By the time we finish, you will have more instruction in the Book of Acts than the average seminary graduate.
Three hundred and fifty messages are more than would be possible in two semesters of seminary.
But before either you or I begin to boast, thinking that we know the life of the Apostle Paul, we need to think about II Corinthians 11:23-25.
He said, “Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep.”
As far as he was aware, he had been in prison more often than any of the other Apostles.
On five occasions he had been beaten 39 times, but we are not told about any of them in Acts.
We know that he had been stoned to the point of death outside of Lystra, Galatia,
But when had those three beatings with rods taken place?
Where do we have a description of him floating around in the Mediterranean for a day and a night?
And where in the Book of Acts do we have accounts of ship-wrecks – other than the one coming up?
When we get done, we may, or may not, know very much about the Book of Acts, but we will have only scratched the surface of the life of Paul.
And just as Paul’s life is still a mystery, so is the rest of yours.
You may know quite a bit about your own past and even the more of the life of your children, if parents,
And the lesson of that is that we need to be prepared for anything – by serving the God who controls everything.
This morning I would like to use this chapter as an illustration of life.
It is a cameo of all that was in Paul’s life, and it is an allegory of your life and mine.
We should be able to learn about life by looking at this chapter, and we should learn how to prepare.
It was the centurion’s intention to meet one of the large ships that regularly plied the sea toward Rome.
You could say everyone had tickets to Rome, and that they had their baggage checked through,
But the route that they took to get there wasn’t exactly what Travelocity had printed on their itinerary.
In fact, many of them came close to finishing their journey in a place that they didn’t intend – Melita.
When Judy and I were flying to South Carolina three weeks ago, we first got on a plane headed to Chicago.
There in Chicago we got on another plane that scheduled to fly to Dulles Airport outside of Washington.
But when we got to Washington, we almost had to run to catch our next flight.
We deplaned and then hurried to catch a bus and then ran from the bus to get a seat on a little puddle-jumper to Columbia, South Carolina.
Eventually, when the dust settled and my mind cleared, I wondered if we were on the right plane.
I was concerned that in the whirl-wind of catching the flight that we had actually gotten on the wrong airplane.
With the high cost and with all the security problems, I don’t suppose that people use United Airlines or Southwest just because they like the excitement and/or stress of flying.
They have a purpose and a destination.
So then why is it that so many people live their LIVES without any specific destination in mind?
There is a destination whether people actually think about it or not.
Despite the lyrics of the poets and the spoutings of the atheists, life is not in itself the destination.
Life is a journey which takes us in a circuitous route, eventually depositing us on the shore of either Heaven or Hell; either in eternal bliss or in the Lake of Fire.
And it is important that we know to what destination we are travelling before we actually get there.
Life has a destination, and ….
It sounds like a completely booked Boeing 757; there were 276 people on board.
Of course there were Paul, Luke and Aristarchus.
Then there were Julius and his soldiers.
And then there were other prisoners, but again we don’t know the number; could it have been a hundred?
Other than Luke and Aristarchus, we aren’t told that there were any paying passengers on board.
Most commentators think that the only people not soldiers or sailors were prisoners and slaves.
In the journey of life, we are privileged to choose a few of our companions, but surrounding us are hundreds of others about whom we don’t have any choice at all
We get to choose the people that we marry, and we have a choice of places to work or whether or not we go on to some school of higher education.
As you make choices about your particular companions – remember II Corinthians 6:14 – “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? What agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; & I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.”
It may be the will of God that we be on board ship bound toward eternity with a bunch of strangers.
But some of them may be the worst sort of criminals.
But we have a choice on how and whether or not we deliberately “touch the unclean thing.”
“Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.
whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.”
But kids, listen to your parents, and if they tell you to avoid this neighbor or that friend, do what they say.
They are speaking out of the wisdom of experience and the grace of God.
They are trying to direct you, because they love you and they know your vulnerability.
