Influencing Others Through Prayer, Song, and Faith

Okay, um, so hello Paul, I'm Freedom from the Philippines. Wait, English? Okay, um, I'm Christy, 24 years old, and I live in Rotterdam at this moment.

You know what, guys? My heart is beating so fast, so please bear with me. Um, I would like to thank the Lord for everything that He is providing for me and for my family back home. Um, He's been so good and gracious to me and to my family, surrounding me with good people. Even though we have had a lot of struggles these past few months, we went through a lot of struggles. We met through a rough time, but you know, the goodness of the Lord will always remain, and we always have to trust in Him.

Um, wherever you go, whatever step you take, you have to trust Him because He knows better. We always pray for His guidance, His wisdom, for us to take every step of our way. And yeah, I'm always grateful.

And for the Youth Camp, um, just like Naya, I didn't spend any cent in going to the Youth Camp, and I'm so grateful for this community who have helped me to join the Youth Camp. And also to the sponsors at the Carol for providing and for spending your money on me.

Okay, um, but I'm so grateful for the Youth Camp because the Lord revealed a lot to me. I thought when I was in the Philippines, I already knew the Lord, but when I came here, He revealed so much to me, and He is making me learn Him in a deeper way. And through you guys, you're helping me to make my relationship with God stronger. So I'm grateful to all of you. Amen. Thank you. Thank you, Lord.

Thank you, Christy. Thank you, Lord.

Anybody else? Those who have enjoyed your holiday, anything to share? Now go ahead, sister. Yes, come forward.

Yes, hello, hello, hello. I want to thank God for bringing us to the Netherlands. For some of you who already know us, like who are you? See, just myself, I'm Marlene, married to Vittorio. I used to live here for 16 years, so I know Sister Ching from when they started the WIN in 1988.

So I know Sister Ching from 1988, Lucy, Lucy family. But I arrived in '88, maybe in the '90s, and Claire, for our holiday, we immigrated to New Zealand in 2003. But we are here in 2019 before the pandemic started. So I've seen some of them, and then we were very sick when we arrived in the Netherlands.

Council, some appointment with stretching, but praise to God, we got better. Thank you, Sister Team, for praying for us. Safe journey. And then we're just traveling, and we're going back to New Zealand in October. So we're grateful we're able to visit, uh, being here in Skidam for the first time. Thank you. Now we're on holiday, so so grateful to be here and to see the faces I haven't seen for a very long time.

Okay, that's all. Thank you.

Welcome, welcome. So yeah, maybe it's a good time to say welcome to Sister Marlene and Luigi. Okay, welcome! I hope you have enjoyed our service and the presence of the Lord. And every time you are around, please do come and visit us and join us.

Okay, um, again, anybody else? No? Alright, so if not, then I'll ask all our children, and, uh, do you, and should we request the babies as well if they are awake? Of course, if they're sleeping, no, just let them sleep.

Oh man, hey, thank you, Lord. Oh Sam, we'll do football later. He's the next Messi. Thank you, Lord. Now that's fine, just leave him. I always say let the children make noise in the church.

Thank you, thank you, children. Brothers and sisters, let's extend our hands and pray for our children.

Dear Lord Jesus, thank you for this time that you have given to us. We are extending our hands as you, O Lord, bless these children whom you have brought to our church. O Lord Jesus, we are grateful for you bringing them, O Lord, in our midst today.

Father, we pray that you may bless them as they have their own separate service. O Lord, we pray that you may bless the teacher and all of them, Lord, contributing to the discussion and the time that they will enjoy together. May they see and feel the love that comes from you, overflowing in this church, overflowing in their hearts, O Lord. Teach them to become your servants, O Lord, to become the person you want them to be, and that at a point in time, they will receive you as their Lord and Savior personally.

Thank you, Jesus. We bless them in this service. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. Amen. Bless your children. Thank you, Lord. Hallelujah!

It's so good to see children around in the church. Amen. Children are the future and the sunshine of our life.

Brothers and sisters, I have mentioned this perhaps many times to you. I truly enjoy the testimony time, and I truly feel that when you are sharing your life, your experience, your testimony, your hope, your prayer to the Lord, it's your own experience. It's nobody else. Nobody else can tell your own story. The version you tell, I can retell somebody else's story, but it's a different power if the same person is the one who is experiencing it, telling that story.

And therefore, whatever it is, don't worry about whether the words are in a proper way. As long as your heart is there and God is speaking to you to speak and give testimony, please do and don't hold it to yourself.

Right? So, the reason being, brothers and sisters, it is also related to what I'm going to preach today. And so Pastor Angel has read from Acts chapter 16, verse 25 to 26. Now, you probably have heard this story. I've read this story before where Paul and Silas were accused, and they didn't even have the time to give an answer for the accusation. They didn't even have time to defend themselves.

