Ours is not a very homogenous society.
We live in the United States, but those 50 states are united only in certain ways and by regions.
In many ways there are states as different from other states as many foreign countries.
And then scattered throughout those states are groups of people who are very diverse from one another.
As you walk past their homes or their restaurants the fragrances coming from them tells you that they prefer different kinds of foods than you do.
We have hundreds of different kinds of churches, mosques and worship centers all around us.
And many of those people speak different languages, or they speak English which an accent that makes them very hard to understand.
Even members of the same family can dress, talk and think radically differently from one another.
As you move through life you bump into many of these “other” kinds of people.
And some them you might not particularly like.
Some of them, for whatever reason, you might feel that you are better than they are.
Have you ever used the word “barbarous” when you thought about them, or later spoke about them?
According to modern dictionaries a “barbarian” is a person who is uncultured, savage, cruel, or unkind.
According to that definition, the homeless beggar might call you a “barbarian.”
Luke tells us that when the passengers of the sinking freighter made it safely to land, they found out that the place was the Island of Melita.
And even though the people there were “barbarous,” – “they showed us no little kindness.”
In modern English “barbarous” and “kindness” are mutually exclusive.
Barbaric people are cruel – not kind.
But that just reminds us to make sure that we understand the words of the Bible the way that the Holy Spirit intended them to be understood.
In I Corinthians, when Paul was condemning the misuse of the gift of tongues, he defined the Biblical use of the words “barbarous” and “barbarian.”
So likewise ye, except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? for ye shall speak into the air.
There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of them is without signification.
Therefore if I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian unto me.
Even so ye, forasmuch as ye are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek that ye may excel to the edifying of the church.”
This morning, for the sake our message, I’d like to blend the modern and ancient definitions of that word.
Just as Paul and Luke were surrounded by their “barbarians,” we are surrounded by barbarians as well.
Can we learn anything about our barbarians, by taking note of Paul’s barbarians?
there were occasions when the natives on the nearby islands murdered the survivors who were fortunate enough to reach their shores.
They were barbarians.
150 years ago, or was it last year, if a ship went down and a body washed ashore some residents of Europe or America would loot the dead bodies before calling for the police.
Those people were barbarians as well.
But the “barbarians” of Malta showed no little kindness toward the survivors of that sinking ship.
The Greek says they displayed “no little kindness” – actually – “uncommon kindness” toward them.
One of the unanswered questions that I have about Paul’s escape, was whether or not he jumped off the ship wearing chains.
If the prisoners were still wearing leg-irons or chains between their wrists, then, that they made it safely to land was that much greater a miracle.
Even if they were unchained as the ship started breaking up, I’m sure that the soldiers would have done their utmost to make sure that they were tied up once they reached shore.
And assuming that to be true, then the Melitians displayed kindness toward people that they knew to be prisoners as well as to the soldiers and nobility.
Perhaps that is where the word “uncommon” kindness comes into play.
After some of the common people displayed their uncommon kindness, some or all of the refugees were taken up to the house and estate of the chief man of the island.
Even if it wasn’t everyone, it was apparently Paul, Julius, Luke and Aristarchus.
Didn’t that man realize that Paul was a criminal,.a prisoner, and bound for Rome to stand before Caesar?
Does it matter?
Genuine kindness and hospitality don’t differentiate between the needs of kings or prisoners; the needs of the civilized people or barbarians.
Unfortunately there is a lot of false doctrine in and around such barbarian virtues as hospitality.
For example, there is the opinion of some people that unsaved barbarians cannot have virtues at all.
They misinterpret scriptures like Romans 3:10-12:
There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.”
It is not saying that there is nothing profitable in anything that he might do.
But at the same time it brings up the other major false doctrine about the good deeds of the barbarian:
The kindness and hospitality of the Melitians didn’t somehow change them from barbarians to Christians.
Romans 3 is saying that a man’s good deeds do not in any way earn him points with God.
For that kind of righteousness, the sinner, the barbarian, the unbeliever, needs to receive the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
those blessings are counted as nothing before the Holy God.
And it is a primary focus of attack throughout the entire New Testament.
“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;
To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.
Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”
And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.
So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.
For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.
But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith.”
“Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,
“Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost.”
One of the things that our text teaches us is that barbarians may have many good qualities.
But other scriptures remind us that those virtues and good deeds, don’t make them Christians.
For that they need salvation and the grace of God.
The islanders looked at the loss of the big Roman ship as some sort of punishment from the gods.
But then their false theology took a hit when everyone on that ship made it safely to land.
But then it was reinforced in the case of Paul when the serpent attacked this hand.
“And when the barbarians saw the venomous beast hang on his hand, they said among themselves, No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance suffereth not to live.”
Like most untaught heathen, the Maltese personified the principle of justice.
Some people like to use words like “karma” or “kismet” to do the same thing.
And to them that karma seems to have a mind of its own, albeit it is somewhat fickle.
But it helps to explain the things that their unbiblical minds can’t explain in other ways.
Of course, they were absolutely wrong.
Just because someone gets sick, it doesn’t mean that he’s committed some terrible sin.
