The sermon titled 'Annoyed by Satan' by Peter Allison examines the biblical account from Acts 16 where Paul encounters a slave girl possessed by a spirit of divination in Philippi. The speaker highlights the dual errors within the church regarding demonology: either denying their existence or attributing everything to them. The sermon emphasizes the importance of recognizing spiritual warfare, understanding the limitations and deceptive nature of demons, and the role of prayer and spiritual readiness in confronting demonic forces. The speaker draws parallels between the ancient Oracle of Delphi and modern misconceptions about demonic knowledge. The sermon also explores how truth can be manipulated to serve deceptive purposes, as illustrated by the slave girl’s proclamations about Paul, which confused the message of the Gospel. Despite adversity, such as Paul and Silas being beaten and imprisoned, the sermon concludes with the assurance of God's presence and purpose through trials, underscoring the ultimate victory and deliverance found in Christ.

Our scripture reading on this morning is Acts chapter 16 beginning at the 16th verse Paul and The other three men with him have come to Philippi. They've found Lydia. The Lord brought them to Lydia. The Lord opened her heart. And we pick up here with the further account of their labors in the city of Philippi.

Hear God's Word. Now it happened as we went to prayer that a certain slave girl possessed with the spirit of divination met us, who brought her master's much profit by fortune telling. This girl followed Paul and us and cried out saying, These men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation. And this she did for many days. But Paul greatly annoyed, turned, and said to the Spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her." And he came out that very hour.

But when her masters saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to the authorities. And they brought them to the magistrates and said, These men being Jews exceedingly trouble our city, and they teach customs which are not lawful for us being Romans to receive or observe. And then the multitude rose up together against them, and the magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods. And when they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to keep them securely. And having received such a charge, He put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.

May these commandments be our delight even when trouble and anguish overtake us. Almighty Heavenly Father, may you seal to our hearts this word. It is the word of truth, it is the words of life, and it is light. May you lighten our path and open our hearts to hear, and grant to us a gospel obedience. And I ask also that you would sanctify, set apart, my sinful lips, that they might proclaim the riches of your grace to us in Christ.

When I lived in San Jose, California, we had some friends that lived on the summit of one of the mountains that surround the city toward the south, toward Santa Cruz. And To get to their house required ascending about 2000 feet above the valley below on a narrow mountain road. At times this road was only one car width wide on the side of this mountain. So on one side of the road was a rock wall and on the other side a rather precipitous cliff. And of course periodically along the ascent there were the hairpin turns and switchbacks that are very common on such roads Now people going up for the first time were inevitably a bit tense And the point of this account is that if you've ventured too far in either direction, the car could easily be totaled.

And our topic this morning reminds me of that road in this sense. That there are two ditches on either side of the Bible's teaching about demons and demonology. Two errors, if we will, that we can fall into, and I think the church has at times. On one hand, or some, on one hand, some deny that there are such a thing as demons that attack Christians today. And on the other side, are those who find a demon behind everything.

And both are problematic. If we are ignorant of Satan's devices, if we are blind to the reality of the demonic, then we are easy prey for His attacks. But if we, on the other hand, attribute everything to demons and are finding demons behind every door, we'll attack things that aren't there And many times we'll miss valuable lessons in our own sanctification. Because remember, it's the world, the flesh, and the devil. Not just the devil that we battle.

It's our own flesh. At times we don't need any help from the evil one. And I think it's a mistake to blame everything on the devil. The devil doesn't make us do it. But rather, there are many valuable lessons that we can learn involving the mortification of our own sin and the sin that dwells in us.

But the Bible says here very clearly that there was a certain slave girl who was possessed by a spirit. She doesn't need a pharmaceutical drug to control her serotonin levels. She doesn't need therapy in a mental institution. She isn't simply possessed of sins that are driving her to this. She is possessed of an evil spirit.

She's inhabited by a demon, and she needs to be set free from her captivity to Satan. And this is exactly what the Gospel does. Jesus said, quoting from Isaiah 61, The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach the good tidings to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted to proclaim liberty to the captives and opening of the prison to those who are bound. This girl was bound in prison.

She was a captive. And when John the Baptist sent some of his disciples to Jesus to ask if Jesus was the one that was promised or whether they should look for someone else. Luke records that that very hour, he cured many infirmities, afflictions, and evil spirits. And Jesus simply answered the disciples of John, saying to them, Go and tell John the things that you have seen and that you have heard. So that is the condition of this young slave girl.

