Songs in the Night
“And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them.” — Acts xvl 25.
UP BAYING, they hymned God;” for such are the words when literally rendered. Prayer and praise in the dungeon that night were not two distinct and successive acts. They sang in concert their address to God; and doubtless, like the Psalms of David, the address included both requests for mercy and ascriptions of praise. It may, indeed, have been the Psalms of David that they sang — both the prisoners had the verses by heart: they had not a book, and did not need one.
God heard their prayer, we know, for he gave it a signal answer. But there were also other listeners: “the prisoners heard them.” One would like to know who these prisoners were. Like the contents of other prisons, they were probably of various characters and conditions. Some may have been the callous habituds of the place; and some may have been men of the highest consideration, awaiting trial for political offences. But to all the inmates alike the sound of psalms at midnight would seem strange and startling. It was probably whispered through the prison in the evening that two Jews had been brought in — severely scourged — accused of teaching some new doctrine regarding the resurrection of the dead. Then the tender yet joyful song of two blended voices rose on the midnight silence of the prison. The wakeful listened, and the slumber ers awoke. The hymn was probably in the Greek tongue, and the more acute ears would catch glimpses of its meaning.
That was a night much to be remembered by the inmates of the jail. It is altogether probable that some who heard that strange psalm-singing were among the Philippian Christians to whom Paul subsequently addressed his most affectionate letter from another prison in Rome.
“Songs in the night “are the special gift of God, and they are well fitted to arrest attention and impress their mark. “When there is evidence of peace with God prevailing over the heaviest of outward troubles, it takes effect on the conscience of an observer. It is a great thing to see one taken up from a miry pit, and his feet set upon a rock and his goings established; but it is when a new song is put into his mouth that many shall see it and shall fear and shall trust in the Lord (Ps. xl.) It is specifically joy in believing when it bursts forth in great tribulation that takes effect on others and wins them to the Lord.
A lamp when lighted may burn by day, but it is only at night that it is seen by the neighbourhood. The darkness does not kindle or cause the light, but the darkness reveals it and spreads it around. It is thus that consistent joy in the Lord, when believers attain it in a time of trouble, becomes an effective testimony for Christ. Not a few owe their conversion instrumentally to the light that streamed from a saint in the hour of his departure — to the song that rose from the pilgrim when he was traversing the valley of the shadow of death.
Thus, though the speakers were bound that night, the Word was free; not only the word that went upward to the throne of God, but also the echo of that word, that pierced the gloomy partition-walls and sank into the startled ears of weary and wretched prisoners. It seemed a roundabout road that the Word of the gospel took to reach these motley groups of Greek and Latin Gentiles; but the Word did not
Songs hi the Night. miss its way. There was a dead wall between the apostles and their audience, and therefore they did not preach that night. But there was no wall between them and the Father of their spirits: praying, they hymned God in the inner prison, and the prayer sent upward fell down again on the other side of the partition, falling there on listening ears. In this circuitous method the gospel reached some needy souls.
It is thus that in modern warfare they often overcome a fortress which is too strong to be taken by direct assault. The wall frowns thick and high between the defenders and the assailants. No missile sent in a direct line can touch the protected garrison. The besiegers in such a case throw their balls high into the heavens; these fall within the enclosure, and do more execution in their fall than they could have done by direct impact on the walls. When a good soldier of Jesus Christ cannot by direct preaching of the gospel reach the ears and hearts of men to subdue and win them, he may sometimes effectively accomplish his object by prayer and praise. His arrow, going first upward, may in its descent wound some conscience and subdue some soul.
Christian families or groups, travelling in Romish or otherwise darkened districts, might in this way scatter blessings on their track. They may possibly not possess talent or find opportunity for preaching; but if, in the evening in the hotel, they should “pray and sing praises to God,” some prisoners might hear and turn to the Lord.
But the same lesson admits of application on a greater scale and nearer home. Some disciples of Christ have the misfortune to dwell in an ungodly neighbourhood. But alongside of the misfortune, if they are watchful, a privilege lies. If their lamp burn, the surrounding darkness will reveal and utilise its light. Satan’s prisoners are within earshot of Christ’s free men. Perhaps a hard partition of various prejudice shuts out the ungodly from direct instruction and reproof; but nothing can defend them from the indirect stroke which Paul and Silas dealt on their fellow-prisoners at Philippi. Let the prayer-hymn rise, soft and sweet, from the church in the house when the door is shut; and the notes sent up to heaven will drop down again into houses where no church meets. The indirect method is the best for reaching the rough, ungainly elements that crowd and cluster in the centres of modern cities. Some sprinkling of “the salt of the earth” in close contact with the corruption, would, under God, be the most effectual healer.
Of late years many instances have occurred of songs being given in the night to miners imprisoned by some catastrophe in the recesses of a coal-pit. The most touching example I know is at once the latest and the -nearest. It occurred a few weeks since, on the waters of the Forth estuary opposite Edinburgh. Three fishermen belonging to Newhaven went out in their boat at night to ply their calling. A sudden squall upset their boat. All three rose to the surface, and laid hold of the capsized boat. Sustaining themselves thus above water, they alternately conversed on the subject of the preceding Sabbath’s sermon, and sang hymns which they had by heart. First one, and then another, after bidding affectionate farewell, let go through weariness, and passed away from suffering into rest. A pilot-boat bore down on the wreck in time to save the strongest man, the single survivor. From his lips came the narrative of their experience while they trod together the valley of the shadow of death. In circumstances still more dreadful than those of Paul and Silas at Philippi, they also obtained songs in the night.
By the use of the imperfect tense, it is clearly indicated in the history that the missionaries were hymning God, and the astonished prisoners in other cells pricking up their ears to listen, when the crash of the earthquake came. The psalm was cut short in the middle of a verse, and the sense which the listeners strained to gather, broken off before it was completed. The foundations of the prison were shaken, so that the doors were thrown open, but the walls were not thrown down. The jailer, living in some wing apart, did not hear the song, but was awakened by the earthquake. Mark here God’s mercy in its fulness and overflowing. Those w7ho cannot or will not hear the still small voice of praise, will be aroused by a providential visitation. They are not suddenly destroyed, but sharply shaken, that they may hear and live. God is long-suffering. If he had cast us off and shut us out on our refusal of one invitation, where would most of us have been to-day? He has waited to be gracious. When we turned a deaf ear to his Word, he has made the earth shake beneath us, that we might be compelled to listen for our own life.