Bible Commentaries

The Baffling of the Spirit

Acts 16:7

Paul was on his second missionary journey when he was hindered thus by the Spirit of his Lord. He had made up his mind to go northward to Bithynia, when somehow he was Divinely checked. How the door was thus shut on him we are not told: it is one of the wise reticences of Scripture. Perhaps he was warned by some prophetic voice, or visited by irresistible conviction. On the other hand, if one prefer it Acts 16:7; Luke 9:51

"They assayed to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not." "He set His face stedfastly to go to Jerusalem." We take Bithynia and Jerusalem as places in the geography of the spirit. At the beginning of a new year it is well to think where we are, about the aim and drift of our lives. The year, for multitudes of us, has been good. Many can close it with the voice of passionate praise, and in every Christian heart there should at least be a religious joy and gratitude. Life may have been higher and richer for us than we figured it in our early dreams, or, more likely, it may have been darker, and full of frustration. We love our own wills and our own forecastings often better than the better thing that has taken their place. At this stage the most successful see many failures, while others make no secret even to themselves of the fact that they have not succeeded. The kind, deceiving light no longer deceives, and the misfortunes of the past and the terrors of the future often come upon us with a fresh and sudden rush of feeling at a time when we ought to be strongest. Those who know us merely from the outside know very little. "It is in the soul that things happen," and we have appeared unto men to rejoice when the storm was loudest in our spirits. Take the life history suggested by these phrases, and see whether it has not a parallel and a lesson for us at this new year.

I. We assayed to go into Bithynia, and we could not There was an obstacle against which we beat our wings in vain. We can define Bithynia for ourselves. It recalls our aspirations, our disappointments. Most likely it means the land of outward prosperity, or it may mean the land of love, or it may mean that land in which we felt that our best work could be done. However it may have been, we were foiled. All that could be done was done, but as wave after wave falls baffled from a rock-bound coast, so all we did came to nothing. The charges of the fierce and condensed will were repulsed. Perhaps we imagine that now we see what we should have done in order to succeed. But we did not succeed, and we shall see at last that we were not meant to succeed. How large a part of life this word covers—we assayed to go into Bithynia! If we could say with the sacred writer, "the Spirit of Jesus suffered us not," all might be lightly borne, but there may be twenty-five hard years between the first part of the sentence and the second. We assayed to go into Bithynia, that is all we are able to say. But the Kind Spirit suffered us not. When we can say that, the sting is drawn from the pain. But how hard it is to say it with a full and joyous sense of its truth!

II. What are we to say and do meanwhile? Let us follow the way of Jesus, who set His face steadfastly to go unto Jerusalem. Jerusalem, our dear Mother, is within our reach. It is not possible for us to attain it by way of Bithynia, as we had once hoped to do. By a rougher road and through gloomier lands we must betake ourselves to the city. But we are to seek it, and we may find it, and finding it we shall have all. Acts 16:9

It is not expressly said that this vision given to Paul was supernatural; but that it was so is certainly the most natural inference from the words of the historian in the tenth verse: "Immediately we endeavoured to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us to preach the Gospel unto them". We cannot, therefore, place quite on a level with that anything of a similar nature that may come to ourselves. But yet within certain limits we may speak of those beckonings toward future labours in life, or achievements in character, which may be given to us in God's ordinary Providence, which become our ideals for the time, and after which we strive with all the earnestness and enthusiasm of our souls as visions not unlike that which was here given to Paul. Now concerning these visions, we may learn two things from the case of Paul in my text.

I. The first is that they commonly take their colour from the character, history, and habits, of the individual before they come to him. It is to the heart already ambitious that the visions of conquest and imperial honour come. Just as the landscape shapes itself differently according to the disposition of the spectator, seeming to one enfolded in melancholy and to another bright and jubilant with gladness, so the vision is as the soul that sees it. What a man Acts 16:9

It seems strange, at first sight, that you should have here this appeal, "Come over... and help us". It is Europe appealing to Asia, "Come over... and help us". There was a time, doubtless, when we should not have been astonished at the appeal. Long before the time that Homer sang of Achilles and Agamemnon, Asiatic monarchs consolidated mighty empires, Asiatic sages tried to solve the mysteries of human life. But this was now all past and gone. The balance of power had passed over from the sons of Shem and the sons of Ham to the sons of Japheth. Rome had at this time long ruled the world. Greek art had spread beauty and culture. Greek philosophy had laid the foundations of many truths. And yet in this man of Macedonia, see cultured Europe crying out to despised Asia, "Come over... and help us". And was it not just the help which this man of Asia could bring that Europe wanted at this time? It is so in all ages. The best help that you can give to any nation is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Greek art, Greek philosophy, Roman power all wanted this help which the Apostle Paul alone could give. Here is the cry, "Come over... and help us". In what spirit are we to go?

I. We are to go, in the first place, in the spirit of faith. It is no use our going to save men unless we firmly believe that which we profess to believe. It is good advice which an American preacher gives to his young men: "Young men," he says, "believe your beliefs and doubt your doubts, but never fall into the habit of doubting your beliefs and believing your doubts".

II. In the second place, you must go in the spirit of obedience, absolute surrender. We speak of crosses. Now you will never find crosses (in the plural) in the Bible. There is only one cross in the Bible, and that cross is selfsacrifice for your brother's sake, it is the cross which Jesus Christ endured, it is the cross which He calls all His followers to take up, to sacrifice themselves for the sake of their brethren.

