Open your Bible to Psalms 107,
just for a minute. We'll read something here in
Psalms, and then we'll be looking in Acts chapter 27. It is so good to be here. Things
just didn't work out in Providence for a while. I can't remember
how long it's been. Someone said, last time you was
here, you had a beard. I said, yeah, I can't hardly
stand it in the summertime. And I started having to wear
suspenders. Somebody called me an Amish the other day. And I
didn't realize this until I did some research. It's gotten a
little bit beside the point. The reason the Amish don't wear
a belt is they said the buckle is worldly. So I do have my belt
on. Turn to Psalms 107. Begin reading in verse 23. They that go down to the sea
in ships, that do business in great waters. Those that do business
in great waters, these see the works of the Lord and his wonders
in the deep. For he commandeth and raises
the stormy winds, which lift up the waves thereof, they mount
up to the heaven They go down again to the depth. Their soul
is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro and stagger
like a drunken man. And they are at their wits end. Then they cry out to the Lord in their
trouble. And that's always when we cry
out is then. We are at our wits end. Then
they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them
out of their distress. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are
still. Then are they glad, because they
are quiet, so he bringeth them into their desired haven. All of it serves his purpose.
Now turn to Acts chapter 27. Here, this whole chapter is about
the Apostle Paul on his way to Rome to stand before Caesar. Paul's whole life has been a
voyage. God bringing him, taking him
on missionary trips, raising up churches, preaching the gospel,
and now he's on a voyage to go to Rome. because the Lord had
told him he must stand before Caesar. But here, let's begin
reading in verse one. And when it was determined that
we should sail into Italy, they delivered Paul and certain other
prisoners into one named Julius, a centurion of Augustus' band. He was a Roman soldier. It was
his responsibility to watch over these prisoners. And they entered
into a ship of Adramantium. We launched, meaning, their purpose
was to sail by the coast of Asia. When Astro, I won't try to pronounce
that name, a Macedonian, Thessalonica, he was with Paul. So on this
trip, there was Paul, there was Luke, who wrote the Book of Acts,
and then there was this man, Artaglaeus. And the next day
they touched at Sidon, and Julius courteously entreated Paul, now
this man, he's not a believer, he doesn't trust God, but God
even moves the hearts of wicked men to show mercy to his servants,
and he was gracious to him. Paul maybe had some people there
that he knew, and he was able to go visit with them, and you
imagine how encouraging that was on that voyage. And he courteously entreated
Paul, verse three, and gave him liberty to go into his friends
to refresh himself. And when we had launched from
thence, we sailed under Cyprus because the winds were contrary. They may have wanted to go one
way, but they had to go to Cyprus because that's the way the winds
pushed them. The wind of God, the spirit of
God is a mysterious thing. He moves in a mysterious way,
his wonders to perform. We see the results of it, and
this is what they'd planned on doing, but because the winds
were contrary to the way they wanted to go, and when he had
sailed over the Sea of Cilicia and Pamphylia, we came to Mysia,
a city of Lysia. And there the certain centurion
found a ship of Alexandria sailing into Italy. He took all the men
from this one ship. They probably thought, well,
we're all going to go on this ship. And this man found this. It must have been a large ship
because we're going to see there was 276 people on this ship.
It's not just some little boat as we would imagine. This was
a large, large vessel. And he put them on this ship
of Alexandria sailing. They're going to Italy. They're
going to Rome. They're going to unload their
cargo. That's their plan. That's their
purpose. That's what they've planned.
But a lot of times our plans don't come to fruition. If the
Lord wills, we will do this or that. Paul said, you know, I
don't want to change boats. It's like trying to change airplanes.
You know, we go down, we've got to get on this one. Why? It's
going to Italy. And God's going to use this boat to teach Paul
and to teach us some lessons. Where do we, he said, those that
go down into the deep, they see his wonders. Oh, his wonders. And he put the men there on,
and when we had sailed slowly many days, wasn't making much
headway, and scarce were come over against city us, the wind
not suffering us. The wind wouldn't allow them.
It was pushing against them. You can't work against the wind.
You may try, but you'll just wear yourself out. The wind not
suffering us, we sailed under Crete over against Salmoni, and
hardly passing it, came into a place which is called the Fair
Haven, nigh and wherein to this city was the city of Lycia."
I probably never planned on coming to Lycia, what I understand.
