I hope your scripture is with
me to Acts chapter 27. We read the first 32 verses of
this passage earlier, so I won't read much of it now, but it's
good for us to contemplate the glory of the gospel that's revealed.
When we go studying the scriptures, we're looking for the Lord Jesus
Christ to be revealed, and we're looking for the glory of his
gospel to be revealed. And yet again, it's here in beautiful,
beautiful pictures for us. Life in this world is, as I said
earlier, often sort of deemed and considered in poetry and
plays and in all sorts of other writings as a journey across
an ocean. And mankind sets out on a journey
like these. Nearly everyone, bar three people
on this ship, they set out on this journey without a single
thought of who God was. a single notion that there is
a God who reigns and rules over all things. It says in verse
1, man was determined. When it was determined, the Romans
determined that we should sail to Italy. In verse 2 it says,
we launched, meaning to sail by the coast of Asia. They were
hoping to go up and hug the coast of what is now western Turkey. The reality of all of scripture
and the reality of all life is no matter how much man thinks
that he's on the throne of his own making and his own sustaining,
and no matter how much man thinks that everyone else ought to be
bowing at his throne, Don't worry, you're doing it. We do it all
the time. The reality is that our God reveals
himself to his people in particular ways. As man proposes his path,
God disposes what happens. In Proverbs 16 verse 9, to paraphrase
it a little bit, it says that in his heart man devises his
course We spoke about this last week.
In another translation, the Lord determines your footfall. Do
you look back on your life and think that every tiny little
thing that's happened And everything that you've ever
forgotten was there under the careful hand and direction of
our God. It's good to enthrone God in
our hearts. It's good to enthrone God in
our hearts. So as you probably noticed in
that verse, when we should sail to Italy, and meaning to sail
on the coast of Asia in verse 2, 1, Aristarchus a Macedonian
of Thessalonica being with us. So Luke was from Greece as well. So Paul now has the companion
of these fellow travelers and it's indicative of how the church
and members of the church has moved around one to another to
comfort and to strengthen and to be with other people. As I
said, man sets out on a journey across a sea, across a raging
sea, and our God is the one that rules over the waves, as we saw
in Mark 4. I love what Nahum says. Every
time you see a windstorm, every time you see a cyclone or a tornado
or anything, and all of that swirling debris around, Naom
1 verse 3 says, The Lord is slow to anger and great in power,
and will not acquit the wicked. It's interesting isn't it? He
speaks both about sin and about salvation. And he says, The Lord
hath his way in the world wind and in the storm, and the clouds
are the dust of his feet. He rebukes the sea, and maketh
it dry, and dryeth up all rivers. He rebukes the sea. The sea in
so much of the scriptures is a depiction of the uncertainty
and the calamity and the potential danger that people are in. False
teachers are considered in Jude 13 as raging waves of the sea
and in Revelation 13 one of Satan's compatriots in crime is the beast
that comes out of the sea. And in Revelation 21 it says
that there was no more sea. Doesn't mean that the water ceased
to do its gifts, but there's no more place of chaos. There's
no more place of false teaching and calamity and evil. Men determine and God disposes. Oh, that we'd learn it when we
look in what we think is the power of men. Second thing I want us to notice
is in verse 3, and it's such a constant theme through the
book of Acts that I want us to take note of it just very briefly.
