Antivenom in Ministry (Part A)

Paul is going to live up to just what he preached in Romans as he goes through this on his trek to Rome, because circumstances challenge God's promises. And God knows that. God prepares us for where he places us.

However, if you should find yourself where you don't belong because of you, no one else to blame, you goofed. God is still prepared. He's still faithful. We are in the book of Acts chapter 28. We will read verses 3 through 5, and we will try to consider verses 1 through 10. So, Acts chapter 28 verses 3 through 5. And for those of you who may be unfamiliar with this, Paul and those with him, some 278 people, have just survived a shipwreck. They beached the ship, it broke apart, they made it to shore, and we pick it up in verse 3. But when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and fastened on his hand. So when the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, no doubt this man is a murderer, whom though he has escaped the sea, yet justice does not allow to live.

But he shook off the creature into the fire and suffered no harm. Anti-venom in ministry, that's what we're considering. Were it not for his serving Jesus Christ, he wouldn't be there on that day getting that serpent attached to his hand. Viper bites come with serving Christ, and when we say ministry, we mean serving Christ.

Ideally, it begins in the house of the Lord, and of course finds its way into the community, the population of the world, wherever we are. But viper bites, they come with serving Christ, and yet we have an anti-venom. This shows up early on in Scripture, prophetically speaking of the coming of Christ.

He shall bruise your head, but you shall bruise his heel. And of course the bruising of the heel of the Messiah was the cross, but ultimately Satan will be smitten. We'll come to a verse that points that out a little later. God wanted Paul to preach in Rome. He had already some almost four years earlier penned the Roman letter that we have in our Bibles that comes after in order of volume, comes after Acts, and then we come to Romans.

They're not chronologically ordered. God, as I mentioned, wanted him to reach Rome, but Satan did not. Satan knew that servants like Paul would be effective for Christ amongst believers and unbelievers. And so he was throwing at Paul everything he could if not to stop him to break down his preaching when he did arrive in Rome.

That's something that we have to watch out for. You can get so discouraged in Christianity that you become disillusioned and you lose the fire. And the Bible has a lot to say about keeping the fire going, that dependency on God, which comes with perseverance. Waiting for God to do things often requires perseverance. Are we not waiting for him to bring us to heaven? So to overcome Satan's attacks and booby traps, because sometimes it's just a frontal assault by the enemy, and other times he places little things in the way, like this serpent that latches onto Paul's hand. God sometimes assigns us to unpleasant tasks, to do things we just don't want to do, but they've got to get done, because that's what it's going to take to overcome what Satan has done. And if you opt out, he'll find somebody else, then you'll have to live with that. That's not very pleasant, although there are second chances. You know, if Jonah didn't go to Nineveh, God would have found someone else.

But Jonah did go to Nineveh. And in dealing with Satan and the world and the fallout of sin in my own life, it's going to take hard work, that stick-to-it-ness, that get-er-done spirit that is applauded in the world, and it should be present in Christ also. Now, our physical and emotional feelings, they are important to God, but they are secondary.

I think we need to remember that, because when we flip it around, we get in trouble. Then we do become discouraged. How come God's not answering my prayers? Where are the promises of the Lord?

On and on it goes. So it's good to know that, yes, God does care about how you feel and what you're suffering, but those things are secondary to the mission. They're things that have to be done, and there are souls involved. Now, if the work of God stopped every time we felt miserable in ministry, nothing would get done. We'd be out of ministers. We'd be out of servants, not only on the pastoral level, but on all levels. Feelings will forsake us at a faster rate than duty, than doing what you're supposed to do.

You know, after a while, duty wears on us, but your feelings at a faster rate will tear that up. While Satan tried to kill Paul in the storm, and then, with the Roman soldiers' swords, and then this attack by the serpent. So you really have an alliteration here that works. You have the storm, the shipwreck, the sword, and the serpent.

Four S's are in that. This is what was hurled at this man of God, and he got discouraged. We know that from verse 15. When the saints come out to meet him, the Bible tells us Paul took courage, which means it was struggling.