It was not a big port. It was not a place that a ship
this size would have wanted to adopt, especially for the winter,
to spend there several months. but it's where they landed. It's
where they're at. It's where God brought them in
the providence of God. Verse nine, and when much time
was spent. Wonder what they did during that
time. I wonder if they just wasted the time. Say, well, we got plenty
of time. We got plenty of time to get
to Italy. No, they didn't. You only have a certain time
that you can get out on the waters and sail the ship. You don't
do it in the wintertime. It's not safe. But they said,
oh, well, they probably, you know, like most human beings,
we procrastinate and we put things off. And they just wasted time.
They spent much time there. And the Spirit didn't see fit
to tell us what they were doing. And when much time was spent,
verse 9, sailing was now dangerous. The reason was because the fast
was now already passed. It's really not a time to be
going. I could see him say, well, I
think we'll get up in the morning and we're gonna set sail. And
you know it's dangerous and you still want to do it. You know
it's not the smartest thing to do and you still want to do it. Anymore, it just seems, I don't
want to get off point, it seems like what we used to call common
sense. It's hard to find anymore. With
these men, it would have been common sense, you don't sell
this time of year. They've wasted time. It's not
as dangerous. Because the fast was now already
passed. Some believe it's probably sometime
in September. But Paul admonishes them. They've
been looking to their wisdom, their reasoning, and now God's
gonna speak. Now Paul's not a man, he's not
a sailor. He was a tent maker by trade
when he was growing up, and then he was a Pharisee of the Pharisees.
He may have studied some about ships, but he didn't, he's not
a professional shipman by any means. But Paul admonished him,
and he said unto them, sirs, You can imagine everybody thinking,
well, what are we going to do? Do we need to set sail? Everybody's
giving their opinion. Everybody this day and time in
which we live has their opinion. What does God say? That's the
most important thing. What does God say? God's going to speak. It's amazing
that on this ship just happens to be an apostle. just happens
to be one that God uses to speak to men, just a frail creature.
And Paul admonished them. And he said unto them, sirs,
I perceive that this voyage will be with hurt and must damage,
not only of the lading and the ship, but also our lives. This ship's gonna be destroyed.
everything in the ship's gonna be washed away. When we get to
the end of the chapter, when it's all said and done, there's
nothing left except the lives of, and I don't mean that by
saying that literal, that just these men, that's the precious
cargo on the ship is these souls, these 276 men. But when it's
all said and done, the ship will be gone, it'll be torn all to
pieces, everything that was on the ship is gone, and they'll
be standing on the shore. standing on the shore safely. But to get from here to there,
they're going through some storms. And to get from where you are
at this morning to you make it home to glory, you're gonna go
through some trouble. Just you mentioned all those
people that either have cancer or even some type of trouble
they're going through. Those storms, those trials, they
come for a reason. They come to wean us from this
world, that we would cast our eyes upon Jesus and the things
of earth grow strangely dim. Verse 10. He said, as I've already
read, I perceive that this voyage will be with hurt and much damage,
not only of the lady and the ship, but also of our lives.
Imagine what they thought. Who's this guy? He's probably
standing there in shackles. He's a prisoner. Who you gonna
listen to? This is what Paul said. Now I'm
telling you, you can either believe it or not. That's up to you. This is what he says. Believe
it, or you say, I'm not believing it. Nevertheless, the centurion,
believed the master and the owner of the ship more than those things
which were spoken of Paul." Here's the captain. He's the owner of
the ship. He's probably made a lot of money
with this ship. He's probably got some very precious
cargo. He's probably got some people
that's paid a lot of money to ride in this ship. So who are
you gonna listen to? Who's this man more concerned
about? He's more concerned about making a dollar. He's not concerned
about the danger. He's just spouting off. I've heard that for all my life,
that stuff about salvation by grace. I've heard that. Well,
who you gonna believe? Everyone here this morning, remember
this. Be careful who you listen to. There's a lot of voices that
like to get us distracted. Paul warned them. No, God warned
them. God warned them. But they believed. We believe
the master of the ship. And the centurion, we trust him. It's going to be okay. It may
be a little troubled sea. We might be leaving a little
bit later in the season, but it'll be okay. Trust me. Trust
me, it'll be all right. And that's what they did. That's
what they did. And because the haven where they
were at, they actually had docked this boat here. And because the
haven was not commodious to winter in, What are you going to do
all winter? I don't think they would spend
all their time on the boat. There must have been places around
that harbor where you could probably go get something to eat. You
could have probably got you a nice room. You could have probably
done a lot of different things. But this place is so small, they
don't have a lot of those things. We don't want to stay here all
winter. It's not commodious to winter
in. So what are we gonna do? We'll go somewhere else. Just
so we can spend the winter there. A little nicer place. A little
place on up the coast. That's where we wanna go. And because the haven was not
commodious, verse 12, to winter in, the more part advised to
depart also, if by any means. Notice that if by any means they
might obtain to finesse, will you do whatever means it takes,
this is what we want to do. And you know what? If God don't
stop us, we'll do exactly what we want to do. If he doesn't
step in our way, we will do exactly what our flesh wants to do. which is an haven of Crete and
lie toward the south, west, and northwest. Okay, now get the picture. They're
here in this harbor, and they've heard from God, and they've heard
from the master of the boat and the centurion, and they say,
well, we don't really want to stay here anyway. Okay, we're
leaving in the morning. So they get out and pull up the
anchor, untie the boat, and pull up the mainsail. Boy, the wind's blowing softly.