Life is filled with fellow-travellers and how we relate to them is important.
Be a witness to them of Christ.
Sometimes in order to be the kind of witness that they need, it is impossible for you to be their friend.
Something else we see illustrated in this chapter is that …
I’m sure that the sailors had to tack back and forth to make much progress into the later summer breeze.
Isn’t it true that life doesn’t seem to go in a straight line?
It’s not that we aren’t making progress, but it seems to be back and forth, back and forth.
Once Paul and the others got to Myra and boarded the bigger Alexandrian ship, the wind got stronger.
It’s only about 175 miles from Myra to Cnidus & with an ideal wind would have only taken a couple of days.
But the wind was not only contrary, but rapidly getting stronger and stronger.
After a great many days the ship barely, or scarcely, reached the Cnidus at the corner of Asia Minor.
Then the captain decided to change course and head south-west in order to use Crete as a buffer from the winds which were changing to the north-west.
After seeking shelter in the little cove of Fair Havens, the winds died down and it looked like an easy half day’s journey to Phenice or Phoenix on the western side of the island.
But as soon as they left Fair Havens, they were beset by an unbelievable storm which blinded them for two weeks and drove them onto the rocks and sands of the Island of Melita.
In today’s modern world of technology, we have weather satellites watching over the clouds.
And we have buoys scattered across many of our oceans sending reports to weather stations about currents, winds and water temperatures.
We have people who can give us a general prediction about what the weather is going to be tomorrow and the next day, but something that we can’t do is control that weather.
If we could control it, we’d take some of our wet weather and share it with Texas and Oklahoma which haven’t seen any appreciable precipitation in weeks.
We can’t control the day to day weather, just as we can’t control a great many other things in our lives.
Many children think that their lives are miserable because they can’t always do what their little depraved hearts desire to do.
If they only knew how privileged they are and how they are being sheltered by their parents from the really big storms of life.
But then comes that day when they can’t be kept at home any longer, and off they go.
Some of them find fair weather for a while, but some of them are hit with storms immediately.
Many of them, instead of coasting along the shore, taking little steps of progress, they immediately decide that they’re going to blindly sail directly across the Mediterranean.
(Some of you adults know exactly what I’m talking about.)
How many of our children leave the shelter of their parent’s homes get out into the sea of life, and then realize that they aren’t really ready for the big waves?
How many children leave and then return home again? There is not necessarily anything wrong in that.
Life has its periods of calm, but they are interspersed with storms – sometimes terrible storms.
They may be storms of disease, or financial problems, or loss, death and loneliness.
I will never forget the worst sore throat that I even had to endure.
Or did it just seem like my worst sore throat, because it was my first since leaving home?
Others gritted their teeth, admitted their problems & struggled for years to right the ship.
Perhaps they should have learned the lessons of debt while they were still in port.
They certainly learned those lessons very quickly once they got out on the high seas.
But life wouldn’t be life if that was always the way things are.
May your storms be small and quick; but you need to be ready for Euroclydon.
As the freighter with its 276 souls on board was approaching the island of Melita in the black of night and the midst of the storm,
“About midnight the shipmen deemed that they drew near to some country; And sounded, and found it twenty fathoms: and when they had gone a little further, they sounded again, and found it fifteen fathoms.”
This rope had knots at specific intervals, which when counted told the captain how deep the water was.
Since the soundings indicated that the water was getting more shallow, they knew that they were approaching land.
When they began throwing the cargo into the sea, you can be sure that this was considered to be a great disaster by the master and owner of the ship.
He expected to make a profit in Rome with which he would feed his family and buy more grain later.
But when they threw the grain into the sea, he lost his investment – it was a disaster.
And falling into a place where two seas met, they ran the ship aground; and the forepart stuck fast, and remained unmoveable, but the hinder part was broken with the violence of the waves.”
It was a disaster, but his life was spared.
Then there were the other prisoners – those who were going to Rome to die.