But it says in verse 3, And the next day we touched at Sidon,
and Julius courteously entreated Paul. Now he may well have had
good reason to courteously entreat Paul because There were no crimes
against him and Paul was a Roman citizen. But nevertheless he
was a prisoner. And this man was a centurion. And what did he do? He gave him
liberty to go unto his friends to refresh himself. The first
thing I want you to see is that there's a refreshing in the community
and in the fellowship of God's people. It is very, very refreshing. to be around the children of
God, to be amongst our family. You, like me, we all have natural
families and we are born into them. But I look out on Sunday
after Sunday and during the week at times and I see people who
I am infinitely closer to than my brothers and sisters and cousins
scattered throughout this district and this world. It's refreshing
to be in the fellowship of God's people. But I want you to see
that Paul, consistently through the Book of Acts, is really well
received by the authorities. And we must remember that the
people who were in power in these days had notorious names like
Nero and Caligula. But here Paul, this man, he courteously
entreated Paul and he gave him liberty. See, he so trusted Paul. See, Paul was a man of seemingly
open integrity and honesty and a man who could be trusted. Let us be such men in this world. You see in Acts chapter 13 he
was on the island of Cyprus and the governor there, the proconsul,
as senior a Roman official as you could have, Sergius Paulus,
he welcomed him into his house and he listened to him carefully.
The men of Mars Hill, I know they weren't They were religious
in all of the traditions and superstition but they were a
bunch of philosophers and they invited Paul courteously to hear
more of what they thought was absolute rubbish. But he had
so endeared himself by his behaviour in Athens that they actually
invited him. You might recall in Acts 19.31 in Ephesus it was
the Roman Governors of that province were
his friends, and they said, don't you dare go down into that chaos
and make it worse for yourself and for us. And it says they
were his friends. It doesn't say they were believers,
but they were his friends. And in Jerusalem, you might recall
that it was the Romans who saved him from the Jews. And the Romans
who heard and listened to the plots that came to them by Paul's
nephew. And so over and over again we
have this picture in the scriptures. And it's good for us to be reminded,
isn't it, that we are to so conduct ourselves in this world. the
Lord willing that we are not bringing disrepute. We have an
open honesty that people, this man, could let him at liberty.
If Paul had absconded, Julius would have been put to death. You can just read about it. Earlier
in Acts, when those prisoners let Peter escape, Herod examined
them all, and the guards of that prison, they were all put to
death. That was their responsibility.
Why did the Philippian jailer take a sword and put it to his
heart to kill himself? Because if the prisoners had
escaped, he was a dead man. He was a dead man. So Julius
courteously intreated Paul. Verse four. And when we had launched from
Lent, we sailed under Cyprus because the winds were contrary. It's amazing, isn't it, how man
has his plans and the winds were contrary. In verse 4, they're
contrary. In verse 7, the wind not suffering
us. Verse 13, the south wind blew
softly and they thought it was in their favor. And then verse
14, a tempestuous wind comes. And in verse 18, they're exceedingly
tossed with a tempest. In verse 20, no small tempest
lay upon us. In verse 27, they were driven
up and down in Adria. The question is, who controls
the wind? So the wind's a picture of the
spirit of God, isn't it? It's a picture of the power of
God. God alone controls the wind.
We read that in Mark chapter 4. That's lovely. passage of
scripture in Psalm 107 that talks about the journey of man on the
seas. And it says, They that go down
to the sea in ships that do business in great waters, these see the
works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth
and raises up the stormy wind which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to heaven. They
go down again to the depths. Their soul is melted because
of trouble. They reel to and fro and stagger
like a drunken man. They are at their wits' end.
Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth
them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so
that the waves thereof are still. It's speaking of the Lord, speaking
peace to the hearts of his people. But life is full of contrary
winds, isn't it? As Job says in chapter 5, yet
man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward. On your journey you imagine the
waves and you imagine the sea in front of you and you would
like it to be as still as possible. And it's not going to be that
way. He says in chapter 14 verse 1, a man that is born of a woman
is a few days and full of trouble. God's wind blows. And he blows, as John 3 says
of the Spirit of God, it blows where it wishes, where it lists
us. It just goes where it wishes. You don't have any control over
it. The westerly winds blow on for a couple of days. What chance
did you have of stopping that wind blowing? Isn't it wonderful? That's a picture of the spirit
of God as well. You've got no chance of standing
against the power of God when he comes in mighty force to save
his people. First five. When we sailed over the Sea of
Cilicia in Pamphylia, we came to Myra, a city of Lycia. And
there the Centurion found a ship of Alexandra sailing under Italy,
and he put us there in. So these are grain boats. Egypt
was the granary of Rome in those days, and these huge ships used
to be, thousands of these huge ships were going back and forth
from Egypt and from North Africa and feeding the Romans in Italy. And they were big ships. This
particular ship you'll see later on has 276 people on it. Josephus
went on a ship that had 600 people on it. They were mighty shipbuilders. They were mighty experienced
seamen. And when we'd sail slowly many
days and scarce, verse seven, come over against Nidus, the
wind not suffering us, we sailed under Crete over against Salome,
the wind not suffering us. What a mercy of the Lord not
to suffer us to go where we would want to go. Isn't it wonderful
that the Lord crosses the paths of his people and says, you've
actually planned to go this way and you're not going that way.