It's a soft wind from the south, a warm, not a cold breeze, but
a warm. Oh, God's blessing it. It seems
like in Providence that's why the wind blew the way it did,
and they all seemed like, well, this is what we were looking
for. We're going to have smooth sailing
all the way. Ask Jonah about that. The Lord
told him to go to Nineveh. And when he told him, he said,
I'm not going to Nineveh. And you know what he did? He
went down where you could rent a boat. He found the boat, found
somebody willing to take him on the boat, and he pulled out,
had the money to buy the ticket. Must be the Lord's will. Till
the storm came up. Till the storm came up. And that
was for Jonah. But you remember who's on this
ship. Paul is on this ship with all these other men, and they're
all going to go through it. We don't know what may come our
way, but we're all going through it. We'll all have to face it.
I know one thing we'll all have to face, we will all one day
have to face death. And we in this life, we have
to come to the face, the acknowledging of our sin. That's the biggest
storm we face. We think sometimes they say we've
got it under control and everything's blowing, everything's going just
easy. Just wait. Just wait. When the south wind, verse 13,
blew softly, supposing. You know, that's when we always
get in trouble. We suppose. Do you know when they come to
Jerusalem, when our Lord was 12 years of age, that Mary and
Joseph leaves and they go a day journey, supposing that Jesus
was in their company, and he wasn't. When Naaman come to Elisha to
be healed, he said, or he thought, he said,
I thought he'd come out and wave his hands. He supposed that's
what he would do. Men suppose. And they, supposing that they
had obtained their purpose following thence, they sailed close by
Crete. Just, I can see it just so easy.
No waves. I said, man, if it's like this
all the way, this is gonna be paradise. This ain't, this is
easy. But wait just a minute. Verse
14. But not long after, There rose a tempestuous wind
called Yuroklodon, a typhoon. I know some of y'all have seen
on TV, aggravate my wife Sandy about it because they named that
hurricane or that northeastern, they named it Sandy. Remember
a couple years ago? It wasn't just about a time it
reached up there and it comes in off of that cold. It's not
only wind and rain, but it's cold and just bites to your bone. People speak of it. That's what this was. All of
a sudden, where did this come from? Who owns and controls everything? I love to sing that song, this
is our father's world. This world needs to find that
out. It's not their world. It's his world. He sends the
storm when he sees fit. It comes as strong and lasts
as long as he sees fit. He sent this for these people
on this boat. You know what he's going to do?
He's going to teach them and he teaches us. We think everything's
going smoothly. Everything's fine. Everything
seems well. Let me give you an example. Sandy's
mom and dad, they've had a few physical issues, but not nothing
really major. Well, he did survive pancreatic
cancer. That's pretty severe. 17 years
ago. Never even had any treatment.
You imagine that. And then four or five years later,
he had prostate cancer. Survived it. He's 85. Now he's having many strokes.
losing some of his vision, and don't hardly know where he's
at, and they tried to put him in a rehab hospital, and you
know, it's hard to find a good one. But you know what I'm saying?