I suppose that some of them may have wished that they had died in that storm.
What they will have to face in the Coliseum will be infinitely worse than this kind of death:
Perhaps just simple crucifixion.
As for Julius – he made several huge decisions just before the ship-wreck which might have meant his execution if he ever reached Rome.
First, when the sailors tried to escape on the little boat, he cut the ropes and destroyed their get away.
And then when it was advised that the prisoners be killed lest any of them escape,
There are natural disasters and there are human-caused disasters.
Every life has these sorts of things – some more and some less.
But then there is another brand of disaster altogether: SPIRITUAL DISASTER.
Of course we can’t know for sure, but I would guess that the owner of this ship had been a wealthy man.
From what I have learned about the life of wealthy Romans he was probably a wicked man.
If he had any pretense of religion, it was the usually worldly variety, without any genuine substance.
And though he escaped the sea, eventually death overtook him and his soul went into hades – hell.
The lives that they lived brought them into the proximity danger on a regular basis,
but eventually that was going to come to an end.
“Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”
But that disaster and punishment had only just begun when they first died.
As we see in Luke 16, when the wicked die, they immediately awaken in torment.
And the sea will give up the dead which are in it; and death and hell will deliver up the dead which are in them: and they shall be judged every man according to their works.
And death and hell will be cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
And whosoever will not be found written in the book of life will be cast into the lake of fire.”
Life issues in disasters worse than cancer or multiple-sclerosis.
Life ends in judgment before the most holy God and then extends into eternity.
And for those who do not possess the Lord’s salvation, eternity means judgment in the Lake of Fire.
This is the direction life faces.
Did Paul have more experience in such things than those who made their living plying the sea?
No, Paul’s opinion wasn’t based on experience; it was based on something that the Lord put in this heart.
And where did Paul and his friends get their confidence and calmness in the midst of the storm?
It came from the peace which passeth all human understanding.
At one point during the fourteen-day storm the Lord sent one of His ambassadors to visit Paul.
“And now I exhort you to be of good cheer: for there shall be no loss of any man’s life among you, but of the ship. For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve, Saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought before Caesar: and, lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee. Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me.”
How could Paul, or even this angel, be so sure that not one of the 276 passengers on board this doomed vessel would drown?
It came through their confidence in the omnipotence and sovereign control of Jehovah.
There was not a single drop of that driving rain which didn’t have its course, velocity and density dictated by the Lord.
Paul made a statement in verse 34 which opens the door to some interesting cogitations.
“And while the day was coming on, Paul besought them all to take meat, saying, This day is the fourteenth day that ye have tarried and continued fasting, having taken nothing. Wherefore I pray you to take some meat: for this is for your health: for there shall not an hair fall from the head of any of you. And when he had thus spoken, he took bread, and gave thanks to God in presence of them all: and when he had broken it, he began to eat.”
Years earlier, the Lord Jesus was encouraging his disciples about the upcoming problems in their lives.
He said, “And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him. Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.”
Our God is in such control of the universe that He counts and numbers sparrows and hairs.
When Paul said, “for there shall not an hair fall from the head of any of you” was he speaking proverbially or precisely?
This was probably just a popular proverbial phrase, but it was not impossible for God to guarantee that not a single person lost a single hair off their balding heads during their escape from the storm.
That is how confident we should be in the absolute sovereign control of the Lord.
And so the point of this message is this:
Since life is so tempestuous and out of our control, isn’t it wise to snuggle up close to the One who does control its every aspect?
And since life ends in death and judgment, isn’t it wise to believe His promises and warnings and exhortations?
Since we are all going to spend eternity in either Heaven or the Lake of Fire, isn’t it wise to repent of our sins and to trust the Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ?
This is not a matter of simple religion; it is a matter of Christ Jesus.
In the ebb and flow of life, we need a Saviour; we need Christ.
And in order to have him we all need to repent before God and to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Are you living in trust of the Saviour?