Everyone's Chains Were Loosed

Acts 16:26

Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were loosed.

Everett McBee has a song entitled, “Set me Free” in which he describes how the lord when he is on our side can deliver us from the chains which bind. All of us can identify with being locked up even if we have to go all the way back to slavery or to the Civil Rights marches up to post-modern day Recession. Everyone can identify with the restriction of oppression. The Chains I mention are not the chains of consequences for illegal activity but the chains of persecution for doing right. Have you ever been locked up while trying to do the right thing? Has your money ever been tied up and you were just trying to help your family? What do you do when you are like Akon, “locked up and you can’t get out?!” The answer is in Acts 16.

Paul and Silas had set a young lady free from demonic possession. She had a spirit that enabled her to tell the future but she was being prostituted by two men. She kept bothering Paul and Silas by following them saying, “These men are from God.” Paul got irritated and told the Spirit to come out. She was free. But the men who made money off her got mad and told the officials that Paul and Silas were stirring up trouble in the city. When you cut off the profit of predatory lenders and stop the income of hustlers in your community don’t be surprised when the officials want to throw you in prison. They beat them and jailed them.

Instead of giving up and feeling sorry for themselves they got up at Midnight and started doing something that we need to do if we want our chains loosed:

1. They Prayed. A friend told me last night to kick my prayer life up a notch because of all the warfare coming against me. Whenever you have snakes around you, you have to go up past the snake line on your mountain of prayer because snakes can’t exist past a certain altitude. Prayer chokes out the enemy and opens up divine possibilities.

2. They Sing hymns. I love gospel songs and hip hop gospel but it’s just something about those old hymns. Yesterday at church Jermeal Cowans sang, “I have decided to follow Jesus, though none go with me still I will follow, no turning back, no turning back.” The church went in. It’s the purity and simplicity of those hymns that can get you through when you have no where to go but to God.

3. They sang and pray in the presence of other prisoners. What you are going through isn’t just for you. For the benefit of those standing around God is using your “jail time” as a witness that God is able.

4. When they sing and pray the foundation started shaking, the doors flew open, and the chains fell off of everybody. Now you would think that this was the time that Paul and Silas run out. The jailer came in panicked and was about to kill himself. But Paul said, “don’t do yourself any harm we are here.” Just because the doors are open and your chains are off does not mean it’s time to run. God has you where you are to save somebody else. They didn’t leave until the jailer and his whole house got baptized.

Whatever it is that you have been bound up in, if you pray and praise God in the middle of it, he will shake some things ups and release you from your bondage. But before you leave make sure you save some folk around you.

Dear God,
Thank you for shaking things up in my life and causing the doors to swing open. Make me sensitive to the people around me that need to be saved even as you free me up from what was holding me. I’m free, no more chains holding me, my soul is rested, it’s just a blessing, thank you lord I’m free! Lord Today help me to be aware of the people around me. Give me a song in my heart and help my prayers to protect me from all of my enemies who would do me harm. I bind every demonic attack against those listening to this prayer right now. Shake some things up and loose everyone’s chains, in Jesus Name!

Amen.