to sing a song at midnight, is the respo= nse of faith in Jesus Christ. Whe= n the Philippian jailer realized that all the prisoners had stayed put after the earthquake, he came and fell before Paul and Silas and inquired, “What must I do to be saved?”= = = [8]

Paul a= nswered, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, a= nd you will be saved, you and your household.”[9] = Right then, in the middle of the night, the jailer took Paul and Silas to his hom= e, washed their wounds, woke up his family, and Paul and Silas shared the word= of the Lord with them. Before da= wn everybody in the house was baptized into Christ. Then they had breakfast and celebr= ated their new faith.

That m= ay seem like a long-ago, far-away story to you.&nb= sp; But in the parts of the world where it is still dangerous to be a Christian, the Holy Spirit is doing the same kind of work even today.

Aberra= Wata was working with Christian youth in the southern part of Ethiopia when the Communists = took over in 1974. They soon became aware of Wata’s ministry, and accused him of treason. The commander who arrested him off= ered to overturn his sentence if Wata would deny his faith. He responded, “If you execut= e me, I will be immediately with the Lord.”

So Abe= rra Wata was imprisoned to await his execution.&nbs= p; While in prison, Wata became a composer. God gave him songs to sing that he= had never heard before. He sang w= ith the other prisoners, and the guards tried to keep them quiet. But what do condemned men have to = fear? Soon seven men had become Christia= ns in that prison.

One pa= rticular guard took delight in mocking the Christians, yelling at them and insulting them. One day he patted his g= un and promised Wata, "Tomorrow morning at this time you won't be in the land= of the living."

Just a= fter midnight that night a tremendous storm rocked the prison. Huge hailstones a= nd high winds tore the roofs off every building in the prison compound, except= the building where the Christians were staying. Everyone else got soaked.

The ne= xt morning, they fully expected the executions to take place as planned. Instead, the commander of the pris= on threw the abusive guard into the cell with the Christians and whipped him w= ith his belt. He said, &quo= t;We told this man to leave the believers alone, but he refused, and so God has = sent this terrible punishment on the town and prison. He deserves to be given so= me of his own medicine."

In the= cell, the abusive guard had a change of heart.&n= bsp; He told the prisoners, "I know that the Lord was with you. I kn= ow the way I should have treated you, but Satan persuaded me otherwise. Please forgive me." They did, and other men continued to come to Christ while Aberra Wata was in prison.[10]

The sa= me God who gave Paul and Silas a song to sing at midnight and set them free from prison is still our God!

Let me= close with a scene from the film The Shaw= shank Redemption. Red Redding narrates the story of Andy Dufresne, a young, successful banker wrongly convicted of murdering his wife and sentenced to maximum security Shawshank prison. At one point in the f= ilm, Dufresne is given the task of sorting through some phonograph records that = were donated to the prison. He fin= ds a beautiful operatic piece and begins to play it, though music is against pri= son regulations. Then he locks hi= mself in the sound booth and turns on the prison loudspeaker so that everyone can= hear the music. Guards, prison doc= s, prisoners all stop what they are doing to listen to the music. Red Redding comments:

I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singi= ng about. Truth is, I don’= t want to know. Some things are best= left unsaid. I’d like to thi= nk they were singing about something so beautiful it can’t be expressed = in words. It makes your heart ac= he because of it. I tell you tho= se voices soared. Higher and far= ther than anyone in the great place dared to dream. It was like some beautiful bird fl= apped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away. And for the briefest of moments, e= very last man in Shawshank felt free.[11]

Are you feeling like you’re so far down in the depths of your own prison today that you couldn’t hear the song of freedom if you tried? That’s simply not so! No matter what sort of imprisoning circumstances there are in your life, you can listen for the Good News. You can hear the song of faith. Then you can begin to sing your ow= n song. You can make the response of faith= . And you can be free! You can walk out of here today wit= h that burden lifted! You can live t= he life God wants you to have! Y= ou can be a hero of faith! Amen!