We're going to read from verse
21, Acts chapter 27 and verse 21. But after long abstinence,
Paul stood forth in the midst of them and said, Sirs, ye should
have hearkened unto me and not have loosed from Crete, and to
have gained this harm and loss. And now I exhort you to be of
good cheer, For there shall be no loss of any man's life among
you, but of the ship. 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 was 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. Then fearing lest we should have
fallen upon rocks, they cast four anchors out of 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 colour, as though they would have cast anchors
out of the foreship, Paul said to the centurion and to the soldiers,
except these abide in the ship, ye 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 ye have
tarried and continued fasting, having taken nothing. Wherefore
I pray you to 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 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 in all in the ship
two hundred threescore and sixteen souls. And when they had eaten
enough, they lightened the ship and cast out the wheat into the
sea. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading. That little reference there in
verse 37 tells us that there were 276 people on board this ship. This
was no small ship. This was a major incident. Can you imagine what it would
be like if there was a ship with that number of people running
adrift in the sea today, it would be a major incident. And so it
was then too, certainly for those with no means of contacting the
land and simply driven before the wind, wherever it
would take them. You know, there are so many stories
and incidents in these verses that I felt that we could not
pass them over too quickly. Last week we left the ship and
the crew and the travellers. without hope in the midst of
this great storm. That is not to say that Paul
had no hope, he still had this promise that Christ had given
him, but he must have wondered how it was to be, and especially
when all around him were concerned. Luke could say, all hope that
we should be saved was then taken away. and Paul may well have
feared for the lives of those 276 people on board ship with
him. He believed that he would go
to Rome and speak before Caesar, but what would happen if he alone
was preserved and his friends taken at the destruction of this
ship? And it seems as if Paul prayed
for everyone on board. because when God's angel messenger
came to him, he suggests that all of the people, all 276 souls,
had been given to Paul, or the 275 with Paul with them, had
been given to Paul as he requested. And that's a very interesting
point that we should know. They had been committed or they
had been given into his hands. So Paul's intercession for those
who were with him in danger had been heard by God. And God had
given the lives of those 275 men, some who were his captors,
few who desired any good for Paul and his travelling companions. but Paul prayed for them all. And I have no doubt that many
unbelievers have been blessed because the Lord preserves his
own dear children. and the unbelievers have been
blessed together with them. And that is worth our remembering. There are judgments which do
not fall upon us and those around about us because of God's safeguarding
and safekeeping of his people. And that surely is an encouragement
for us to pray for others also. When Paul rose to speak to everyone,
he spoke words of hope. And that in itself is a blessed
thing to realise. It is a blessed privilege for
all gospel preachers to be able to bring words of hope to a needy
generation. And what Paul had to say was
simply this, salvation is in Christ. because he was able to
tell these people, men and women, perhaps youngsters as well, he
was able to tell them prophetically that there would be a full deliverance
of all that were on board. Paul says, God, whose I am and
whom I serve, he testifies to belonging to the Lord Jesus Christ. not merely because God had created
him, not merely because Christ had created Paul as he created
all things, but by election Paul belonged to God. By redemption,
Paul belonged to the Lord Jesus Christ. And by conversion, Paul
belonged to Christ. And so we see that belonging
to the Lord is a process by which we have revealed to us our interest
in the Lord Jesus Christ, our interest in covenant purpose
through election and redemption when the Lord Jesus Christ died
for his people and the conversion which is brought to us by God
the Holy Spirit. So God the Father, God the Son
and God the Holy Spirit is the God whose I am and whom I serve. Paul also speaks about faith
and he is able to say, I believe God that it shall be even as
God has told me. Even as it was told me, so shall
it be. Paul believed what the Lord had
said to him. He believed the promises. He
was trusting, not in the ship, not in the abilities of the sailors,
not in the protection of the centurion or the guards. He trusted
in God. And why wouldn't he? Because
God is all-powerful. Natural men and natural women. We are sinners, we are rebels
against God. We are opposed to God and we
deny God and we reject God. Perhaps some of these people
would say on the ship with Paul that night, I've seen storms
like this. We're not going to make it. And perhaps the soldiers were
saying, we're not going to risk losing any of these prisoners,
we're going to have to kill them. And even believers sometimes
have little faith and find it difficult to trust in the Lord.
And that is why the Lord has to take us through these stormy
experiences, take us through these difficult circumstances,
that he might exercise our faith. There's a picture here of Paul
and this ship with all of these people of the life with the storms
that we face and the uncertainty that we encounter and the choices
that we have to make as to whether we are going to trust the Lord
or not. Will we trust him? Will you trust
him? Will I trust him? Paul could
say, I believe God that it shall be even as it was told me. and we can have confidence that
what God has said is true. And when we hear the Gospel of
the Lord Jesus Christ, when we hear of Christ coming into this
world to save sinners, when we see that message in the Gospel
of Christ going to the cross to save his people from their
sins, we can believe that his people are saved, are safe. In verses 31 and 32, Last week we, or rather last
week in what we read, we read about the centurion not believing
Paul's warning about leaving Crete. I think that was in verse
11. But here in 31 and 32, we now discover that the centurion
has changed his views. He didn't believe Paul's word
before, but now he believes. Now he follows Paul's direction
and he prevents the crew from escaping. And that's an interesting
point as well because this reminds us that the Lord God in his providence
establishes the means as well as the end. What God has promised
will come true, but every step along the way to the accomplishment
of that end is also in our God's providential care and control. It shall be as God promises. And all the steps to accomplish
God's word are also prepared and fixed. This reminds us of
our sovereign God that we worship. I just want to show you very
quickly the map that we looked at last week. And here you'll
see on this map how right in the centre there is the island
of Crete. and there the arrow points at
five and Fairhaven's. That's where Paul told the people
that they should stay. They decided no, they wanted
to try and make their way along the coast a little bit to Phoenix
because there was a better place to stay there at Pheasic's. Fairhaven
wasn't good in rough times and they wanted to get to Phoenix
if they could. But once they started out, they
were blown south of that island, Clodagh. and right into the middle
of the Mediterranean Sea. And up at the top left-hand corner
there, you can see that there's a reference to the Adriatic Sea. Well, that's what we call the
Adriatic now. But it used to be that the name
Adriatic stretched right down there, past that little boot
of Italy that you can see on the map. And that area in there,
that big area above the number six, is where Paul and the ship
was blown about for 14 days. And then we're told that they
came to Malta. So that was the island that they
came to. And you'll be able, if you think
about the narrative that we've read there, to see something
of the way in which the people were anxious and frightened about
being shipwrecked on that island and the reference there to taking
the depths and working on the fathoms or the depth of the water.
The Mediterranean Sea is a very deep sea but these people knew
when they took these measurements at At 20 fathoms, that would
be about 120 feet, and then 15 fathoms coming into it, about
90 feet, they knew that the ship that they were in was getting
much closer and closer to land. and they committed their well-being
into the hands of Paul's God. And it is just lovely to see
how the Apostle was able to witness for the Lord in the midst of
this crisis. And next week we're going to
see what happens and how that indeed, though the ship is shipwrecked
on the island of Malta, The Lord God's word is true and all of
the passengers and crew of the ship are preserved. So thank
you for your attendance once again and for listening to these
few remarks.