Acts chapter 28 and I want to
read the first 10 verses of this chapter. You'll remember that the apostle
and his friends, some 276 souls on board this ship, had been
shipwrecked on an island and yet according to a vision received
by Paul, and God's will, all 276 had managed to clamber to
safety either by throwing themselves into the sea and swimming to
shore or by holding on to pieces of wood as their ship broke up
in the waves and thereby getting to the dry land. And so we read
together in Acts chapter 28 and verse 1. And when they were escaped,
Then they knew that the island was called Milita, or Milita, and the barbarous people showed
us no little kindness, for they kindled a fire and received us
every one because of the present rain and because of the cold. And when Paul had gathered a
bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire, there came a viper
out of the heat and fastened on his hand. And when the barbarians
saw the venomous beast hanging on his hand, they said among
themselves, no doubt this man is a murderer, whom though he
hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance suffereth not to live. and he
shook off the beast into the fire and felt no harm. Howbeit, they looked when he
should have swollen or fallen down dead suddenly, but after
they had looked a great while and saw no harm come to him,
they changed their minds and said that he was a god. In the same quarters were possessions
of the chief man of the island, whose name was Publius, who received
us and lodged us three days courteously. And it came to pass that the
father of Publius lay sick of a fever and of a bloody flux,
to whom Paul entered in and prayed and laid his hands on him and
healed him. So when this was done, others
also which had diseases in the island came and were healed,
who also honoured us with many honours. And when we departed,
they laded us with such things as were necessary. Amen. May God bless to us this reading
from his word. So last week we saw how the Apostle
Paul and Luke and their party and all these couple of hundred,
276 souls on board this ship had been saved. Their ship had
reached land and they were preserved from the sea and from the storm. And just to recap briefly, because
we do well not to forget this, this island on which they landed
was called Milita, or Milita, and we call it Malta. We know
it today as Malta and some of you may know about Malta. It's right there in the middle
of the Mediterranean Sea. But these people, this ship had
been driven almost 500 miles by the wind. and then broken on this little
island and it really is quite extraordinary for us to realise
just the smallness of this island in the midst of all this distance
and yet this is where God brought them and I'll just show you that
map again because I have it at my disposal. But there's that
long line from the island in the centre, which is Crete, all
the way over to Malta, which is just a little dot, just a
little pimple if you like, right there in the middle of the sea
under Sicily, that larger island. You talk about Italy being in
the shape of a boot. Well, it's like a cowboy boot
I suppose and that could even be a spur coming out of the back
of it and then there's the heel and then there's the toe of Italy
and then right at the toe of Italy is the island of Sicily
and there at the bottom of Sicily is a little patch of land which
is called Malta and this is the island upon which Paul and his
friends landed. And really it's quite an amazing
thing that in all of that distance of sea the Lord brought their
ship to what we now call Malta. And the islanders, when the ship
was beached and when it started to break up in the surf, The
islanders were kind to this shipwrecked group and we're told that they
built a large fire to warm the party against the rain and the
cold. Maybe it was a lot of different
fires or certainly would have to be a very big one for all
those people to crowd around one fire. But they set these
fires in order that the party might be warmed and comforted
against the rain and the cold. And we're told that these people
were barbarous, that's how Luke describes them, but we are not
to think of that in the sense that they were cruel or that
they were mean-spirited at all to the party. On the contrary,
it seems that they had gone out of their way to be as courteous
and kind and warmly receptive as they could be. The reference
to barbarous there probably has to do with the language that
they spoke, that they did not speak Hebrew or Greek or Latin,
but they spoke another language. It may well have been a language
which was derived from some form of Phoenician, because it was
Phoenicians that had ruled in Malta for many, many years. And while it was now currently
under Roman direction and Roman governance, the ordinary people,
the common people, the people who worked the land and would
have been there on hand to see the people that had been washed
ashore, they spoke another language and Luke calls them barbarians