He hedges the way of his people. His will is done, and his will
is done in such a way as to make us know our dependency, and to
make us to know our insufficiency, and to make us to be lowly before
him in this world. In verse 8, Acts 27 verse 8,
and hardly passing, it came unto a place which is called the Fair
Havens. Now here is this big ship with
276 people on it, and it's come to a place called Fair Havens.
That word fair means to be beautiful, means to be genuine, to be precious,
to be approved. It's a harbor. was genuine, precious
and approved. Verse 9. Now when much time was
spent and when sailing was now dangerous because the fast was
already passed, it's beyond the 5th of October AD 59 according
to the historians, Paul admonished them. So here's a word from God.
Really that word admonish is to exhort, but it comes as an
admonishment because of the response to it. And he said unto them,
Sirs, I perceive he'd been given special revelation of God. He
had these extraordinary apostolic gifts. which in God's good providence
and wisdom and care of his church have ceased because they were
there to verify the word of God. They were there to verify all
of the gifts that are ever seen in the book of Acts. They were
there to verify the testimony the apostles had of the Lord
Jesus Christ. So when Paul speaks like this,
he's actually speaking what are the words of God. He says, God
speaks through his servants, and he will not have them silent. and he will not have them unobserved
for long. But I want you to note, and I
want to spend the bulk of my time looking at this for a while,
is the issue of the objections to God's word. There are three
objections to God's word. There they were in the harbour,
which according to the description is a beautiful harbour, a precious
harbour, an approved harbour. The first one is in verse 11. It says, nevertheless the centurion
believed the master and the owner of the ship more than those things
which were spoken of Paul. The first objection is that the
word of God is an opinion. You're just giving your opinion
and your opinion is one among many and I can stand and decide
amongst all those opinions. The second one, is in verse 12
where it says, and because the haven, because the harbor was
not commodious, that word commodious is convenient. It didn't seem to them to be
convenient. The third objection is in verse
13. When the south wind blew softly,
supposing they had obtained their purpose. Loosing thence, they sailed close
by Crete. When it seems like the providence
of God are blowing in your direction, you might recall Jonah. He thought,
now I'm right. He goes down there, doesn't he?
He goes down to Joppa, and what does he find when he lands at
the harbor? He finds a boat, and it just
happens to be going as far away from where he should be as possible.
And Jonah thinks, well, I'm right now. God has smiled upon me. The lesson, of course, is that
we judge the circumstances and the providence on account of
God's Word, not on account of what we see. But let's look at
these three objections. When people turn away from the
Word of God and when people minimize and marginalize the Word of God,
they're really doing what Adam and Eve did in the garden. That's the great question. Hath
God really said? Did God really say? Is this a
word from God or is this an opinion of men? And that was Satan's
enticement to Eve, wasn't it? That you can actually decide
this. You've actually got the ability in your intelligence
and your wisdom. With all of your experience you've
got the wisdom to work all this out. And you'll have the knowledge
of good and evil and you'll be able to decide what's good and
you'll be able to turn away from what's evil. You'll have free
will. Did God really say? See, when God speaks through
his word, we must remember that we didn't have a written testimony. Luke was in the business of collecting
his notes, no doubt, in his mind as he was traveling here and
listening to these things. This is what God says. This is what God says. God's
word comes to people as a command from God. God's word never comes
to people as an opinion for you to debate and discuss. We never,
the children of God, under the grace of God, we never stand
above God's word. We just say this is what it says.
