If the Lord answered the prayer
in that hymn, tune our hearts to sing the praises of our great
God and Saviour. Oh, how great a debtor we are
to his gross immorality. So let's turn to Acts 27. I am a quote of those verses
out of Genesis that talked about a great deliverance. And here
pictured in Acts chapter 27, as the Scriptures give us both
precepts and give us words, they also give us extraordinary pictures.
And this has become a picture of salvation that has become
more delightful to me as I've studied it more. And I'd like
us to to firstly and foremostly see the glorious hand of the
Lord Jesus Christ in this and I want us to see the wonder and
the success of his glorious salvation. Let's begin reading in verse
23 of Acts chapter 27. 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 is told me, howbeit
we must be cast upon a certain island. But when the fourteenth
night was come, as we were driven up and down in Adria, 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.
And then, fearing lest we should have fallen upon rocks, they
cast four anchors out the stern and wished for the day. And as
the shipmen were about to flee out of the ship, when they had
let down the boat into the sea, under the colour, under pretense,
as though they would have cast anchors out of the foreship,
Paul said to the centurion and to the soldiers, accept these
abide in the ship. You cannot be saved. Then the
soldiers cut off the ropes of the boat and let her fall off.
And while the day was coming on, Paul besought them all to
take meat, saying, This day is the fourteenth day that we have
tarried and continued fasting, having taken nothing. Wherefore
I pray you take some meat, for this is for your health. For
there shall not a hair fall from the head of any of you. And when
he had thus spoken, he took bread and gave thanks to God in the
presence of them all. And when he had broken it, he
began to eat. Then were they all of good cheer,
and they also took some meat. And we were all in the ship,
200, 3 score and 16 souls, 276 souls. And when they had eaten
enough, they lightened the ship and cast out the wheat into the
sea. And when it was day, they knew
not the land, but discovered a certain creek with a shore
into which they were minded, if it were possible, to thrust
in the ship. And when they had taken up the
anchors, they committed themselves unto the sea, and loosed the
rudder bands, and hoisted up the mainsail to the wind, and
made towards shore. And falling into a place where
two seas met, they ran the ship aground, and the forepart stuck
fast, and remained unmovable. But the hind part was broken
up with the violence of the waves, and the soldiers' counsel was
to kill the prisoners, lest any of them should swim out and escape.
But the centurion, willing to save Paul, kept them from their
purpose, and commanded that they which could swim should cast
themselves first into the sea and get to land. And the rest,
some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship. And so it
came to pass that they escaped all safe to land. I love how that reading began. Paul says, I believe God. I believe God. He didn't say I believe in God.
He says, I believe God. I believe the word that God has
said. I believe what God has spoken. I believe God's word that has
come to me personally, to me particularly, to me powerfully,
to me prophetically. It comes with irresistible power. It comes as a special word from
God. And that's the prayer of us all,
isn't it? That we would actually hear that
word from God. I want us to turn to the last
verse in this chapter and I want us to see something that I have
found delightful to meditate on for this last week. And it
talks about them escaping. The ship was destroyed and they
escaped. It says, they escaped all safe
to land. There's a remarkable word in
there that's only used eight times in all of the New Testament
scriptures and it's used four times in this particular passage
and around this passage of scriptures. And it's a word that means to
be saved, to be preserved through danger. It's a word that says to be saved
out of danger. It's a completed activity, and
as you might imagine, seeing it's the work of God to save
these people, it's a word that is in the passive tense. It means
that they were saved because someone else did the saving.
