Stripped to set people free

...The chief magistrates tore their robes off them and proceeded to order them to be beaten with rods.

Acts 16:22

Paul and Silas, the dynamic duo of the early church, have just rescued a demon-possessed girl from her demon...but also took a couple of pimps' income away. There are always those who used the weaknesses of others for their own financial gain. And when their captives are set free, they fight back.

So they are drug into court and accused of being counter-cultural! Well, that being the accusation, they are stripped and beaten. Wow. No specific accusations or a trial...just preaching a different culture.

Stripping people down to their loin clothes was nothing new. Beating them was nothing new. Jailing them was nothing new. And really, none of this made sense. They did good in the name of Jesus, and the whole world turned against them. It is sad that they did not see that they, too, could be set free from the demons that enabled them to see God at work and yet reject Him. This girl could see through the demons that God was preaching salvation through them. But it did not save her to know this. Even the demons believe, and shudder. James 2:19 It is not enough to know that God exists...it is not enough to know that Jesus is the only way to be saved. It is not enough to believe all of the things that the Bible says about anything. The Pharasees believed in the Word, and Jesus said that it would be held against them to know it, and then reject the Son of the promise, Jesus Himself. The demons know who Jesus is, but until the day when every knee shall bow and every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord, they will not submit to Him. They purposefully oppose Him. Often we just look at Him, and say what a nice guy He was and how we ought to be nice, too. But we do not submit our lives, confess our need for a savior due to our sinfulness and opposition to God in our hearts, and believe in the blood of Jesus to wash those sins away. We need to be stripped of our sins, and that forcefully, as we continue to pull that garment of sin over ourselves, hiding our inner ugliness from God and man. The demons do not hide themselves from God...they flaunt their rebellion in His face. That is when we truly need to fear ourselves...when we no longer care if God knows our sinful, sorry state that separates us from Him. When the name of Jesus invokes no reaction in our hearts, those of fear, or reverence, or joy, or love, then we are in trouble...the lukewarmness is our evidence of making God irrelevant in our lives.

At least Paul and Silas knew where they stood. In prison they sang...they knew God had not abandoned them, but that they were being persecuted for the cause of Christ and they were blessed. The name of Christ was exposed more than their skin and wounds. They were free, though bound. The girl was now free from her slavery to sin, and now free to choose whether to follow the God she had recognized working through their lives. And they didn't know that through these stripes a whole family would be saved. They were stripped of all of their dignity, and through that stripping, many were saved. Their dignity was restored, their ministry continued, and those who beat them were humbled. When God allows us to be stripped, He can work good. It is painful, embarrassing, and doesn't necessarily make any sense to us. But God knows what He plans to accomplish...and we are called to bow to it, no matter whether it makes sense to us, harms us, or causes our reputation to be totally trashed. Why suffer for doing right, for freeing others from the pimps of this world or the possession of the other world? Because this is how God works. Jesus was stripped and beaten and killed. It is God's way, and it is a hard way. We see new ministries cropping up to free girls from the sex trade and all sorts of other evils, and surprisingly there are those who would fight this because it upsets their culture. God's culture only comes to those who want to set people free from the sins these poor girls are forced to commit, from the consequences of those sins, like STDs, pregnancy and abortion, and liberate them to love, to worship, and to live clean and holy lives. Why would anyone not want this? Because of money, sex, control, and selfish pleasures. Why would enslaving people appeal to any culture? Because they do not see or accept that God's ways are sooooo much better. Stripping them of the control of others is not seen as beneficial to them or their evil cronies.

Let's be like Paul and Silas, freeing those in bondage, regardless of the consequences to ourselves. Let's set people free in the name of Jesus, and watch with great anticipation what God will do to spread the gospel in places where it is rejected outright. He can do things we don't understand in places we never dreamed possible.