I love what Paul says further down in this passage. He says,
I believe God. I believe God. In the early days
of our church, that's when we had to wrestle with all sorts
of things. We just kept saying, I believe God. I just want to
hear what God says. We just want to hear what God
says. God issues commands. And so he's not issuing an offer
to be considered. You've got to remember, for these
people, that they were turning away from what was Fairhaven's,
and they could almost see the other harbour that they were
going to. And that harbour was the harbour that was very commonly
used by these grain ships, and they'd come from Egypt up there
and nestle on that side of Crete, and harbour there. So they were
wanting... What was enticing for them was
just down the road. It is, it is always, always a
grievous error to put trust in man and turn away from God and
his word. You might recall Jeremiah 17.9
speaks of the heart of man is deceitful above all things and
desperately wicked. Who could know it? Why on earth
would you trust it? But earlier on in that chapter,
In verse 5 God says, Thus saith the Lord, Cursed be the man that
trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, maketh the wisdom of
man, and the power of man, and the ability of man, and the arm
of his strength, whose heart departeth from the Lord. He goes on to say, In verse 7
of Jeremiah 17, blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord
and whose hope the Lord is. His hope the Lord is, his hope
is the character of God and the person of God. That's the objection that people
have. The first objection that people
have to God's word. That's what happened when I was
speaking to a pastor a few weeks ago. And he said, that's just
your opinion. You have just one opinion among
many opinions. And we've got a whole lot of
people on it that have the same opinion as me. What he hadn't
realized, I wasn't giving him an opinion, I was actually reading
scripture to him. And I was quoting the word of
God. I wasn't there to have a debate with him about my opinion. I'm not much interested in my
opinion. The older I get, the less I'm interested in my opinion.
I don't want you to be interested in my opinion. And quite frankly,
to be really honest, I'm not a whole lot interested in your
opinion. All of us ultimately have one opinion that matters,
and that's God's opinion. That'll do, won't it? That will
do. So the first objection to God's
word for all of Adam's children is that it's just an opinion
among many. In verse 12 it goes on to say, And because the haven was not
commodious to winter in, the more part advised to depart thence
also, if by any means they might attain to Phoenice, which was
just down the road. It's called Phoenix in other
translations. It's only 20 kilometers, it seems,
by the way I've read my maps. It's just down the road. And
there to winter, which is the haven of Crete, which lies towards
the southwest and the northwest is protected, as it were, from
those winds. So the centurion believed the
master and believed the ownership more than those things spoken
of Paul because the majority opinion was that there's something
more convenient just down the road. There's something more
convenient. It's much more convenient for
us to turn away from the Word of God. And it's just nearby.
And it's a comfortable place. And it suits our needs. It suits
our wisdom. And it brings us ease. And it
satisfies our desires. And it satisfies our thoughts.
And it satisfies our opinions. How convenient and how commodious
are the things that are right nearby in sight, which take us
away from simply trusting the Word of God. They're nearby,
aren't they? Convenient. You might think of
the many examples in the scriptures where it was convenient. It was
inconvenient for the people of Israel to be waiting so long
for Moses at the foot of Mount Sinai. What did Aaron do? Somehow,
miraculously, he was telling Moses, didn't he? Dear, oh dear,
it's terrible when we have to lie to cover ourselves, isn't
it? He says, I dropped all these rings into the fire and out popped
this calf, this Egyptian idol. And then he turned to the people
and said, this is a really convenient month. These are the gods that
have brought you out. This is the god that's brought you out
of Egypt. We haven't even changed his name, says Aaron. It was convenient, wasn't it?
