0:00
Lorraine. We are up to this portion of scripture. So, Acts 27, if you're joining us and you haven't been here previously, what we typically go through is expository preaching straight through and we've been in a study of Acts for probably close to a year. Not quite. Six months probably at least.
0:19
And we're up to Acts twenty seven one through 44 and I'll make a confession. I always study, study, study, study, study, my own study of the grammar and the history and the all of the terms that I don't know and all that sort of stuff. I do that and then I read other commentaries and I do that and if I feel like I get a handle on it, then I start trying to add little ornaments, the illustrations and stuff. Those aren't the first. Those are very last and I didn't have any this week.
0:48
I felt like it was just going to tell a story from the New Testament but last night, I had my own little storm. So, I'm gonna tell you because it snuck up on me in the first service and I was saying this out loud before I even knew it. So, here we are. Last night, we have a bunny. If you didn't know that, we have a bunny.
1:07
The bunny weighs about three pounds. The bunny is named Foggy. Foggy is Paschal's money. Paschal's at Albert. The bunny is with us.
1:15
I love the bunny. I don't have a problem with the bunny generally. Normally, she's a free range bunny. She goes around the house wherever she wants to go. She has a little condo.
1:24
We call it a hutch that we are keeping in our office, in our bedroom and so this is the place and last night, we decided Foggy has to be retrained on something. She needs to be in the in the hutch, in the condo, in in the condo. And knowing what I was preaching today. I know this I know this text pretty well and I've been studying it for some time and knowing this, it's it's embarrassing almost to say, the storms of my life last night included not sleeping at all because of that bunny. Driving me absolutely bananas.
1:57
Have you ever heard a bunny thump? Have you heard a bunny thump about seven times in a row at 02:15 in the morning? That's what Foggy did last night and after about the sixth or seventh and Tanya and I neither one of us sleep well. I probably didn't sleep thirty minutes in a row last night and Tanya doesn't sleep well already and so I just and I felt like she's asleep in seven bunny thumps in a row. She's not gonna stay asleep long.
2:22
So, I swing open the covers like this and jostle the bed and just as I did, apparently, we have a remote control for the fan in our room and it went to gale force wind. I've never had that thing on stage three or four or whatever it was on. I thought it might come off of that mount. It was like this. And it was blowing something crazy and I thought, I I looked for the remote, couldn't find the remote, looked and looked and looked and looked, couldn't find it, and I thought, I'm not gonna wake Tanya.
2:53
I hope I don't wake Tanya up. She's finally asleep. This is and I saw her shiver and I thought, I gotta find this thing. So, I get up and I start searching for it. It's between the headboard and the mattress and that's what did it.
3:07
But of course, I woke Tanya up trying to find it. So, now, neither of us are asleep. Bunny keeps on. I'm not letting you out of that hutch. It's just the way it's going to be.
3:16
Knowing what I had to preach. Here we go. Now, when it was decided that we would sail for Italy, okay? This is my little, tiny little aggravation with that bunny last night. Foggy, the name of the Foggy Bunny is Foggy which I didn't realize in the first service but several people pointed that out.
3:34
When it was decided that we would sail for Italy, can you see right here that Paul did not decide when that's happening? Paul is a prisoner. A prisoner who's been declared innocent by Felix. He's been declared innocent by Festus. He's been declared innocent by Agrippa and Bernice.
3:51
He's innocent but he has appealed to go to Caesar. So, to Caesar, he's going to go. So, he is still kept as a prisoner until he appeals to Caesar which which is in Rome. So, when it was decided that we would sail for Italy, there they are in Caesarea, Maritime Caesarea right here and all the way over to Italy and we know Rome is where they're headed, where the big red star is on the knee of the boot of Italy. Right there, that's where they're headed and they proceeded to turn Paul and some other prisoners.
4:24
So, it wasn't just Paul as a prisoner, there were other Roman prisoners. They turned them over to a centurion of the Augustine cohort named Julius. Oh, okay. So, we know who the guy is, Julius. Augustine cohort at Caesarea, Maritime Caesarea.