She's possessed by a demon. She needs to be set free. Now it says that she had a spirit of divination in most English Bibles. It says divination. The Greek word is python.

She had a spirit of python. Python was something that all the Greeks of this day would recognize and be readily familiar with. Because Python was the demon that was connected with the Oracle of Delphi between the 7th century BC before Christ. That's about the time that King Josiah was reigning in Israel, slightly before the Babylonian captivity. From that time to about the fourth century AD, That's after the Council of Nicaea.

So we're talking a span of hundreds of years here. This Oracle of Delphi was one of the most prestigious and authoritative oracles among the Greeks. This the Pythia or the or the some in English the Python s is the lady through whom these prophetic oracles were uttered. And she was one of the most powerful women in the classical Greek world. And the Oracle itself is one of the most well documented religious phenomena in the classical Greek civilization.

This oracle of Delphi. I'm sure most of you have heard of it because it is so well documented. So many, many Greek writers have written about it. It was thought, and still is thought, to have given a number of predictions that were considered to be quite accurate. And so people would come from all over the world and pay a lot of money to be able to ask a question of this demon and hope to receive an answer.

And the more money that they paid, the higher the priority that the petitioner was given. Because it was a very elaborate process for this oracle to speak. It was unquestionably a demonic spirit. The process by which these utterances were given was a demonic ceremony that involved blood sacrifices and altered states of consciousness by this Pythia, this woman, who would be occupied by this demon. Daniel 10 speaks about Such demonic rulers over Persia and Greece that wage war with the angels that are being sent in response to Daniel's prayers It attributes erratus it identifies particular demons as being demons who had Reign or Kingdom over over whole nations and whole regions of the earth.

It talks about the Prince of Persia or the Prince of Greece. And that these spirits were very powerful demons that could bind and stop the angels, the messengers that were sent to Daniel. And they needed help from Michael the Archangel to overcome them. Something that was facilitated or made possible by the prayer and fasting of God's people. And so Philippi then is part of the territory under the control of this python demon.

And this spirit of Python that possessed this girl was this high level demon over this entire section of Greece. Or it might have been a subordinate demon that was occupying her. But Luke, the Scriptures identify this with the high level demon. They say that she was possessed by the spirit of Python. Now, this is, I think, totally at odds with some views on the occult.

Some believers would say, quote, Scripture gives us no reason to believe there is any particular spirit named Python. But the Bible here says that she had a spirit of Python, so I don't know why they can say that. This is, I think, a very clear statement that there is such a thing as a spirit of Python because this lady, this slave girl, was possessed of that spirit. They go on further, the Bible gives us no reason to believe that we have a specific ability to rebuke or exorcise any demon. There are no instructions on exorcisms in the Bible.

Well, I find that, again, to be amazing given that that that is exactly what we have here. We have an example of an exorcism and we have exactly the words that Paul said in it. So to me that is very clear instructions on what to do and how to do it. Now this slave girl who was possessed with this spirit of divination, so I think divination is a way to translate that because the spirit of Python was an oracle who would attempt to tell the future and tell people what was going to happen to them. And there were a number of, over those years, there were a number of such predictions, many of which were, many people considered to be quite accurate.

And so this slave girl had the occult ability to tell people's fortunes, just like the Oracle of Delphi. And people would pay money to find out what this unclean spirit could tell them about their future prosperity or lack thereof. And the fact that it took the capital of several people to buy her, you notice it says that later on, it says that she had owners, owners plural, which means that you had a number of people had to pull their capital to be able to afford this slave girl that had this ability. So she had this ability to foretell the future and people paid money to hear what she had to say. Now that raises really a question, and that is, do demons really know the future?

And I don't think that they do. Demons don't know What is the secret counsel of God? It's the secret counsel of God, and if He hasn't revealed it, then even the demons don't know it. But what they do know is many things about the visible and invisible world that are not known or may not be known to us. And so this is what enables them to make predictions that are often right.

But they're not right all the time. I think that's an important point to remember as we battle these demonic forces at the international level. They're not always right. They're not all-powerful. They don't know the future and they can be they can be defeated by the power of the Lord Jesus Christ.