It didn't fall apart. I'm not saying that, but if you've ever served Christ in ministry for any length of time, you're going to meet with discouragement. You have dates with that ugly woman, or if you're a woman, that ugly man. So that ugly creature of discouragement sort of waiting there, personifying it, because it's like that sometimes. It's like a person is waiting for you to meet you out in a parking lot.

That would be discouragement. We're supposed to come out on top of that encounter. God expects us to be prepared, because when we're not prepared, he still is.

I'm not going to come to that, because I think it's a little exciting and get to that in a moment. But here's Paul. He's wet. We're told he's wet.

We're told that they were cold. I mentioned his discouragement. Serve the Lord long enough, learn that even in the midst of victories, there is discouragement. He's going to do two categories, but many miracles on this isle of Malta, this island. For three months, they're going to be here. He's going to do some outstanding miracles, and yet he still gets discouraged, even with victories.

Discouragement will find you, but you should be ready. We are built for this. God sustained him, calling upon him to keep pace and not in a natural way, because the world can be naturally strong. They can persevere.

I mean, remember the Alamo. You know, the world is courage, too. We're not supposed to let them outdo us in Christ, and I think we do oftentimes, because we expect Christ to do all the suffering and the working, and we're just waiting for the blessing. When that happens, work, the effectiveness of Christianity is greatly diminished. This was the case with Jeremiah the prophet. Jeremiah went to the Lord, discouraged. Why are the evil people doing so well?

What's going on with ministry? Pick this up in Jeremiah 12, and this is God's answer to him. If you have run with the footmen and they have wearied you, then how can you contend with horses? If in the land of peace, in which you trusted, they wearied you, how will you do in the floodplain of the Jordan? So Jeremiah, Jeremiah's saying, wait, I got to keep up with footmen.

Now you're asking me to keep up with horses? I can't do that. And God says, I know you can't. He's going to go on. God's going to go on and tell him, your own family members are going to turn on you, Jeremiah.

You're going to smile up in your face, but I'm going to be with you. And indeed, Jeremiah's life was in jeopardy, seemingly the whole time, of his adult ministry. Because God called him when he was very young. Actually, the Bible says that he was appointed to ministry before he was born.

Conception. So here you have Paul running with the footmen, then called upon to keep pace with the horses, to enjoy his pleasant time in the time of peace, and not let his faith die when that peace goes away. And the Jordan floods. This is something that we face as servants. There often is something to bite you when you serve.

Don't be surprised if you serve in the ushers ministry, or the children's ministry, or wherever you're serving in Christ. Don't be surprised when your feelings are, that serpent shows up and bites your feelings. What are you going to do?

That's the question. Maybe you've got a thin skin. You're going to bleed out. You don't make it. Maybe you're going to hang tough. Verse 3, you're not turning there.

Yeah, you can look at it with me. A viper came out and fastened on his hand. If that were me, the people would have gone deaf from my screaming. Some are only bitten by life and not in service. And that's unfortunate. Serving is where the action is. That's where God wants us to be. And we must not again be shocked as believers when we face storms, and shipwrecks, and swords, and snakes. We must not even be spooked by these things. What I mean by that is this thing is when something goes bad, it's sort of traumatic for us. So that next time, at just the rattling of the sabers, we begin to quake. Because we're spooked. And that's something we have to fight against.

I'm not going down that easily. Jeremiah's words, which I try to live up to, but I don't think I've done a good job, shall a man such as I flee? That's the kind of courage I want for Christ. So Paul, he already wrote to the Romans, I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come.

That about covers everything. He's not finished though. Nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Well, typical of a preacher to say these high things, it's not rhetoric, it's just these insights the Spirit gives you, and then in time you've got to live up to them. And Paul is going to live up to just what he preached in Romans as he goes through this on his trek to Rome. Because circumstances challenge God's promises. And God knows that. God prepares us for where he places us.