And if anyone has ever saved, someone else has done the saving,
They are all safe. They escaped, is that word. All safe, the same word. I just want to spend a few minutes
looking at some of the other passages which are familiar passages
to us in the rest of the Scriptures where this particular word is
used. And they always have this similar
element of people being saved out of a great danger. The first one I'd like us to
turn to is in Matthew chapter 14. You might recall that the
Lord Jesus Christ had taken his disciples away, and they went
away to a quiet place, but they ended up finding themselves besought
by a huge multitude of 5,000 men, and the Lord Jesus fed them. And then he said to his disciples,
in verse 22, Matthew 14, he says, he constrained his disciples
to get into the ship and go before him over to the other side, and
he sent the multitudes away. And then, when he had sent the
multitude away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray, and
when the evening was come, he was there alone. But the ship
was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves, for the wind
was contrary. You might recall that in Acts
27, the wind was the one that caused the contrariness and caused
the direction in which people go. The wind is a reference,
of course, to the Spirit of God and the providence of God in
directing the paths of his people across the stormy sea of life. And in the fourth watch of the
night, Jesus went under them, walking on the sea. And when
the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled,
saying, It is a spirit. And they cried out for fear.
But straightway Jesus spoke unto them, saying, Be of good cheer. It is I. Be not afraid. And Peter answered him and said,
Lord, If it be thou, bid me come to thee on the water. And he
said, come. And when Peter was come down
out of the ship, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. And
when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid and beginning to
sink. And he cried saying, Lord, save me. Has that ever been your
prayer? If that has ever been your prayer
genuinely, that will be your prayer now, and that will be
your daily prayer, and it will continue to be your daily prayer
until you no longer need to pray that prayer. Lord, save me. I can't save myself. Lord, save
me. Listen to the Lord's response.
And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand and caught him
and said unto him, O thou of little faith, Wherefore didst
thou doubt? And when they were come into
the ship, the wind ceased. Then they that were in the ship
came and worshipped him, saying, Of a truth, thou art the Son
of God. And when they were gone over,
they came into the land Gennesaret, and when the men of that place
had knowledge of him, they sent out into all that country and
round about and brought unto him all that were diseased."
We're diseased, aren't we? We're diseased. Diseased with
sin. diseased with our rebellion against
God, diseased with our unbelief, and we sink beneath the waves. And listen to what it says in
verse 36, and this is the same word is used in this phrase. And besought him that they might
only touch the hem of his garment, and as many as touched were made
perfectly whole. That's our word in this text.
They're all safe to land. They're all made perfectly whole. The essence of it is, isn't it,
just as in this ship that we've been examining in Acts chapter
27, people are made by the circumstances of the providence and the mercy
of God to be brought into a place where they are cried out to Him
and they besought Him. They besought Him. If God would cause you to be
someone who beseechs him, you'll cry out like Peter did,
Lord save me. Turn over with me to Luke chapter
7. Here's another person who has this Escaped all safe to land this
deus also is the Greek word that it means through salvation through
a trial at the beginning of Luke 7 and He says, now when he had
ended all his sayings in the audience of the people, he entered
into Capernaum, and a certain centurion's servant, who was
dear unto him, was sick and ready to die. And when he had heard
of Jesus, he sent unto him the elders of the Jews, beseeching
him that he would come and heal his servant. That word heal means
to escape all safe to land, to heal completely, to come through
a danger, to come through a trial, and to come through a trial and
be saved. We don't need to read all the
others but in Acts 23 you might recall that Paul was in great
danger of being murdered by the Jews. In fact 40 Jews had promised
to take a vow not to eat nor drink until they had murdered
Paul and they had conspired to have him brought before them
and on the way they were going to murder him and they never
ceased their murderous intent. And the centurion hearing of
this in Acts 23-24, he says that you commanded these soldiers
to provide the beasts that they may set Paul on and bring him
safe unto Figulix the governor. Once again, It's a picture of
the fact that the salvation of Paul, this escaping that Paul
was going to have from the clutches of these Jews who had murder
in their hearts, was a passive activity. Paul had nothing to
do with it. He was going to be led to be
safe. And in our passage again in the
previous verse, Luke is led by the Holy Spirit to use this same
word. It says in Verse 43 of Acts 27,
but the centurion, willing to save Paul, kept them from their
purpose. Kept them from their purpose.
