Even the Nonswimmers (Part B)

Not enough to know how to swim. See the allegory, the metaphor, the illustrations, they abound. The words that I speak are spirit and they are life. Their survival was because of God. And if anyone survives the shipwreck of life, it will be because a Christian was on board at some point.

At some point, souls who get to heaven in the New Testament age, it's because there was a Christian there. 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. Today, Pastor Rick will continue teaching his message called, Even the Non-Swimmers, as he makes his way through Acts chapter 27. Verse 42, And the soldiers' plan was to kill the prisoners, lest any of them should swim away and escape.

Great. Shipmates with guns, and I don't have one. And these, their lack of hesitation to kill indicates that these are seasoned soldiers. These are not rookies.

They're not like, well, what do we do now, boss? The way it worked in Rome, if your prisoner got away, whatever sentence they would have gotten, you get. And likely some of these prisoners were going to face capital charges in court, and so they would have been killed or incarcerated. Shipmates with sword, ready to use them, and that on their shipmates were it not for Paul. We covered last session about being on the ship with an, of life, metaphorically, with the people of the world, the people around us. This gets ugly. There's got to be a lot of concern here for the fear. You survive the storm, you survive the beaching of the, of the, hitting the sand dune, but now you got to face these guys. Death lurked everywhere. Dread in life. Have you ever felt trapped?

No solution. This is where I am. This is how it's going to be.

It's not going to change. Oh, for that moment, they were trapped, and you know, you know, we were just singing, I'll fly away. I do not want a window seat when I fly away. I'm not looking back. I'm looking up. But anyway, you know, when David wrote, you know, this is interesting, and David at one point wrote, oh, that I had the wings of a bird. I'd fly away.

And another part, he says, you know, he says, I'm not going to fly away. You know, I'm going to stand in the Lord. And so, you know, when do you do?

What do you do? It depends on how sensitive we are to the leading of the Spirit, how educated we are in our faith. This is the benefit of knowing the Scripture. The Holy Spirit brings these things to mind. The Holy Spirit is the one that comes and says to you, you're going to make it to shore on broken pieces of the boat, but you're going to make it.

So, back to this, death lurking everywhere. Many of them were trapped, were it not for Paul, who influenced Julius, the commander, the centurion. Because of Christ, Paul faced archers continuously. Remember the story of Joseph? His father was blessing him, and his father said, Joseph, the archers, or maybe we'll say it this way in modern language, the snipers have sorely sought you.

They have really tried to take you out. But your bow abode in strength, held by the mighty hand of God. Well, that's Paul, and that can be us too. He faced religious hypocrites in churchgoers, religious zealots in his countrymen, religious mobs from the Gentiles, like the riot in Ephesus, the beating he took in Philippi, Christian troublemakers, the typhooned, armed soldiers, shipwrecked. Still to come is the viper, is Nero, and all the other heartbreaking things that go along with pastoring the flock. Undeterred, he's determined to serve Christ nonetheless. So now we look back again at Romans, four years back prior to this event.

In Romans 1, he says, for I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gifts so that you may be established. He wanted them educated. He knew the benefit of that. He knew the disadvantages of having assemblies of unschooled believers. He knew that was unacceptable. He continues, now I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that I often plan to come to you, but was hindered until now.

Yeah, he's going to be hindered more. Again, four years, he's still not in Rome. Four years later, he's still not gotten there. And when he gets out of this mess, it's going to be another three months before he leaves Malta, and then travels and finally reaches Rome, well, Italy, and then he's got to walk 40 miles to Rome. Anyway, these are his plans. These are his ambitions as a Christian servant. He says that I might have some fruit among you also, just as among other Gentiles. And then he says this, so as much as is in me, I am ready to preach the Gospel to you who are in Rome also. And then he goes on to say, for I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ.

It's the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes, but it is a judgment for those who reject. So who's hindering him from doing this? Satan heard this speech. He read this letter. He heard Paul say, I'm trying to get to you so that I can educate you and bless you, make a strong church there. Who's hindering him? Who feared him doing this?

Who else? Satan, spiritual war, got to accept it. You don't have to sign off on it. It's going to come to you anyway.

Just be ready. God says, you know, you're fit for this. God said, you know, man was not made imperfect.