4:41
This Augustine cohort has at least 600 people who are a part of it, and Julius is a centurion in charge of probably about a 100 guys. And we, Luke says, remember Luke? The great historian, physician, but a good historian and he says in his first chapter of the book of Acts, volume two to Luke. Right? He says, Theophilus, I want to give you a good and detailed history so that you can have confidence in the faith that you know is real and so, he's leaving all the details in.
5:17
Luke is a great historian. He says, and we, Luke is one of them, boarded an Andromedian ship. Andromedian ship that was about to sail to the regions along the coast of Asia and if you're looking for from Caesarea Maritime, Caesarea over to Rome, the coast of Asia is right there where that sort of semicircle is and Andromedia is above. So, you would think an Andromidian ship knows the coast of Asia pretty well and they do. Leave him from Caesarea Maritime.
5:45
That's the boat I want to be on. Julius makes a good call, I think. And so, the Andromedian ship is about to sail to the regions along the coast of Asia, and we put out to sea and we were accompanied. So it was Paul and Luke and Aristarchus, who was a Macedonian of Thessalonica. And the next day, after we set sail, we put in at Sidon.
6:08
Now, Sidon comes up a lot in the book of Luke and in the book of Acts, it's mentioned a few times too. It's always favorable. Now, it's not favorable to the Jews typically. They don't think of that as a great thing. If you look for where Sidon is, Maritime Caesarea is in Israel these days and Sidon up above it, Tyre, the regions of Tyre and Sidon.
6:30
You might have heard it as the Syrophoenician woman met them along there at Sidon somewhere and Jesus taught his disciples a little lesson about their own racism, I think, at Sidon but this little place is in current day Lebanon and they put in at Sidon and this says in Julius treated Paul with consideration. You know, if he was there at Maritime Caesarea, he had seen how many times he'd been declared innocent. He probably came to enjoy Paul, I would think. It seems that way. At least he is in charge and he can show consideration to whomever he would like and he does.
7:10
He shows consideration and allows him to go to his friends and to receive care. So, Paul gets to get off the boat and go see some of the followers of the way, I'm sure and fellowship with them for a while and from there, Luke says, we put out to sea and we sailed under the shelter of Cyprus because the winds were contrary. Okay. There's there are time markers in the text and I'll tell you about em when we get to em but this is late summer, early fall. This is the time period that we're getting there and so, when they go up, they're sailing towards Cyprus and then they use Cyprus as a block for some of the winds that were contrary and they go around and it says, we when we had sailed through the sea, the Mediterranean, along the coast of Cilicia.
8:01
Cilicia is where Paul is from actually. That's his home state basically, Tarsus Of Cilicia. And Pamphylia. Pamphylia is where John Mark left him on the first missionary journey. They've been all of these places before.
8:15
Well, this says we landed in Myra and Lycia, so this is their route. As best we can tell from Luke, the historian, they go along Cilicia, Pamphylia is that cove there, and then Myra Atlesia is sort of on the southernmost tip of the coast of Asia. So, there, the centurion, that's Julius, found an Alexandrian ship. So, the Andromedian ship was let me back up to that. Andromedia is right there and this is the Aegean Sea and you can notice that the light blue means it's a little bit shallower.
8:51
The Andromedian ship was probably a smaller ship and the Alexandrian ship that we're getting to. He found an Alexandrian ship sailing for Italy. Alexandria is in North Africa, right here, this purple star. And Alexandria is where the big library was that burned. Alexandria is a a place and Alexandria to Rome is a pretty common trade route.
9:16
And so, up there at Myra Of Lycia, they find this Alexandrian ship, a bigger ship, and he put us aboard. Now, I'm going to back away from the text for just a second. The very opening line says, when it was decided that we would leave for Italy, did they have any control over it? No. Okay, people.
9:36
Have you ever found like in your life? Have you ever felt like you had no control over the circumstances that you were in? Whether somebody had decided something for you that you couldn't determine for yourself and we're on this journey now. He put us on board this other ship just about the time we thought we were getting comfortable with the Andromidian ship. Nope, sorry.