III. And, thirdly, you must go in the spirit of love. You must not go as a member of a superior nation. As the great General Gordon said to the three missionaries whom he welcomed at Khartoum: "If you want to win my people you must love my people". And the world is calling out for such men.

—E. A. Stuart, The New Commandment and other Sermons, vol. vii. p73.

Acts 16:9

The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel was founded in the reign of William III. Dr. Stoughton says that there was prepared in1701 "a symbolical seal, representing a ship in full sail, with a gigantic clergyman, half-mast high, standing by the bowsprit with an open Bible in his hands, whilst diminutive negroes, in an attitude of expectancy, are sprinkled on a hilly beach. Overhead is one of those awkward scrolls, devised to convey words uttered by the persons introduced; and here it contains in Latin the Macedonian prayer, which the little blacks are supposed to be offering: "Come over and help us". At the top is a face surrounded by sunrays, apparently intended to denote the presence and benediction of God vouchsafed to the undertaking."

—History of Religion in England, vol. v. p261.

References.—XVI:9.—T. J. Lawrence, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lv. p387. H. R. Heywood, Sermons and Addresses, p174. Christian World Pulpit, vol. lii. p67. Preacher's Magazine, vol. xix. p133. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iv. No189. F. W. Macdonald, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lix. p142. XVI:9 , 10.—T. Davies, Sermonic Studies, p143. J. Warschauer, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxxiii. p341. XVI:10.—Expositor (4th Series), vol. iii. p230. XVI:10-17.—Ibid. vol. vii. p343. XVI:11.—Ibid. (6th Series), vol. ix. p31. XVI:12.—E. White, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xliii. p374. Expositor (5th Series), vol. vi. p320; ibid. vol. x. p. Ill; ibid. (6th Series), vol. i. p105; ibid. vol. ii. p335. XVI:13.—Ibid. vol. iv. p29; ibid. vol. v. p22. XVI:13 , 14.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ix. No544. XVI:14.—F. Bourdillon, Plain Sermons for Family Beading (2Series), p146. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxvii. No2222. XVI:14 , 15.—H. Woodcock, Sermon Outlines (1Series), p83. XVI:19.—B. J. Snell, The All-Enfolding Love, p113. XVI:23.—Expositor (4th Series), vol. x. p17. XVI:28.—J. Reid, Preacher's Magazine, vol. xix. p73. XVI:29.—H. S. Holland, Old and New, p23. XVI:29-31.—F. D. Maurice, The Acts of the Apostles, p255. A. Bradley, Sermons Chiefly on Character, p94. XVI:30—H. S. Holland, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xliii. p337. C. Perren, Revival Sermons in Outline, p278. R. W. Hiley, A Year's Sermons, vol. iii. p35. R. W. Church, Village Sermons, p47. T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. i. p1. W. E. Skinner, A Book of Lay Sermons, p261.

Paul and Silas

Acts 16:30

We read that one of the early Methodists, John Nelson, was flung into a filthy dungeon at Bradford. He says: "My soul was so filled with the love of God that it was a paradise to me. I wished my enemies were as happy in their houses as I was in the dungeon."

—A New History of Methodism, vol1. p315.

Assurance of Salvation

Acts 16:30-31

I. To be saved by Christ means that He brings in His hand to the penitent soul a pardon signed and sealed for the offences of the past. It may be admitted at once that no one understands the full meaning of the Atonement, and that no genius has as yet been able to construct a theory which leaves no difficulty to the thoughtful mind. Nevertheless, thank God! we receive our pardon not from any theory of the Atonement, but by reason of the fact of it; and even if no other statement had been made by the Saviour when He came, this should have been enough—"The Son of man is come to give His life for many," for the sins of the whole world.

II. Belief in our Lord Jesus Christ admits us into a fresh power of life. Heaven is not full of merely pardoned felons, but of holy saints, and we become holy by the life of Christ within us.

III. A living faith in Jesus Christ lights up the valley of the shadow of death, and dissipates the pessimism of the man who seems to see everything lying under the dominion of ruthless chance. Do we ask how this great moral miracle comes to pass? Simply because Christ Himself is to the faithful as a great rock in a weary land.

—Bishop Winnington-Ingram, Under the Dome, p86.

References.—XVI:30 , 31.—A. Maclaren, After the Resurrection, p281. J. Warschauer, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxxiii. p243. XVI:31.—J. T. O"Brien, The Nature and the Effects of Faith, p1. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vi. No293. F. B. Woodward, Sermons (1Series), p22. O. Bronson, Sermons, p165. XVI:32-34.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvii. No1019. XVI:33.—J. Wright, The Guarded Gate, p67. XVI:33 , 34.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxviii. No2275. XVII:1.—F. D. Maurice, The Acts of the Apostles, p269. Expositor (6th Series), vol. iv. p33. XVII:1-3.—T. Binney, King's Weigh-House Chapel Sermons, p113. XVII:2 , 3.—G. F. Irwin, The Record, vol. xxvii. p732. XVII:3. —Expositor (4th Series), vol. ii. pp110 , 256; ibid. (6th Series), vol. ix. p123. XVII:6.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iv. No193. R. S. Drummond, Faith's Certainties, p361.