He became that way. And yet God has salvaged enough of that original creation in us so that we could prevail. Or else what would be the purpose of persevering?

What would be the purpose of learning anything? We, over the centuries, the righteous, have stacked up victories against the enemy. But it is a fierce enemy and he gets victories too. And may we not help him with that. Verse 43, but the centurion wanting to save Paul kept them from their purpose and commanded that those who could swim should jump overboard first and get to land. Again, here is the commander without hesitation. He knows what to do. Stop the killing. Okay, the swimmers you're going to go over first.

Which again, if you're a non-swimmer, you're kind of like, well, I would like one of them in the water with me. Maybe he could help me. But that's not the case. Paul obviously is the one that made an impact on this centurion because it tells us he wanted to save Paul. He had no other motivation for this call except the preaching of Paul.

Now Luke doesn't itemize for us. And this one became saved. He just gives a story. He says, you fill in the blanks. And really, it doesn't matter.

You'll find out when you get to heaven all the details. This centurion, he did not choose to be on this ship. He was following orders. Paul did not choose to be on this ship. He was under protective custody. He chose to serve God, however, wherever that might be.

And this is where it was. How indebted the shipmates were to Paul did they realize it? Of the 276 souls on that ship, barring the believers, did they realize that they only survived? When he gets to Malta, there's an Alexandrian ship that harbored on Malta to get past the season of danger on the seas, which they didn't do.

And you say, see, somebody got it right. But Paul's ship, they got it wrong. But it was because of him that the ship met such a violent storm and survived. It says here in verse 43, and commanded that those who could swim should jump overboard first and get to land. Into the same waters, incidentally, that were violent enough to smash up the ship, they were to throw themselves in. Notice, again, that he did not say the swimmers go in first and wait for the non-swimmers. He said the swimmers go in and go to shore. Because when they survive, when the non-swimmers survive, it will not be because of any human being.

That's one of the great lessons from this. Even the non-swimmers are protected by God. And those swimmers who made it to shore because they knew how to swim, how's their walk doing?

Not enough to know how to swim. See, the allegory, the metaphor, the illustrations, they abound. The words that I speak are spirit and they are life. Their survival was because of God. And if anyone survives a shipwreck of life, it will be because a Christian was on board at some point. At some point, souls who get to heaven in the New Testament age, it's because there was a Christian there. In my own life, it wasn't what the Christian said, but he was there. Take him out of the picture and I never would have searched the scriptures. And I would not if you just limited at that point of contact with another Christian who irritated me just enough to want to win the argument against him and prove that Christ was false. And then I got saved.

And so again, I stand by it. If anyone survives a shipwreck of life, it is because as a shipmate, there was a Christian. The question then becomes this, am I that Christian or is this somebody else? I've been in a workplace where there were Christians present who were doing nothing. And then a Christian comes in and he's preaching the gospel and people, things have changed.

How did it make them feel to be doing nothing? And then Johnny comes, lately comes in, I love the Lord, and he's just preaching away. I don't want to be the one that was on the ship as a believer and was too shy to speak up when the door opened wide.

I'm not abusing these parallels. At some point in life, we're all non-swimmers in the sea of life. At some point in life, each Christian has a chance to be that dominating influence where they are to save souls. Verse 44, and the rest, some on boards and some on parts of the ship, and so it was that they all escaped safely to land.

There's a happy ending, but it's not a fairy tale because there's so much more to the story and this man Paul's going to be killed one day because he believes in Christ. You see, a verse like this, this 44th verse, it doesn't need Bible exposition. It needs preaching. It needs application. Now, if the church has preached too much, she becomes dumb, but if the scriptures are expounded, only she can become dry. We need a combination.

We need the application. We need the opening up of the scriptures. They go together. God caused the shattered pieces of this broken vessel to be life preservers for those unfit for the sea.

We're not told how far offshore they were when they hit the sandbar, but they were far enough to drown. We all know this verse. Paul says that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purposes. Well, Mr. Paul the Apostle, you're having to live up to those words that you wrote four years ago, are you not? There have been times that I have made some fantastic points from the pulpit only to have to live up to them later. Man, that doesn't work. I just want to preach.