We will go through the story, and I have read this a couple of times, and I even have preached this before, brothers and sisters. And when I read this again, and this is the beauty of reading the words of God, that every time you read a passage that you have read before, there's always something new that God reveals to you.

Now, so today, brothers and sisters, we will read about the time where Paul and Silas were accused and they were thrown in prison.

And so what I'm going to speak to you about is not about Paul and Silas themselves, but about the prisoners. So take a look at the story when we go through. I want to get your attention and place yourself as the prisoners in that time.

Okay, you ready? You are not the prisoners, but just pretend or think and imagine. And that's the beauty of this story. It's a real story based on a real story. Reticence is not crafted; it is a real story that was written in the Bible.

So shall we read from Acts chapter 16? I will read from verse 16 to 34 to make the story complete so you get the context, and then we'll dive into several verses that we will look at today.

Okay, so Acts chapter 16, verse 16 to 34. I will read from the New International Version. If you have your Bible with you, please do join me to read this from Acts chapter 16, 16 to 34. Up here on the screen, you can follow me.

Once when we were going to the place of prayer, so the first thing, brothers and sisters, here, if you look, it was not Paul or Silas who wrote this experience; it was somebody else because it says "we." If it would have been Paul, Paul would say "once I" or "we."

According to Bible scholars who are looking at the structure of Acts, most likely the person who wrote this is Luke. Right? So "we" means that it's not only Paul and Silas; there are more people together with them.

We met by a female slave who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune telling. A fortune telling, brothers and sisters, you see further later on here.

And she followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, "This man are servants of the Most High God who are telling you the way to be saved." She kept this up for many days. So it's not only once, not twice, many days when Paul was ministering.

And the context here is in Philippi. Finally, Paul became so annoyed. I was reading what the female slave was saying: "The men are servants of the Most High God who are telling you the way to be saved."

And I was looking at what was wrong with this statement, right? The statement was not wrong, I think, but the way she was mentioning it. And we do not also know, maybe Paul was preaching at that time, and she kept on talking and interacting with him with the same statement or the way she was saying it, right?

So if you're saying a statement that is right, but like trying to play about it could also be the one that annoyed Paul. And brothers and sisters, this is Paul who has been experiencing and have been seeing mocking and all many different other things. It's not easy to annoy Paul, and he was annoyed.

Now, what's next after that? Finally, Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, not to the female slave, to the spirit, "In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to come out of her." At that moment, the spirit left her.

Question yourself, brothers and sisters, when you are annoyed by somebody else or somebody close to you, you know when you are annoyed, what would you do usually? So I saw my children, Daniel and Darlene and Darius, you know, siblings as always, you know, they cannot live with or without each other, and they annoy each other, right?

So you did that as well, right? And you know, many years back or even right now, you do that. And that's, I think, what siblings, you can tell how close they are by how much they tease each other.

Well, brothers and sisters, when you are annoyed by a situation or conditions or by someone, what really struck me here is Paul is not looking at the person but the spirit that is in that person.

And so when you are annoyed, brothers and sisters, don't hate the person because maybe there's something inside that you do not know. So pray about that inside, whatever that is.

And so let's continue. When her owners realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities.

They brought them before the magistrate and said, "These men are Jews and are throwing our city into uproar by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice."

So brothers and sisters, if you read the story before and you look at the statement, you're like, "What was the uproar? What was really something that turned around the city?" It was an accusation that was not quite right, right?

And so also if you read it further, brothers and sisters, the person didn't realize because Paul is a citizen of Rome as well. But because for the accusation itself, he tried to craft it in such a way that it becomes so bad.

If he would have been in this current situation, brothers and sisters, there probably would have already been a lot of live video feeds and all other things, and people can defend themselves. See, it was not as bad as you think it was, but they didn't get the chance because the person who had seen that his way of getting money was gone because the spirit that was in the female slave was gone, so he was so mad.

Now, when they were in front of the magistrate, brothers and sisters, verse 22, the crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and there was no reason. There was not really explained why it was like that.

And the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten with rods. After they had severely flogged them, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully.

When he received this order, he put them in the inner cell, so the deepest possible cell, and fastened their feet in the stocks so they could not move or stand.

Protestances, so really fixed. Now they are in prison, and I want you to think that you are one of the prisoners. Just imagine you're one of the prisoners.

About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners—imagine we are the prisoners—we're listening to them. Suddenly, there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken.

At once, all the prison doors flew open, and everyone's chains came loose. The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped.

