Good morning. All that we are or ever hope
to be, we own alone to Christ. All our wisdom, all our righteousness,
all of our sanctification and all of our redemption. He is
all and he's in all. What hope? If that's my standing
before God, then I've got, I've got a good hope, got a good hope. He cannot fail. Let's open our
Bibles together to Acts chapter 27, Acts chapter 27. Let's ask the Lord's blessings on our
time together. Our gracious and merciful Heavenly
Father, we thank you for the hope of eternal life that you
have given us in the finished work and the glorious person
of thy dear Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that you would
send your Spirit in power, that Christ would be lifted up, that
our hearts would be drawn in faith to him that we would truly
find him in this time of worship to be our all and in all. Lord, we find great comfort and
great hope in knowing that all you require of us, you look to
him for. Lord, we ask you to forgive us
for so often failing to look to Christ. We're so prone to
wonder, we're so prone to look away from him. Lord, forgive
us for our unbelief and help us with our unbelief. Lord, strengthen
our faith. We ask it in Christ's name and
for his sake. Amen. Acts chapter 27. We've been looking
at these events surrounding The Apostle Paul, as he was falsely
accused by the Jews and stood before Roman governors and kings
on these accusations and found to be innocent, he has now appealed
his case to Caesar. And Agrippa has no choice but
to send him to Rome. And so he puts him on a ship.
And we saw last Sunday how that ship found its way to a place
called Fair Haven in Greece, and how the Apostle Paul warned
the captain of the ship and said, we should stay right here. And
what a glorious picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. That beautiful
cove was, that's what Fairhaven means, a safe cove, a beauty. But wanting profit for their
cargo, it was a grain ship. Scripture tells us that. It came
from Alexandria and was going to Rome, and the Roman Empire
depended on Egypt to send them their grain. So there would have
been tons and tons of grain on the ship. This is no small boat. The ship historians tell us these
grain ships were 180 feet long. We know from the scriptures that
there were 276 souls on this ship and much cargo. And we know
that by the end of the story, the ship was lost. It sunk and
everything in it was lost, but all of the 276 souls were saved.
And What a picture it is of how the
temporal things of this world in the end are all going to be
lost. Naked we came into this world
and naked we shall return. We brought nothing into this
world and we could take nothing with us. The Lord poses this
question to us when he says, what does it profit a man if
he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? This story
is about the salvation of our souls. Though all goods are lost,
though all the things in this world will fade away, this is
about God's grace in saving the people that are on the ship.
how oftentimes we see these boats and ships as a picture of the
church of the Lord Jesus Christ, and how the way of the Lord is
through the seas, and there is turbulence in this life that
will be sent our way by our God in his good providence, but always
brings us safely to the other side. This story is about being
saved through faith. Being saved through faith. We'll begin reading in verse
14. And not long after there arose against it a tempestuous
wind called Uroclodon. Now Uroclodon translated means
nor'easter. Those of you that are from the
northeastern part of the United States know how treacherous those
nor'easters can be when they come. That's exactly what this
was. It was just short of a hurricane,
which we in Florida can identify with. And they're caught in this
storm. And when the ship was caught
and could not bear up into the wind, we let her drive. Now that's the first point of
my message, we let her drive. There's nothing that we can do,
so we will just let the ship be at the mercy of the seas,
and we'll see what happens. This is one of the things that
men look to for their salvation. Fatalism. Fatalism. We'll just let it be. Nothing
we can do about it. We're completely out of control,
and God is sovereign, so we don't know how it's gonna work out,
but we'll just let it go. We'll let it be. This was their
attempt to try to be saved. It was their attempt. It failed.
The ship is gonna break into pieces. 180 foot long vessel
is gonna sink to the bottom of the ocean and everything in it's
gonna be lost. And so this attempt that they
had to save themselves failed. But it was the first attempt.