And just because the IRS says that someone hasn’t paid all his taxes, it doesn’t mean that he has deliberately defrauded the government.
It is only sophomoric intellectuals who think that liberty means the right of someone to do whatever he wants to do – without consequence.
The barbarians of this world may argue incessantly about what deserves punishment and what doesn’t,
Political candidates seem to be required by some unwritten law to take a tough stand against crime.
And sometimes the quantity of his rhetoric on that issue helps him to win the election.
But from what I read in the Word of God, murder is a sin, whether society calls it a “crime” or not.
And murderers deserve to be properly punished whether we call it “divine vengeance” or not.
The problem that so many barbaric societies have is that they don’t like to hear the rest of the list of sins.
When a man drinks a gallon of liquor, gets into his car and runs over a little child, the Bible says that HE should be held responsible, not the liquor.
And the vengeance that he should feel should be at the very least equal to that which the child felt when he crushed her with his car.
Not only that, but the Bible condemns the man at the bar who sold that child-killer the alcohol in the first place.
And lying is a sin as well; but why isn’t lying considered a crime?
We could take our Bibles and come up with a considerable list of sin / crimes.
And clearly the Bible shows that the physical punishment for every sin is not the same,
but it also shows that there is eternal punishment for every sin.
Jehovah has said, “Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.”
“The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
“For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.”
These Maltese barbarians show us that in the heart of everyone there is a realization that there are some things which are right, like kindness and hospitality, and that there are some things which are wrong, like murder.
Not only is murder an evil thing, it is a thing to be judged and vengeance will eventually fall upon it.
But what makes those people “barbarians” is that they have not been taught.
And one of the areas of their lack of education is in the extent of things deserving Divine vengeance.
Paul preached the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ in a great many different kinds of places.
Fore example, hee was often invited to preach among the highly-taught Jews.
He taught the Word of God in the school of Tyranus.
But he also preached salvation through Christ to various varieties of barbarians.
When he and Barnabas arrived in Lystra, Lyconia, there was a poor man so crippled that he had never been able to walk.
And when the people saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in the speech of Lycaonia, The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men.”
But they were also barbarians in their mistaken assumption that Paul was one of their heathen gods.
Without question, both the Lycaonians and Melitians were theological cripples,
It doesn’t matter how cultured or how primitive, there is something in the heart of man which demands some kind of god in which to believe or blame, depending on the circumstances.
It’s as much a part of the human being for us to believe in god, as it is for us to have noses and ears.
And just because sometimes babies born without noses and ears, that doesn’t mean that noses and ears are not common to homo sapiens.
Just because there are people who teach themselves to deny the existence of God, that doesn’t mean that it’s not normal and natural for human beings to believe in God.
Education is a good thing, like the tinting on sunglasses to protect the eye from ultraviolet light,
Go figure.
And during that time there were at least three notable miracles – or was it 300 hundred notable miracles?
Then there was the business of the venomous serpent which had no power over the Apostle.
So when this was done, others also, which had diseases in the island, came, and were healed.”
You might think that I’m being presumptuous calling his problem “dysentery?”
Luke the physician was more up-to-date and accurate than even our King James translators.
And in the nonchalant style, so characteristic of Luke, we are simply told that Paul prayed and God healed him.
There was no fanfare, no trumpets blowing, no news cameras flashing and no sirens wailing.
Paul simply went into the sick man’s room and prayed for God’s blessing before laying his hands on him.
Then the gentleman was cured of his malady.
Those are the facts, with not a single word of embellishment.
Then following him came others who were successfully healed.
Some critics of the Bible point out that we aren’t told about mass evangelistic services on Melita.
We aren’t told about spectacular conversions and baptisms.
Some say that there wasn’t any evangelism in Malta at all.
Do you really think that Paul could spend at least twelve weeks somewhere without sharing Christ?
Do you think that he would avoid the opportunity of taking God’s miracles and talking about the Lord’s omnipotence and grace?
I can’t tell you that there were 3,000 Melitians brought into the Kingdom of God.
I can’t tell you that there were 300.
I can’t tell you that there was a church established there, or that Paul ever returned to strengthen the church there.
But neither can the critics say that these things didn’t take place.
And this brings me to my point this morning:
The islanders may have been “barbarians” according to some definitions.
They may have been idolaters and living under theological delusions.
But that doesn’t make void the grace of God, nor does it dilute the omnipotence of God.
If the Lord was willing to prove His power through physical miracles, then we might assume that He was more than willing to prove His redeeming power as well.
You & I may live in cultured, wealthy America but that doesn’t mean that we aren’t surrounded by barbarians.
We may even bring children and grand-children into our lives and homes, but there is a sense in which everyone of our loved ones are born barbarians as well.
Until that soul is born again, it is sinful, rebellious toward God and destitute of spiritual life.
Until YOU are born again, YOU are a spiritual barbarian.
But are you yet a barbarian?
Have you been born again?
Have you at any time knelt at the foot of the Cross of Christ, repenting of your sin?
Is your trust in Christ for deliverance from your sin?
Do you have a love for the Lord?
Are you absolutely sure that safely surrounded by the grace of God?