But Paul said unto them, They have beaten us openly uncondemned, being Romans, and have cast us into prison; and now do they thrust us out privily? nay verily; but let them come themselves and fetch us out. Acts 16:37.
What gets me in this passage is how Paul and Silas and all the other prisoners were freed from prison by an act of God yet here the Roman authorities were still trying to tell them where to go and what to do.
They weren't prisoners anymore.
And neither are we.
I don't need a jailer to keep me out of trouble, I've got the Holy Spirit. I don't need bars and walls to keep me from sin I've got the Word.
If you really want to take it one step further than that:
A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgements, and do them. Ezekiel 37:26-27.
Hold on! Before I close this one down I want to say something perceptive. I don't really think that Paul was rubbing it in their faces here. He was doing it for the glory of God first and foremost. Secondly he was giving them one more chance to repent and he was being very gracious after what they had been through.
Aren't we called to do that as Christians? Don't we sometimes have to just let it go, or let them go as the case may be. Whatever they did to us is not worth staying upset over. God can use it for His glory.
Let them come!
That's what Joseph did. Joseph was beaten and robbed and thrown into a well and sold into slavery by his own brothers. God turned the whole thing around.
But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. Genesis 50:20.
Let them come!
By Grace,
Travis
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