9:57
Change in this porta call and you're maybe it's a different crew, different leaders. You might have liked those sailors that were sailing before but you got a whole another thing. You find your circumstances change. If we back away from the text just a little bit, we use it as a metaphor. It's good history and I think the story is telling even if it's just good history but every once in while, I'm going to back up from the text and say, how does it feel?
10:20
Do you feel like you've ever been in a place where someone else decided something for you, you couldn't do anything about and then, just when you're about to get used to it, they decided something else for you. Yes. Now, when we had sailed slowly, slowly for a good many days. Back away from the text for a second. Have you ever felt like you just were walking in deep mud?
10:42
Or you were sailing and the winds were blowing in your face and you could not get where you wanted to go. Have you all been just on a beautiful day up to the oxbow and thought, I'm gonna just play in the oxbow for a little while but when you make that left hand turn and the wind is right in your face and you think, I don't think I'm gonna make it to the oxbow. It would have been easier just going downstream. When we had sailed slowly for a good many days and with difficulty, we arrived off of Canidas. I'm from Georgia.
11:08
I don't know how you're supposed to pronounce that. Canidas. That's where it is. It's the tip of this little island off the coast of Asia at the time near South of the Middling, South of that of Ephesus. Since the wind did not permit us to go farther, we sailed under the shelter of Crete off Salmon.
11:35
So, because they couldn't go further and I think that their original plan was stay close to the coast and go across the Aegean Sea and then kind of hug close and stay close because it's not the right time of year to be sailing. It's late summer, early fall. It's not the right time and then the winds had come early like the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, right? The winds came early and it says they were not able to go forward and so, it says, with difficulty sailing past Crete, we came to a place called Fair Havens and let me tell you, Fair Havens was named by the Chamber of Commerce. It was not a fair haven at all.
12:20
It was a bad place to try to spend anytime. So, they were near the city of La Sia and so here they are on the bottom side of Crete in Fair Havens and the text says, that when considerable time had passed and the voyage was now dangerous. So, it went from being, it it's gone from being difficult and aggravating and slow to being dangerous. Okay, back away from the text for just a minute. Have you ever felt like you're in a situation where you're out of the waters you're comfortable with and something looked like a good idea and it turned out not to be a good idea.
13:04
And now, what do you do? The voyage is now dangerous. I've wandered away from the path. This says, since even the fast was over. So, this is a time marker.
13:14
The fast that he's talking about right here is Yom Kippur, I think. I think it is. Most commentators that I've read think it is. The fast is Yom Kippur which is next Sunday. It's October 12 this year.
13:26
So, it's early fall. Paul started admonishing them. Isn't Paul good at that? He tends to admonish. So, here Paul starts to admonish them saying, man, I perceive that the voyage will certainly be with damage and great loss.
13:45
They've already been sailing from Caesarea, right? To Sidon. They've been sailing for and they've seen that it was difficult and now it's gone from difficult to dangerous and Paul speaks up. But who's he speaking to? Sailors.
13:59
Do you think sailors are going to listen to a landlubber? It doesn't matter how many miles he's traveled. He has traveled probably as much as most sailors. 15,000 miles, some people estimate 10,000 maybe by this point. I don't know.
14:12
He's been on he's been on ships a lot. He's been walking a lot too. He's been on horseback. We've seen all three of those but men, I perceive, I think that the voyage will certainly be with damage and great loss because this is the wrong time of year to be making this journey. Not only of the cargo in the ship but also of our lives and the centurion, Julius, was more persuaded by the pilot and the captain of the ship than by what was being said by Paul.
14:43
So, the centurion is the one that commandeered this ship and he's the one that gets to say whether they go or not and the ship's captain says, yeah, we can do it. Don't listen to that guy. What does he know? They're not going to listen to a landlover. Probably not going to listen to a preacher either.
14:57
Sailors not real big on either. The harbor was not suitable for wintering no matter what they named it. So, the majority reached a decision to put out to sea from there. Okay, we've got a man of God who's saying this is dangerous and we should not go but it's not a good place to stay either and so they're they're having to make a decision. The majority reached a decision to put out to see from there.