But Paul shouted, "Don't harm yourself! We are all here." It's not only Paul and Silas, but all the prisoners are all there.

The jailer called for lights, rushed in, and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. He then brought them out and asked, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"

They replied, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household." Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him, ministering to him and to all others in his house.

At that hour of the night, the jailer took them and washed their wounds. Then immediately, he and all his household were baptized.

The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them. He was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God—he and his whole household.

Let us pray.

Lord Jesus, thank you for this time you have given to us and the many verses that we have just read. Lord, speak to us that we will be understanding, Lord, the words that you have in store for us, that we will be able to receive the Rhema that comes from you, Lord, that it will take a good ground of our hearts as the root, and it will grow and bear fruit in our daily life. Lead us, Lord. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.

Amen, brothers and sisters. Imagine at the time that Paul and Silas were sentenced to jail. They were accused of something that is far above what it's supposed to be. Paul and Silas were beaten, marked, flocked—really, really terrible things that are happening to them. And then they were thrown in jail.

And so, brothers and sisters, we might not be experiencing similar things today physically, but many people mentally are feeling dead in our life. Sometimes there are many people who are bullied. Sometimes many people feel that somebody else is trying to play down on them.

There are so many different things that you are psychologically feeling that you are in the prison of thoughts that limit you. Even though you are physically not in prison, your mind and your heart might be thrown into prison by something that you probably didn't do or say, but for whatever reason, you might feel that.

Now, brothers and sisters, again, as I mentioned to you, imagine that you are one of the prisoners at the time witnessing this guy, Paul and Silas, coming in, going into the very deepest part of the jail.

So something that is making it almost impossible for them to get out of jail, very deep. Maybe, I don't know how the prison was at that time. Maybe that was the place that is the darkest, the place that is the worst in that prison.

Imagine you're one of the prisoners seeing these guys bleeding or really looking very bad. And you know, I don't know, brothers and sisters, if you have seen many Hollywood movies or K-drama movies about jails and all those, when somebody's coming, they're usually making noise, right?

So they want to know who is this guy coming in, right? Can we overpower them, or can we play a little about them, or whatever? Usually, they make lots of noise. We didn't know what happened, and for the first time when Paul and Silas were entering until they were set into the jail, we didn't know that.

But I could imagine, I imagine myself as one of the prisoners there. They focus on the prisoners. They must be questioning what happened to this guy. I don't know whether between the time that they were in jail until midnight, where the pick of everything happened, whether they were actually conversing, "Hey, you there, what did you do? Did you come here?"

I don't know whether they're allowed to talk that way or whatever it is, brothers and sisters. It was not recorded in heaven. We're going to ask Paul and Silas how it was exactly.

Now imagine again yourself, right? So maybe some will say it's a pity for this guy, or we exactly don't know. But one thing we know is that at midnight, Paul and Silas decided to pray and sing hymns.

Now, what happened to the jailers? The other prisoners, the other prisoners—you're one of them—were listening to them. Listening to them.

Suddenly, there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once, all the prison doors flew open, and everyone's chains came loose.

Any of you ever experience an earthquake, brothers and sisters? Yeah, you felt an earthquake. You know, I once felt, in a couple of times, I was in my middle school a long time ago, brothers and sisters. We were learning mathematics. I still remember that.

And there was this earthquake. The teacher was teaching on the whiteboard, blackboard, stitching, and suddenly the earthquake comes. And the school is only half baton, and the rest of the woods. So when the ground moves, you hear everything, right?

So then it's so hard that everybody was just standing up. So when we were there, we were told when there is something happening, you got to be ready and wait for the teacher to tell you because it could be really a dangerous earthquake, and you need to go, or it's just a tremor, and you just stay.

So I don't know what the teacher—maybe he was—he'll stop and he count and he said, "Go out!" Everybody went out, and then in a minute or so, it subsided, and then we're waiting outside. There was no extra, and then we came in again, and that was a mild one.

Here it says it's a violent earthquake, so it's not just a little shake; it's a serious one. But brothers and sisters, how great this earthquake is and is designed. Now my engineering background is coming in. I just could not imagine that the earthquake is only to open the door, to break the lock, and to break the chain.

Can you imagine? How could that be? I was trying to draw my sketch, like how would the movement be to really break the chain, to really break the door lock? Can you imagine? That's the only thing that is broken, brothers and sisters.

The rest of the jail was intact, and it was said there it's a violent one. It's not just a small one. And so, brothers and sisters, it was so amazing when you look at this and think like, "Wow, an earthquake only opened the doors and broke the chains."

So when God is seeking things, the things will not be the one to destroy you but to open the doors and to open any chain that is holding you up. Amen?

So when you see that God is moving, you know that it's not going to destroy you, but it's going to open ways for you who are in the jail.