Let's just turn it loose to the wind. You know, this event, like
all other historical events in scripture, has a gospel meaning. It is an allegory. It's a type. It gives us a spiritual picture
of how it is that God saves sinners. And unless we see these historical
stories this way, then we benefit not from them. To know the history
of the event only will puff the mind up in pride. But to know
the spiritual meaning of the event will humble the heart in
faith. And so when we see what God is
doing in history as he records it in his word, we're asking
ourselves, what does this tell me about Christ? What does this
tell me about how it is that God is pleased to save sinners? Because that's my need. My need
is that I'm a sinner. My need is that I need to be
saved. And I believe the Lord is telling us, at least in part,
in this story, what efforts men make to save themselves. They're gonna be saved in the
end. We're gonna see that. But their salvation is not gonna
come because they are fatalistic. There's four different views
of salvation in this story. The first view is fatalism. The
second view is works. The third view is helps. And the fourth view is faith. Fatalism didn't save them. Works
did not save them. Helps did not save them. Faith saved them. So the Lord
is telling us in this shipwreck something about our lives here
in this world. Men by nature are desperate to
hold on to this life and to the things of this life. And men
are desperate to try to earn favor with God for the next life. And these are the means that
they use. This is the means that the natural
man uses. The first one being fatalism. Now, this is a position that
those who do not have the Spirit of God come to when they hear
about God's sovereignty. When they hear that God sovereignly,
according to his own will and purpose, chose a particular people
before time ever began, they say what the Apostle Paul brought
up in Romans chapter three, when he posed this question after
declaring the sovereignty of God, he said, how then can God
find fault with me? For who can resist the will of
God? And then Paul's response to that
argument was, nay, but who art thou, O man, that thou speakest
against God? You see, what this position does
is it blames God for unbelief. That's what it does. It blames
God for unbelief. Yes, God is sovereign in salvation
and all salvation is of the Lord. In election, it's of the Lord.
In redemption, it is of the Lord. What the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished
on Calvary's cross was the redemption of those whom God chose in the
covenant of grace. All of God, we have anything
to do with it. In regeneration, in the new birth, it's all of
God. We don't prepare ourselves for
salvation. We don't pray a prayer that makes
God obligated to save us. Salvation is a sovereign, unilateral
work of the Spirit of God that invades us and breathes life
into us. And the result of that life is
faith. Faith. It's a sovereign work
of God. Sanctification is a sovereign
work of God. keeping us, working in us, causing
us to will and to do after his own good pleasure. It's a sovereign
will of God. And to say that, well, you know,
we're just gonna cast it all to the wind. Glorification is a work of God. We're not having anything to
do with that. He's gonna send his angels and
carry us into his presence. and we make no contribution to
our salvation. Jonah got it right when he said
salvation is of the Lord. Now those who do not have the
Spirit of God will take this truth to its logical conclusion. If that's true, then it only
stands logical that God can't blame me. It's his fault. If I'm not saved, it's his fault.
Now here's the glorious truthful paradox of scripture. Yes, salvation's
of the Lord. Yes, God does it all. And yes,
you must believe. You're responsible. God commands
all men everywhere to believe. So that we are before God without
excuse. You say, well, that doesn't make
sense to me. Ask the Lord for his spirit, ask him. And he will cause you to believe
everything that's written in the scriptures. And you won't
try to logically reconcile these things. You will just simply
believe what God has said. When the Ethiopian, when the
Philippian jailer asked the apostle Paul, sirs, what must I do to
be saved? Paul didn't say, well, you know,
just go home. Pass the ship to the wind. There's
nothing you can do. Wait and see if God does something
for you. That's not what the prophet of God said to this man.
He said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be
saved. You see, that's the scriptures, isn't it? That's God's word.
Sovereign, yes. Responsible? Yes. And I like
what one man said about responsibility. He said, responsibility is my
response to God's ability. It's my response to God's ability. I am not able, left to myself. But if God makes me able, I will
respond. I will respond in faith. So,
but fatalism, hyper-Calvinism is very popular, especially among
those who hear the truth about the sovereign work of grace.
And they will say with these men who are trying to save the
ship, well, you know, the storm's too great. Let's just, let's
just let her drive. Now what they said, just let
her drive, just cast her to the wind. We can't control it. We'll
go wherever. it takes us. Look with me now at verse 16. And running under a certain island,
which is called Clauda, we had much work to come by the boat. Now, I cross-referenced this
word in the original language that's translated in our English
Bible for work to other places in the scriptures. It's not used
very often, but a couple places very significantly it's used.
One of them is, the word means, it means strong. And when the Lord, you remember he
said, The whole, W-H-O-L-E, need not a physician, but the sick,
for I came not to save the righteous, but sinners to repentance. That word whole is the word work
here. Those who are whole within themselves, those who are strong
enough to save themselves, those who are producing enough works
to, at least in their own minds, be saved need not a physician. They're already well. But those
who are strong in and of themselves, those who are able to save themselves
by their good works need not a physician. We had much work.
We had much strength that we had to exercise in order to try
to save this boat. I remind you again, the boat's
not saved. The boat's gonna be, the whole thing's gonna sink.