15:24
Somehow, they could reach Phoenix. That's what we want to do is reach Phoenix, a harbor of Crete that is faithing both Southwest and Northwest. It's a pretty good harbor and a great place to spend the winter and this is over on the Western Side Of Crete or Southwestern Side Of Crete where that red star is is Phoenix and that's what they're trying to meet. And it seems like that wouldn't be that hard coming from Fair Havens around the bottom of Crete. But it says, when a moderate south wind came up, thinking that they had attained their purpose.
15:57
I know what Paul saying but that's a good wind right there. It's a southerly wind that'll keep us right here along the bottom of Crete and we're just kind of edge out and come back in and spend the winter in Phoenix. That's, hey, a bunch of y'all spend the winter in Phoenix, don't you? Leaving about right now, maybe next week. Now, when the moderate south wind came up, thinking they'd attain their purpose, they weighed anchor.
16:19
Weight anchor means to pick em up. Okay? Weight anchor means to draw them in, not put them down. They weighed anchor and they began sailing along Crete and they were closer to the shore but before long, before very long, a violent wind called Eurakilo. Kilo in the King James, you might see uracliden, uracliden or uracliden in most other translations.
16:43
Ura is from the Greek word for east and kilo is the Latin word for north, and so it's a nor'easter. That's what's happening. Now, it's Euroclydon in the King James, it means a violent wind out of the east, basically. So Euroclydo was coming a nor'easter, flowing from the North. It rushes down from the land.
17:07
It'd be over Crete and coming down the hill and you all know what happens when the wind blows across those Tetons and then comes down into the valley. You get an inversion. It's an ugly situation. Anyway, the Euro kilo is happening. A big nor'easter is blowing.
17:23
It is a violent cyclone force wind and when the ship was caught up in it, it could not head up into the wind towards Phoenix like they had wanted to. It says, we gave up. And we let ourselves be driven by the wind. Now, Luke is a physician. He is not a sailor.
17:41
A sailor probably tell this story slightly differently. I had guys in the first service that are sailors, navy guys, submarine guys, and they told me all kinds of stuff between services but Luke gives it from a layman's perspective and I'm announcing what he says, okay? So, we gave up and we let ourselves be driven by the wind. Let's back away from the text for a second. Have you ever found yourself in a place where you feel like you were blown, tossed about, and then you just gave up and you let the winds blow and you didn't resist and you didn't try anymore?
18:14
We gave up. We let ourselves be driven by the wind. So, running under the shelter of a small island called Caoda which my map is a little too big to see this but they off of the coast of Crete, there's a the island called Caoda and they it says, they were at that point able to get the ship's boat. Let me back up. The ship's boat is the lifeboat or the dinghy.
18:39
So, this is a big enough boat, big enough ship, I should say, that it has its own lifeboat and when you're going along the coast like that at night, sometimes they'd let the lifeboats down and the party would go into the coves around the coast but they were able finally to get the ship's boat under control. Apparently, it's swinging around and bashing against the hull. So, at Cowder, they get a chance to hold on to their lifeboat. So after they had hoisted it up, they used supporting cables in undergirding the ship. Okay.
19:17
And fearing that they might run aground on the shallows of Syrtis, they were reinforcing the hull. So, they have ropes on board and they take doubled ropes and they go over the front of the boat and they walk em back to the back and they tie them up and they twist them together so they have bands. I think of like zip ties but they they have ties that they tie these the hull together and it gives more strength, more rigidity, holds it together better, and fearing that they might run aground on the shallows of Sirtis. Sirtis Shallows are the North African coast. So this is most likely what they feared because the wind is blowing from the Northeast and it's blowing them towards North Africa.
20:02
And shallow ground, rocky ground, a pretty awful place, Libya, Tunisia off of that. And so they don't want to run aground there on the rocks. So, they let down the sea anchor, that is to slow them down. That's not an anchor that drags all the way on the bottom, but they let down the sea anchor, it slows them down, and they let themselves be driven along in this way. So, they weren't resisting it.