Right? So brothers and sisters, you remember that all the prisoners were listening to the prayer. I was thinking, could it be that God designed it in such a way that the earthquake will only open the door of Silas and Paul only and only break the chain of Paul and Silas only?

God can, but the key, brothers and sisters, because the doors are all open, the chains are all broken, not only for Paul and Silas but also for the people who are listening to Paul.

You see the power? You see the power, brothers and sisters? When you are listening, it's not only you. It's not only the person that says the prayer that was blessed. You are blessed.

So when you are praying and somebody else is listening, or your children are listening, brothers and sisters, I know that the words that they listen will be the seeds of the miracles that may happen to them.

So don't feel that your prayers are something that you do yourself. The people that were listening to those, or even if they physically don't listen to it, pray that the Holy Spirit will be the one speaking to them so they are just listening. They feel the miracles too.

Can you imagine? You are one of the prisoners, persons, just listening to that nice hymn and nice prayer, hopeful prayer, and suddenly your own chain was broken, your own doors are all open.

And the most amazing thing is they might have been thinking, "When can I go out?" Is this prison? When everything was broken, you know, they didn't leave. They stayed there.

And the jailer, one who guards the jail, basically, brothers and sisters, was about to kill himself because he was sleeping. He did not listen to the hymn. He almost killed himself. He almost missed the time to be saved. Paul stopped him.

So brothers and sisters, and then he came and trembled. And I was just imagining, "Lord, why are the prisoners not running away?" They must have been waiting for the time to run away.

And I'm sure they are full in the presence of the Lord. They probably just in the presence of the Lord praying and being blessed and maybe continuing and repeating the words and the song that Paul and Silas were singing.

We didn't know, brothers and sisters, but at that time, if they are really, really rebel people, afterwards they might have run in the minute the chain was broken and the door is open, right?

But at that time, they did not do that. Why? Because they probably see that there is something more to learn from Paul and Silas.

So brothers and sisters, here is the key. When we are in crisis, we see that Paul and Silas, in all the physical things that may have been jailed, we probably have been restricted in some of the things that we are doing.

Maybe for whatever reason, you feel that your career is stuck there. Maybe for one reason or another, you feel that there is no other way. This is how I was, this is how I am, and this is how I will be. You are chained to what you are today.

But God doesn't want us to stay like that. And take a start to school, brothers and sisters. I want each and every one of us to be encouraged. Even though physically, it's probably impossible from our physical mind, but let's take the courage to, even though with all the physical limitations, we see if God put in your heart to pray something bigger than you are, pray over it.

Because you never know that God will break all the walls, all the chains that are holding you back. I am sure that at that time, God is speaking to Paul and Silas, "There are much greater things I have in store for you after this."

And they were like, "God, what else are we? We are chained, right?" But they did not say that. They are continuously praising God because they know one way or another they will be saved by God. Amen?

So one way or another, brothers and sisters, if we continue to pray for God to open up the doors or to break the chains, everything that is holding you back for you to make progress in your life, in your relationship with God, in your relationship with your family, in your relationship with your spouse, in your relationship with your children, with everybody around you, God is going to give us this earthquake that will only open the chains that are holding us back. Amen?

So now, brothers and sisters, even if you are only listening, even if you do not have that desire before, and this might happen, brothers and sisters, that when Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns, I am sure they are singing and praying hope.

I'm sure that they are singing and praying hope. So when you think that you do not have that, and somebody else is singing and praying and testifying about the work that God has done in their life, maybe something that is inside of you is jumping up and saying, "I feel that right! I see that, and I feel I experience that."

So brothers and sisters, even when you're listening, the miracles can also be experienced by you. Amen?

So brothers and sisters, I encourage you to every day take the time to listen to the word of God. If you are listening to an audiobook, pick the right good audiobook. If you're listening to podcasts, whatever it is, brothers and sisters, the things that uplift you and connect you with God, even when you are listening, you might experience the miracle as well. Amen?

So let me close with this, brothers and sisters. Let's turn to Mark chapter 11, verse 24. And this is, I think, also the concept that Paul and Silas had in their prayer and in their song.

Mark chapter 11, verse 24, it says, "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours."

Now today, brothers and sisters, let's continue to put our hope in our Lord Jesus Christ as we pray and as we sing.

And I would like to practice this together, brothers and sisters. Pastor Angel, if you can come forward, please, with the worship team. If you can come forward with me, let's sing this song, "You Are Near."

Let's all stand, brothers and sisters. Thank you, Lord. Let's pray and worship the Lord in our hearts. And as we praise and worship the Lord, I know that there are unspoken prayers that are in your hearts, brothers and sisters.