Their intent was to murder him. Legally, they had every right
to do so. He was just a prisoner. And also, if he escaped and other
prisoners escaped, their lives would be forfeit under Roman.
law at that time. They all escaped. They escaped
through a great trial. This trial is a trial of God's
ordaining, a trial of God's making. I can sort of picture, don't
you, as we deal with the people of this world that in some sense,
all of us, all of us are on our little ships, aren't we? All
of us are on various ships. They're all the ships of the
various sorts of religions. They're all the ships of the
various sorts that people think that they are going to be brought
safe to land. There's the big ships that we
know of, the big ships of Catholicism and the big ships of Islam, the
big ships of Hinduism and Buddhism, the big ships of religious Christianity. There are the smaller ships,
but no doubt there are many on them. The ships of atheism, the
ships of humanism, the ships of people's opinion. All, all
are being swept in one way or another across a vast ocean,
aren't they? And all the people on all those
ships think they're safe. All of the people on all of those
ships think they're safe. That's the common Aussie gospel,
isn't it, really? We say it over and over again.
She'll be right, mate. She'll be right, mate. He's a
good bloke. He's a nice person. And God really wants to save everyone
is the ship that most of the religious world is in, isn't
it? This is a God that loves everyone. This is a God that
desires the salvation of everyone. This is a God who put his son
to death for all of mankind in the hope that mankind would all
be saved. See, all of the ships have one
thing in common, don't they? All of the ships are speaking
peace to people. They're all speaking peace to
each other. As we saw last week, there is just one ship. There
is just one ship. That ship represents the Lord
Jesus Christ. There is just one ship that takes
all of its passengers, all on board, all safe to land. And it's the ship that causes
them to escape the tumultuous storms. And it's the ship that
goes through the tumultuous storms and is wrecked by the tumultuous
storms. But in its destroying, in its
wrecking, it lands everyone safe to shore. And how do they get
to shore? They cling to the broken bits
of the ship. It's a glorious picture of the
Lord Jesus Christ in his salvation, isn't it? You are, if you are
going to be saved, you are going to escape just. You will escape just, and you
will escape to land. You will escape, as Paul says,
you will escape to a certain island. You will escape to a
promised island. If you have a look at the map
in your Bibles of the Mediterranean Sea and see where they were blown
from, They were blown from Crete, and just in a rough estimation,
they were blown 1,200 kilometers in 14 days, and that's in a reasonably
straight line, and it says that they were blown up and down by
these winds. And they land where? They land
on a little island, and they land on a particular beach, they
land at a particular place, in a particular time, and they all
land safe. They all escape. If there's no
sense in which you feel that your salvation is an escape from
what you are and an escape from who God is, by the very activities
of God himself and his activities entirely, then you haven't understood
what salvation is. In tempestuous waters, in this
ferocious storm, You have no power. You are at the mercy of
things. You're at the mercy of God who
is not in your control but has you in his hands to take you
where he wishes. Your will is irrelevant. If you're in a storm, your will
is irrelevant. Your desires, your wishes, your
achievements, all of what you have is absolutely irrelevant. Only one thing matters. Only
one thing matters. That I might escape. That I might
escape. I want us to just briefly look
at Paul giving thanks. In verse 35, I want us to ponder
this, isn't it? Paul was there after two years
of illegal imprisonment. Paul was there in a storm, which
was a storm as a result of the captain of the ship and the others
on the ship ignoring his word and his advice. And yet Paul,
verse 35, took bread. And he gave thanks to God in
the presence of them all. He gave thanks in the storm. I don't wish for the storms that
blow upon any of the people that I love and I care for. But I
know the storms are coming. You're either escaping from some
storm or you are in some storm now or a storm will be coming
upon you again very soon. And I know something of the storms
that lay heavy on the hearts of the people that I love and
I care for. And I also am deeply aware of
the fact that they only know a little tiny bit about the depth
of the anguish that the children of God go through. You see, the
thing that we need to remember, isn't it, is that all the storms
that happen to all the rest of the world are the storms that
happen to us as well. And we have greater storms than
the rest of the world. We have an anguish about eternal
souls. They spend their lives preaching
peace to themselves and finding others who will preach peace
to them. But we know about a God whose tempestuous storm in this
world is nothing compared to the storm that you'll meet when
you leave here and you meet him face to face. And so we have
the children of God, we have reason, to be humbled in the