20:25
They're still going along. They are resistant and in some way slowing it down but they're still driven by the winds. They're doing everything that they can to protect themselves. Now, let's back away from the text. Have you ever felt like you hit the end of you just given up and now you're redoubling your efforts and you're trying in the storms of life to do all you can to stay together.
20:49
You've got your coping mechanisms, you may be reaching out, you're trying to hold it all together. That's what they're doing. So, they let down the sea anchor, they let themselves be driven along in this way. And the next day, as we were being violently tossed about by the storm, they began to jettison the cargo. Now, you've got on a on board of a ship, you have flotsam and jetsam, flotsam and stuff that floats and jetsam and stuff that sinks.
21:13
And what you want to do is get rid of the stuff that sinks because you don't want to sink. So, they start throwing over the cargo and on the third day, they threw over some at least of the ship's tackle overboard with their own hands. This amazed Luke and it amazed one of the sailors in the first service. He said, that's the craziest thing I've ever heard but who knows how much of the tackle they threw overboard but they did it with their own hands. He said, this is not an easy thing to see.
21:43
When you're on board a ship and the sailors on board that ship are starting to throw over stuff that you think that might be necessary. So, he's watching it as a layman. I have been, I I don't sail. I don't sail. I might get in a canoe.
21:56
I like canoes but I don't sail. I don't get on big boats. I've never been on a cruise, don't plan on it, you know. Tanya and I took a hovercraft one time for most in Belgium across to Dover, England. And we got out in the middle of the English Channel and a squall blew up and everything turned green and it would look like tornado weather in Georgia and it was dangerous and the pitches and the yaws were so great that Tanya was going, wee.
22:24
She was having a ball. The stewardesses were crossing themselves and buckled in. It was a wild time. I didn't like that. I hadn't been back on a hovercraft myself.
22:35
But when they start throwing over the tackle, that's not a good sign. So, since neither the sun nor the stars had appeared for many days, they're going, you know, in this time, they did not have GPS. Their global positioning was looking at the stars and looking at the land and taking soundings to see how deep they were. Neither the sun nor the stars appeared for many days and no small storm was assailing us from then on. All hope of our being saved was slowly abandoned.
23:05
Day after day, you can't see where you are, you don't know what's going on. Okay, back away from the text for a second. Have you ever been there? Where you are slowly abandoned in all hope in your own resources. You've done everything you could and it was not enough.
23:21
Okay, back to the text. When many had lost their appetite, that's one of the reasons I don't like to get on boats. When many had lost their appetite, Paul then stood among them and said, men, I told you so. Actually, that's what he's saying and the commentators, it's fun to read different commentaries and the commentary said, it says, Paul is saying I told you so and somebody else said, contrary to so and so, Paul is not saying I told you so. That looks a whole lot like I told you so to me.
23:53
Man, you should have followed my advice and not have set sail from Crete. I know we were in Fair Havens and it wasn't a great place but it's better than the open sea during a year you're a kilo, right, during a nor'easter. So thereby, you would have spared yourselves this damage and this loss. They've thrown over the cargo. They've thrown over some of the tackle.
24:15
You should have followed my advice, and you should have not set sail from Crete. So you should have listened to me and yet now I urge you to keep on, keep up your courage for there will be no loss of life among you, but only the ship. You're going to lose the ship. Now, on board the ship are the people who are responsible for the ship. They've already thrown over the cargo.
24:39
You throw over the cargo, you don't get paid. You know, they're going to get to Italy with nothing on board or maybe they don't get to Italy. Paul said, you're gonna lose the ship but none of y'all are gonna die. For this very night, an angel of the Lord, an angel of the God to whom I belong, whom I also serve, an angel came to me saying, do not be afraid, Paul. You must day, day the word there is of divine necessity.
25:08
When Jesus says, we must go through Samaria. Like, there there are five, six different ways you can get to Samaria or get to Galilee from Jerusalem without going through Samaria but when Jesus and it's not the normal way but when Jesus says, we must go through Samaria, he meant it. There's divine necessity there and Paul is saying, the angel delivered him a message of design necessity that he must stand before Caesar and behold, God has graciously granted you all those who are sailing with you. Christian, may I just say that there are people that are on the same boat with you whether it's in your job or your family and they are not necessarily believers but you are. Pray for em.