You know, For example, Lincoln had a very vivid dream about walking around the White House and hearing all the people mourning it. And he asked in his dream what's going on. And then he had someone in his dream tell him the president's dead. And then he saw his own corpse. And he apparently had this dream 10 days before he was assassinated.

He didn't tell anybody about it at first, but a few days before his assassination he told his wife and a few friends about it. That's how we know about it. Now was this demons seeing into the future? Well not really. The demons would have known about people plotting to kill Lincoln in the days prior to the assassination, weren't they?

They could know about all the secret conversations in which the details of the assassination were being developed. Because there were people that were talking together and having conversations and the demons would be aware of that. They could know about that. Nobody else might have known about that, but they would know about that. And so The dream didn't say how he would die, or who would do it, or when he would die.

It only showed him being dead. Now if the President were dead, it wouldn't take any special ability to correctly guess that the people in the White House would be mourning. It's a pretty obvious conclusion. Parapsychology, or PSI as it's called today, is really a highly studied and well-researched phenomena. It's just under the wrong title.

It should be called demonology. But one accepted standard among these researchers is something called the Gansfield procedure, in which blindfolded subjects are in soundproof rooms, isolated soundproof rooms, are asked to describe a film clip that they have not seen yet. And after their description, they are either shown the clip or simultaneously in another room, the clip is being played. Now mind you, it's a soundproof room, so they're not able to hear, there's no communication in or out of the room. And then after, well, they're asked to give this description of a clip they haven't seen yet.

And if judges, outside impartial judges, can use their description to choose the correct clip from among a catalog of video clips, then that's considered evidence for this kind of knowledge. But of course, if you think about this, unclean spirits could know what clip is being played in the other room at the same time. Video clips are things that have been recorded previously. And so the spirits would know exactly what's on all those clips, so they could find out. So that's not nothing future about that.

And spirits can communicate in the spirit world. And so they can tell people that are possessed of demons of what's on those clips or what clip's being played in another room or what clip has been selected without having any knowledge of the future. And they are able to communicate then that information that's not future information. They are able to communicate that in the spirit world. So spirit worlds are not limited by soundproof rooms, and caves or isolations.

Because these are non-physical, non- physical beings. This is the spirit realm. And the spirit realm is real. It exists. And so you can see that these experiments, they're set up, they are real.

They're not humanly possible, but they are very possible to the unclean spirits without knowing anything about the future or secret counsel of God. It's also why they're not 100% accurate. At best, they're 70-80% accurate. You see, it's really not knowing about the future any more than any thinking adult would know. If you saw a cup of water sitting somewhere unguarded in an aisle way, in a traffic route, and you say, well that cup is going to spill.

Well there's nothing prescient about that. It's a logical conclusion from some information. And that's really all that's happening in all of these kinds of situations. The demons know things that we don't know. Because they are able to communicate in the spirit world that information to other people.

And that's all that's going on. You would probably be right most of the time about your prediction, but you wouldn't be right all the time. There would be 20% of the time that that cup miraculously doesn't spill even though it's sitting in the middle of a traffic route. And I would submit that this is what's happening with this fortune telling in the demonic realm. They don't know the future and they can't control the future.

But that doesn't mean they're not real and don't know things and can't pass information in the spirit world to demons. And so the demon controlling this slave girl knows that Paul is a servant of the Most High God, and that he was preaching a gospel that sets the captives free, And that delivers people from bondage to Satan, to serve the living and true God. You see, Paul was not just encroaching on this demon's turf. He was a very real threat to the demonic control of this entire region. And so we should expect Satan to attack where and when his kingdom is threatened by the gospel.

Because that does threaten His kingdom. And so this demonically controlled slave girl begins to follow Paul and Silas and Timothy and Luke, crying out, these men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation. And she keeps this up for many days. I think the time that she spent following Paul and his companions around was time that she was not making money for her earthly masters. There's no money in this.

And I think this demonstrates that her masters did not have full control over her, or they would have redirected her time to more profitable activities. But the demon recognized that this was a significant attack on them. And so the demon attacks, but he doesn't attack directly, He attacks rather indirectly. And we might think, how is this even an attack? The demon appears here to speak the truth about Paul and his team.

The demon says through this woman, These men are servants of the Most High God who proclaim to us the way of salvation. Now at first glance that looks to be a very true statement. How would that be an attack on Paul? But I would say it's, even though it appears to be a true statement, it's not. The demon speaking through this girl is still lying.

