The Prisoner

With a touch of theatrics, the Indianapolis judge shook his head very slowly back and forth as his clerk read off John Erwin's offenses from a red record book. He had skipped school too many times to count. He had stolen petty items, like flashlight batteries, only to discard them. He had stolen bicycles, ridden them to the junkyard, and destroyed them.

Most recently, twelve-year-old John had joined a gang of young toughs and threatened his foster parents with a .22 rifle. The judge leaned forward and announced, "Young man, I don't know how any one boy can be as mean as they say you are. But I'm convinced you'll never change. I'm going to send you to a Manual Labor Institute for correction, and I predict you'll spend most of your life in institutions."

Unfortunately, our prisons are filled with people like John Erwin - people who don’t care who they hurt or how they’ve hurt them. I think there are two main reasons to have prisons: one, to punish those who have done these wrongs and two, to keep them away from us. In theory, the first reason should be about the criminal. It should be about negative reinforcement – if you do the crime, you will do the time. If you experience the pain of prison, you will not want to return and in this way, you will not perform anymore crimes against society. However, I don’t think that prisons today are really doing this effectively and I think the reality is that we continue to support prisons, not to affect a change in the prisoner, but to take them out of society. And that makes us feel a lot better when we go to sleep at night, doesn’t it?

However, this idea of prison as a barrier between the prisoner and society can also lead to a perversion of the entire prison concept, and in fact it does. This perversion is that there is now a way for those in charge to hide away people and groups from society. Governments can now find ways to remove from society those who differ in their thinking. Today, we see this all over the world. We see the governments of Indonesia, India, Saudi Arabia, China, Eritrea, Sudan and others all over the world, persecuting the Christian church and imprisoning anyone who dares to tell someone the message of Jesus. About six months ago, we did a message on the persecuted church and put up screen after screen of some of the known headlines of people who were suffering under this persecution. We saw how people were being imprisoned, tortured, beaten and even killed for their faith. Although it was about half a year ago that we did that, if we were to do it again today, we would see screen after screen of new headlines of people being imprisoned, tortured, beaten and killed.

Unfortunately, this type of treatment of people, especially of God’s people, is not new to our time. God’s people have been held captive for a long time.

We can go all the way back to the second book of the Old Testament and read in Exodus how the children of Israel were being held captive by the Egyptians. After years of captivity, the Egyptians began to fear the Israelites and so began a campaign to destroy them by killing all their sons. Additionally, they forced them into slave labor giving them insufficient tools and materials to perform the work they forced them to do. In Exodus 3:7-8a ( The LORD said, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians), we see that God hears the cries of His people and he chooses Moses to do the work to set them free. This gives us some insight into how God will deal with His people who are held captives: He hears their cries, He determines to help them, He sends his chosen…in this case, it’s Moses. God uses Moses as His vehicle to bring salvation and freedom to His people.

Before even this, there was a man who was imprisoned wrongfully. Joseph was first imprisoned by his brothers, then after they made a deal to sell him into slavery, he found himself again placed in jail for doing the right thing! He had become Potiphar’s attendant and was put in charge of his entire household. But Potiphar’s wife lusted after Joseph and after he refused her advances, she falsely accused him of sexual harassment. He found himself in jail and was left there for years. But God gave him favor, gave him the gift of being able to understand visions and dreams, and used that gift to free Joseph from prison.

Another person who was wrongly imprisoned was John the Baptist. He was the last of the Old Testament prophets and he was imprisoned for telling Herod the truth of his wicked ways. Herod was having an affair with his sister-in-law, Herodias, and John told Herod that he was sinning. This led to John being imprisoned for no reason other than telling the truth. Unlike Joseph, John’s imprisonment would not lead to freedom, but to death.

The reality is that we do not know what God’s plan is for us. When evil people are imprisoned, we feel there is justice. When good people are imprisoned, we feel the system is broken. But as Joseph said, regardless of what man does, God can take what was meant for evil and use it for good.

It’s against that backdrop that we see the apostles being imprisoned. We see Peter and John imprisoned for speaking about Jesus. This reminds us of how things are today in those countries where we see the church being persecuted. The good news is that those churches have this wonderful witness from the apostles of how God can take that which was meant for evil and turn it into good. We see James being imprisoned and killed, but we see Peter being imprisoned and miraculously saved by God’s angles. We see Paul and Silas wrongly imprisoned and then singing songs in jail and being miraculously released.