However, if you should find yourself where you don't belong because of you, no one else to blame, you goofed. God is still prepared. He's still faithful.

Paul said to Timothy, if we are faithless, he remains faithful. He cannot deny himself. He is who he is. And he is trustworthy. And he is omnipotent.

And he is not going to stop being that way because I messed up. But perhaps of even, well, as strong an illustration as in Samson. Samson was a hero of the faith.

He shows up in heroes of the faith in Hebrews 11. But God called Samson to be devoted to him again before conception. Showed up to his parents and said, that boy is going to be a Nazarite from his birth. And Samson, of course, you know, he made a lot of mistakes, a lot of lessons to be learned from Samson. But as a Nazarite, he wasn't supposed to have anything from the vine.

No grapes, no jelly, no jelly donuts, no wine. You would think that therefore he would stay clear of vineyards. But that's not where we find him. First of all, he's going to Timna where the Jewish people are not. He's not supposed to be going there. But he's going there. God's going to work with him nonetheless. God's not going to say, now what am I going to do? And he decides to take a shortcut through a vineyard.

And what happens? We pick it up in Judges 14. So Samson went down to Timna with his father and mother and came to the vineyards of Timna. Now, to his surprise, a young lion came rowing against him. Well, if you weren't in that vineyard, you wouldn't have met with that lion. You see the biblical lessons that are in that? Try not to be where you don't belong. And if you are where you don't belong, God is not going to forsake you.

You don't forsake him. And of course, Samson destroys the lion. But beware of the devil who goes around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. In other words, there's more to Satan than a roar.

He can hurt. And that comes out with the serpent and it comes out in Job. Let's look at verse 1 now. So what we have here, hopefully, is that's a topical message that goes along with the exposition. So you get preaching and teaching.

That's the plan. Verse 1, when he had escaped, then they found out that the island was called Malta. They cheated Davy Jones' locker. They survived the shipwreck. Malta is an island, 17 by 9, reference materials say.

I didn't go measure it. But it's just south of Sicily, just south 60 miles, which is a long way in those days with those rickety ships compared to what we know today. Anyway, verse 2, and the natives showed us unusual kindness, for they kindled the fire and made us welcome because of the rain that was falling and because of the cold. So that's a miserable combination to be soaking wet. You're soggy, you know, you're soggy bottom boys. That's what's happening.

And you're cold and the wind is just, man, what a miserable experience. All this for Christ. Well, Paul, at least not everybody else, in his party with him, these people knew not Jesus. They were not Christians, and yet they're kind. They're caring. They're helping them. And it likely saved some of their lives. Hypothermia may have been, you know, lurking around and they build a fire and they're helping. You know, we're so shocked when Christians are not kind.

Or maybe they're the kind you don't want to be around. Because we expect more of each other, and we should. That's accountability, a standard. When Paul wrote to the Ephesians, he just echoed what's all over the New Testament. Be kind to one another, and catch this emphasis. Be tender-hearted.

Forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. And there's a lot of Christians who aren't too tender-hearted. When they want to justify their meanness, they can pull rabbits out of hats to do it. May it not be you, and may it not be mean.

You know, me, not mean, but may it not be me too. We have to learn kindness counts even more when we're offended. Anybody can be loyal when there's nothing to challenge your loyalty. Loyalty only counts when you're put in the press, when you're being squashed.

Then we're going to find out what allegiance is all about. Now this word here, it says here the natives. It's a significant word.

Subsequent events will bring that out. The Greek word, barbaros, from which we get our English word, barbarian. But it didn't mean these people were savage because we can see by their behavior that they're not. What it meant in that ancient world is that the Romans and the Greeks, the high society considered anyone who didn't speak Roman, not Roman, but the Greek or the Latin, if they weren't into that culture, that global culture, they were looked down upon, frowned upon, and barbaros was the word that they would attach to them. So what we're learning here is that the Maltese people did not speak the Greek or the Latin. Certainly didn't speak Hebrew, which would have created a language barrier, which is significant because we're not going to read of any converts here. And it doesn't mean there were not any. What it may suggest is Luke wasn't sure.