Everything on it's gonna be lost. What are they doing? They're
trying to save themselves. And they start with this fatalistic
view of casting everything to the wind. And then when that
doesn't work, they get busy exercising the strength of their flesh,
trying to bind the boat up and trying to make it seaworthy. Here is a picture of what men
do to try to save themselves. Fatalism doesn't work. Maybe
works will work. Maybe my strength will work.
Maybe I can do something. So those that are whole, those
that have their own strength need not a position. The other place where this word
work is found in the scriptures, the story of the demoniac in
the Gadarenes, when the Lord went across the Sea of Galilee,
and you remember found him in a graveyard cutting himself,
and the scripture says no man could bind him, could hold him
down, could restrain him. It's the same word, work. So
those who are whole, those who are able to have the strength
to save themselves, they don't need a Savior. But the truth is that no man
could hold this demon-possessed man down. No man could restrain
his flesh. And you and I have no strength
to restrain our flesh. Not in such a way that it would
be sufficiently made acceptable to God. What did Paul say? He said, Oh, wretched man that
I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? No man
can tame this flesh. No man can tame the tongue. James tells us, thanks be to
God through Christ Jesus, I'm free. So here, but here's what,
here's what men do, is it not? This is a, this is a, another
attempt that men make to save themselves. They either choose
a fatalistic, cast it to the wind, let her ride, let her go. We'll see what happens. And then
when that doesn't work, well, you know, we need to get to work.
We need to get to work. Turn with me to Galatians chapter
four. This is such a beautiful story of salvation. And don't you love hearing, seeing
in these historical events how the Holy Spirit has has hid the
mystery of the gospel and revealed them unto babes? Look at Galatians chapter four,
verse 21. Tell me ye the desire to be under
the law. Do you not hear the law? For
it is written that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid
and the other by a free woman. Now we know who those two sons
were. Isaac was by the free woman, the child of promise, the miracle
child. Ishmael was by Hagar, the child
of the flesh. And the Lord tells us in this
passage that these two children are an allegory of a works gospel
versus a gospel of promise, a gospel of grace. Look what he goes on
to say. But he who was of the bond woman
was born after the flesh, but he of the free woman was by promise. We had much work to do to try
to save the ship. You see these 276 passengers
on this sailing vessel running around, you know, tying things
down. They're in the middle of a horrible
storm. Which things are an allegory? For these are the two covenants,
the one from Mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is
Hagar. Mount Sinai, the mountain of
the law, the child of the flesh. What was Abraham and Sarah's
reasoning? You know, God promised us a long
time ago to have an heir and bring a great nation through
us. And, and nothing's happened, we've
got to help God out. We've got to do our part. We've got to put forth our effort
in order to help God accomplish what he wants to do. That's a
works gospel. We've got to keep the law in
order for him to be able to save us. That's what the Lord's telling
us. This is an allegory. You know, men will twist the
scriptures to their own destruction. I'll tell you a perfect example
of that that's very relevant to today. There's three major
religions in the world that believe that there is but one God. That's
Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. And all three of those religions
look back to Abraham as their father, their founding father.
You look this up when you get a chance this afternoon if you
want to, on your phone. I looked at my calendar today
and there's a, I can't even pronounce it, it's one of those shibboleth
words, you know, but it's a Muslim holiday today. Today. And I didn't know what it was.
So I looked it up. And 1.25 billion Muslims in the
world celebrating one of the two Muslim holidays today. Guess what it's for? The one
holiday is when God gave the Quran to Muhammad and the other
holidays today. And that's when Abraham, in obedience
to God, offered Ishmael on the altar as a sacrifice. 1.25 billion people in the world
today believe that. They believed that it was Ishmael
that Abraham offered up as a sacrifice to God. You know, what a, what
a, no, it was the child of promise. It wasn't the child of the flesh.
But for now, 1400 years, the Muslims have been told that.