midst of these storms, which is one of the rocker reasons
that God brings the storms, isn't it? That we would be humbled. That we would see, as Jonah did
in the depths of the big fish, the bottom of the sea, that salvation
is of the Lord. That we would know that the circumstances
and things that are happening around us are happening because
God has made a promise. I love what Spurgeon said, he
said, if you wish to know God, you must know his word. Why was Paul thankful? He had
a promise from God. You're going to Rome, Paul. He
had a promise before he set out on the ship, you're going to
Rome, Paul. He had a promise from God that not one single
hair of one of the heads of these people on the ship with him,
those who travel with the apostle Paul, in this ship, the Lord
Jesus Christ, not a hair of your head will fall. Our God controls
the tiniest, most insignificant things in this world, as well
as controlling the biggest things we have. If you wish to know
God, you must know his Word. Why was Paul thankful? He knew
God. He knew God. If you wish to perceive his power,
you must see how he works by his Word. If you wish to know his purpose
before it comes to pass, you can only discover it by his word. Why was Paul thankful? He had a word from God. Because
God has promised. The storms come. The storms come
from God that we might see more clearly and more emphatically
the faithfulness of our God to His word of promise, His faithfulness
to His people, His faithfulness to His character. The storms
come that we'll have all of our fleshly confidence removed. Our
wills and our wisdom and our achievements and all the stuff
that we cling to in this world and think that it causes us to
be righteous and it causes us to be safe and it causes us to
be secure. The number of people who think
that their security is in their superannuation or it's their
security is in what they've got. God says it takes wings and flies
away and it can do it in a heartbeat. It can do it in a heartbeat.
One of the things that shocked me when I went to India for the
first time in my life, I wasn't in poverty. If you went down
to the bank in India and you took out $50, you could walk
around that city that we're in and you'd feel like a millionaire.
You could buy just about anything that was there. And it used to
horrify me that I thought, if I could have security and money,
now look at all I've got at home. And it just shocked me how wicked
our flesh is. God will send storms. God will
send storms so that our flesh confidence will be taken away.
God will send storms because in the storm, in this sort of
storm, the only thing that matters is the only thing that matters.
The only thing that matters is our eternal souls. One thing,
one thing is needful. You might recall Mary and Martha.
Mary was busy, and she had every reason to be busy, and every
reason to think that her business mattered. And what was Mary doing?
She was sitting at the Lord Jesus' feet, and in the eyes of the
world, she was being lazy and doing nothing. And the Lord said,
it won't be taken from her. She's doing the one thing needful. So the storms will bring you,
child of God, to be sitting at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The one thing that matters is the one thing that matters in
the storm. What shall it profit a man, says
the Lord Jesus Christ, if you gain the whole world and you
lose your soul? That's divine mathematics, isn't
it? That's divine accounting. And in the midst of the storm, God's
faithfulness is seen to be not dependent upon the circumstances
that we see. He creates the circumstances. He creates the storm. Who blew
that storm? Who can walk upon the waves of
this sea? Who can speak to that storm and
say, be still? Exactly the same one that can
say, now blow. And now blow on this little boat,
and blow on this boat in this particular direction. God, creates these circumstances,
and so Paul can be thankful. See, faith is looking out of
ourselves. Faith is not what we believe
about ourselves. Saving faith is what we believe
about the Lord Jesus Christ. We so often want to spend our
time on the mountaintops of Christian living where we can have wonderful
experiences and peace and comfort and we can see a vista. The reality is the mountaintops,
there's very little soil on mountaintops and very little grows on the
mountaintops and God's going to grow you or grow you in the
valleys. He'll grow you in the valleys and he'll grow you into
a valley. I love what John Newton said.
He said, if you walk closely with God for 40 years, you will
have a much lower opinion of yourself than you do now. That's
what it is to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus
Christ. If you walk with him for the next 12 months, you'll
have a much lower opinion of yourself than you do now. Which
is why proud religion is such a fencive religion. Proud religion
raises up men and causes them to be proud and esteemed because
of the knowledge they have and the pieces of paper they have
and all the good works they have. God's religion is to bring you
down. Bring you down to the foot of
the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Bring you down to see what you
really are. I want to escape. I want to escape all safe to
land. I want my friends to escape.