And I would point to the language barrier being the reason. And so, and again, as I mentioned, Paul's going to do miracles on this island, but Luke, not a peep about preaching or conversions. You have to account for that.

That's an omission you don't just dismiss. So anyway, we come now to verse three, because we'll slightly return to that too. But when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and fastened on his hand. Here he is doing his part with the world, and we have a part with the world. Just because we're Christians doesn't mean I don't have to work as hard as the unbelievers. I should be out.

I should run circles around them if I can. Paul was doing his part when this viper attached itself to his hand. As I pointed out, had he not been serving the Lord, he likely would have avoided all this drama in his life. His poor eyesight contributed to his failure to detect the snake. It's hard enough to see them when your eyesight's good. He wrote to the Galatians, and this was much earlier, see what large letters I have written to you with my own hand. Because he didn't have corrective lenses, so he had to use these big letters. His eyesight was an issue. And yet, he didn't see it, but he sure felt it. Isn't that interesting? When you serve in ministry, oftentimes you don't see it coming.

You don't see the viper. You got your hands involved in serving, and all of a sudden, while you're serving, something inflicts pain and poison into you. What are you going to do? It says, and fastened on his hand.

Great. Survive the storm, the shipwreck, the swords, and die on the beach? Satan attacked Paul because of whom Paul worshipped and served. The others didn't get attacked. Paul was singled out.

And it must be whom he served, not what he served. We covered that last session. Attacks of the devil. They have got to be either parried or absorbed. You either take the hits or you avoid them. Otherwise, you become bitter. You become bitter in ministry. Then you begin to justify why you don't go to church or why you don't serve.

I'm not going out there. They don't know how to... Then you become the critic. Do you know of any statues built for critics? Not a virtue, is it? Hey, so-and-so is a critic.

Let's make a statue to him. You got to guard against these things. Because while we might dismiss them, well, that's not my problem. Satan just signed you up. He put you on his hit list. Well, let's see if we can get him to criticize.

Let's see what's in them. Well, this bitterness was something that Moses had to deal with. And Aaron, incidentally. But some of the Jews, when they were fleeing Pharaoh, Pharaoh's army was coming to re-enslave them and possibly slaughter as many as they felt in the mood. You know, once an army gets turned loose, especially if they got swords in their hands, it's hard to shut them down.

Anyway, here they come. And some of the Jews saw this peril and turned on God for allowing peril into their lives. He lets danger into my lives. So we picked that up in Exodus 14. Then they said to Moses, see, Moses is that point of contact.

He's the one they're going to take it out on, but they're pointing it at God. Because there are no graves in Egypt, have you taken us to die in the wilderness? Why have you so dealt with us to bring us up out of Egypt? What a bunch of snarky little ingrates. You remember what they were doing to you in Egypt? About the, you know, killing the first, all the males, and then they move from the averages.

We're going to take straw and you still have your quota. And they enslaved you. And so you got to work to get out of that slavery some.

Because they did have to walk. And now they're complaining instead of calling on the Lord. Great lessons in this stuff for us. So there's two ways to look at this snake bite.

In life, people get metaphorically bitten by snakes, vipers. That's secondary. The primary is in ministry.

That's where the action is. Serving God is giving to God. If you serve and you think you're giving to the church or people, you got it wrong.

I mean, the people are going to benefit, of course. But what shall I give to God? Well, Paul wrote to the Romans, presents your body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. Giving to God benefits me and others, but not God, because by definition, He cannot lack. He doesn't have any needs. What are you going to buy God for Father's Day? Let's get Him a necktie.

That's not a little gift if it's a nice tie. But anyway, but not for God. It is not what I give to God. It is what God has already given to me. When you when you make your offerings or you sign up to serve, ideally you're saying, I am giving back to God. He's blessed me. He's made a place for me at His table in eternity.

I will share the rest of eternity with Him. 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.