25:54
Paul was obviously praying for safety but he's praying for everybody on this ship. Julius, all of his men, all of the sailors, all of the other prisoners, his buddies. Behold, God has graciously granted you all of those who are sailing with you. Therefore, keep up your courage, man, for I believe God that it will turn out exactly as I have been told. But we must, again, divine necessity.
26:19
We must run aground on a certain island. He does not say what that island is. So, they're out of drift on the sea and we're going to run aground on a certain island. I can't tell you. He didn't tell me that part yet, this angel but we're going to run aground on a certain island but when the fourteenth night came, how many of y'all thought this might been three, four, five days?
26:36
That's a terrible thing but it was two solid weeks. Fourteen nights. The fourteenth night came as we're being driven about in the Adriatic Sea. Now, if you're thinking, today, we count the Adriatic Sea as the East Of Italy. Just the portion that's Eastern Side of Italy but they counted the Adriatic all the way down to the tip of Sicily.
27:00
So, the Adriatic Sea is this end of or this portion of Mediterranean and so they are in that and they're tossed about, it says, being driven about in the Adriatic Sea And about midnight, the sailors began to suspect that they were approaching some land. It does not say where they thought they were, but it feels different to sailors. Now, if you watch, there was a submarine guy like I said in the first service, he said, yeah, you can tell a difference. You can tell a difference in the way that it feels when you're closer to the bottom of the ocean. So about midnight, these sailors began to feel it and suspect they're approaching some lands.
27:39
They took soundings and they found it to be 20 fathoms. Now, the way they did this at the time, they had a weight on the end of a rope and they drop rope over the side until it hits bottom and when it hits bottom, they start to lift it up in a large sailor sized man is about six feet and tip to tip, fingertip to fingertip is a fathom. So, for me, it's a little longer for Florine. It's a little shorter, you know? But fathom is six feet.
28:03
We all decided. Fathom is six feet. So, 20 fathoms is a 120 feet deep and it's a pretty good sized boat that they're in. We'll see this, the ship that they're in. It's pretty good size.
28:15
We'll see it towards the end. 120 feet deep and it says, and a little farther on, they took another sounding and they found it to be 15 fathoms. So, they were in 90 feet of water. So, from a 120 feet to 90 feet, that's they've lost 30 feet of depth just in the last little while. So, the sailors were right about what they thought.
28:36
Now, fearing that we might run aground somewhere on the rocks because they didn't know where they were. They cast four anchors from the stern. That's the back. If you're not a person, a ship person, they cast four anchors off from the stern. There it is.
28:54
I never can remember that. And they prayed for daybreak. I mean, not just Tanya and me and the Bonnie. They were praying for daybreak, really. It's two weeks.
29:05
It's not just one night of losing a little bit of sleep because of foggy bunny. They're praying for daybreak. We just wanna see tomorrow. Can we back away from the text and say, how many of y'all have ever spent a night where you just praying for daybreak? But as the sailors were trying to escape from the ship, what?
29:30
So 90 feet of water, they're approaching land, it seems. Now, the sailors were trying to escape from the ship and they had let down the ship's boat. The ship's boat is the lifeboat and the sailors are gonna take the lifeboat down into the sea. The dinghy, the lifeboat. On the pretense that they were going to lay out anchors from the bow.
29:55
Now, have four anchors on the stern which means that the direction that they're drifting in, they want to go forward into wherever they're going. They they don't want to be sideways and they don't want to back in. So, they drop the anchors out the back and they're going forward into less and less and less water. So, the pretense is for these sailors that are trying to escape. It says very clearly in verse 30, is they're gonna hang some anchors off of the front of the ship too.
