328: Eric McKelvie - Exhortation: The Pattern of Midnight Salvation

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   Welcome to good Chris Selfian talks. I’m Levi. I’m Chris. I’m Jason. And I’m Brian, thank you for joining us this week. On this podcast, we select one talk a week to help us get the Bible in our Daily News feed. Each week we post a talk that we previewed from suggestions sent in by listeners from around the world.

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   Then we record a short intro beforehand as a personalized recommendation to you on why we are sharing the talk. And now let’s talk more about this week’s talk.

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   Welcome to the good Chris Adelphian Talks podcast. This is Brother Brian. This week’s talk is an exhortation that was given at the old Morristown Chapel in November by Brother Eric Mckelvey. The title and theme is both The Pattern of Midnight Salvation and Brother Eric walks us through the numerous examples of when God’s faithful followers found themselves being set free or experiencing His grace at a time of day when we might least expect it. Or perhaps when we do expect it, because it is at midnight, when our situations may seem as dark as they have ever been and the promise of dawn breaking just can’t come quick enough. Brother Eric reminds us that just as Christ will come as a thief in the night, we can expect that his return will be when this world is at its darkest point spiritually. And that we should continue to keep our lamps burning bright with as much reserves of faith as possible so that we are able to watch and be ready to greet the Master of the house when he returns.

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   This expectation resonated because we’ve recently found our prayer list for those who are suffering to be growing exponentially. And it’s a harsh reminder of the need for our Lord’s return for just so many families and the truth that we know are struggling.

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   So as we sing in hymn 284 now when the night seems darkest, come in like glory bright come to redeem thine Israel and turn our faith to sight. So as always, we hope that this strengthens your faith and brightens your day. Brother Eric Mckelvey, The pattern of midnight salvation.

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   Morning brothers and sisters, here we are again. Do you remember our Lord Jesus Christ and His sacrifice for us, His life, death and resurrection? And we do so now with a new sister in Christ. So please allow me to congratulate you on this life changing decision as we witness another person taking on the name of Christ. It draws our minds back to our own baptisms, doesn’t it? It reminds us of the zeal and the excitement which we felt upon that day when we were baptized, Excitement for the truth.

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   Excitement we feel after baptism because we now have access to God’s Kingdom, to immortal life in a world which will be ruled by King Jesus in peace. Witnessing another baptism reminds us of those things and gives us joy that another has chosen to be a part of that Kingdom.

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   Putting on Christ’s name sets us apart from the world. It gives us something to look forward to. We can be optimistic and joyful despite the tragedy of how the world is falling apart around us. Putting on Christ’s name and leaving behind the old life of sin should fill us all with peace. Despite the war’s inequality, social issues, sickness, and death, we can have joy and peace because we are sure of the promises made in Scripture that they will shortly come to pass.

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   So please turn with me in your Bibles now to Acts chapter 16. In Acts chapter 16, we find a very commendable example to be followed. And this chapter records part of the story of Paul’s second missionary journey. He and Silas are in Philippi, the biggest city in that part of Macedonia, a Greek Gentile city. And there they preached and ran into a servant girl who made her master’s money by fortune telling. And in verse 17 of Acts chapter 16, it says he followed Paul and us crying out, These men are servants of the most high God, who proclaimed to you the way of salvation. And this she kept doing for many days. And Paul having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the Spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.

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    And it came out the very hour. But when her owners saw that their hope of gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers. And when they had brought them to the magistrates, they said, these men are Jews, and they are disturbing our city. They advocate customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to accept or practice. The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates tore the garments off them and gave orders to beat them with rods, and when they ended had inflicted many blows upon them. They threw them in prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely, and having received this order, he put them in the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks. And about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Paul and Silas had been dragged away from their own purposes, attacked, beaten and abused and thrown in prison, and they began to sing praises to God.

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    So despite the terrible situation they were now in, the first thing we read about them doing is singing praise to God while the other prisoners listened. And they surely would not have been our first instincts, at least mine, and probably not what the other prisoners were expecting. They did not see men wallowing in pity or shouting at the injustice.

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    This would have been quite the preaching effort in itself, to see men singing praises to their God after being beaten and thrown in prison. Indeed, it must have had an effect, because after an earthquake shook the foundations of the prison, the keeper of the prison came to them, and fell down before them, and brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.

