A Spiritual Storm (Part C)

The soldiers were really the only human force that was capable of stopping the escape. There's another lesson. In the midst of a spiritual storm, there are physical responsibilities that we still have. You can't say, well, I'm not going to go to work and expect the paycheck to keep coming in. God has got this, you know, God has got this when you can't do anything else maybe, but you have your responsibilities and we're going to find that to the end.

The girding of the ship, all these guys were fighting to stay afloat. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Acts.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. And now here's Pastor Rick with the conclusion of his study called A Spiritual Storm in Acts chapter 27. Verse 12 of Zechariah 7. Yes, they made their hearts like flint, refusing to hear the law and the words which the Lord of Hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets. Thus great wrath came from the Lord of Hosts.

It's a very simple principle. And you know, why is it so difficult for people to see it once you've seen it? I look back at my own life before I came to Christ and I don't know what I would have listened to. All I know is Christ got hold of me and I don't know. I didn't benefit from somebody sharing the gospel with me in detail. They were sharing the gospel with me briefly, but they couldn't answer my questions.

Christ did. And so it's the storm at sea here is spiritual. The storms of life, they're all spiritual. All the trouble we face in life has a spiritual connection, whether it goes back to the curse in Eden directly or indirectly, as with the soul that just does not want to come to the Lord. And Zechariah calls it out in chapter 7 verse 12, as I read. Verse 23 now of Acts 27. For there stood by me this night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve. Now remember, angels are created beings. Verse 24 saying do not be afraid, Paul.

You must be brought before Caesar and indeed God has granted you all those who sail with you. He's granted their lives, not speaking about their salvation. Not that they some were not or many weren't saved.

Just this is what he's talking about surviving the shipwreck right now. But where he says do not be afraid, Paul tells us Paul was afraid. And we've covered this a few times in the book of Acts when he stood trial.

He didn't know, you know, was he going to be thrown, you know, to his assassins or protected. And the Lord encouraged him there. The devil used this storm to attack God's word to Paul.

How typical. God told him you're going to go. Acts 23 verse 11. Be of good cheer, Paul, for as you have testified for me in Jerusalem, so you must also bear witness at Rome. Well now he's on the ship and it's about to sink and he's doubting that promise. The Satan is using the storm to get this great man of God to doubt.

He just does this all the time. And you know, you can, that's why we have compassion for our brothers and sisters that are going through struggles. We can't wave a wand and take their struggles away. But we can encourage them with a word in season if given by God or we can shut up. Sometimes you don't know when to shut up.

And it's, you know, oh it's going to be all right. You know, you know, just did God give you that or you just felt that you just felt awkward and you had to say something to learn how to be quiet. It's a discipline. It doesn't help when you're going through something and you get vain encouragements. I find it to be a little discouraging actually. I know they mean well but I'm too busy in the fight to, you know, I'd rather someone say, look, it's going to get ugly. You stand your ground. I'd rather hear that than hear it's going to be all right when I don't know if it's going to be all right according to my understanding what all right is.

All right to me is to have the problem immediately be resolved. Well, Paul would have liked to have immediately been in Rome standing in front of Caesar preaching the gospel. Yeah, well, first the storm though. Later he would write, be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. He learned that at sea, as Matthew Paul pointed out.

You don't want to learn to pray, go to sea. And it's nice to see how these, you know, as much as God used this man, it's comforting to see he's flesh and blood like me. He has his doubts like me. I may have more doubts.

I'm sure I have more doubts than him. But still he's trying to serve the Lord but he's a sinner saved by grace like we are. He says, to whom I belong, which reminds us of Jonah's declaration of faith, Jonah 1 verse 9. Here's Jonah running from God but boasting about his service to God. Oh, Jonah's so much fun.

Jonah had a hard time getting over himself. I mean, even after God did so much for him, he's hating on people. And it's just one of my favorite prophets.

Not because he's hating on people, because he's just so honest with his feelings. The best I can share is, well, my driving, you know, what I got to put up with other people. I'm not going to tell you other stuff. But Jonah tells us a lot. Anyway, Jonah said to his shipmates, I am a Hebrew and I fear Yahweh, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. That's a declaration of faith.

But it lacks confession. What is this stuff about you fear the Lord? Why are you running from him? Well, because that's what fear does.

No, it's not. Anyway, he says, whom I serve, Paul now speaking, it is too easy for us to seek to use God rather than to be used by God, is it not? To just get something from God instead of saying, okay, all right, this is a mess.

