What a wonderful moment it is for a sinner when he finds himself in the presence of God!—when he is conscious that God has spoken to him. Have you, reader, ever thought to inquire what it was that brought the Philippian jailor, a pagan sinner, without God in the world, to the feet of Paul and Silas, and constrained him to cry out, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” “Why,” you will perhaps say, “there was enough to alarm him; for at midnight there was a great earthquake, and the foundations of the prison were shaken, and every one’s bands were loosed.” It certainly must have been a tremendous shaking, when such buildings as the ancients used to erect, the massive ruins of which still testify, in many places, to their ponderous strength, rocked to the very foundations, those foundations being commonly of stones of such immense size and weight, that modern architects are often puzzled to know how they were lifted, carried, and put into their destined situations without injury.
The shaking must have been something terrible, when stocks too, and other means of confining and torturing the poor prisoners, were all so knocked about, that every man was set free, while the massive doors (made often of one enormous stone, folding in grooves, without hinges, and fitting like a leaf), barred, chained, and bolted, were burst open by the mere concussion produced by the earthquake. “Enough,” you will say, “to make the jailor tremble.”
No doubt of it; but if the earthquake made him tremble (though I do not read that it did), the supposed results made him seek to kill himself. Now self-murder is a widely different thing from wanting to be saved; and clearly the very first thing the jailor did, when awakened out of his sleep by the tremendous and really awful shaking produced by the earthquake, was, that “he drew out his sword, and would have killed himself.” Terror-stricken, no doubt, he was, but not so much from the earthquake itself, as from what he supposed it had affected, namely, the escape of all the prisoners.
Under Roman government and laws, the jailor or sentinel who allowed prisoners to escape was dishonored, and forfeited his life. Herod had the sentinels or keepers of Peter’s prison first examined by torture, and then put to death. It was for this reason also that the soldiers who had charge of Paul and other prisoners, on their way to Rome, wanted to kill them all, lest they should escape.
Now, the jailor appears to have set little store by his life, for he was going to take that with his own hand. It was not so much the fear of death as of dishonor that terrified him. His proud heart could not brook that shame and obloquy should rest on his name. But what has that to do with wanting to be saved? “Nothing at all,” you will say; “the two conditions are totally different, in fact diametrically opposed to each other.” Of course they are. The pride of heart that would rather commit self-murder than brook dishonor, is assuredly quite opposed to the brokenness of spirit that cries out for salvation.
But we read of a far more terrible earthquake in Rev. 6, and whether we understand it figuratively or literally, it makes no difference as to this point, namely, that neither judgments, nor what are called natural phenomena, work “repentance toward God.” Their effect is rather to drive the sinner to desire to be saved from God, not to Him. “Hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.”
Grace alone brings to God—never judgment. The men of Jericho (Josh, ii.) sought to destroy Jehovah’s servants, they saw only judgment: the harlot Rahab saw that too, but she saw something beyond, and that was grace, or at the least “kindness.” “Show kindness unto my father’s house;” yes, not to me alone, but “to my father’s house;” she saw kindness enough for that! A poor harlot too. How beautiful!
Saul does not repent towards God, even when told he would be in hades the very next day. It is judgment, deserved judgment, and nothing else. And he “fell straightway all along on the earth, and was sore afraid because of the words of Samuel.” And that is all; no repentance toward God, no crying out, “What must I do to be saved?”
The rich man in hades itself, suffering the just judgment of God, has no thought of Him. His own torment, his father’s house, his past life and present awful circumstances, fill his cup of misery to overflowing; but his heart, harder than the nether millstone, grows harder in the flame, and he would fain have the once poor beggar Lazarus wait at his bidding, even in hell itself!
No; judgment does not lead the sinner to God. It is here that the “universalists” and “non-eternity” teachers show their utter ignorance both of God and man, and the entire sphere of truth. But it is not with them we are now concerned, but with the jailor of Philippi. Attempted self-murder, the effort to plunge away from God and man into utter night, was the direct result of what he may have looked upon as a judgment coming down on him and his charge, for his cruelty to God’s servants; such phenomena were commonly regarded by pagans as “judgments” or proofs of “the wrath of the gods,” and are so still.
