Luke, the writer of the book of Acts, tells the intense story about Paul's near-death expedition on the Mediterranean Sea. Without warning, a violent storm swept across the waters and almost capsized the vessel. Nearly 300 sailors were on board.
So what's the point of this story in Acts 27?
Well today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindahl breaks down the details of this incident and identifies four timeless principles for navigating the storms of life. No matter what kind of storm you're weathering today, God extends a lifeline with supernatural strength. Chuck titled his message, How to Handle a Shipwreck.
Now, everybody understands, this is not about a storm in the Mediterranean, though that is what the text is teaching, and we want to be true to it. This is about life. And how to endure it when it impacts us. And our ship is coming apart. And there's a reef straight ahead, and we're not going to make it without a wreck.
How do you keep it together? I want to offer you four anchors. that will help hold you fast. when you're in a time like that. And if you don't need them now, trust me.
As your pastor, take it from me, you will need them someday. You will need them when the news comes that that loved one has died. Or your son didn't come home that night. Or your daughter. has run away.
Again. or the baby didn't make it. Or the damage. appears to be inescapable. You're going to need them.
The first I will call the anchor of stability. All four come from the text. And if you will forgive me for not just taking verse by verse and word by word, I want to get the spiritual lessons across mainly. I want to address the times when there are no stars, no sun, no compass, no sextant, and you can't find your way. To the destination you thought you were going to arrive at.
You were heading for Italy, and you wound up shipwrecked on Malta. The anchor of stability. Turn to verse 20. Since neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, no small storm was assailing us. From then on, all hope of our being saved was gradually abandoned.
That's a treacherous moment. All Hope. was gradually abandoned. Verse 21: When they had gone a long time without food, Then Paul stood up in their midst and said, Man, you ought to have followed my advice to have set sail from Crete and incurred this damage and loss, not to have sailed from Crete. You know, that was then, this is now.
Yet now I urge you, watch closely. Keep up your courage. I urge you. Keep up your courage, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. How's that?
Ship's going, but we're going to make it. The ship we're in right now will not make it, but there will not be one loss of life. But notice his words: keep up your courage. Courage, interesting term. Uh Euthumet, oh, it's a hard word to say.
The EU prefix means good. Or well, or well-being. When it's on a word, it usually adds something good to whatever follows. Thumos, from which we get our word thumometer, is the word for passion. often translated anger or an outburst of anger.
Some kind of passionate response. In this case, it's a good passion. You through metal. Rarely used in the scriptures. Used twice right here: verse 22, keep up your courage, verse 25, keep up your courage.
In fact, other versions render it, be of good cheer.
Now that's a tough thing to say to someone at the end of their rope. with the winds howling and the salt spray stinging your face. and the m the the main sail just about to break the mast, That's a tough thing to hear. But believe me, right now, this is directly from the Word of God. It is possible for you to finds stability in the midst of the storm.
How? First, Paul tells them. There will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship, because, verse 23, here's the first reason. This very night, an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve stood before me, saying, Do not be afraid, Paul, you must stand before Caesar. That's Paul's ticket.
He's going to make it. And behold, God has granted you. All those who are sailing with you. Because of what God has said, you can find stability. Your tendency will be to turn to every other source but the Word of God when you've come to the end.
And I'm telling you, it is the first and only source you really need. Turn there first. First, do not fear, he says, that's reassurance directly from God. You must stand before Caesar. That's a direct word of hope.
And not only you, but God has granted all those sailing with you. That's an indirect hope. Paul says, I'm telling all of you, we're going to be safe. We're going to make it. And then he says, keep up your courage, verse 25, he repeats it, for I believe God.
The second reason is that God is trustworthy. God has given us promises to read and to claim, and God is trustworthy. Listen to the wind howling. Feel the sting on your face. Hear the cracks and the groans of the ship.
See the swells and the wind and the waves around you. And then observe Paul's words: I believe, God, it will be exactly as God said. Right now, Lord, I want you to know I'm claiming this for my situation right now. This is the only way I'm going to be able to make it. You know what you're doing, I can't tell.
Doesn't make sense to me, but I know that with you on board, we're not going to sink. We're going to make it. You promised me that. As I prepared this, I thought about a song I used to sing when I was a kid in another church, in another city, another time in my life.
Some of you have sung it. The winds and the waves shall obey. My will Peace be still. Peace be still, whether the wrath of the storm-tossed sea. Are demons?
Or man? Or whatever it be, no water can swallow the ship where lies the master. of ocean and earth. And skies. Remember the comment, we may tremble on the rock?