Because remember, lying is an unjust handling of the truth. It's a concealing it when it needs to be revealed. It's a revealing of the truth when it needs to be concealed, or it's distorting the truth, or speaking the truth at the wrong time, or speaking the truth for a wrong reason. And so we can be sure that in this case, the truth is being spoken to a false end for a dishonest purpose. And that makes this a lie.

Satan is a liar. And all of the demons are liars, even when they quote scripture and speak the truth. Now how can we say that speaking truth is lying? Well, Psalm 52 gives us an example. This is a Psalm that was a contemplation of David when Doeg the Edomite went and told Saul and said to him, David has gone to the house of Ahimelech.

Now everything that Doeg told Saul in that account was true. David had gone to a Himalek, and he had received from him a sword, the Goliath sword, and bread to sustain him, because he didn't have food. He told the Himalek that his business was urgent and he had left without the supplies. But this is how David describes the words of Doag which were true words. Why do you boast in evil, O mighty man?

The goodness of God endures continually. Your tongue devises destruction like a sharp razor, working deceitfully. Your tongue is speaking deceitfully, in speaking what was true. You love evil more than good. Lying rather than speaking righteousness, Sila, you love all devouring words.

You, deceitful tongue." Doeg was lying even when he told the truth to Saul because he was telling it to a malicious end. He was telling it so that David and Ahimelech would be hurt. These were men of God, men who feared the Lord, who were acting righteously. Doeg's motive by telling the truth was for them to be injured and hurt. Which they were.

That Hilem-el-Eqwes and all the priests there were killed because of that. And so David calls that a lie. And that's what's happening here is this demon is apparently, speaking what appears to be the truth. It's really an attempt to undermine the Gospel message in Paul's team by associating a demon with it, and making it seem like maybe they had hired her to promote them. That would make Paul and his team of fellow laborers appear to be, to the average Philippian citizen, to just be one more self-serving commercial enterprise buying for people's money.

But there's another possibility that I think is even more likely in terms of what is going on here. Most Romans in Philippi would likely have understood the most high God to be a reference to their idol, Zeus. She doesn't name God as Jehovah. That was his name. She just says the most high God.

When we read that, we immediately think of Jehovah, but that's not what a Roman would immediately think of. Romans didn't know about Jehovah. They had no special revelation at that point. They would have thought of Apollo or whoever their Zeus or whoever their most high God was. And so, this slave girl is really confusing, or the demon is really confusing people about who Paul is serving.

The demon is hoping that anyone who believes Paul will also think they are following their false god. And because she is in their mind, she is associating Paul with their false god Zeus. In that case, you see then this demon's statement is not true either. And I think this is the most likely explanation of Paul's great annoyance. He can't simply say, no, we're not prophets of the Most High God, because they were in fact prophets of the Most High God.

But they meant Jehovah, and everyone else hearing that would have been thinking of a different God. And so it's very difficult, you can see how it's very difficult to correct this kind of messaging. It takes some explanation. It's not easy to do in a simple sound bite. You can't say, no, that's not true.

They have to explain, no, you're thinking of the wrong God. We're servants of Jehovah. And you see how difficult that becomes. And this type of confusion, this type of confused message is so very, very typical, in my experience, of when there is demonic interference and attack. It creates confusion.

And it's very hard to figure out what's going on. I've seen things just happen so perfectly that you think, How in the world could that have happened at the exact wrong moment? And it does. It's I think one sign of demonic attack. We have to remember that Satan and his demons are very comfortable operating in churches, And they're very happy to do so when churches are not vigilant to resist them.

You see, demons can easily profess faith. It's no problem for a demon-controlled person to profess faith in Jesus Christ. They can use His name. They can pray in His name. They can say that Jesus saved me.

Most all of our presidents in recent memory have made such statements, some of whom have many testimonies to their demonic activities. Demon controlled people can teach and preach about Jesus. They can quote scripture just like Satan quoted scripture when he tempted Jesus. But they can't pass the test in 1 John 4. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God.

They cannot say with their own mouth. That's what a confession is, to say with your own mouth. That Jesus Christ is God come in the flesh. Romans 10 says that with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation, saying it with our own mouth. And they cannot say with their own mouth that Jesus Christ who came in the flesh, died on the cross, arose again from the dead on the third day, and now sits at the right hand of God.