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    And they speak unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes, and was baptized, he and all his straight away. You can imagine Paul’s empathy towards this jailer as he washed his stripes, the wounds inflicted upon his back from being whipped.

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    Paul knew this feeling of guilt and shame. Paul had been in this man’s position in Acts 8. It tells us that Saul was ravaging the ecclesia and entering house after house. He dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. Paul had thrown his brothers and sisters into prison and yet received compassion and forgiveness in return. So it must have been very easy to forgive this jail keeper who had whipped him and beaten him.

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    And so we read in verse 34. And when he had brought them into his house, he set meat before them and rejoiced, believing in God with all his house.

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    Paul and Silas had inner joy and peace within them because of God’s message of salvation. And earlier in the chapter we also gained the context that they were instructed to go to Macedonia. So in verse 9, if you look there, it says a vision appeared to Paul in the night. There stood a man of Macedonia and prayed him saying, come over into Macedonia and help us. God had given Paul this vision.

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    Therefore, Paul and Silas knew that they were exactly where God wanted them. I think being told where to go, they would have found it much easier to endure this trial, this hardship, knowing that they were on the right path, the path that God wanted them to be on. We too are told that it will not be easy for us. In the Beatitudes, Jesus tells us, Blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely.

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    For my sake rejoice and be exceeding glad, for your reward will be great in heaven. For so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. The path of a follower of Christ is not easy. We may have to endure hardships because of, excuse me, because of our faith. We may have to cut ties with friends who are ungodly.

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    We may have to make difficult, painful decisions to ensure that we stay on the path of righteousness. Yes, we can have joy and peace because of the promise of our reward and because we know that we are on the path that God wants us to be on. We know the truth of the gospel and know that we may have to face hardship.

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    Yet God will save us and loose us from the bonds of sin, just as Paul and Silas were loosed from their bonds. When we get baptized, we choose to break off the bonds of sin and to serve God instead of ourselves. Romans 6 says, Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants, to obey his servants? Ye are to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness.

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    When we get baptized, we choose to serve God rather than our own fleshly tendencies. I don’t know if you notice what time of day this event occurred in that Macedonian prison, but if you look in verse 25, it tells us that it was about midnight when they were singing praises and praying unto God.

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    Paul and Silas were not singing quietly to themselves either. The other prisoners heard them and were listening. And I’m sure the other prisoners all love this little midnight cantata keeping them from sleeping. But isn’t that what we’re called to do? We’re called to be voices in the wilderness, voices waking others from their state of spiritual sleep. 1st Thessalonians 5 tells us so. Then let us not sleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.

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    In Mark 13 Jesus tells us, therefore stay awake. For you do not know when the master of the house will come in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows are in the morning. The world at the moment is in the spiritual state of darkness. It is spiritual midnight. Yet we are called to be awake and to be sober.

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    We are called to wake others from their sleep until loudly proclaim the Gospel and the coming Kingdom of God. This is our duty as in ecclesia, as a lampstand for God’s word of truth. May we not be as Israel’s leaders who neglected this duty. In Isaiah 56 it says that his Watchmen were blind. They are all ignorant.

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    They’re all dumb dogs. They cannot bark. Sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. 1st Thessalonians 5 also tells us, But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are the children of light and the children of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness.

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    Therefore let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober. And Jesus again tells us in Matthew 24. Therefore stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house to be broken into.

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    Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. The Scriptures tell us over and over again that Christ’s return will take many by surprise. Christ implores us to be ready, watching and waiting, so that we are not found to be asleep when He does return. And much of the world around us is asleep, unconscious to God’s ways.

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    In this time of spiritual darkness, we are told that a new day is coming. Second, Peter tells us that the day of the Lord will come as a thief. Joel chapter 1 tells us, alas for the day, the day of Yahweh is near, and as destruction from the Almighty it comes. Paul wrote to the Philippians in chapter 1.

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    It is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ. A new day is coming, the day of salvation for the Saints and judgements upon the nation’s. But we need to be ready because it is before this day comes that we will be called away to be with Christ. The world will still be fast asleep in spiritual darkness. It is that spiritual midnight that we are told salvation will come.