30:23
But Paul said to the centurion, Julius, Julius, and to the other soldiers, unless these men remain on the ship, you yourselves cannot be saved. Now, maybe that's Paul like divine revelation said, we're all gonna be saved because we're all gonna be together. But maybe Paul is saying, they're the sailors. You're soldiers and we're prisoners. Don't let the sailors leave on the only lifeboat.
30:45
So, unless these men remain on the ship, you yourselves cannot be saved and then the soldiers cut away the ropes of the ship's boat and let it fall. So, they cut away the lifeboat. Like I said, the lifeboat is how you get from deep water to the shore. So, they cut loose the lifeboat and they let it fall away. This reminds me and I said it in the first service.
31:08
The first mission trip that I went on, I read through the book of Acts. I started it on the plane and I didn't do it by any plan. I just did it it and I started on the plane and I was reading it that week and it was amazing to me how the gospel goes forward and it hits a situation where there's difficulty and the difficulty is overcome and it keeps on happening that way. We're on a mission from God. It keeps on happening that way throughout and so this reminds me of one of the devotions that week was from Oswald Chambers and it said, cut loose from the moorings.
31:40
It's cut loose from the moorings. Whatever it is that you're relying on that is not God, cut loose from the morgues and set yourself out on God's grace. The soldiers cut away the lifeboat until the day was about to dawn, so it's still nighttime. Paul kept on encouraging them, all of them, prisoners, soldiers, sailors. Paul kept on encouraging them, take some food saying, today is the fourteenth day that you've been constantly watching and going without eating.
32:18
You've taken in nothing. Fourteen days is a long time to be fasting. Therefore, I encourage you right now to take some of this food for this is for your survival and not a hair from the head of any of you will perish. He trusted Jesus that he would make it to Rome and he trusted the angel that everyone on that ship had been given into Paul's hand and that he would protect them. Not a hair from your head will perish on any of you.
32:47
So, having said this, he took bread and he gave thanks to God in the presence of them all and he broke it and began to eat. Can you hear? Jesus an echo right there. We are going to do the Lord's supper. We're going to do communion here in a few minutes and Paul takes bread, gives thanks to God in the presence of them all.
33:06
He broke it and he began to eat and all of them, it says, we're encouraged and they themselves also took food. And then we see how big a boat this was. We were 276 people on the ship and all. I did a rough count this morning from in the first service. All of the seats were full and there were people in the back and there are two forty three chairs in this room and there are about 30 people standing up back there.
33:33
So, 276 people is considerable number of people including sailors who were going get away in the lifeboat but the soldiers cut them loose and said, no, you're not taking the lifeboat and the prisoners, we don't know how many they were and the folks who were supposed to take the cargo and maybe owners, managers, whatever, soldiers, soldiers, Julius, Julius, Paul, Paul, Luke, Luke, Aristarchus, 276 people in all and when they had eaten enough, they began lightening the ship by throwing the wheat out into the sea and I just couldn't help it y'all. They had been on fasting and now they were going gluten free. Sorry. Couldn't help it. Sorry.
34:14
That reminds me. I always forget this but the little muffin cups in here during communion, those are gluten free wafers in the little muffin cups but back to the text. Now, when day came, they could not recognize the land. Now, these are sailors and they do what things look like. It amazes me when I go out with my brother-in-law on a boat in Jackson Lake and he goes, oh, this is Bressler's Bar and I'm like, it looks like everything else to me.
34:38
This is such and such a cove. That's so and so and he can recognize it just from looking at the land and we have mountains. Like, we have mountains. We could see this. When they looked out, these are seasoned sailors one would think.
34:51
They couldn't recognize the land but they did notice a bay with a beach. So, a bay with a beach means it's a sandy spot, not a rocky spot and so that's appealing to them. They resolved to run the ship onto it if they could. So, they cast off the anchors. Note, they had four anchors at the stern which faces them into this beach and they're heading that direction and they decide, cut loose the anchors.
35:18
So, they cut em loose. When I was in seminary, I had a partner, language partner named Sam. We were Greek partners and then he speaks Mandarin. He was also trying to help me learn a little Mandarin but before I got to be in seminary, my first degree was in fine art and his was in underwater archaeology and he personally was stationed in the Mediterranean for years and pulling up anchors from around this time. Ain't that cool?