But the rock never trembles under me. I may find myself going down in this ship, but he's got a thousand ships. and a thousand shores. and a thousand ways to bring me to the next step. He will not abandon me.
That's an anchor of stability. what God has written and the fact that God is trustworthy. The next is the anchor of unity. I struggled with how to put this because I didn't know quite the word to use. I started to call it the anchor of survival, but I think unity says it better.
The anchor of unity holds you close to others. It says in effect, stay together.
Now, I'm going to show you this setting. Look at 28. They took soundings and found it to be 20 fathoms. A little further on, they took another sounding and found it to be 15 fathoms. Do the math.
It's getting shallow. And they start getting concerned about it. Fearing that we might run aground somewhere on the rocks, they cast four anchors from the stern and wished for daybreak. Isn't that a good way to put it? Oh, Lord, let the sun come up.
Bring the morning. It's dark, and nothing's more treacherous than a violent sea in the middle of the night. But, verse 30: as the sailors were trying to escape, from the ship. and had let down the ship's boat. Into the sea.
Wait, wait, wait. What's the ship's boat? It's the dinghy. It's the little boat that hangs in the back, and you want to jump into it. When you get to a port, your ship can't go right up to shore, so you get in the dinghy and you row.
Or nowadays, you start the motor and you get up to shore in the little dinghy. These guys are trying to escape from the ship, but look at their answer. Um It says that they had led down the ship's boat into the sea on the pretense of intending to lay out anchors from the bow. Paul said to the centurion and to the soldiers, Unless these men remain in the ship with yourselves, remain in the ship, you yourselves cannot be saved. Uh Hey, Centurion, you need to know these guys are skipping town here, and they need to know as soon as they get in that dinghy their history.
If they're going to be saved, they've got to stay here with the rest of us. Look at what the soldiers did. The soldiers cut away the rope of the ship's boat and let it fall away. I mean, did they believe it or not? Get rid of the dinghy, man.
I don't want a thing like that to happen.
Now, the application is obvious. The great tendency when all hell is broken loose is to run. It is either to walk away from a long-time commitment. because the pressure is so great, meaning a marriage. or an occupation.
or a long-term commitment to a friendship. The great tendency is to get all alone, lock your door, pull the blind, get away from everybody, and turn off your answering machine. And uh drink. Or whatever you choose to do when you're in the maximum level of escape, and that's the worst possible thing you can do. If at any time you need the support of other brothers and sisters, it's in the storm.
And the very thing that you'll find the hardest to do is to pick up your phone and use one of those great four-letter words like help. Help. I like what Benjamin Franklin said. After he had signed the Declaration of Independence, some of you have read it. He said, we must all hang together.
or assuredly we shall all hang separately. I thought of that when somebody from the church sent me this sign that was posted in front. The front window of a local neighborhood business. We would rather do business with a thousand terrorists than with one Jew. Sign Goldberg's funeral home.
Yeah. It's a good one. I like pencil. That's a terrific Hang together, boy. Bring us all the terrorists you can find.
We'll bury every one of them. I want to warn you against escaping. I want to warn you, because it's in the nature of most of us. Rollo May said it so well. He said, man's the only creature who runs faster when he's lost his way.
You lose your way, you'll just get on your horse and run off in four different directions. You'll just want to get away from it. Stay at it. Stay at it. Lock arms, stay in league with, stay in touch with those who love you the most and who will be with you.
Because you're not designed to take this kind of pressure by yourself. Every soldier that gets off this ship, every sailor that gets in that dinghy and tries to make it on his own, will die. You want to make it? The ship's going down, but you need to know not. One of us will die if we stay on this ship.
You need the church. When the bottom has dropped out of your life, you need the church fellowship. You need the family of God surrounding you. Don't give me that Texas independent spirit. Don't talk about how you can make it on your own.
You can't make it on your own. You and I are made to make it with one another. We can't make it to heaven on our own. We need our Savior in order to make that happen. And I can tell you, we cannot make it through the trials all alone.
We need others around us. This anchor will hold you really close. It'll hold you really close. There's a third anchor. It's the anchor of renewal.
The anchor of renewal. This one will nourish our souls.
Okay, we're getting stability from the courage. We're pulling up close with others in the anchor. That we've just seen the uh the anchor that'll hold us fast. And now we have the anchor of renewal. Look at verse 33.