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    We find this to be a theme when we look for other instances of the word midnight in Scripture. Let’s turn over to Acts chapter 20 now. So Acts 20 records part of Paul’s third missionary journey and he’s back in Macedonia now. And in verse 7, it says we sailed away from Philippi after the Days of Unleavened Bread and came unto them to Troas in five days, where we abode 7 days. So he was just left visiting Philippi, the city where he was beaten and thrown in prison a few years earlier. And he would have surely visited the jail keeper’s family of believers, and would have had the memories of being saved by God’s earthquake at midnight come rushing back. And now he sails to a nearby town. And we’re told upon the first day of the week when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the Morrow, and continued his speech until midnight.

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    And there were many lights in the upper chamber where they were gathered together. And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eudicus being fallen into a deep sleep. And as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell down from the third loft, and was taken up dead.

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    And Paul went down and fell on him, and embracing him said, trouble not yourselves, for his life is in him. When he therefore was come up again, and had broken bread, and eaten, and talked a long while, until even until break of day, he departed, and they brought the young man alive. And we’re not a little comforted.

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    Paul holds the high honor of talking someone to death. I’ll try not to do that today, but he also holds the honor of being the vessel through which God’s Holy Spirit resurrected that person from death. It was at the same time of day midnight that this event occurred that Paul showed God’s power to raise the dead. And think of what that miracle would have done for the faith of the rest of that ecclesia, seeing the resurrection of the dead at their breaking of bread service. During the time when they were breaking bread in remembrance of Christ’s resurrection, His life, death, and resurrection. A young man died and was brought back to life by the power of God.

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    Not only would that have given them assurance of Christ’s resurrection in the firm foundation of their beliefs, but it would have solidified their faith in their own resurrection. This young man, Eutechus, depicts for us the resurrection that all God’s Saints we’ll experience, Those who are sleeping, we’ll experience when Christ returns. And this event occurs during the darkness of midnight.

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    God depicts His salvation through resurrection for us again during the darkness of night. In Judges chapter 16 we’ll see another instance of this theme, and this is the story of Samson, and it says in verse 2 of Judges 16. And it was told the Gazites saying, Samson has come hit her, and they can pass him in, and lay wait for him all night in the gate of the city.

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    And we’re quiet all the night, saying in the morning, when it is day, we shall kill him. And Samson lay till midnight, and arose at midnight, and took the doors of the gate of the city in the two posts, and went away with them, bar and all, and put them upon his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of the hill that is before Hebron. So Samson here uses his God-given strength to literally possess and deliver the gate of his enemies. This is something that God promised Abraham in Genesis 22. After Abraham offers his son Isaac, God blesses him for his faith, and one of the blessings is thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies.

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    In Scripture, the gate represents the authority. Defense and power of the place itself. It was a place where the elders and leaders of the city convened to govern. This was therefore a great blessing of victory over one’s enemies. And this applies to Samson as he literally carried the gate of his enemies back to Judah, showing in symbol God’s authority and ability to control all nations.

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    And this blessing spoken to Abraham not only applies to Samson, but perhaps even more so to Christ, of whom Isaiah 9 says the government will be upon his shoulder in Abraham’s blessing. Thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies. The word His is singular. Speaking of a specific individual, I believe this is a reference to the power and authority with which Christ will will yield over the nation’s.

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    After Christ’s resurrection, He appears through his disciples in Matthew 28. And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power and authority is given unto me in heaven and in earth. We’re also told that Christ will subdue the nations after his return. Psalm 2 tells us, As for me, I have set my Kingdom on Zion, my holy hill. I will tell the decree Yahweh said to me, You are my Son today I have begotten you ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a Potter’s vessel.

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    Christ upon his return will rule the nations. He will set up a Kingdom that will grow to consume all others, and He will have dominion over all the world. He will truly carry the government and authority upon his shoulders and will possess the gate of his enemies. The depiction of this salvation comes through Samson, who rises at midnight to deliver the gate of his enemies.

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    Let’s turn again in our Bibles to another instance of this theme, which we’ll find in Ruth chapter 3. Ruth was a poor widow who would glean food from Boaz’s field and her mother-in-law, Naomi encouraged her to present herself as willing to to accept a marriage proposal from Boaz and so be redeemed. And it says in Ruth chapter 3, verse 6. And she went down onto the floor, and did according to all that her mother-in-law begged her. And when Boaz had eaten and drunk, and his heart was merry, he went down.