I want my family to escape all safe to land. And the only people
that ever escape all safe to land are the people that are
in this ship. and all the other ships will be destroyed. All
the other ships will be swept away by the storm of the wrath
of God. This is the one ship that can
bear the storm of the wrath of God. and deliver everyone safe
to land. That's the Lord Jesus Christ
and him crucified exactly as Noah's Ark was. All of the wrath
of God is poured out on that ship. And that ship is destroyed
as the Lord Jesus Christ had his body broken and his blood
shed and his life forfeited on Calvary's tree. And all in him
escape safe to land. So I just want to Look at a few
questions. Who escaped? What did they escape
from? Why did they escape? With what
did they escape? Where did they escape to? What
was their contribution to this escaping and arriving all safe?
And what about you? And what about me? So who escaped? All those that escaped safe to
land were the ones that were promised into the hands of another. So they were promised into Paul's
hands, weren't they? It's extraordinary, isn't it?
On this particular ship there's such a variety of people, isn't
there? In verse 3 we read of a courteous and kind centurion
who gives Paul the freedom to go and be comforted by his friends. In verse 11 we have the master
of the ship, the one who controls this ship, so it seems. It looks
as if he controls it, doesn't it? We have the owner of the
ship, who no doubt on his journey was more and more thinking about
what he was losing as this ship went along. There are the sailors
on the ship. In verse 30 we read earlier about
the deceitful, selfish shipmen, like all of us, who thought of
one thing in the midst of the storm. They thought of one thing.
How can I escape? I don't care about everyone else.
I'm just going to take the one thing that I can take off this
ship for my safety and I'm escaping. The boatman. The soldiers cut
the ropes. It was gone as well. In verse
42, we have soldiers who were about to kill Paul and others
to save themselves. See, we have many people on the
ship with us, don't we, brothers and sisters? We often think,
don't we, we often think that if we can get sort of a certain
type of people into our church, we can have a certain form of
Christianity. Well, God's going to save all
sorts of people. He's going to save all sorts. He's going to save the selfish
soldiers, the self-righteous masters. He's going to save all.
He's going to save all that are in the ship. Now I don't want
us for one minute to think that everyone here was saved, eternally
saved. This is a picture of the Lord
Jesus Christ, just as every Egyptian, every child of God was taken
out of Egypt. And God says that they'll all
go and not a hoof will be left behind. They'll all escape and
they'll all cross the Red Sea and they'll all come to Mount
Sinai. In the midst of those people were a multitude who died
in unbelief. In the midst of those people
who had the Passover and went through the Red Sea were Korah,
Dathan and Abiram, notorious. Notoriously wicked men, but they
have pictures of salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is
a picture about the Lord Jesus Christ and him crucified. Everything
in this book. Everything in this book, every
passage in this book, every story in this book, has a very direct
road to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. And if we can't
see it, the problem's not with the book, the problem's with
our ignorance. And if it causes us to be humble before him, then
good, because that's what the story is about. So who escaped? All those who were promised into
the hands of another. all those who abide in the ship,
all those who come through the tempest, all 276. All of them. There are numbered people. There
won't be any empty chairs or cobwebbed thrones in heaven. Everything will be done. Everyone
in the Lord Jesus Christ will escape, save the land. What did they escape from? You might recall, as we saw last
week, the last couple of weeks, that they have escaped the tempest
that has come upon them because of the fruit of their unbelief.
They didn't believe Paul. They didn't believe what the
Apostle said. Us the same. We have to be led to escape all
safe to land from our unbelief. What was the beginning of all
the mess of all of this world? Every time you see sin and wickedness,
every time you feel the pain of sin and wickedness, and you
see it and you grieve over it, its beginning was just a simple
word, wasn't it? Its beginning is a simple word.