You see what I'm saying? That's a storm. Well, where's
he gonna stay? Well, he can't stay in that rehab
hospital. He'll be dead. Her sister had to change her
life, and her daddy moved there last night. And when we go down,
we're going to go by there to see her mom and dad. You know
what that is? That's a storm. And what we're
going to have to do, we have to deal with those things. And
they will come. They will come. This violent,
violent storm. Will the boat be able to stand
it? Why did this come? The Lord had a purpose and a
reason. So here comes this storm, this
tepetuous wind. And when the ship was caught,
he caught it and could not bear up into the wind. What it's saying
is it couldn't resist it. This wind twisted that boat,
it turned that boat any way he seen fit. You know what it is? There's no resisting. You know
what we do? We have to submit. When the ship, look at this verse
15, was called up and could not bear up into the wind, you know
what they did? We got to let her drive. Just hang on. That sounds terrifying, doesn't
it? But that's all they could do. All they could do. And then running
under a certain island, verse 16, which is called Colonia,
we had much work to come by the boat, which when they had taken
up, they used helps under the ship, undergirding the ship.
And fearing lest they should fall into some quicksand, they
straked sail, and so were driven. And we being exceedingly tossed
with the tempest, just keep on, it won't let up. One storm, one
wind right after another, even blowing at night. When are you
going to rest? It's like the troubled sea. You know what they
did the next day? We've got to get rid of some
stuff. We've got too much stuff on the
boat. It's weighting us down. It said they lightened the ship. You know, all of us have a lot
of things that are just not really important. It's just vanity and vexation
of spirit. I'll say this, and I think Sandy,
I think she'll understand, I think she is and will. Most of you
know I was married before. And the last picture we ever
had made together was in this church, 2008. several years ago. But it was
all of a sudden when she got sick. I took her to the hospital
one Sunday evening. She's just not feeling well.
Her blood pressure's low, right above 50, and they come in three
or four hours later, and she seemed to be fine. They said,
are you okay? She said, no, my chest is burning. They did some
tests, and they said, you're having a heart attack. We're
gonna send you to Baptist Hospital, which is a great hospital. And
they can take care of you. Well, everything I thought was
okay till the next morning. And at the hospital before they
sent her to Baptist, they give her a medicine called a clot
buster. And by Monday morning, she's having bleeds on her brain.
And they said, unless it stops, we can't stop it. That's a tempestuous
wind. We all go through. But they serve a purpose. Some
things I thought was important, shoot, ain't important no more.
Not important anymore. We lighten the ship, verse 19,
and the third day we cast with our own hands the tackling of
the ship. Well, we better keep it. No, we don't need it. It's
dragging us down. We've got to get rid of it. Something else, let me share
with you. Me and my first wife, we was in business together.
She was amazing business partner. So not only lost my wife, I lost
my business partner. I wanted to get rid of that business
so bad, every morning it made me sick just going in there,
because it's not the same. That was in 2008. I had to ride that ship for another
four years. Nothing I can do. What am I to
do? Go in there and do the best job
I can and honor him. But when it was time, it was
gone. And you know when it happened?
December of 2012. You know what happened the next
year? October 2013, I become the pastor. That's where the storm took me. But you could see his hand in
everything. We cast out with our own hands
the decking of the ship. And when neither sun nor stars
in many days appeared, They can't direct the ship. They
don't have compasses in these things. They do it by the stars
or the moon or the sun. They can't see. It's total darkness
for days. I told them Wednesday night at
the church, when I don't know what to do, when we don't know
what to do, you know what you do? Nothing. That don't mean
you do nothing, but you stay right where you are. No small tempest lay on us. I want you to get this, I want
you to see this. All hope that we should be saved
was then taken away. Why did they get in this mess?
Because they wouldn't believe God. They got their self in this
mess, but they can't get themselves out of this mess. We've got our
self in this mess, and we cannot, all hope that we should be saved
by our self, it's gone. All hope that we could save or
change ourselves. I talked to someone the other
day and they were dealing with depression. And they said, well,
maybe I just need to read more, need to pray more. Maybe if I
pray two or three hours. I said, if God don't enable you,
you can't pray. It's just uttering words. And
if God, if he don't help you to see something, it's just reading
lines. All hope that we could be saved
is taken away. And from God's point, that's
a good thing. And if God ever brings you to the place that
you, unless you see that you cannot save yourself, you're miserable. And you imagine, shall be what
we're going to do. We've thrown out everything we
can think of to get rid out of the chip. What are we to do? But after long abstinence, Paul
stood forth in the midst of them and says, Sirs, you should have
hearkened unto me. God's people take rebuke. You
know, he said he told Timothy, he said, preach the word, be
instant in season out of season. And you know what? The first
thing he said, reprove, rebuke, Exhort with all long suffering
and darkness. You know what my fault is? I
disobeyed. You say, what do you mean disobeyed? You know what
disobedience is? It's unbelief. They just didn't
believe God. And he pointed it out and said,
Serge, you should have hearkened unto me. Why didn't I listen? Have you ever felt that way?