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    He went to lie down at the end of the heap of corn. And she came softly and uncovered his feet, and laid her down. And it came to pass at midnight that the man was afraid, and turned himself. And behold, a woman laid his feet. And he said, Who art thou? And she answered, I am Ruth thine handmaid. Spread therefore thy skirt over thy handmaid, for thou art and near kinsmen.

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    And he said, Blessed be thou of Yahweh, my daughter, for thou has showed more kindness in the latter end than at the beginning, and as much as thou followest not young men, whether poor or rich. And now, my daughter, fear not, I will do to thee all that thou requirest, for all the city of my people doesn’t know that thou art a virtuous woman.

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    So because of how Ruth had behaved herself virtuously, Boaz decides he will redeem her. She had been living a difficult life, poverty with a bleak future, but now she would be married to a righteous man who would provide for all her needs.

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    Isn’t this similar to our situation as well? Without Christ, we would have a very bleak future. As Boaz says, those of the world choose to follow the young men of this world. But we choose Christ. He will redeem us from a bleak future, from this World of Darkness. Again, this event occurs at midnight. Ruth did not wait until morning to seek her redemption. Those who would be the Saints of God must behave themselves virtuously that Christ would find them to be an acceptable part of his ecclesial bride.

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    And so we are redeemed from among men. Finally, let’s turn to Exodus chapter 12. This is the account of the 10th plague upon Egypt and the first Passover. The people of Israel were instructed to put blood on their doorposts, and any house that did not have this would have their first born son killed.

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    And in verse 29 we read, And it came to pass that at midnight Yahweh smote all the first born in the land of Egypt, from the first born of Pharaoh that sat upon his throne, unto the first born of the captive that was in the dungeon, and all the first born of cattle. And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians.

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    And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where there was not one dead. And he called Moses and Aaron by night, and said, Rise up, and get you forth from among my people, both ye and the children of Israel, and go serve Yahweh as he have said. So the people of Israel were saved from their oppressors at midnight.

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    They were not told to leave. The next morning when they woke up, there was a cry during the night, and they picked up and left. An important aspect of the Passover was that it was being it must have been eaten in haste. It tells us in verse 11. Thus shall you eat it with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand, and shall eat it in haste.

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    They had to be ready at any time, because the cry could come at any time that it was time to go. Let this be a lesson to us as well, that Christ could come at any time. The cry could come that Christ has returned at any moment. The trumpet could sound, not at the breaking of day, but during the night.

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    We will be called. We come now to remember our Passover Lamb, Christ, the sacrificial Lamb slain on our behalf, that we might have life. And the people of Israel were saved by the blood of the Lamb on their doorposts, saved from the destroyer. They were then delivered from the land of Egypt, the spiritual land of sin.

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    And we too are saved by the blood of the Lamb and will be delivered. We remember his life, his sacrifice, and his resurrection. We remember the hope that we have access to because of his sacrifice.

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    We have hope that we will be permanently freed from our bonds of sin like Paul and Silas. We can have comfort knowing that our brethren and sisters who now sleep will be resurrected like Eutychus. And should we 2 fall asleep before that day, we will be resurrected to life as well.

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    Like Samson, Christ will possess the gate of his enemies until the Kingdom stretches from shore to shore. Like Ruth, we have a future. We have a hopeful future because our husband Christ has redeemed us. Colossians, one says, giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the Kingdom of His dear Son, in whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins. So as with these thoughts and minds that we remember the the lesson of the midnight pattern.

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    Salvation came during the night. We do not know the day nor the hour, but we see the signs of the times, and they suggest that the day is near. However, we should expect our salvation to come during this time of spiritual darkness. We learned from the parable of of the 10 virgins that as the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept.

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    But at midnight there was a cry. Here is the the bridegroom come out to meet him. Let us not become drowsy because his his return is surely near. Let us be found watching, waiting and ready with oil in our lamps, or even singing praises to our God when we hear that same midnight cry.

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    Here is the bridegroom come out to meet him. Thank you for listening to the good Chris Adelphian Talks podcast. We hope this talk helped you in your walk and brightened your day. If you would like to hear more, please subscribe for new episodes. We are on all major podcast platforms and also on YouTube. If you enjoyed this particular talk, please share it with someone else who you think might enjoy it too. For show notes on the talk you just listened to, visit [email protected] or check out the Show Notes section of your podcast player.

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