Did God really say? Hath God said, said to Satan? And she was made and she was
caused by the subtlety of Satan to doubt the word of God and
to doubt the character of God. And you think about all of your
troubles in this tempestuous storm of this life that we go
through. All of it, all of our troubles
have just one root cause, don't they? Unbelief. Paul was thankful
in the storm because he believed The wages of sin is death and
judgment. That's what they escape from. You see, salvation is being delivered
by God from God. If God is going to save you,
cause you to escape safe to land, you must be delivered from God.
That's exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ did. He stood as
our mediator before God and he absorbed all of the righteous,
holy wrath of God. And he absorbed it in his own
body on the tree. The Lord Jesus Christ bore in
his body the fiery wrath of God. He absorbed all of that. The
sacrifice in the Lord Jesus Christ consumed the wrath of God. And that's what the ship's about,
isn't it? The ship absorbed all of the wrath of God, just like
Noah's Ark absorbed all the wrath of God, and in its brokenness
it delivered these people all safe to land. God is holy. We sang it a little while ago.
God is just. God must be just. God must be
righteous. God is faithful. God must punish
sin. He must punish it infinitely. He must punish it with perfect,
holy justice. And if he doesn't punish your
sin in the Lord Jesus Christ in you, It's a passage that I trust you
might go home and study and contemplate deeply. He speaks at the beginning of
this chapter about woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkens
of Ephraim. They're drunk on self-righteousness
and they're drunk on their pride. And says, verse two, Behold,
the Lord hath a mighty and strong one, which is as a tempest of
hail and a destroying storm, as a flood of mighty waters overflowing,
shall cast down all the earth. With the hand, with the hand.
First let's go down to verse 14. It says, Wherefore, hear
the word of the Lord, you scornful men. So people who won't hear
the word of God and people who reject the word of God, according
to God, they are scorning him. And he's talking about the religious
people in Jerusalem here. He's talking about the leaders
of so-called Christianity of his day. You scornful men that
rule this people which isn't Jerusalem, because you have said,
we have made a covenant with death. Isn't that exactly what
everyone has? A covenant with death. They know it's coming, but they
don't believe it's coming to them. And if they do believe
it's coming to them, they believe that it's not going to cause
them any harm. You go down to the printers that we use for
our church stuff, and he has all the cards out there for the
people's funerals for this coming week. And I used to, when I spent
more time there, I used to read them all the time. Every single
last one of them was promising these people that everything
was wonderful. But they're off to a party, aren't they? They're
off to a barbecue. They're off to a reunion with
all their friends. Never once, never once was there
any cause for any concern about the person that had died. They've got a covenant with death. And with hell we're in agreement.
We agree that there's a hell, but we're not going there. And
if there is a hell, as the old people in the men's shed used
to tell me, it's going to be a party anyway. I'm going down
there to have a party. I'm not going to be up there
with you wowsers in heaven. I'm down there with having a
barbecue with all my mates. Dear Auntie, where did that come
from? Where did that come from? That came from the pulpits of
this land. And throughout the centuries,
that's where it's come from. Let's read on. Because, you have
said, we have made a covenant with death and with hell, we
are in agreement. When the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it
shall not come unto us, for we have made lies our refuge. That's the refuge of the people
of this world. It's a lie, isn't it? And under falsehood we have
hid ourselves. And what's God's answer to this?
Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, behold, Look and look closely. I lay in Zion for a foundation,
a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation.
He that believeth shall not make haste. He that believeth will
give thanks in the storm. Judgment also will I lay to the
lion and righteousness to the plummet. His judgment will be
a perfect lion and his righteousness is as a plumb bulb. There is
just one righteousness in this world and it's not yours. There's
one righteousness it reaches perpendicular perfectly to one
point. It's the righteousness of the
Lord Jesus Christ. There is no other righteousness.
And hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies and water Has the storm come? Has the storm
from God taken away the refuge of lives that you had? Have the
floodwaters, the tempestuous storm, has it overflown the hiding
place? And your covenant with death,
verse 18, and your agreement with hell shall not stand when
the overflowing scourge shall pass through. You'll be trodden
down by it. Oh, to be humbled and trodden
down by God in this world. Who escaped? all the promised
ones. What did they escape from? They
escaped from their rest usual lies. They escaped from the character
of God by the very character of God being revealed. They escaped
because of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Why did they escape? There was a ship of promise.