They can't say that this Jesus is God. And if you can ask them, is Jesus Christ who came in the flesh God, they can lie and say yes, but they cannot make that confession with their own mouth. That is the test that Scripture gives. They can build credibility by serving, by giving large sums of money, giving generously. But another main tactic is to destroy the prayer base.

Because prayer is the chief weapon against them, for us. In one of her books, Rebecca Brown recounted how unknown Satanists destroyed their church by attacking the prayer meeting. But it wasn't a direct attack, it was just the opposite. He was a known Satanist to Rebecca Brown and to another lady who had been delivered from the occult who knew him. He joined the church and attended faithfully.

He joined the choir. He gave large sums of money. And he seemed and was grounded and knowledgeable of the Scriptures. He knew them and He used them. And at that time in this church, there was a very fervent prayer meeting attended by a couple hundred people every week.

A fervent prayer, an effectual prayer, was being offered by hundreds of people every week. The church was having an impact. And it began to grow very fast. But many of the people coming in were this saint in his buddies. And after about six months, he approached the elders professing to have a very deep burden for America.

And he wanted to start a noon prayer meeting one day a week to spend an hour in prayer for the country. And he even volunteered to lead it. You see, he's coming in and presenting himself as a man of prayer. And so everyone thinks that he's this prayer warrior. But about a month after this, he and 20 other people very sorrowfully come to the elders, and they say, we have to stop attending choir.

Remember, he had joined the choir. Because it's too hard for us to go to choir practice after this prayer meeting. And then do a full couple hours of choir practice. So while the choir director is losing 20 choir members, it didn't take long for him to ask, well, can we do our own prayer meeting, have our choir practice during the prayer meeting, and we'll do our own little prayer meeting as a part of our choir practice. And so they had their own little 20 minute prayer meeting before the choir practice, and these 20 people and the saintness came back to join the choir.

But a short time later, he then came to the elders to tell them of a problem. There were so many new people coming in, there wasn't enough teaching being given to these new Christians to grow in their faith or teach them how to share their faith. See, he's coming across as a very helpful person. And so he proposed canceling the prayer meeting and setting up small groups where all these people could be taught in how to share the faith and taught how to pray. And you see, because he was known as a man of prayer, he's setting up this prayer meeting, because he's known as a man of serving the church and who gives generously and who knows the Scriptures, the elders fell for this.

And they canceled their prayer meeting. And you see that it was by that attack, this saintness destroyed this church. It destroyed their outreach, destroyed their ministry. And a couple of years later, it was nothing like what it had been. This is how Satan attacks.

And so this demon-possessed girl is trailing behind Paul, proclaiming that these are the servants of the Most High God, but Paul is very annoyed with this because it is right to be annoyed by the attacks of Satan. It's right. We should be annoyed and vexed at evil. Psalm 15 asks, Who can dwell with the Lord? And the answer is, someone in whose eyes a vile person is despised.

Psalm 101 says, I hate the works of those who fall away. Psalm 97, you who love the Lord hate evil. Lot was vexed, his righteous soul was vexed at the wickedness around him. And So Paul is very annoyed at this. He recognizes that this is demonic.

This is an attack upon Christ and upon His preaching of the Gospel. It's an attack upon Him. But he waits until the right time. He waits until the Lord moves him. Because this girl is doing this for many days.

But Paul doesn't jump in. He doesn't immediately confront this. And he certainly doesn't go looking for it. He didn't go around Philippi looking for demonic strongholds to confront. This was one that came to him.

And he didn't, and stuck with him. It became apparent this girl wasn't going to go away. And it was only then. And also, notice it's in the context of going to prayer. You notice that in the very first line?

It happened as we went to prayer. Because without prayer, we are no match for the attack of the evil one. Prayer is absolutely vital. If we're going into any kind of demonic attack, demonic warfare, we need to be in great fervent prayer. We need to have all the legal footholds in our life removed that Satan could latch onto.

Because if we have one, he will. It means that we need all of our sins confessed. All of the things made right that we can make right. You see, as someone wisely said, once only fools rush in where angels fear to tread. And angels fear to tread against these demons.

Jude says that when Michael the Archangel in contending with the devil about the body of Moses dared not bring a reviling accusation against the demon. He dared not. Michael the Archangel, a mighty, mighty being, feared to jump in. So we certainly should be careful as well. We need to be covered in prayer.

And so Paul is covered in prayer. He's going to prayer. That was his practice. But he doesn't just pray to God to remove the demon. He addresses the demon directly.