for so doing. Paul goes and helps with the
providing of wood for this fire and Paul's pile of sticks that
he had gathered up and laid on top of the fire, we find that
it drove out a viper that had been taking perhaps keeping warm
or maybe even sleeping there in one of the logs that the apostle
collected and put on the fire. And when we read Viper there,
for my friends in Montana, We should read rattlesnake because
that's exactly what this was. It was a snake of the rattlesnake
family, or in the same family as the rattlesnake is, and therefore
its venom was very poisonous. And we see that this snake wrapped
itself around Paul's hand. Now it's not entirely clear from
the passage if the snake bit into Paul's hand or not, but
certainly it seems as if the islanders knew the danger and
they expected the Apostle Paul to die from the encounter that
he had with this snake. but it's very interesting to
see their view of fate. They said, well, here's a man
who has just survived this terrible storm, just survived this terrible
journey, just survived this shipwreck and being cast ashore in the
sea, and now a viper bites him. Obviously, this man is sentenced
to death in some way. Vengeance requires the death
of this man. But Paul was able to shake the
snake back into the fire and was unharmed. And it generated
amazement amongst these people. They were superstitious, and
as a result of their superstition, they were fickle in their views. They once thought that Paul must
be culpable and worthy of death
because vengeance wouldn't allow him to live. And then immediately
they think, oh no, he's still alive, he must be a god. And
it shows us just how fickle superstitious people are. They're easily convinced
by their own opinions and by the things that they see. They
interpret the world by the things that they see. whereas we as
Christians are taught to interpret what we see by what the Bible
says and what God has revealed to us in his word. We may wonder why this incident
took place. Well, perhaps it's because the
Lord is reminding us that there are dangers all around and there
was Paul delivered from the sea but exposed to just a little
snake that was asleep inside a log or wrapped on a piece of
wood. But God preserved him nevertheless. And it may well be that the incident
garnered respect for Paul and set him apart amongst the group
of people that had come ashore at this time, at least in the
estimations of the people here from Malta. Publius is introduced
to us now as a leading man in the community and he continued
to show this kindness to the shipwrecked people and he housed
them for three days in order for various things no doubt to
be arranged for the well-being of the people. He himself put
them up for three days in various places and Paul It's lovely here
to see that he was able to recompense Publius for his kindness by healing
the father of Publius from a rather serious illness. And it's interesting
to see that here this personal interaction between the leader
of the island and the apostle again was allowed by the grace
and providence of God to take place. Paul prays. and then he lays a hand on Publius'
father and he is healed. But that prayer in itself is
interesting because it reminds us that the Apostle Paul was
directing glory to God for the healing. And that's important
because you remember that the people had interpreted that Paul
was some sort of God because of the Viper incident. And Paul
is saying here, no, not me. Not me, but the God whom I worship. And praying to God made it clear
to those who were watching on that the glory was God's and
not the man. As a result of this healing,
many others came from all around the island and were healed by
Paul also. And we're told, we don't read
it in the verses that we read today, but in the coming verses,
we're told that they stayed there for about three months. And I
imagine that the Apostle Paul and maybe even some of those
that were in his party preached during those three months because
that's what Paul did wherever he went and I'm sure that there
would have been conversions followed so that he both healed the souls
of men and women on the island from their sin as well as healing
their bodies from the diseases that they brought to him. But
I just wanted to pick out a couple of points here that we might
learn something from these verses to take away from the narrative
or the story. And the first one is this. I
wanted to point out the generous way in which Paul and so large
a number of people were treated by the inhabitants of Malta. I think that's noticeable. Here
were people who were obviously in need, but 276 of them. It might have overwhelmed the
population on that little island. and yet they went out of their
way to welcome them as much as they could. Why? Because they
were people who needed help. They were people who were damaged. They didn't know where they were
from. They didn't know, indeed, what they might do. They may
have had anxiety. They may have had some worries.