It was convenient when the 10 tribes of Israel were broken
away after Jeroboam, Rehoboam, Solomon's
son, took the opinions of all the people next to him and nearby,
all of the young people, and he turned away from the opinion
of the old man. And it was from the law that
he might take the kingdom away from him, and Jeroboam was set
up as king of the northern Thames tribes. And Jeroboam said, well,
it's not convenient for all of these ten tribes to go all the
way down to Jerusalem. It's inconvenient for them to
have to leave their families and their work and other things.
And we'll set up our calves up here. And he set up two calves
and he says, it's not convenient for these people to cross the
Jordan to come over here. We'll have one on either side
of the Jordan, thank you very much. It's not convenient, but
I can make something nearby. See, sin is always convenient. And sin and unbelief and rebellion
is always nearby and it's always commodious. And it's always within
sight. So you never have to search for
sin, do you? Just like you never have to search
for false religion. Always throughout the history
of God's people, the opportunity to worship the idols of this
world and the idols of men's creation is always nearby. It's always nearby. Just think
of us here. It's just nearby. It's not just
up the road. If you want some formality, you
can go up the road. If you want some tradition and
some legalism, you can go over the road. If you want to have
some happy-clappy activities, you can even stay here now. If
you want to go across the road and see someone who exercises
apostolic gifts, they meet in the library over there. I'm just
saying that false religion is always nearby, and it always
seems convenient, and it always seems that in the opinion of
so many men, it is so much more desirable. Convenient worship. Convenient obedience. Convenient company. There's always convenient company
nearby, isn't there? Of all sorts. Something convenient
and commodious that's right next door, which will take you away
from the worship of the true and living God and fellowship
with his people. So you don't have to go searching
for it. Brothers and sisters, it's there. It comes to you all
the time. It's convenient and commodious,
and it's easy to find excuses not to worship God. I'm not talking about those who for
any reason can't, but there's always a convenient and commodious
excuse, isn't there? It's so much easier to do something
else. One of the marbles of grace that causes me to rejoice in
God and to be thankful for you, brothers and sisters in Christ
here, is that church, the real church, is just a voluntary organisation,
isn't it? It's entirely voluntary. You
don't have to be here. It makes absolutely no difference
to anything in so many ways, does it? And so many people don't. And yet the Lord's people are
made willing in the day of his power. and they'll put up with
the inconveniences of life. It's so much easier to stay in
bed, isn't it? It's so much easier to do something
else. There's so much that's convenient
and you can see it just nearby. It's so much and so convenient,
as Hebrews 6 says, just to let down the sails. You're sailing
along in grace and with a zeal for God, and you just let the
sails down, and you just drift along. For you, like me, who
have struggled so often with the flesh of Adam, which constantly
and continually wars against the Spirit of God in us, you'll
know the depth and the power and the entanglement of the convenient
things that are just nearby. convenient excuses so there are
convenient doctrines that are so nearby the truth convenient understandings of
God and how he saves people. And so appealing, aren't they,
that salvation is a cooperative activity. You have to do your
part and God will do his part. If you obey then God will respond
in kindness to you. You can grow in your sanctification. You can grow in your own holiness. And here we are where we conveniently
and commodiously provide you opportunities to do that and
we'll have all these programs and all these things we have
to do. False religion is always convenient. False religion is always commodious. It's convenient. The world finds a convenient
religion, doesn't it? The Aussie gospel of the good
bloke. They all die, don't they? And
even if they've murdered their family, there really was a good
bloke underneath. And he really did a lot of good things, and
this is just an aberration in his life. And all of them are
going to heaven and all of them are going to have a party and
all of them have got a barbecue happening down the road and they're
fishing with their mates and riding bikes and doing all these
things with their mates and they can't wait for you to come and
join them. It's convenient and commodious. There is, in the religious world,
a convenient and commodious assurance. Look how I've changed my life.