What do you want me to do? And we can get to that place. Paul, that's where he stayed most of his time serving the Lord. Verse 25, therefore, he says to the men, take heart, for I believe God that it will be just as was told to me. So he's reinforcing his trust in God. He did not pray with his fingers crossed. You know, I'm going to pray, but I really don't believe that God's going to do anything.

I'm going to do it, or maybe to just work out. And I think this is a good illustration of how to and how not to pray. He's not saying, boy, I sure hope God, you know, I believe God. It's what he's coming out, full out and saying, without visible reason to trust him at this point, except the word put on his heart, which Jesus said to Thomas, you know, good Thomas, I'm glad you believe, but blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe. True faith comes from the inside out because it tallies up what it knows. It adds up what it's been looking at, what it's been exposed to. True faith doesn't just say, okay, I'll just change teams because you say so.

That's a lame confession. And that's what we struggle with our children. We want them to have a personal experience with Christ. We want them to tally up, to add up the truths that they are exposed to. When someone says, well, what is a man or a woman? Your mama and your daddy.

That's what a man and woman is. And that just kills the argument to any sane person. But Satan masters in insanity because he too is insane. What fool would challenge God? And what fool would continue to challenge God?

Knowing God, Satan would. And this is, belongs to some of the mayhem that we're dealing with. So faith adds up. It witnesses, it looks at what it sees, and it connects the dots and it makes its decision. That is faith.

He says here in verse 25, that it will be just as it was told me. Well, faith can see in the dark because it's added up what it's been exposed to. And a soul without hope in God tends to be very little use to God.

And I don't want to be that soul. You know, it's easier to follow a degenerate culture than to think for yourself. You young Christians learn to think for yourself.

Just because someone says something doesn't mean it's right. Test all things. Prove all things. Beware many false spirits and prophets have come.

As you go through, you know, when you get into the workplace, you get into the university, if you go to the university, think for yourself. Don't give them that. It's not theirs.

They're not worthy. Christians are to bring their Bibles to church so that we can be reminded. We think for ourselves. If the pastor is backing up what he is saying, as I always do, then of course you don't have to, you know, pull the fire alarm. But if he starts speaking things that aren't backed up in scripture, then you've got to think for yourself or else the devil's just, you're going to be his plaything and on his payroll. So if you, you younger Christians, if you leave with nothing else today, leave with nothing else today, leave with this, it's easier to follow a degenerate culture than to think for yourself.

Which will it be? Because if you're not thinking for yourself, you will be enslaved and that enslavement can have eternal consequences. We adults aren't here because what we believe in is a joke. It's the real deal and we know it and we want to bring you with us. But the time will come where you have to sign off on it.

Faith has got to be yours and there's no reason when you have a pastor like this, there's no reason why you should fail. And if you're visiting, of course, you know I'm serious. Anyway, verse 26, however, now there it is. However, we must run aground on a certain island. Now if you're a non-swimmer, it's like what? And there are non-swimmers on this ship, we'll get that next session. And how God cared, you know, God can save the I can't swims in life.

And so, you know, he tells them, I believe God. However, it's like, oh man, the fine print gets you. This is not good news.

Oh, it's good news considering what the bad news could have been. So this is life. And we're talking about those vain encouragements.

This is not one. This is serious encouragement. I'm trusting God, but you're going to get beat up wet.

And he didn't know he's going to get a snake bite to go with this. Verse 27, now when the 14th night of, let me pause there. We don't have to have the miracles to struggle through life or to understand truth. I don't need miracles to draw conclusions about God that I've been exposed to by God. That is a miracle in itself. Truth is a miracle in a fallen world. And we Christians, we love the truth.

Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. We sing to him, a sight unseen because of what he's done in our hearts. You know, sometimes we're not in the mood to sing.

I mean, sometimes in church I'm not in the mood to sing. I'm just, and, but I know it. I know that. I know what's going on. It's not something I'm indifferent to, but I enjoy watching God's people sing.

I've always found that to be a blessing. Verse 27, now when the 14th night had come, as we were driven up and down the Adriatic Sea about midnight, the sailors sensed that they were drawing near some land. Well, two weeks in a storm out of hell. That's a long time. They had a lot of time to be miserable enough to do, to be desperate enough to listen to a man like Paul, who's going to take command of the ship.