It's a works gospel. You see that, don't you? And
the very holiday celebrates the child of the flesh. This is not practice just among
the Muslims. This is practiced among men by
nature are works oriented, aren't they? They think that they can
earn favor with God by something that God's gotta have me to help
him out. There was much work for them
to do. But Lord, we've done many wonderful
works in thy name. We've cast out demons in thy
name. We've done all these wonderful
things. And what does the Lord say to those goats who stand
on the day of judgment and present their works as the hope of their
salvation? Depart from me, you workers of
iniquity. Those things that you're looking
to for the hope of your salvation fall short of what's required
for you to be saved. They are iniquitous. They are
unequal to what God demands for a work. It works if you're gonna
be saved. That's why the Lord said in Galatians
chapter four, oh, you that want to be saved by the law, do you
not hear what the law says? You've got to keep the law perfectly
if you're going to be saved by works. Only one did that. The Lord Jesus Christ, the only
one ever kept the law. He is the end of the law for
righteousness to everyone that believeth. But here we have in
this attempt to save the ship, the very things that men do in
order to try to save themselves, things that we can see even within
ourselves as believers. We can have fatalistic thoughts
about things and blame God for our unbelief. And certainly we
are prone to try to find some hope and comfort of salvation
in the things that we're doing or not doing. That's why we have
to keep preaching the gospel, isn't it? To remind us that these
things will end in a sunken ship. That's all they're gonna end
in. Go back with me to our text. Verse 17. And when they had taken
up, when their works didn't help, they used helps, undergirding
the ship and fearing lest they should fall into the quicksand,
strake sail, and so were driven. I guess they went to the bow
of the ship and took large ropes and put them onto the ship in
the middle of the storm and inched them back and strapped them together. That's what the helps are. They're
trying to hold the ship together with ropes. Tradition. Men look to their works as the
hope of their salvation. And then when that doesn't help,
they look to helps outside of themselves to save them. And the more ancient the traditions
are, the more convincing they are. I've watched people depart this
world, grasping on to their idols, literally. literally holding
their idols in the fist of their hand and claiming that the religion
behind that idol is sure and steadfast and will get them into
heaven because of its antiquity. Told me that. I know this is
the right religion. It would not have been around
for as long as it's been around. What are they doing? They're
shoring up their boat with helps. We see it in every form of religion. Traditions outside of themselves. Ceremonies that men practice. Fatalism didn't work. Works don't
work. So let's add some helps to it. Let's dress it up. Let's wear
the right kind of clothing. Let's put on our robes. Let's
practice this tradition and that tradition. And every religion
has it. Every religion has it. Just running
ropes under the boat, trying to bind it together, trying to
keep it in one piece so that they can be saved. We saw last Wednesday night in
the turning the water into wine at the feast at Canaan in John
chapter 2, how there were seven wash pots of ceremonial washing
where they would go down and wash their hands ceremonially.
And how the Lord said, fill them to the brim. Now go draw out
water and take it to the bridegroom, take it to the master of the
feast. That's a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ filling up
that ceremonial law. Those helps. The Lord said the
Pharisees, they love their long phylacteries. They love their
public prayers. They love the recognition of
their helps, the things that they're demonstrating and the
things they're holding onto for the hope of their salvation.
The world is filled, is filled with men that are looking to
their helps to shore up their ship and to get it to safety. The Jews had laws to interpret
laws, and they thought that doing these things was gonna somehow
give them help. Let me show you a place in the
scripture where this word help is found. Turn with me to Hebrews
chapter four, Hebrews chapter four. Verse 14, seeing then that we
have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens, the
Lord Jesus Christ ascended into glory, took his rightful place
at the right hand of God. Jesus, the son of God, let us
hold fast our profession. What is our profession? That
Jesus Christ is the son of God and that he finished the work
of redemption on Calvary's cross. That's our profession. For we
have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feelings
of our infirmities. He understands the tumultuous
winds and storms that we face and the sins that we deal with.
He bore them in his body. We have not a high priest which
cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmity, but was in
all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Though
he violated none of God's law when he bore our sins in his
body on the cross, he knew the shame and the guilt and the blackness
and the burden of sin like you and I have never known. Never
known. Let us therefore, in light of
the fact that we have a high priest, who knows the feelings
of our infirmities, who has passed into the heavens, let us therefore
come with confidence. That's what that word boldly
means. Not confident in our works, not blaming God in our fatalism,
not confident in our helps, but confident in Christ. Let us therefore
come boldly into the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy
and find grace to help. You see, they were using ropes
as helps. We come before the throne of
grace and find grace to help in our time of need. Lord, I
need grace. I can't atone for my sins. you're
gonna have to atone for them. I can't redeem myself. I can't
produce sufficient works to earn me any favor with God. And all the helps that men have
come up with are nothing but rotten ropes trying to hold together
a ship that's ultimately gonna sink to the bottom of the sea.
