The W. W. Prescott Armadale Sermons - Fred Bischoff

council together, and all the senate of the children of Israel, and sent to the
prison to have them brought. But when the officers came and found them not
in the prison, they returned and told, saying, The prison truly found we shut
with all safety, and the keepers standing without before the doors; but when
we had opened, we found no man within. Now when the high priest and the
captain of the temple heard these things, they doubted of them whereunto
this would grow. Then came one, and told them, saying, Behold, the men
whom ye put in prison are standing in the temple and teaching the people.
Then went the captain with the officers, and brought them without violence;
for they feared the people, lest they should have been stoned. And when they
had brought them, they set them before the council, and the high priest asked
them, saying, Did we not straightly command you that ye should not teach in
this name? And behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and
intend to bring this man’s blood upon us. Then Peter and the other apostles
answered, and said, We ought to obey God rather than man." Yet it was
contrary to law.
Paul, who had himself been a persecutor, after he had been converted
took Barnabas, and went out preaching, contrary to law. They passed through
Asia Minor preaching the word, and on coming to Phillippi, healed a woman
possessed of an evil spirit. "But when her master saw that the hope of their
gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas, and drew them into the market
place unto the rulers. And brought them to the Magistrates, saying, These
men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city." They did not trouble the
city at all. They simply took away from the man his hope of gain. They shut
them in prison, but the prison doors were thrown open,--God’s way of
teaching them a lesson.
Again, we have the experience of the apostles in the 17th chapter of
Acts. "Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three Sabbath days
reasoned with them out of the Scriptures, opening and alleging, that Christ
must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus,
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