He just started. He's taking command now, without saying, I'm taking command. As he says here in verse 27, as we were driven up and down the Adriatic Sea, today's Ionian Sea in the Mediterranean, these are branches of the Mediterranean Sea, it is not uncommon to find churchgoers with a restless spirit. And again, a metaphor that abounds with teachings for us. Paul said that we should no longer be tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men and the craftiness of deceitful plotting. Well, you can be tossed to and fro because you just have a restless faith and you see, you know, someone goes, they go to a good church, they leave that for no reason. They just say, okay, I got to move on. You know, that's not something to encourage. I get it. But I think that what can you do with folks that won't dig in the, you know, form a perimeter, dig a foxhole and get ready.

You know, if you got a rolling stone gathers no moss. And so what he says, and we were driven up and down the sea, think there are Christians that are driven up and down in their faith for no good reason. And if that's you, I think you can overcome that by just being aware of what's going on. Restlessness is not an excuse to be led by your own spirit. We are children of the Lord, as many as our sons of God are led by the Spirit of God. Paul writes to the Romans. Anyway, he says about midnight, the sailors sensed that they were drawing near some land. The only way they could have known that was the sound of the breakers, that thunder of the waves breaking on the rocks and the coast there, this hitting the shore.

This is hitting the shore. And so that sound would indicate to them that land was closed. Verse 28, and they took soundings and found it to be 20 phantoms. And then they had gone a little farther. They took soundings again and found it to be 15 phantoms.

So Paul was right. We're going to run ashore. They didn't calculate that. So it's 120 feet deep. Then it's 90 feet deep. So they're making their way to shore.

A phantom is a Greek length of about six feet. Verse 29, then fearing lest we should run aground on the rocks, they dropped four anchors from the stern and prayed for a day to come. Why do they use bow and prow and stern and aff and why can't they say front and back?

But they do. It's a nautical deal. And I'm sure our brother Jim can tell us why they do that being a sailor man. Anyhow, this dropping of the anchors as they did would guarantee that the front of the ship, the bow, would face the shore because they're going to beach it. That's the plan to beach this ship and pray that God just, you know, doesn't let them get injured. So he says, and prayed for day to come. They wanted to survive the night.

Verse 30, and the sailors were seeking to escape from the ship when they had let down the skiff into the sea under pretense, putting out anchors from the prow. So what a selfish something to do. God does not work well in a me, me environment.

Me, me is not good for the faith. And instead of using their sailor skills to help their shipmates survive this beaching of the ship, they looked out for themselves. You know, you have to use your strengths, your faithful strengths, to pull people up, not shove them down.

And this is illustrated by this. They can't beach this ship, barring a miracle, without their experience, the experience of the sailors. The Roman soldiers don't know how to get a ship to beach and these sailors would have known. But they felt like, you know what, we got a better chance if we abandon ship. Why doesn't Paul tell the ship's captain, hey, your men are abandoning ship.

He goes to the Roman centurion and the troops. Well, the captain might have been part of the sailors getting off the ship. That's one reason why. But the soldiers were really the only human force that was capable of stopping the escape. And there's another lesson. In the midst of a spiritual storm, there are physical responsibilities that we still have.

You can't say, well, I'm not going to go to work and expect the paycheck to keep coming in. God has got this. God has got this when you can't do anything else, maybe, but you have your responsibilities and we're going to find that to the end. The girding of the ship, all these guys were fighting to stay afloat. And had they all just sat down, the ship would have capsized or sunk.

That would have been it. This is serious stuff going on. Verse 31, Paul said to the centurion and the soldiers, unless these men stay in the ship, you cannot be saved. So Paul makes it personal and they believe him. Okay, Paul, we didn't listen to you one time, but ever since then, I told you so.

You shouldn't have failed. You've got us now. Jesus said, if anyone does not abide in me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered. They throw him into the fire. Paul is saying these men got to stay in the ship because that's where the promise of God was given and it will not be fragmented. Now, the natural fact is, again, without these seasoned sailors, they could not beach the vessel and they would have no chance of surviving. So Paul doesn't hesitate to act. Neither did Julian.

He didn't have to be told twice. His men were on it. Verse 32, then the soldiers cut away the ropes of the skiff and let it fall off. These soldiers would have been good at killing. In those days in the Roman Empire, they had ample experience in putting down rebellions and dealing with assassins and all sorts of stuff. The sailors offered no resistance because, again, they knew how to kill those soldiers.

The soldiers knew how to kill, not sailors knew how to kill the soldiers. So anyway, if you're not confused, then stick around. Anyway, Paul is heated. I don't know what time it is. Well, I do. I don't know what time we usually get out of here. I'm too busy doing God's work.