I love this scene. Until the day was about to dawn, Paul was encouraging them all to take some food. Saying, today is the 14th day you've been constantly watching and going without eating, having taken nothing. Can you imagine fighting a storm for two weeks and getting virtually no nourishment? Therefore, I encourage you to take some food, for this is for your preservation.
Look at how he puts this. This is how you're going to make it. For not a hair from the head of any of you will perish.
Okay. I had a man come up to me following the first morning service, and he's almost bald. He said, That's my favorite verse. I love. That 34th verse of Acts 27: not another hair will perish from my head.
That's not the point. Look at verse 35. Having said this, he took, but I love this. Having took bread and he gave thanks to God in the presence of all, and he broke it and began to eat, and all of them were encouraged, and they themselves took food. Can you see the 276 guys?
No, Father, we thank God. Look at Storm is all over the ship going up and down, mastered break. And so we ask you, Father, to bless this meal and use it for your glory. Amen. Climb to pass the bread.
We got some more soup. And the 276 guys are eating. And look at this. All of them, verse 36, were encouraged. and they themselves took food.
Uh Your personal nourishment is important during times of storm. You'll cut a corner on your meals, you'll cut a corner on your rest, you'll cut a corner on the things that are essential for good physical survival, and you'll miss something very important. You need nourishment. And might I also add, you need prayer. It's exactly what these men did.
For some of them, it was the first time in their life they'd prayed. First time in their life they'd ever heard anybody pray. I don't know if you've had this experience, but Cynthia and I have been at restaurants where. the people at the table next to us. Pray.
You've seen that, haven't you? We often do, we don't always, sometimes I'm too hungry, I just say, Lord, thanks. And uh. And later I uh I feel badly about that. But anyway, uh I ate in a hurry the other day, and the kids said, So I guess the Lord knows we're thankful.
Yeah, yeah, he knows we're thankful. Anyway, sometimes it's a therapy to look over next to you, isn't it? And you see a family that's bowed in prayer. They're not displaying it or, you know, now our Father. They're not doing that.
It's just a very quiet, little quiet prayer. And it's a wonderful encouragement to me. And that's what happened with these sailors. They saw a man who genuinely went to God in prayer for this little bit of soggy food they had left. And he prayed, and they were encouraged by that.
We're encouraged by that. By the way, the teenagers would have loved this meal. They had no dishes. They threw everything away. Look at verse 38.
When they had eaten enough, they began to lighten the ship. Oh, God, getting rid of that stuff. And they're throwing out all the wheat into the sea. When day came, they couldn't even recognize the land. This is a great moment.
They couldn't recognize the land, but they did observe a bay with a beach, and they resolved to drive the ship onto it if they could. Yeah. That great land hoe hit it. See, because they knew when they hit the island they were going to be saved.
So they so believed Paul by now, they left all of their nautical knowledge. To the winds, and they said, All we know is the ship's going under, we're going to land on an island. That looks like an island. Let's go straight forward enough of this storm. And that's exactly what happens.
When day came, they struck a reef where the two seas met, verse 41. They ran the vessel aground. The prow struck up fast and remained immovable. The stern began to be broken up by the force of the waves. This brings us to the fourth anchor, the anchor of reality.
The anchor. of reality. Stability, unity. Renewal Reality. You know what this says?
Stay engaged. Jump in. Be involved. Don't be passive. Be involved.
They were going to be saved, but every one of them had to get into the water on their own and swim to shore. Every one of them. Striking a reef, they began to come apart. The soldiers' plan, verse 42, was to kill the prisoners so that none of them would swim away and escape. Roman world: if you lost your prisoner, you lost your head.
So they didn't want that to happen. But the centurion stepped in, said, wanting to bring Paul safely through, kept them from their intention, commanded those who could swim to jump overboard.
Okay you guys? Jump. That you said, oh, okay. In they go. And that group jumps.
And those that can't swim, grab a plank, jump. See how he puts it? Those of you that follow, grab a plank.
Sort of a swindler paraphrase. And others on various things from the ship. Grab whatever you can. Look at the end of the verse.
So it happened that they all were brought safely to land. How many of them? 276. How many started? 276.
How many were promised they'd make it? 276. Because God will keep his. His word. Every one of them got to the land smelling like sea.
Because every one of them had to plunge in the water. Every one of them. I think the point is obvious. You will need to be engaged in the process. No one will fix you when the storm hits.
No one has some magic answer for you that will allow you to be passive as you fold your arms. You may have to go through the hard work, even some therapy. Even some redirection of your life, even the admission of wrong, the confession of your part in the problem, you will have to get engaged in the process. You may be the one that caused the beginning of the problem to start with. You will have to address that.