Look how I'm so much better than I used to be. Convenient lies. Isn't it remarkable that when
we put under enough pressure, we don't have to go searching
for a lie at all. It's just almost on the tip of
our tongue when we want to defend ourselves and we want to polish
our fig leaves that have been torn apart a little bit. An unbelief. is convenient, and it's always
nearby. Satan goes about at a roaring
lion, seeking whom he may devour. The world is always nearby, saying,
take, eat, enjoy the lust of the eyes, the lust of the fresh,
and the pride of life. You see, when it comes to the
opinion of this world, the word of God is always in the minority.
It's always in the minority. Those who believe the Word of
God are always in the minority. According to God's mathematics,
the preachers who preach faithfully are one in a thousand. The Word of God is always in
the minority. The will of God and obedience
to the Word of God is always seems inconvenient, doesn't it? God's wisdom is to believe his
word and leave him to sort out the circumstances, to simply
trust him and say, well, this is it. I'm in your hands. So obedience is always tough
in prospect when you're looking ahead and you're looking at the
pain. As a friend of mine said some
years ago, here you go again, you're putting your hand in the
vice and winding it up as you deal with someone who's standing
opposed to the word of God. Obedience is always tough in
prospect and always sweet in reflection. It's always tough. in prospect and always sweet
in reflection. How thankful we need to be for
the Lord for keeping us faithful, for coming again and again and
refreshing and reviving and revealing the fact that the work that he's
begun is the work that he's going to finish. Our Lord Jesus Christ
never took the commodious or the convenient path. and his
church in this world has never had a convenient or commodious
path, no matter what's nearby and no matter what the opinion
of man is. We've just seen in the previous
chapters in Acts, these people like Felix and Agrippa, They
had convenient excuses, didn't they? Felix could have said,
I'm very, very busy as governor and I'll see you again at a convenient
time. I'll see you when it suits me. And I can discuss these things.
You have an opinion and I have an opinion. We can get together
and we'll talk about these opinions when it suits me. Agrippa said
he's almost persuaded to be a Christian. Being a Christian is a command
from God and it comes with the power of God. It comes with the
efficacy of the Blessed Holy Spirit taking the things of the
Lord Jesus Christ and revealing them. When he's revealed to you,
brothers and sisters, you don't make a decision. You're not making
a decision. People can decide all sorts of
things but salvation is not a decision you make. It's an operation of
a mighty sovereign power of God. The religious world has found
a convenient and a commodious place and multitudes of opinions
to support what they do. And God's children just stand
on the word of God. And it doesn't matter how many
agree or how many disagree. We just stand on what God says.
I believe God, says Paul later on in this passage. The third
reason, the first reason is that there's an opinion. God is just
giving you an opinion for you to test and to weigh up and to
decide which one you'd like the best of all. There is. The other objection for people
taking the word of God to heart is that they're somewhere convenient
and commodious and it's just down the road and it'll suit
us better to spend our winter months in. And the third one,
of course, and this one traps so many over the years, is in
verse 13. He says, and the south wind blew
softly. South wind blew softly and supposing
that they had obtained their purpose. Don't forget their purpose
was to sail 20 or 30 kilometers along the coast. They didn't
even have to take loose sight of the land or the site of where
they were going. Supposing they had obtained their
person loosening this, they sail close by Crete. The number of people who spend
so much of their lives turned from the word of God because
the circumstances are convenient. I've got this new job and it
keeps me busy. I've got this new activity. I've got these new friends. I've
got all these things. I need to do the responsible
thing. I've got to prepare myself for my retirement and prepare
myself for an inheritance for my children. And it's inconvenient. And your opinion about the worship
of God in church is just your opinion. And I have my opinion,
and I've got lots of people who have my opinion as well. See, providence blows softly at first
and blows people away. The number of people that I know
of who have given up the worship of God because they're tied up