35:44
Sam. Casting off the anchors, they left them in the sea. That's what you did. They cut those loose. So, they had thrown over everything heavy.
35:53
They cut loose the lifeboat. They now have cut loose the anchors and while at the same time, they were loosening the ropes of the rudders so that they could steer and they hoisted the foresail to the wind and they were headed for the beach. They're going to harness the power of the wind and they're going to ram this thing as best they can right into the center of that nice sandy beach so they don't have to swim a long ways because they don't have a lifeboat and that's the best chance for not tearing the boat up. But they struck a reef. Can you see that everything, every time it gets over an obstacle, there's a new obstacle?
36:33
Let's back away from the text. Have you ever been in a place where you felt like, oh, all we gotta do is get through the next two weeks and then it's gonna be smooth sailing and then two weeks goes by and you you hit a reef. Yeah, it happens. They struck a reef where two seas met and they ran the ship aground and the prow, that is the bow, that is the front, stuck firmly and it remained immovable. So when it went into that reef, it grabbed tight and the front of the boat was immovable while the stern started to break up due to the force of the waves.
37:08
You can see the land. You're right there on it and yet, now it feels like things are coming apart. The soldiers plan was to kill the prisoners. Goodness gracious. Don't it just feel like it keeps getting worse?
37:26
I will say this, Paul was encouraging them. Even in the, I told you so. I told you so, set him up to be able to say, I encourage you. Nobody's going to be lost and now, one part of the peep 276 people is plotting against the other people. The soldiers plan, keep the sailors.
37:47
We need them but kill the prisoners. Why? So that none of them would swim away and escape because if a if a prisoner escapes, even though Paul was innocent, not all those prisoners were innocent and if a Roman soldier lost a prisoner, his life would be endangered. So, the soldier's plan just killed the prisoners so that none of them would swim away and escape. But the centurion, thank God for Julius.
38:17
He wanted to bring Paul safely through. 275 other people on that boat. 274 other than Julius and he wanted to keep Paul safely through. So, he kept the other soldiers from accomplishing their intention. Nope.
38:30
It sounds like Julius is trusting Paul. He didn't trust him at the beginning but it sounds like Julius is trust in is trusting Paul now. He kept them from accomplishing their intention and he commanded that anybody who can swim, y'all go ahead and jump over first and y'all get to land. And the rest were to follow. Some on planks and others on various things from the ship.
38:54
Flotsam, the things that still float. Y'all go out on the float, floating things and it says and so it happened that they all were brought safely to land. Amen. Thank God for the little revelation and the encouragement that he gave Paul and as a believer, I hope that God gives you. I'm I'm not one of like the continuing revelation stuff.
39:16
It's just a normal thing for me. I hope God gives you a vision for a neighbor or a friend or I hope that if there's anybody who needs someone to be an encouragement amidst a storm that they will call you and if any of y'all are looking for somebody like that and you don't have somebody like that, call me. Please. Please. It so happened that they all were brought safely to land.
39:40
That's the end of chapter 27 and the first verse to 28 lets us know where they land, where they landed and when they had been brought safely through, after fourteen days and nights, right? Difficult, contrary, violent, ugly winds. When we found out that the island was called Malta and Malta has a big celebration every year and celebrates Paul. There's more on Malta and we'll get to that before we head towards Rome but I'm planning on finishing the book of Acts next week. I'm looking forward to the last word honestly in Acts.
40:19
It's really cool but we're going to go into a time right now. I think of this communion time. I think of the upper room when Jesus was speaking to his disciples but I also think of the road to Emmaus where he was speaking to just a couple of his disciples. When they invited him into their home and it says and there he was and he broke bread and when he broke bread, they recognized who he was but they had invited him in just like he was a stranger and they invited him in but I also now think of this, in the middle of that last night on the boat when Paul says, come on. Let's break bread together.
41:02
I'm gonna invite the ushers come forward, ushers, elders, if you would. Florian, would you play something pretty? Yeah. Thank you.