They've been promised that they would live, but they weren't promised that they could stay dry. Every one of them Reality said. had to plunge in. That brings me to a perfect place to close this. Not another person in this place is able to bring you eternal salvation.
As good as your mother or your father, as good as your friend may be, you must come to Christ. on your own. You must be engaged in that process. Of being delivered from your sins. And that is called salvation by grace through faith.
Apart from works, you believe. On your own, I'd like us to bow together. You have patiently set through these four anchors, and now we come to the most significant of all of them. And that is to the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the one that causes all of it to make sense.
You who have never met him may not realize it, but you're surrounded by people who have. You're surrounded by those who have turned their life over to Christ, and that gives them, that gave them when they did. The uh privilege. of calling on God when needed. Of pouring their souls out to the Lord in prayer.
of getting strength when it's necessary. Of confessing and finding forgiveness. of being able to go on when it's black and bleak. and barren. I invite you to come today.
Come to the Lord Jesus. He who comes, the Lord will never cast away or cast out. You've seen yourself somewhere in this message today. Maybe you're in the midst of the storm right now. You cannot see the end.
You cannot even see your way clear to the end of this next week. That's exactly where the Lord wants you. Because in the impossibility of your situation, There's no way to look but up. God's love for you is limitless and constant, and He offers you a life that transcends anything on this earth. And he is able to get you through whatever it is that seems impossible to you right now.
But the hope comes. by starting at the cross. That's where there's life and light. and relief. forgiveness and hope.
We have carefully chosen individuals who would love to talk with you. Our desire and most important desire is to help you in your spiritual needs. And if that will help you. find a a way to survive, that that's what we want to do for you.
Now let's pray. Yeah. Now Lord, thank you for taking us through another journey that Though in another era and in another place, Through other lives and seen through other eyes. Uh has once again had a ring of relevance to it. It's amazing how your word touches on exactly where we live.
We find encouragement and strength in it, even in the midst of what seems.
Okay. uh th the uh the the treachery of uh our times. and the threat of a shipwreck. I thank you for those who have patiently listened to the unfolding of this story. And I especially want to pray for those.
who reach out to you today. And I pray, Lord, that you will meet them. and minister to them. and provide them the answer that they've been seeking. not knowing what it really was.
And now, Lord, I pray that you will dismiss us with a reminder that your peace abounds. in the person of Christ. and that there is hope even when all seems bleak and barren. And there is a reason to go on. Thank you for that.
Thank you for helping us know how to handle a shipwreck. It begins and ends. with Christ. And therefore We pray this in His great name and for His sake. Amen.
You're listening to Insight for Living. Chuck titled today's message, How to Handle a Shipwreck. It's just one of 22 sermons in his in-depth biographical study on Paul, a man of grace and grit. In addition to this biographical series on the radio, did you realize that Chuck wrote a full-length book about the Apostle? It's called Paul, a Man of Grace and Grit.
Paul had a sordid background as a one-time Christian hater, but God redeemed his life and he rose to become one of the most prolific writers of the Bible. Any serious student of the Bible should be well acquainted with Paul's remarkable story, and it's beautifully told in Chuck's biography called Paul, a Man of Grace and Grit. To complement your study of Paul, we've created a comprehensive workbook that's part of our Searching the Scriptures Bible Studies. This spiral-bound workbook is great for Bible study groups or for your devotional times in God's Word. The Searching the Scriptures Bible Studies are among the most popular resources we offer, and the one for Paul is in stock and available today.
You can purchase a copy right now by going to insight.org/slash store. or call us at 800-772-8888. In closing, I'd like to express our thanks to all those who give generously to Insight for Living, especially our monthly companions. Your faithful and consistent gifts make it possible for us to provide Chuck Swindahl's teaching every day. For more than 45 years, Insight for Living has been a lifeline for listeners in your hometown and all around the world.
but none of this would be possible without generous partners like you. To support the Ministry of Insight for Living, you can send your gift in an envelope addressed to Insight for Living. Post Office Box 5000. Frisco, Texas 75034. To give a one-time gift or to become a monthly companion, go to insight.org slash donate.
Or call us at 800-772-8888. Why would God allow for Paul's unfair arrest? I'm Bill Meyer. Here, Chuck Swindahl's answer Thursday on Insight for Living. The preceding message, How to Handle a Shipwreck, was copyrighted in 2001, 2003, and 2024, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2024 by Charles R.
Swindahl, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.