with the things of this world that seem very convenient, And
every single time, brothers and sisters, there will be a good
and worthy reason just there. Always. Always. The providence of God, the opinion
of men, and a convenient place. I love what David said at the
end of 2 Samuel. He says, when Ariunna said to
him, you need a place. We will have to build a place
for the ark of God. We have to build a place here in Jerusalem
for us to worship God. And Ariunna said, you can have
the floor. You can have the threshing floor, this place of mine. I can give it to you. And David
says, I will surely buy it of thee at a price. David's speaking as the Lord
Jesus Christ. He said, Salvation comes freely to us,
but at the cost of the life of the Son of God and the travail
of His soul. It comes to us as a gift of the
Father's electing love and the Son's sacrifice and the Holy
Spirit's quickening, promising, making us alive. But any religion that costs you
nothing is worth what you've just paid for it. It's cost us, brothers and sisters,
to stand for the truth of God. It's cost us family. It's cost
us friendships. It's cost us esteem in the eyes
of people. You, like me, many of you, no
doubt have wet your pillow with tears when you think of what
it has cost. But has it really cost anything
compared to what it cost to save you? And would you pay the price
over and over again? See, if you have the Lord Jesus
Christ, you have everything. If you have the Lord Jesus Christ,
you have everything and you've lost nothing. You've lost nothing
at all. What's God's response? God's
response. In mercy and grace, verse 14,
but not long after, there arose a tempestuous wind called Euracydon. And when the ship was caught
and could not bear up into the wind, we let her drive. For those who have the grace
of God to walk by faith and not by sight, the Lord is very kind
and gracious, but isn't he just as kind and gracious when he
sends a tempestuous wind? sends a tempestuous wind. It's
to reveal himself and to reveal his people and to reveal his
faithfulness. He's already said a word, hasn't he? He said the
word back in Jerusalem. You can read it in Acts 23. He
says to Paul, you're going to witness to me to Caesar as you
have here in Jerusalem. See, there was a promise from
God. We're going to cross over the other side, Paul. There was
a promise from God. There was a desire of Paul to
go, but there was a promise from God. So there's no question about
whether it was going to happen. But God brings a tempestuous
storm. He brought a tempestuous storm
into Paul's life on that Damascus road. He brings tempestuous storms
into the lives of his people. As he says in Hosea, he hedges
their way in with thorns. See, when they say, let her drive,
they're saying, it's God's will be done. And when all of our
creature hopes are gone, we then see once again something of the
reality of our frailness and God's absolute sovereignty. Our God says in Isaiah 45, I
formed a light, I create darkness, I make peace and create evil. I the Lord do all these things.
As we read in Psalm 107, he says, I command, he commandeth and
raises the stormy sea and he lifts us up the waves thereof. Verse 16, and running under a
certain island which is called Claw, though we had much work
to come by the boat, they were trying to drag the boat that
they towed behind them into the ship. And when they had taken
it up, they used helps in undergirding the ship. So there they were
with this huge ship, and they were trying to get ropes underneath
it and tie the whole thing together so that they were doing everything
they possibly could, fearing less they should fall into the
quicksand, they straight sailed. It's a glorious picture of what
the Lord does, isn't it, in the lives of his people? Lighten
your ship. Lighten your ship. Your ship's
got far too much garbage in it. It's got all the garbage of your
opinions. It's got all of the garbage of your commodious, convenient
places just nearby. It's got all the garbage of you
thinking that the winds are blowing you in the right direction. And
God's children walk by faith and not by sight. God's children
walk by the Word of God and not by what they see around them.
They judge the things they see around them by the Word of God
and not the other way around. And it might take a tempestuous
wind to take you away from all the things you're clinging to.
And that'll be a good wind. No harm ever befalls the righteous. No harm. God's working all things
for the good of his people. And if he sends a tempestuous
wind for his people, it'll be a blessing. They lightened the ship. So much
baggage needs to be thrown overboard. all of the baggage we got with
Adam needs to be thrown overboard and it's a continual process.