But the jailor’s proud spirit will not bow. Official punishment and degradation, open shame, and death at the hands of the public executioners, he will not stoop to bear. Alone in the darkness and secrecy of his own chamber, he seeks to hide his shame from man—himself from God, in death! Can any condition be more antagonistic to that in which we find him immediately afterward?
Well, what wrought a change, as sudden as it was complete? What broke down that proud spirit, and brought him a suppliant to the very feet of his own prisoners—a suppliant for salvation—he, the would-be self-murderer? I answer, the voice of God, and nothing else. The earthquake had nothing to do with this result. With or without it the voice of God would have produced it. The effects and consequences of the one stand in dark and solemn contrast to the other, and are doubtless meant to do so, if only to rebuke the “universalists.” But it does far more than this. It tells that direct personal contact with God Himself alone can save the sinner. It is not in the wind, nor the earthquake, nor the fire, that the Lord is found, but in the “still small voice.” 1 Kings 19
And it was thus the jailor found him. Read the narrative, and see. He is alone, as I have said, alone in the dark, where no eye but God’s can see him, and he knows it. His murderous weapon is at his heart, and the thoughts of that heart can only be known to himself and to God. Suddenly he hears from out of the deep recesses of “the inner prison,” the lowest, deepest dungeon there, a voice, which goes at once to the inmost depths of his dark, heathen soul: “Do thyself no harm, for we are all here!” It tells that his secret deeds, his inmost thoughts, are known; it bespeaks compassion; divine, super abounding compassion breathes in every word, beseeching him to do himself “no harm,” and dispelling in a moment all the fears that were driving him to suicide!
Who but God could, or would, do this? He had done harm enough to God’s dear servants—thrusting them into the inner prison, and making their feet fast in the stocks; not such stocks as once stood in our villages, but such as kept the poor prisoners in a constrained and painful position all through the weary night. No wonder God burst them asunder, when His servants could sing His praises thus! And can He meet their tormentor so graciously? He does; it is His voice, and no other’s, though the words are the words of a man who could not know the secret deed, much less the thoughts, of the jailor.
But how startling to be thus suddenly arrested in the very act of self-murder, in darkness, in despair! How terrible to such a sinner to find himself all at once, and all alone, in the presence of God! “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,” his whole course is changed! He is a convicted sinner, a quickened soul, the voice of the Son of God has spoken him from death unto life.
“Then he called for a light,” for his deeds of darkness are now forever at an end. He can face his fellow-man, he has nothing to hide, for he has had to do with God. And then we read, he “sprang in, and came trembling,” for what will make a sinner tremble so much as to find himself face to face with God? Till he heard the voice of God in the inspired words of His servant, he may have trembled for his reputation, but now he trembles for his soul—that which he would have cast away as nothing in his pride of heart! And how utterly that pride is broken, for he prostrates himself at their very feet!
Repentance, too, is declared in his very first act, as is always the case where the sinner is brought to have to do consciously with God. “He brought them out,” out of that inner prison into which he had so maliciously cast them but a few hours before; yes, “he brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” There is repentance toward God;” and then “faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ” follows, when, in answer to the cry of his convicted soul, they answer, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved and thy house;” and further set before him “the word of the Lord,” the gospel of his salvation!
Dear reader, have you ever had to do with God Himself? Have you ever heard His voice? “The hour cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live.” Have you ever heard His voice speaking to you personally in and by His word, as the jailor heard it, bringing you under conviction as a sinner confessed before God, and then leading you to the only refuge, the only “name under heaven given amongst men whereby we must be saved?” If not, if you cannot even understand what it means, what it is to have to do with God, to hear his voice, to know Himself, I beseech you to rest not until you do; for until then you are in nature’s darkness, “having no hope,” no well-founded hope, and “without God in the world.”
J. L. K.
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