Paul greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, not even to the girl, to the spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. Now if that isn't an instruction in how to cast out a demon, I don't know what is. We have to address that demon in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, because that is the only power that they must listen to. And James instructs us in his epistle, James 4-7, to resist the devil and he will flee from us. We have been given instructions on how to wage this war.

Ephesians talks about the armor that we're to have and so on. Paul addresses this demon, but not in his own name. He addresses this demon in the name of Jesus Christ, and he commands the demon to come out. And the demon does, Because that's the promise of God. That is, we resist Satan with the tools, the weapons that he has given to us in his name.

They must obey. That doesn't mean there isn't blowback. That doesn't mean there isn't counterattack. And that comes. A massive counterattack is now launched against Paul.

The owners, after putting up with no money from this slave girl because she's following Paul around, now see that all hope of their profit is lost. Their hope of profit is... Before they still had the hope of profit, so they were willing to wait. But now that their hope of profit is gone, they see this girl no longer has this demon. They seize Paul and Silas and they drag them into the marketplace, to the authorities.

They now are being moved by the demon to attack Paul and Silas. And they bring them to the authorities. And they also, there's also a multitude that is raised up. So the demons are moving a multitude here, inciting the crowd against them. The multitude rose up against Paul and Silas.

Again, we can see all this is demonically moved people. Magistrates are very susceptible to being moved by demons, and we have that in many places in the Bible, like in Isaiah, where the king of Babylon is being addressed. And at the same time, a demon, Lucifer, is being addressed as well. And it's not that they're switching back and forth as much as the demon is being addressed through the King of Babylon. Just like Jesus could turn to Peter and address Satan through Peter, because Satan was using Peter, and he could say to Peter, Satan, get behind me.

These magistrates are being moved by demons and the multitude. Magistrates always follow the crowd. That's something to remember. It's something we saw on full display this week in this election. They follow the crowd.

The ones who win follow the crowd. They're not the leaders of the crowd, they're the followers of the crowd. They sense where is the crowd. The people who win the election are the people who best sense where is the crowd going, And they get in front of them. And that's what these magistrates are doing here.

This crowd is incited. These owners are incited against Paul. They're rising up against him. They're demonically moved. And So the magistrates then get going to follow the wishes of the crowd.

They tear off their clothes and command them to be beaten with rods. And then cast into prison. And they are put in prison in shackles, which are very painful to sit in. Now at this point, and this is where we're going to stop today, at this point it might seem that Satan and this demon have somewhat of an upper hand here. But we should note, first of all, that this girl has been delivered.

And that's why Christ came, to deliver the captives. She's been delivered. We don't know anything more about her. We don't know if she is a convert. I think that if she had been, Luke might have said that, but we don't know.

But We do know that she's delivered. Luke says that that very hour, the demon came out of her. I suspect that she was somebody that was very grateful to Paul and Silas for that. But also, the stage is being set for someone else to hear the Gospel. And so even though Silas, Paul and Silas are beaten, God, we have to remember God never promises that we won't have adversity.

What He does promise is that He is with us as we walk through it. He's with us. He never leaves us, even in the midst of these adversities. And that these adversities have a purpose, and we'll see next week, Lord willing, that purpose for their suffering. Because God put them right where they would be to speak to somebody whose heart he had prepared.

I think that's something to remember when we're in the middle of adversity. One, that the Lord is with us in those times. And two, that He is working His good pleasure through those. Sometimes we may never know what His pleasure is that he's working through them. But sometimes, as Paul and Silas will see, we do find out.

But either way, we can be confident that he is working his pleasure through that. And that gives us great hope. Heavenly Father, we thank You that You are mighty, that there are greater are those who are with You than those who are opposed to You. We thank You that you are the ruler over all, and that even the demons must obey your voice. But most of all, Father, we rejoice that You have delivered us from such bondage, that You have set us free from captivity to our sin and to the evil one.

We thank you and we rejoice this morning that you have written our names in your book of life. And that you know us. And that you care for us. And that you walk with us. And that there is no place that we can go.

There is no adversity that we can suffer. There is no prison where you cannot go with us. We ask that you would strengthen our hearts, that you would encourage us this morning to hope in your mercy, to remember your promises, to walk by them, To live by them. We ask this through Jesus' sake. Through Jesus' name.

Amen.