Verse 33, and as day was about to dawn, Paul implored them to take food, saying, today is the fourteenth day you have waited and continued without food and eaten nothing. Therefore, I urge you to take nourishment, for this is for your survival, since not a hair will fall from the head of any of you. Well, that's not true, the part about the hair falling from any of you. I can prove that.

All right, well, anyway, back to this. Where it says, because here he is in command, it's been two weeks since leaving Fair Havens, he says you haven't eaten or drank in two weeks. Well, unless you insert a miracle, which I don't think we have a right to inject a miracle into this, I think the idea here is that you haven't had a meal, a good meal.

You've been eating on the fly, drinking on the fly. Two weeks without food or water would be a miraculous event, possible for God, but it wouldn't fit the story, because if they enjoyed that kind of a miracle, they would have had faith to not doubt, and it would have just been a whole other situation. So, if you say, no, I believe they went two weeks without food or drink, well, I'm not going to argue with you, but knowing how scripture is given to us, I would say that the implications are that you're going to have to eat now a more substantial meal. Verse 35, and when he had said these things they took bread and gave thanks to God and the presence of them all, and when we had broken it, he began to eat.

Yeah, so Paul's taking the lead. This is not communion. Thanks before a meal was not uncommon to the Jewish people, and Paul writes about that to Timothy, about eat food with thanksgiving. Eat anything you want with thanksgiving, he pretty much says, and this is not communion. Paul would not have ministered the bread and the cup to unbelievers, and additionally there's no mention of the cup. We, you know, with Christian language, we read, oh, he gave, he broke the bread, he gave thanks. Well, that doesn't mean it's communion.

It's a meal, is what's going on there. We try to say at the communion table, if Christ is not your Lord and Savior, please pass on the meal. In the early church, they had to change things about the communion table, because it was abused. They did not say, well, you can't have communion. Paul said, you better examine yourself.

It's not our job. It's your job to examine yourself, whether you are in the faith or not. We see churches just get out of hand with this, denying people, believers, communion. What is, he's part of the body of Christ.

How do you do that? You're not a member of this church. I don't want to be a member of this church, if that's how you're going to do it.

That's just kooky, man, outside of scripture. The whole idea is communion, koinonia. We have this in common.

What do we have in common? Christ, not the local church. Christ is who we have in common. Did Christ, well, did Paul die for your sins?

Did Peter die? Christ died for our sins. Well, anyhow, verse 36, then they were all encouraged and also took food themselves. This boosted morale, and it reduced probably some of the resentment they may have had for the sailors.

It is a good time to make this point. The one who will not forgive is the one on Satan's payroll. If you don't learn to forgive, what is the outcome of that? Jesus gave some very serious warnings about that. I guess you could say, if you're not going to forgive, you better not sin.

If you struggle with that, it's your flesh. You're not giving it to Christ. You've got to give God time to work.

Paul gave two weeks in this trip, but it could be years. When I say forgive, it does not mean restore. If someone is just not trustworthy, you cannot entrust them with certainty. Forgive them. I'm not holding it against you, but you can't hold my wallet again. Something like that.

That kind of trust has to be earned. Verse 37, and in all, we were about 276 persons on the ship. Verse 38, so when they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship and threw out the wheat into the sea. Well, the wheat was first, then the butcher, then the singer.

There used to be a company here, Wheat First Butcher Singer, and it just irritated me, that whole name. All right, all right, back to, we're almost done, and I see, like, you're ready. So, lightening the ship so they could have more control on the sea with the wind driving them to the beach. But again, God does not do for us what we can do for ourselves. And I'll close with this from Exodus, chapter 14. This is at the crossing of the Red Sea, Yam Suph, and Moses is there with the people.

The sea is not parted. And Exodus 14, 15, and there we read, well, Moses said, the Lord will fight for you, verse 14, and you shall hold your peace, verse 15. And Yahweh said to Moses, why do you cry to me? Tell the people of Israel, go forward. You've got to do things.

There's things out, we have our responsibilities, and waiting for God to do it all will probably end up meaning God won't do anything. If He does, it will still be a rebuke. We'd also like to encourage you to subscribe to the Cross-Reference Radio Podcast. Subscribing ensures that you stay current with all the latest teachings from Pastor Rick. You can subscribe at crossreferenceradio.com or simply search for Cross-Reference Radio in your favorite podcast app. Tune in next time as Pastor Rick continues teaching through the book of Acts, right here on Cross-Reference Radio.