In the tempestuous sea there was a ship of promise, and they
were on board the ship. And they had a promise from God.
Did they believe that promise? Did their unbelief stop the promise
being fulfilled? Did it? God had spoken, brothers
and sisters in Christ. All escaped safe to land. Why did they escape? The ship
reached the shore and was destroyed. With what did they escape? What
can you take with you on this escape? I love the hymn that
we sing. Nothing in my hand I bring. Simply
to the cross I cling. Naked come to thee for dress. They lost everything, didn't
they? They lost everything. Verse 18, they lightened the
ship. They threw off everything that
was superfluous. Verse 19, they threw off the
tackling of the ship. The ropes and things that allowed
the ship to be maintained and to power the ship. Verse 32,
they threw off the lifeboat. All earthly hope was gone and
it was cast adrift. Verse 38, they lightened the
ship and they cast the wheat into the sea. All earthly sustenance
was gone. They escape with nothing. You see, if you escape, Peter
says in 1 Peter 4 verse 18, he says, if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the sinner and the ungodly appear. The righteous scarcely be saved. Salvation, according to that
verse, is a very rare thing. And it's a very rare thing and
it happens with very great difficulty. The ship was destroyed. Everything was lost. and they
had to commit themselves to the sea, clinging to the bits of
the ship. What was their contribution to
this salvation? They escaped all safe to land.
They escaped all safe through a great tribulation. What was
their contribution? They threw everything overboard. That's their contribution, isn't
it? It's an anchor to the soul, isn't
it? Our hope is an anchor to the
soul. Where do you put the anchor? The anchor's no use in the boat.
You throw the anchor out over the boat. It's the attachment
of the anchor to the rock that secures the ship. Salvation is
of the Lord in its entirety. I love I love how the last sentence
of Acts 27, 44 begins. It's a phrase that's so often
used in the scriptures that we ought to delight in it more than
we ever do. And so it came to pass. And so it came to pass. How? How do we overcome this
world? How do we escape safe to land? How do we escape the tempestuous
storms of this world? How do we escape the refuges
of lies that people build all around us? I love what John says in 1 John
5. He says, for whatsoever is born of God, verse four, overcometh
the world. And this is the victory that
overcometh the world, even our faith. Paul could be thankful
in the storm. To go back to what I said earlier,
they all escaped safe to land. It was a certain island. They
all escaped to a particular island in the midst of tempestuous seas. There is just one island of safety
for all of these people. See, the Lord God's promise was
just to one. And that promise to one meant
the salvation of all on the ship. And when was the promise given?
The promise was reiterated on the ship, but the promise was
given months and years beforehand, in Acts 23, verse 11, before
the storm. The Lord stood by Paul when he
was in Jerusalem and said, be of good cheer, the same word
that he used on the ship, be of good cheer, Paul, for as thou
hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also
at Rome. So the promise was given before
they set sail. The promise of salvation in the
Lord Jesus Christ is an eternal promise. must be saved. All that are in
the Lord Jesus Christ must go through tempestuous times. All that are in the Lord Jesus
Christ must be taken to this place where all creature confidence
and all creature comforts are taken away and we have nothing
other Nothing other than a word from our God. See, the promise
was made to one. The promise of salvation is made
to the Lord Jesus Christ. You call his name Jesus for he
will save his people from their sins. Are they all saved? They are all saved from their
sins. See, there is deliverance in
one. There's deliverance in a promise
made before the storm. There's a deliverance in a word
that was made to one. There was a deliverance because
of the purpose of God that Paul would be sent to Rome. There's
a deliverance through the storm of sin. There's a deliverance
with thankful faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The ship was broken
up. What a glorious picture of salvation
in the Lord Jesus Christ. His body was broken. His blood
was shed on Calvary's tree. And all who are in him escaped
safe to land.