I know the problem. I know it's my problem. I made
the mess, but I can't get myself out of it. He said, you should
have hearkened unto me and not loose from Crete and to have
suffered and to have gained this harm and loss. But I exhort you, be of good
cheer. Oh, here comes the gospel. Be
of good cheer, for there shall be no loss of any man's life
among you but of the ship. None of you is gonna die. 276 people all gonna make it
safe. Now the ship's gonna be destroyed. It'll serve its purpose,
but all of you gonna make it to the shore. How can that be? How we gonna make it? You know
how we're gonna make it? It's called grace. Grace. For there stood by me this night
the angel of God, whom I am and whom I serve, saying, fear not,
Paul, thou must be brought before Caesar, and lo, God hath given
thee all that sail with thee. Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheers,
for I believe God. that it shall be even as it was
told me. It is the promise of almighty
God and I believe him. My question is, do you believe
him? Do I believe him? Let him send
a storm. I believe that it should be as
God had told me, how be it? We must be cast upon a certain
island. Well, the ship's going to be
destroyed. If the ship's destroyed, how are we going to make it on
the island? How are we going to make it to the island? And when the 14th night was come
and we were driven up and down in Adria about midnight, the
shipmen deemed that they drew near to some country. They sensed
for some reason, maybe, I don't know, that they were close to
some land. And they sounded and they found
it 20 fathoms. This is how deep the water was.
And then they had gone a little further and they found that it
was a little bit shallower. They were getting closer to land.
Then fearing lest we should have fallen upon rocks, they cast
forth anchors out of the stern and wished for the day. You ever wish the night would
be over? Wished for the day. One day there'll be a new day.
No more sorrow, no more pain. Some of you asked me about, I
had a knee surgery back in January. And there was a lot of nights
I wished for the day. Nerve pain and different things,
and give me the wrong medicine, and you're hallucinating, and
you can't sleep at night. And then sometimes I can't even
sleep during the day. After two or three days, that
gets pretty old. I was telling someone, I told
Sandy, I said, there's stuff crawling on that wall. She said,
I don't see nothing. I said, it's crawling on this
wall. She said, I don't see nothing. I said, I'm gonna take a picture
of it. And I seen it in the picture. But you see what I'm saying?
I wished that it was over. But you know what? Nothing I
did could make it any better. Boy, I'd be glad to see the sun.
That's what it said. They wished for the day. And
as the shipmen were about to flee out of the ship, This is
the men who ran the ship. When they had let down the boats
into the sea under the color as though would have cast anchors
out of the ship, they went down and they were pretending that
they were going to cast the anchors out of the ship. That ain't what
they were doing. Paul noticed what they were doing.
You know what they were doing? We're going to let down the lifeboats.
What about everybody else? We don't care about them. We're
just interested in saving ourselves. We're gonna let down the lifeboats,
and we're gonna get in them, and we're gonna go to shore.
Y'all can do whatever you want to. And Paul said, I said that
except these abide in the ship, they cannot be saved. And you
know what the soldiers did? They took an axe or something
and they cut off the ships, the little boats hanging on the side
of the ship. You know what someone called
them ships? Just in case boats. Just in case the boat's going
down, we'll jump in the lifeboat. You know, as I thought about
that, you think about the Titanic. They said it's unsinkable. Well,
why put any lifeboats on it? And then when they needed them,
they didn't have enough. But you know what we have to
do? We not only have to get rid of everything in the ship, we
got to get rid of them just in case boats. What's left? The word of God. Everything else is going to be
selfish one. I'll go down and get me a lifeboat.
I ain't tell nobody about it. We'll get to shore. They can
defend for theirself. But he said, even those men,
the only way they're going to survive, not in a lifeboat. They
got to stay in the ship. Verse 32, then the soldiers cut
off the ropes of the boats and let them fall off. And while
the day was coming on, Paul besought them to take meat, saying, the
day is the 14th day that you have tarried and continued fasting,
having taken nothing. Now that doesn't mean they had
fasted for 14 days. Many of them would be alive if
they had went 14 days without eating. What I understand this
is to be, they didn't have much of an appetite. And if you were
tossed to and fro, if I was tossed to and fro, I'd be seasick. What
he was saying, they didn't have much appetite, but he said, you
know, you need to eat a little something. It's for your health. You know what we need? We need to feast on God's word.
