Sometimes you do the right thing or are minding your own business even, and you still get asked to leave. In my circles, we sometimes refer to getting kicked out as "Getting the Boot." Years ago I was traveling through Azerbaijan with a group of friends, visiting various cities and distributing some Bibles in the local language. One of the more experienced travelers told the group going to one particular city, "Take granola bars. The police will not feed you." Hahahaha! Oh the implications!
I remember one particular city where the police confiscated our passports as soon as we checked into the motel. (This was Soviet protocol, but it freaked me out.) The police chief insisted that they were putting us on the bus for the capital the next day. We asked if we could have our passports back so we could leave right now, but he refused. So now we were detained...
I notice in Acts 16 that Paul and Silas also were having trouble with the police, but of a much more serious nature. They cast a demon out a slave girl that was making her owners money through demonic-powered fortune telling. Her owners responded to their loss of revenue by inciting a mob against them. They were beat up, arrested, publicly stripped naked, flogged mercilessly, and then jailed with their feet the stocks with guards all around. Misery! At midnight, they were praying and singing praises to God, and the Bible notes that the other prisoners were listening...
Suddenly, there is a great earthquake! The prison gates open, and all the chains fall off. The Warden rushes in and is about to kill himself over the presumably escaped prisoners when Paul shouts to him not to harm himself. "We are all here!" (The Roman authorities would have tortured him to death over the prison break.) In gratitude, he takes them home to his own house, washes their wounds, feeds them, and hears their story of good news. He and his whole family put their trust in this Jesus of Nazareth, whom Paul was excitedly telling them about. It was a great party! We pick up the story in verse 35, quoting from The Message:
At daybreak, the court judges sent officers with instructions, "Release these men." The jailer gave Paul the message, "The judges sent word that you're free to go on your way. Congratulations! Go in peace!"
But Paul wouldn't budge. He told the officers, "They beat us up in public and threw us in jail, Roman citizens in good standing! And now they want to get us out of the way on the sly without anyone knowing? Nothing doing! If they want us out of here, let them come themselves and lead us out in broad daylight."
When the officers reported this, the judges panicked. They had no idea that Paul and Silas were Roman citizens. They hurried over, apologized, personally escorted them from the jail, and then asked them if they wouldn't please leave the city. Walking out of jail, Paul and Silas went straight to Lydia's house, saw their friends again, encouraged them in their faith, and only then went on their way.
Paul and Company had REAL problems with the police. Notice that Paul could have stopped this whole thing as he was being arrested? He could have played his Roman Citizen Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card then and there. But instead, he chose to take the scourging and jail time and let this play out. I wonder, did God whisper to him to go through with it, that He had a plan? Was Paul THAT confident in his hearing of the Master's voice? Or was Paul looking forward to having a captive audience that night at the jail, and just ornery enough to willingly pay the price to get a captive audience? (Tough dude, Paul.)
(Unrelated, but I read that when the Inquisition burned heretics at the stake, they would often rip out their tongues first to prevent them from preaching to the crowd during their own execution.)
In our own situation, the Police were intent on evicting us, but we didn't want to go. They told us to be ready in the morning, and gave us a police escort as we walked around town. We wanted to go down one street, and our escort flat refused. "Why not?" asked our leader Scott. "But we want to!" Our guide was emphatic. "Look," he said, "you want to go down this street, and I want to go to America. I can't and you can't!" Very well. We went a different direction. After dinner, we found ourselves on our own and so we made a beeline for that street. It lead us by the police station (Ah ha!) and to a woman who was out with her dog. We talked with her, and she became a believer, there in the street. Right place, right time, and God had used the policeman to keep us from missing that divine appointment by walking down that street too soon in the day.
The next morning was our scheduled departure, but the police never showed. We felt like God wanted us to leave on the third day, so we fasted and prayed for God to make a way. That evening we went to the park. There was a significant crowd there. Scott preached, we gave out Bibles, and the police present even performed crowd control! It was the best stop on our tour. That night, we broke our fast with communion together- with Azeri bread, and Chai tea in place of the wine. It was what we had available. And it was good- probably my favorite communion memory ever.
In the morning, on the third day, the police chief PERSONALLY put us on the bus while giving our passports to the driver, and insisted we not be released until we arrived at the capital-- about 7 hours away in the wrong direction. Then he lectured the whole bus on how evil we were. He stepped off, the bus doors closed, and we were on our way. Scott wrestled our passports back and asked to be dropped off at the nearest stop out-of-town, and our driver again reused. Everyone around us was grumpy and sullen. But then a strange thing happened. We passed the city limits sign, and it was like a heavy blanket lifted off of us. Everyone was suddenly happy! Moreover, they talked with us and shared food with us. Who WERE these people, who hated us one minute, and loved us the next? Then the bus driver stopped the bus to let us out of his own volition... right at at a police checkpoint! No no no! Except these police were happy to see us, ASKED US IF WE HAD ANY BIBLES, received them gratefully, and got us taxis to the town we wanted to go to. Wow, God...
There are several takeaways here. In Daniel 10:13, Gabriel explains to Daniel that he had been immediately sent to explain Daniel's vision of a coming great war, "but the Prince of Persia resisted me twenty one days. Then Michael, one of the chief angel-princes, intervened to help me..." I believe from reading this passage that there are often demonic entities in charge of specific geographic regions and political entities. That's why I believe we encountered so much resistance from the authorities in this town, and why the citizens' mood changed as soon as we crossed the city limits. We crossed out of the jurisdiction of that particular demonic entity over that town, and the oppression lifted.
There are other cases in the scripture where spiritual opposition is encountered. In Luke 8, we are told about Jesus casting demons out of a man, and allowing the demons to inhabit a heard of pigs-- which promptly ran down into the lake and drowned.
When those tending the pigs saw what had happened, they ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting at Jesus' feet, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. Those who had seen it told the people how the demon-possessed man had been cured. Then all the people of the region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them because they were overcome with fear. So he got into the boat and left.
Similarly, the officials at Philippi begged Paul and Silas to leave the city. But why? Had they noticed God's power as demonstrated by the earthquake? Better still, were they afraid of God's transformative power as demonstrated by the prisoners who choose NOT to escape when the prison doors were open and all their chains were off? Like the inhabitants who saw the former demonized man sitting clothed and in his right mind at the foot of Jesus, were they frightened of this kind of transformative power in a human soul, and they wanted this kind of power far away from them?
I suppose the lesson for those who find themselves being asked to leave is to do so. Gracefully. In Matthew 10:14, Jesus told his disciples in such situations to shake the dust off their feet on their way out the door; symbolic of cutting off fellowship. But here's the question: Do you leave at the first sign of trouble, or do you ride it out like Paul and see what God will do in the situation?
May God give you the wisdom, and the words...
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