I don't want to have to be in the barrel, but it doesn't work that way. And if you share Christ with people, you're in the war zone like with everybody else. There are no exceptions. Some can lie to themselves, and that would be a breakdown of integrity and genuineness. Life is a survivable shipwreck. That's one of the lessons that comes out of this. Life is a survivable shipwreck, and it is a shipwreck.

Since Eden, the curse crashed, everything. And if we don't learn this, then we risk botching up our testimony, burying it. You know, Jesus preached on that. He says, listen, who lights a lamp to hide it? Well, there are Christians.

They lit lamps, and then they hide it. Then there are other Christians, as Jesus said, a city set on a hill cannot be hidden. You're a Christian.

It's going to be outstanding. You don't have to go into the workplace and say, all right, here I am, the Christian. All you have to do is be the Christian. Those Holy Spirit will either bring them to you or Satan will target you. Either way, God will point it out.

And if you've been working at a place, maybe you've been in the cube patch where you're just cubicles for years, and you've already done everything. That doesn't define everything about your Christianity. There's more to you than just witnessing in the workplace or the school. Just be ready.

What should a pastor say? Don't worry about it. God will just do miracles where you could have done the work.

Oh, that's not going to, that wouldn't be right. Wait for God. Remember the sailors on this ship who didn't want to wait, who tried to take the skiff and sneak out, abandon ship, and leave everybody else to die?

Not waiting would have been their doom. And so we learn, we learn that waiting for God has benefits. It can be frightening.

It is terrifying to the flesh, but the Spirit remains strong. It says here in verse 44, and the rest someone boards and someone parts of the ship. These are shattered dreams. Maybe you've had your dreams, your nice vessels, you're going to sail from here to there, and you met with a storm, you beached the ship, and the waves of life shattered it. And all you have left are fragments. And yet those fragments are used by God to save your life, to continue serving, to do more.

Storm-tossed faith holds on. Now, some of you know I am not fond of the saying, you know, how are you doing hanging in there? Because it sounds like you're dangling, and dangling is not productive. I don't know, you know, I don't want to dangle. I don't mind dabbling.

But anyway, holding to me implies perseverance, strength. You say, you know, you just really looking to preach something. Yeah, I am. I'm telling you right out, I am.

I'm trying to make a point. They were to cling to those pieces of wood, and we're to cling to the cross of Christ. Wood floats. A naysayer would come along and say, oh, God didn't save them.

Wood floats. It's a natural life preserver. It's sort of like the guy working on the roof, and he slips, and he's screaming for the Lord to help him, and a nail snags his coveralls, and he says, oh, never mind, Lord, the nail got me. Daniel, the Bible tells us that the angel of the Lord shut the mouth of the lions, and they said, God, they just weren't hungry. They looked for any way to get God out of the equation so that they won't have to be accountable for their sin. But that's where their help comes from. Their help comes from dealing with sin. I don't know why a church would not address sin. The cross of Christ addresses sin. If it weren't for sin, there would be no cross of Christ, but there is sin. Trying to pretend it is not there is spiritually deadly for that individual.

What happens to them when they die, if they never dealt with their sin? Wait for God, and it says, as I'm reading again in verse 44, and the rest, some on boards and some on parts of the ship. I should point out that Paul mentions to Timothy years later that there is a shipwreck available for churchgoers. That is not good. That is very bad. We need minds that are tough enough that when heresy tries to enter the church under the cloak of love, we don't tolerate that. It's a false love.

And it's so quick. You hear Christians that are dealt with when churchgoers come and they're in some kind of sin, and they resent being held accountable. They want to just let their sin just go, and you can't do that, not without consequence. I remember years ago, there was a pastor, and he's still preaching, as a matter of fact. But whenever the friends of this pastor would want to impersonate him, they would use the word fornication. And being a Mexican American, he had that, you know, sort of that accent, I guess. And so they would imitate him, and they would use the word fornication.

This is so-and-so, and then they'd do it. What they left out of the picture is this. That pastor had a congregation with a lot of young people, and a lot of those young people were involved in fornication. And he was determined to go at it from the pulpit. He was doing his job. He was calling them out. He was warning them. He was saying fornication, illicit sex, is not something that God winks at.