There are many instances of New and Old Testament figures being imprisoned throughout the Bible. In some cases, they are miraculously freed and in other cases they are unjustly killed. However, in all cases God provided for them and used them to further His kingdom. In many cases, He provided for them by using others to step in and help out bringing support and comfort.

Acts 12:1-11. Take the case of Peter. James was just killed and now Herod wanted to kill Peter. They had him in prison and were going to kill him. The brothers and sisters in the church were praying earnestly for him. The night before he was to be killed, God miraculously stepped in and brought him out of prison. God heard the prayers of His people and answered miraculously. God wants us to pray for those who are suffering in prison.

Jesus himself tells us that. He says in Matt 25:34-40 that when we visit those in prison, we have not only taken care of the person in prison, but also we have done this to our Lord as well. What a wonderful thought. That when we care for another in His name, we are actually caring for him as well.

So let’s take a look at the apostle Paul. He also was imprisoned wrongly, several times. During his imprisonment, we can see what he was thinking by reading his letters he wrote during that time. In his letters we see two things. Even though he would have every right to be bitter and yell at God, he instead recognizes that God is God and that he can take that which men have meant for evil and make it into good. He continues to preach the good news both in prison and through his letters. He continues to praise God and teach others the ways of God. This is a lesson for all of us, not only those in prison – that when seemingly bad things happen, we should continue to do the work that God has given us.

Second, we see how important the support from others was to him. He writes about how important it was to him that the churches were sustaining him, were sending letters to him and telling him how they were praying for him. They sent things to him to make his imprisonment more tolerable. Paul was extremely grateful for the interactions with his brothers and sisters in Christ. And we see this in his letters.

In the Bible, we have four of his letters that he wrote from prison – we call them the prison letters. Ephesians, Galatians, Colossians, and Philemon make up these letters. In those letters, we see Paul talk about the gospel of Jesus, what God has done for us, and how he feels during his imprisonment. What kind of letters would we write if we were imprisoned? Would our letters sound like Paul’s or would they be filled with depression, anger, emptiness? Would we be strong in prison or would we give up? It’s hard to know the answer to these questions without being in the situation, but we can prepare ourselves so that regardless of what situation occurs, we are ready. How? The same things we’ve been doing and talking about for the past three years – read the Bible, stay in prayer, fellowship with other Christians.

How about the other side? What kind of letter would you write to Paul? Would you tell him to keep up the good work? Would you give him your pity? Would you give him advice?

Well, we don’t have to guess what we would say. We have the opportunity to reach out to someone in prison right now. Our brother, Frank Bryant, is in prison and has been communicating with us. He has found a relationship with Jesus, but might not have a lot of support in prison for his faith. It’s been a while since we first met up with Frank. Have we supported him like the Philippians supported Paul? Let’s take some time right now to support our brother….

So how do you feel now that you’ve done that? Well here is the really good news… Let’s read again what it means when we visit prisoners. `Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.’ Jesus tells us that whenever we visit the prisoners, we did it to him. He also tells us that this means we will be allowed to take our inheritance, the kingdom prepared for us since the creation of the world.

Additionally, Phil 4:10 tells us that Paul rejoiced greatly because of the concern that the Philippians showed to him. Phil 4:18 continues telling us how Paul felt about receiving the gifts from the Philippians and that the gifts themselves were a pleasing offering to God.

There is hope for those who are in prison. Both Spiritually and Physically. This hope can come from Christians who show love and forgiveness to these captives. Remember John Erwin, the young boy whom the judge said would spend the rest of his life in prison. Well, he was right , sort of. Here’s the rest of his story…

Three decades later the judge's prophecy has been partially fulfilled: in all, John Erwin has spent over 25 years in a large, notorious institution-- Chicago's Cook County jail. But not as an inmate. The judge was mostly wrong: John did change. Remarkably.

During a stint in the army, Erwin met a family who adopted him, determined to show him the same love they had shown their own children. The defenses he had built up in a childhood of violence and sexual abuse slowly melted. He experienced God's love and forgiveness, and he became a new person.

As a free man determined to help set others free, he founded and led the PACE Institute, one of America's most successful prison rehabilitation programs. Then he went on to join the staff of Charles Colson's Prison Fellowship.

When asked why he has been so effective in the failure-littered field of prison work, Erwin replies, "Maybe it's because I've been behind bars, like these prisoners. Most of them came from miserable homes also, and were abused by their parents. I understand what makes life so hard for them--and my story gives them hope. I don't give up on people. If God can change me, he can change them too."

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Last modified: June 25, 2006