That's our nourishment. That's our strength. Wherefore,
I pray you to take, verse 34, some meat, for this is for your
health, for there shall not a hair fall from the head, of any of
you. You know how many hair you got
on your head? No. Do I know? No, I know I got less than I
used to. But you know, the Lord's even
concerned about the little things. He knows how many you have. Not
a hair of your head shall fall from your head without your father's
knowledge. And when he had thus spoken, verse 35, he took bread
and gave thanks. in the presence of them all. You imagine this man, I'd say
it was a pretty solemn time. He takes a piece of bread. Thank
you, Lord, for taking care of us. Thank you for protecting
us. Thank you for giving us a little bread, a little something to
eat. And he broke the bread. And they began to eat. Then they
were all glad. Then they were all of good cheer,
verse 36, and they also took some meat. And we were in all
in the ship, 200, three score, and 16 souls. And when they had eaten enough,
they lightened the ship and throwed the rest of the wheat off the
boat. What are you going to eat? I could say, don't do that. We
may need it. You know what I think that was?
It's not fatalism, that was faith. They believed God. God helped me to believe. If
I'd never believed, God enabled me right this second to believe.
To believe. Verse 38, And when they had eaten
enough, they lightened the ship and cast out the weed into the
sea. And when it was day, they knew not the land. But they discovered
a certain creed with the shore into which they were minded if
it were possible that they could thrust the ship. 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 were making it toward shore.
We've been at sea long enough, and here we go. And drive her
right into the sand. And she just nails it. She can't
come up on the shore. She's a little short of the shore.
And you know what happens to the back of the ship? The waves
just tear it all to pieces. It had served its purpose. It
was broken, broken. and falling into a certain place
where two seas met, life and death, heaven and hell. They
ran to ship aground, and the fore part stuck fast and remained
unmovable, but the hinder part was broken with the violence
of the waves. And the soldier's counsel was to kill the prisoners. They're all in the boat. Why
would they turn on these people? Kill the prisoners lest any of
them should swim out and escape. But here's that centurion again,
willing to save Paul, kept them from the purpose and commanded
that they which could swim cast themselves first into the sea
and get to land. What about those who can't swim? They ain't no lifeboats. How
are they going, how are you going to get, we don't know how far
it is, but no, it doesn't matter how far it is if you can't swim.
It doesn't matter if it's five feet or 20 feet, that doesn't
matter. Here's what he said. And the rest, some on boards
and some on broken pieces of the ship. And so it was, so it
came to pass that they escaped all safe to land. Some people may leave this world
and just have extreme faith. And some may be like a man like
David Brainerd. This man died in his 20s. This
man wore his body out trying to preach to the Indians in the
North England states. And he died at Jonathan Edwards'
house. And they said the last 24 hours
of his life, he tried to look to see if there was any evidence
that he believed God. That's a man who thinks he can't
swim. But you know what they did? I guarantee if you, the
boat, you can't stay in the boat, what are you gonna do? I gotta
make it to, how can I get to the shore on a piece, the broken
piece of the ship? The wave carries them up on shore.
I can say, for instance, because I like to drown at one time,
once you almost drown, you don't get that off your mind. It's
hard to move past that. I can tell you this, if they
throwed me out, I'd look for anything I could grab onto and
I wouldn't turn it loose. I know Christ holds us, but I
can tell you this, I want to grab him with both arms and I
ain't turning him loose. He was broken, he was bruised
to put away our sin and every one of them. Here comes another
one. I don't know if he'll make it.
He'll make it. He can't swim in what the wave did. The same
wave that tore that boat all to pieces brings him right up
on the shore. Man. That's solid. I'm walking on solid ground. Ain't it staggering? I'm not...
being cast to and fro, acting like a drunk man, being at my
wits end. No, I'm safe. You know, I think
a lot of us, I can't remember who said it, but someone said,
when we get to glory, there'll be a lot of people there that
we didn't expect to be there. And there'll be some there, a
lot there, that we expected to be there, and they were not there.
But the most amazing thing will be is we'll be there. And they all escaped safe to
land. You know, to me, I just, every
time I try to read this chapter, it blesses my heart. I hope it
blessed yours. I pray God in his grace to give you a little
something, just a little nugget to help you through life. Because you know, he's in control
of all things. Everything that moves everything
that wiggles everything that draws a breath Is ordained of
our God for the salvation of his it's just a little storm
And he will bring us to him, amen