Get your act together. That was his congregation's major issue at that time. That's preaching. That's doing the work of a servant. God said to Jeremiah when he called them, I'm going to make your head harder than theirs. You deliver my message.

That's what I want from you, and that's what we're supposed to do. And I resent Christians who get uppity because they're not given a pass. What right do they have to come into a congregation and infect everybody? Because it will go through a congregation like wildfire. This is not new science.

This is old. You find a church that is completely Bible-less, Christ-less, Christ standing outside, knocking on the door, trying to get in. They don't even know you're not in there. It comes from treating that you can't even say sin without the hiss of the serpent. It comes from ignoring it. It does not mean that you become self-righteous and judgmental and loveless. It does not mean that, you know, I'm better than you.

It means that when something is brought to the surface by God, it has to be dealt with. You know, we're all sinners. We all goof. At least so I'm told about you.

We all are. Well, coming back to this and the rest on some of the boards, I don't want to let that go because it is so rich with real meaningful metaphor that, going back to Paul's writing to Timothy, having faith and a good conscience, which some having rejected concerning the faith suffered shipwreck. Having faith and a good conscience, which they rejected. They rejected the faith. They rejected the conscience. What's the conscience? The accountability. What's the faith? Trusting God.

They rejected that. But they still wanted to be church goers nonetheless. And Paul says they suffered shipwreck. And if a church is not tough enough to stand up and say, look, we want to help you through this, but it's got to be God's way, not your way, then that church will succumb and be culturalized and no longer a church, but just a group of people. We can all identify with fear, every single one of us, but can we all identify with faith? That is the question. I mean, in the storms, a non-negotiable trust in God. Like, I don't feel it.

I don't need to feel it. I trust God. It is a decision that I've made. It is an act of my will, vetoing my feelings, putting my feelings in line, because that is right.

And that is what counts in the end. I heard a phrase the other day, emotional intellect. I said to myself, what on earth is that?

They just create these things. And people go, oh, it's so mean. Buy yourself a teddy bear or something, but don't start making up all these words as though people who can make up these words are somehow more sensitive than the rest of us that are telling you to stand your ground in your faith. Hebrews chapter 10, this is what Paul says, let us draw near with a true heart.

That's integrity. In full assurance of faith, that's blessed assurance. Don't let anybody tell you, you can't be sure you're saved until you die.

There are those that teach that kind of stuff. You have to persevere, brother. Well, I'm persevering right now. I have blessed assurance. In full assurance of faith, let us draw near. Right now, I can boldly enter the courtroom of God in prayer at any time without an appointment and know that the same God of whom it is said, in the beginning God created, that same God will listen to me. He may not do what I want, but he will listen to me.

He will do what I want in the sense that I want him to do what God wants. Paul continues, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without dangling. Wavering is the word.

What do you do when you're dangling? You're wavering. Anyway, for he who promised is faithful. That is non-negotiable faith. Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for he who promised is faithful. Let us behave like Christians as best we can.

It may not always be all right, but that is not the whole story ever. It is never the whole story if things go, if your ship wrecks beneath your feet. We cling to the cross of Christ. We will make it to our personal Rome if we just follow the Lord. A shattered vessel but an unbroken faith. Peter is talking about this in 1 Peter. He says that the genuineness of your faith being much more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire or water may be found to praise, honor and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

That's what I've been trying to say all morning. Our service is for his glory and it is worth it. God will use spiritual conflict and natural calamities to educate us. Matthew 5, that you may be sons of your father in heaven for he makes his son to rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and the unjust.

Everybody gets wet in this life. True carelessness, a chastening from the Lord can lead us into a storm, but all these lessons still apply. God expects you to survive even on the broken pieces. A perfect storm in my life is no match for a perfect savior.

I have got to learn that. I'll close with one verse and repeat of another. 1 Peter 5-7, casting all your care on him for he cares for you. That's the broken parts of the ship that they're holding to. So we look at verse 44 again and close with this concerning the survivors. Some on boards and some on parts of the ship.

So it was that they all escaped safely to land. You've been listening to Cross Reference Radio, the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia. As we mentioned at the beginning of today's broadcast, today's teaching is available free of charge at our website. Simply visit crossreferenceradio.com. That's crossreferenceradio.com. 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.