They may have seen so many people washing up on their shore and
thought to themselves, how on earth are we going to deal with
this problem? but they were kind and they were
generous. And I think that it is worthy
of note that this is how they acted with these people. They weren't vicious and they
weren't cruel. They didn't decide that they
would take their lives or hold them in prison, but they treated
them kindly. That was not always the way in
which Paul and his companions were received in the various
places that they went to. And from this perhaps we learn
that the Lord predisposes the attitude of people and he can
do it without any difficulty so that the reaction which he
engenders amongst people by the circumstances that prevail causes
them to act in a particular way. You know, the Lord doesn't force
men and women to do anything. He doesn't force them to act
in certain ways, but providentially he arranges matters and circumstances
so that people act out of their own self-interest for their own
reasons, but nevertheless they fulfil the will and the purpose
of God. So that's one thing that we can
learn about the kindness of these people and how the apostle was
so blessed by them. But here's another interesting
thing, and I don't want to make too much of this, but I did find
it quite intriguing personally when I was thinking about this. The healing of these people is
mentioned by Luke, and the duration of Paul's presence on the island
at three months, and the kindness of the people, and we're told
that they provided gifts to Paul and the party as they were getting
ready to leave the island. So greatly appreciated by the
islanders was Paul and his party. But I wonder if you notice with
me that there is no reference to any souls being saved. There's no reference to any of
them believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, or indeed a church being
established. And yet, had Paul been for three
months, they overwintered on the island until they could get
a ship that was leaving in safe conditions. If Paul had been
there three months in many other cities that he had travelled
to in his various missionary journeys, we would have expected
the establishment of churches during this period. I wonder
why there is no mention of souls being saved. We always appreciate
knowing that people are saved. We like to hear that people have
believed. And I think that it's very likely
that people did believe. The gifts that were provided
and the care that was taken of the apostle, I think probably
reflects that there was a little group of people there, but we're
not told. And perhaps Luke, under the direction
of the Holy Spirit, withholds that information simply to remind
us that the salvation of sinners is God's business. The numbers
involved, the where and the when, the why and the who, is according
to his will and purpose. And who is to say that if many
are saved, or few are saved, or none at all are saved, that
that in itself is a measure of success or failure in gospel
witness? A preacher should remember that.
Those of us who declare the gospel should remember that, that it's
not up to us to see about numbers. but rather this is a matter in
which God will deal with the hearts and souls of men and women
in his time and in his way. Do you remember at the beginning
of the book of Acts, we've made mention of it already, 3,000
souls were saved on the day of Pentecost, and we rejoice to
hear that. Thousands more in the days following. And now here
at the end of the Acts of the Apostles, Luke ends this three
month period of Paul on an island where perhaps the gospel had
never been preached before without any reference to converts. The numbers were there at the
beginning but not mentioned at the end. Now I'm noticing that
without drawing any real conclusions in a sense except this, that
none of the Lord's elect will ever be lost. all of them for
whom the Lord Jesus Christ died, all of them who were elected
according to the purpose of God, all of them who are covered by
the conditions of the covenant of God's grace will be brought
to a knowledge of the truth and faith and belief in the gospel
of Jesus Christ. Paul He's heading to Rome now
and he will spend some more time at Rome. We'll get into that
in the coming weeks. But he's getting near the end
of his life. He's going to Rome for trial. And right at the end
of his life, he was able to pen some letters and he wrote to
Timothy, this young preacher. And in his letter, he speaks
of those who profess salvation but who err in the truth, indicating
about them that the truth of grace was never really present
in their hearts. Now we may have opinion about
who are and who are not the lords. But this is what Paul leaves
with Timothy at the end of his life, having seen perhaps many,
many people converted or professing conversion. Nevertheless, the
old apostle says this to Timothy. He says, those who are the Lord's,
he knows. He knows. Paul says, some reject
us and some leave us. Nevertheless, in 2 Timothy 2
verse 19, the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal,
the Lord knoweth them that are his. We may rejoice at the profession
of one and lament that someone else doesn't seem interested,
but that is not our business. The Lord knoweth them that are
his, and the foundation of God standeth sure. Let us preach
the gospel as we are enabled, as we are allowed, as providence
permits, and let us leave the results of that work and that
ministry in the capable hands of our loving God and Saviour,
Jesus Christ. Amen.