The Anger of the Damsel's Masters

Act 16:19 And when her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas, and drew them into the marketplace unto the rulers,

Act 16:20 And brought them to the magistrates, saying, These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city,

When the masters of this young woman found out what happened they were angry. They had lost a great source of income because the spirit that made money for them was now gone. They were angry at Paul and Silas for destroying the works of Satan in this young woman. They arrested them and brought them before their court system to have punishment imposed upon them.

Note how they really did nothing bad. What they did was to cast a devil out of a young woman and the people were angry over this. They would rather the woman keep the devil and do what she had been doing all along. This shows how much the world loves also. They don't care about her. They only care about making money off of her. The masters of the woman told their judges that Paul and Silas troubled the whole city exceedingly. This is a false witness against them. They only troubled those that were making money through this woman.

In this day that we live there are many different systems of belief. They all want to be accepted as being righteous. Satan wants us to accept him as we accept Jesus. If he can get us to accept him he has won the battle against us. We must keep our eyes and focus on Jesus and the Word of God. We do not have time to play with literal hell fire. We have a work to do and that work is to expose evil for what it is and spread the gospel of Jesus Christ to all that we come in contact with.

One thing we all seem to have a problem with is letting go of those who refuse this gospel. There is a time that we must shake the dust from our feet and move on to the next place. God has anointed us to do this. We have power over unclean spirits, (Luk 9:1 Then he called his twelve disciples together, and gave them power and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases. ) We do not have to bow down to Satan and his ideas. We do not have to accept the ungodly as our equals. Power is given us to defeat the devil and all his works. For this cause Jesus died for us while we were yet sinners. We love Him because He first loved us.

It is time to join up with the winning side. It is time to stop being defeated at every turn. It is time to gird up our loins and fight the good fight of faith. It is time to hit our knees and pray for those that try to hurt us. It is time to help those that need help. It is time to give up and let Jesus take over. Won't you let the Lord have His way in your life? Won't you come to Him with a repenting heart and ask for forgiveness for your sins?

The Possessed Damsel

Act 16:16 And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying:

Act 16:17 The same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation.

This young woman followed them around mocking them and mocking God also. She wanted them to accept her as their equal. In other words she wanted them to say she was the same as they were in the fact that they believed in God and were saved.

This day and time, we hear lot of talk about tolerance and how all beliefs are equal. People say all gods are the same true God. They say there are many different paths and many different truths. They are deceivers following after their father, Satan, who is the first deceiver. They want to be accepted as righteous, while remaining sinful and unrepentant. So what do we do about them?

Act 16:18 And this did she many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour.

We are to do what God tells us to do. We are to rebuke them in the name of Jesus. There are unclean spirits at work in these that do these things that are ungodly. These same spirits will deceive many more if allowed to be counted among the righteous of God. We are to "prove" them to be ungodly and expose their sinfulness. When we do this, we do what is right in the eyes of God. We also stir up Satan and make him mad.