You're always throwing it overboard. The third day, verse 19, we cast
out with our own hands the tackling of the ship. So now even the
very things that were going to allow us to sail this ship with
proper nautical skills is actually going to be thrust overboard. We just let her sail, let her
go. When neither sun nor stars many
days appear and no small tempest lay on us, All hope that we should
be saved was taken away. Then, then God speaks a word. But after a long absence, Paul
had been quiet through all of this. Once they had rejected
his opinion, there's not another word from Paul. Not another word. Not another word from Luke and
not another word from Aristarchus. Not another word from God. And
now there's not even a star to be seen. They have absolutely
no idea where they are. There's not even a sun to be
seen. They have no idea where they're going. They're just being
blocked. And no small tempest lay on us.
And then their hopes are gone. And when all the hopes that you
have, that you can see in this world, are taken away, then there's
a word from God. in these circumstances. And Paul
says to them that God's word doesn't change. The word that
I gave you at the beginning is still the same word. The word
of promise that I brought from God is still the same word. You
should have listened to me. You should have listened to God's
word. Our God is faithful. His word
must prevail. You can't separate his word from
his character. But it's remarkable, isn't it,
that he says In verse 20, all hope that we should be saved
was taken away. And now I exhort you, verse 22,
to be of good cheer. All hope's taken away. All hope
in men is taken away. And what does Paul have? He has
a promise from God. Be of good cheer. There shall
be no loss of any man's life among you but of the ship. The
ship's going to be wrecked. and you have no hope. But the
ship's gonna be wrecked, but you be of good cheer. And the
reason, verse 23, we might have to close here so we can finish
in time. For there stood by me this night an angel of God, the
angel of God. And I love Paul's description
of his God. Whose I am. Can you say that? Whose I am, and whom I serve. Whose I am, and whom I serve. Saying, fear not, Paul, thou
must be brought before Caesar. I love God's musts in the scriptures.
And lo, God hath given thee all that thou with them. He speaks
of providence and promise and election. This is the God whose
I am. Yes, I am. I'm owned by him,
brothers and sisters. Few have left fair havens and
have gone to a place of man's opinion that's convenient, that's
commodious, and it seems like the winds of fortune have blown
you in a pleasant direction. And now the tempest of God has
come upon you. Can you still say whose I am? See Paul said be of good cheer. There's not a single hint that
the waves had stopped and the wind had stopped and the ship
creaking and groaning under all of that tempestuousness. Paul
says be of good cheer. The ship's going to be lost.
This thing that you're standing on now, this thing that you're
trusting now is going to be taken away completely and be of good
cheer. Be of good cheer. Is the gospel
a joyful sound? to you. Is it a joyful sound
that God has taken you away from the convenient places of this
world and the opinions of this world and made you to simply
trust in a word of God? I believe God, says Paul. I believe God. What does he say
after that? That it shall be even as it Let's pray. Heavenly Father,
we pray that you might cause us in this world, Heavenly Father,
to know that the convenient, commodious opinions of men lead us away from you and not
to you. And we praise you, Heavenly Father, that you send tempestuous
winds to drive us into your arms and to drive us to your word
of promise. And we do thank you, Heavenly
Father, that word of promise is fulfilled in the Lord Jesus
Christ, who shed his precious blood for his people, that they
would all be safe and that we can now say in the midst of the
tempestuous winds that so batter this world and batter us in this
world, Heavenly Father, we can say, because of your word, be
of good cheer. May you cause us, Heavenly Father,
to rejoice in the fact that we can say that we belong to you. We are owned by you. We are blood-brought children,
Heavenly Father, so that we can say to the storms of this world,
I'm going to be of good cheer because I believe God. We thank you for your protecting
providence and provision, Heavenly Father, which draws us and puts
us in that great ship, the Ark of our Lord Jesus Christ. And
you shut us in and you seal us within and without by your precious
blood. My Father, thank you for your
Son. Thank you for your guiding hand and direction upon our lives.
We pray, Heavenly Father, we go from here with just a simple
trust and faith in who he is and what he's done and what he's
doing right now. For we pray in Jesus' name and
for his glory. Amen.