Lord, I need grace. I need that favor from God that
cannot be earned and that cannot be merited in any way. We find grace to help in our
time of need. We have a need, don't we? Our
need is sin. We're not looking to these helps
that men look to for the hope of their salvation. We're not
blaming God with some fatalistic view. We're not thinking that
somehow our law keeping is going to save us. Let's read the rest
of this story quickly. Look at verse 18. And we being exceedingly tossed
with the tempest, the next day they lightened the ship. And
the third day we cast out with our own hands the tackling of
the ship. Now that's all that was needed
to steer the ship and to protect the ship, all the tackling. All
it's been thrown in and neither sun nor stars and many days appeared
and there's no small tempest lay on us. All hope that we should
be saved was then taken away. Now that's where you and I need
to be. The stars and the sun, that was
for navigation. It was so dark, they didn't know
which way was north, east, south, and west. They didn't know where
they were, how they were going to get out of this mess. We don't know where we are. We're
burdened with our sin. God takes away all the navigation
that we thought we had, as far as casting the ship to the wind
or or thinking that somehow our works are going to save us or
strapping things together with helps and the traditions of men. All tackling has been thrown
in now. Everything's been lost. No hope of saving this ship.
All hope is lost. We've got no place else to go
now. That's a great place to be. That's
the only place to be. You've got no place else to go,
no one else to turn to. Lord, to whom shall we go? You
alone have the words of eternal life. Lord, we know and are sure
that thou art the Christ that saw the living God. Lord, if
you don't save us, we won't be saved. We tried everything else. We tried everything else and
nothing's helped. The storm has gotten worse. All
navigation is lost and all hope that we should be saved is taken
away. In verse 21, but after long abstinence, Paul stood forth
in the midst of them and said, sirs, you should have hearkened
unto me and not have loosed from Crete to have gained this harm
and loss. I told you so. I spoke to you
the very message from God and you didn't listen. And now this,
this loss has come. And now, I exhort you, be of
good cheer. Now there's nothing in their
circumstances to give them any reason to be of good cheer. The
storm is raging. It's pitch dark. Everything's
been thrown into the sea. Works haven't helped. Helps haven't
helped. Casting the ship to the sea and
letting the wind drive it hasn't helped. And Paul stands up and
says, be of good cheer. Be of good cheer, for there shall
be no loss of any man's life among you, but of the ship. And
there stood by me this night, the angel of God, whom I am and
whom I serve saying, here's what God said, fear not, fear not. The battle's not yours, it's
the Lord. Paul, you must be brought before
Caesar and lo, God has given thee all them that sail with
thee. Can you see that as a type of
the Lord Jesus Christ? God has given thee all that has
sailed with thee. Not one soul was lost. 276 souls on this ship. Every
one of them made it safely to shore. On what? The promise of God. All they
had was a word from a prophet. They didn't have anything else
to believe. They didn't have anything else to hang on to. You know that's all you and I've
got. It's all we've got. You gonna believe your circumstances?
Or you gonna believe God? When God gives you faith, you
just believe God, don't you? You can't not believe God. All
of the hope of your salvation is hanging on that nail that's
surely fastened in a sure place. Precious promises of God who
cannot lie, who said, I go and prepare a
place for you. I will come again and receive
you unto myself, so that where I am there you may be also."
What evidence do you have of that in your circumstances? None. None. You've got no evidence
in this life. Nothing you can look at, touch,
feel, smell, taste. This has to be believed by faith. Paul said, Look at verse 25. Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer,
for I believe God, and it shall be even as it was
told me. So I believe God. Now, child of God, you and I
say with that Dear father, who was pleading with the Lord for
the salvation, for the healing of his child. Lord, I believe
help thou mine unbelief. We do believe, we believe God.
And yet we bear this body of flesh that's full of doubts and
fears. But we have one who's able to
say with the apostle Paul, All that God gave me on this ship,
I will lose none for I believe God. The Lord Jesus Christ had
perfect faith. It's faith that saves, faith. But it's not faith in our faith.
It's faith in His faithfulness. It's trusting that he believed
God perfectly so that when God looked at him, God said, that's
my beloved son. He's the one in whom I'm well
pleased. Listen to him, look to him, follow him. It's the faithfulness of the
Lord Jesus Christ, isn't it? God's given us faith. Our faith
is in him. And we're resting all the hope
of this ship getting safely to the other side, or not the ship. Ship's going to be lost, but
us getting safely to the other side, we're going to, we're going
to lose everything in this world, aren't we? Like what I, well, I'll just
quote scripture. I already quoted it once. Naked. I came into this world naked.
I shall return. brought nothing into this world?
What is your life? It's a vapor. We're going to
go out of this world the same way we came in, aren't we? We
were talking about this before the service, and I was
reminded of some of us are getting old, and we're beginning to experience
some of the ailments of old age. I heard a brother, I heard a
man say recently, he said, don't worry about getting old, it don't
last long. It doesn't. It doesn't last long,
does it? Doesn't last long. We're going to get safe to the
other side through faith, not by fatalism, not by works, and
not by helps. about believing God. Amen. All right, let's take a break.