Acts 27
You can be seated. Please turn
in your copy of God’s Word to Acts chapter 27. Our reading
today will be the whole chapter. You can find it in the Pew Bible
on page 936. After chapter 27 comes, guess what, chapter 28,
the last one. So we’ll have two sermons on
chapter 28, and after two years in Acts and two years in Luke,
we will have studied everything that Luke compiled for Theophilus,
his benefactor, who paid his way in order that Luke could
write an orderly account of all that Jesus said and did. And he also wrote an orderly
account of all, not all, but all that he wrote about at least,
all that the apostles did on behalf of Jesus, the risen and
exalted savior. Luke and Acts are such a wonderful
part of the scriptures. And it will be quite monumental
for us to have been through it. The plan is in a few weeks to
begin going through Paul’s 13 letters and to go through them
in the order in which they were written. So I believe Galatians
will be first. Let’s give our attention now
to God’s word. Acts chapter 27, beginning at verse one. And when
it was decided that we should sail for Italy, they delivered
Paul and some of other prisoners to a centurion of the Augustan
cohort named Julius. And embarking in a ship of Adramidium,
which was about to sail to the ports along the coast of Asia,
we put to sea accompanied by Aristarchus, a Macedonian from
Thessalonica. The next day we put in at Sidon
and Julius treated Paul kindly and gave him leave to go to his
friends and be cared for. And putting out to sea from there,
we sailed under the lee of Cyprus because the winds were against
us. And when we had sailed along the open sea, along the coast
of Cilicia and Pamphylia, we came to Myra in Lycia. There
the centurion found a ship of Alexandria sailing for Italy
and put us on board. We sailed slowly for a number
of days and arrived with difficulty off Nidus. And as the wind did
not allow us to go farther, we sailed under the lee of Crete
off Siloam. Coasting along it with difficulty,
we came to a place called Fairhavens, near which was the city of Lycia. Since much time had passed and
the voyage was now dangerous, because even the fast was already
over, Paul advised them saying, sirs, I perceive that the voyage
will be with injury and much loss, not only of the cargo in
the ship, but also of our lives. But the centurion paid more attention
to the pilot and to the owner of the ship than to what Paul
said. And because the harbor was not suitable to spend the
winter in, the majority decided to put out to sea from there
on the chance that somehow they could reach Phoenix, a harbor
of Crete, facing both southwest and northwest, and spend the
winter there. Now when the south wind blew
gently, supposing that they had obtained their purpose, they
weighed anchor and sailed along Crete, close to the shore, But
soon a tempestuous wind called the Northeaster struck down from
the land, and when the ship was caught and could not face the
wind, we gave way to it and were driven along. Running under the
lee of a small island called Calda, we managed with difficulty
to secure the ship’s boat. After hoisting it up, they used
supports to undergird the ship. Then fearing that they would
run aground on the Cirtus, they lowered the gear and thus were
driven along. Since we were violently storm-tossed,
they began the next day to jettison the cargo. And on the third day,
they threw the ship’s tackle overboard with their own hands. When neither sun nor stars appeared
for many days, and no small tempest lay on us, All hope of our being
saved was at last abandoned, since they had been without food
for a long time. Paul stood up among them and
said, men, you should have listened to me and not have set sail from
Crete and incurred this injury and loss. Yet now I urge you
to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you,
but only of the ship. For this very night, There stood
before me an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I worship. And he said, do not be afraid,
Paul, you must stand before Caesar. And behold, God has granted you
all those who sail with you. So take heart, men, for I have
faith in God that it will be exactly as I have been told,
but we must run aground on some island. When the 14th night had
come, as we were being driven across the Adriatic Sea, about
midnight, the sailors suspected that they were nearing land,
so they took a sounding and found 20 fathoms. A little farther on, they took
a sounding again and found 15 fathoms. And fearing that we
might run on the rocks, they let down four anchors from the
stern and prayed for day to come. And as the sailors were seeking
to escape from the ship and had lowered the ship’s boat into
the sea under pretense of laying out anchors from the bow, Paul
said to the centurion and the soldiers, unless these men stay
in the ship, you cannot be saved. Then the soldiers cut away the
ropes of the ship and the ship’s boat and let it go. And as day
was about to dawn, Paul urged them all to take some food saying,
today is the 14th day that you have continued in suspense and
without food, having taken nothing. Therefore, I urge you to take
some food. It will give you your strength for not a hair is to
perish from the head of any of you. Then when he had said these
things, he took bread and giving thanks to God in the presence
of all, he broke it and began to eat. Then they were all encouraged
and ate some food themselves. We were in all 276 persons in
the ship. And when they had eaten enough,
they lightened the ship, throwing out the wheat into the sea. Now,
when it was day, they did not recognize the land, but they
noticed a bay with a beach on which they planned, if possible,
to run the ship ashore. So they cast off the anchors
and left them in the sea at the same time, loosening the ropes
that tied the rudders, then hoisting the foresail to the wind they
made for the beach, but striking a reef, they ran the vessel aground. The bow stuck and remained immovable,
and the stern was being broken up by the surf. The soldier’s
plan was to kill the prisoners lest any should swim away and
escape. But the centurion, wishing to save Paul, kept them from
carrying out their plan. He ordered that those who could
swim to jump overboard and first make for land and the rest on
planks or on pieces of the ship. And so it was that all were brought
safely to land. Amen, the word of the living
God for us, his children. This is for our growth in grace. I wonder what in your mind is
the most well-known shipwreck? I would imagine because of all
the recent fanfare that in your mind, it’s the Titanic. For some
of you who watch certain TV programs, it’s probably the SS Minnow. But I would remind you, both
of the Minnow and the Titanic, one 50 years ago, one 100 years
ago, it’s the shipwreck of the Alexandrian grain ship. on the way to Rome with an important
prisoner that is possibly, perhaps, maybe ought to be the most well-known
shipwreck in human history. It’s in a book that’s 2,000 years
old. It’s in a book that has been
a bestseller ever since its first edition. And so I would suggest
to you, I would submit to you that it’s this very shipwreck
that we are reading of today that has gained possibly the
most notoriety in human history. This ship would have been a special
ship in the fleet of the Roman Empire. They would sail from
Alexandria in Egypt from off of the Nile River with a shipload
of grain. And they would deliver port to
port throughout the Roman Empire. Part of the Pax Romana, part
of the economy of Rome was to keep everyone well fed. We understand that well today.
We live in a world with government programs. There’s really not
an area of our country that lacks If you want an education, you
can get it. If you want a meal, you can obtain it. If you want
basic services such as telephone or banking, it’s available to
any and to all. And so you can imagine the importance
of this Roman ship, this boat from the fleet of the Roman and
Alexandrian grain market. Well, there would also be on
these ships very often a centurion with a group of soldiers who
would escort prisoners throughout the empire, and in Paul’s case,
to Rome. Remember Paul’s appeal to Caesar,
and it’s to Caesar that he will go. And we begin this passage
by reading Luke, the physician, Luke, the writer of Luke and
Acts. He begins with the words, we set sail. He’s speaking of
himself, he’s speaking of Paul and he’s speaking of Aristarchus,
the Macedonian from Thessalonica, who in some way, shape or form
has become important to Paul. He’s mentioned in other books
of the Bible that Paul writes at the endings, greet Aristarchus,
my brother in the faith. And so Luke begins our story
today saying, we set sail. And I think it’s important for
us to stop for a moment and think of Luke, the eyewitness. Luke,
the man of detail, Luke, the journal keeper, Luke, most importantly,
the man under the power of the Holy Spirit who would write the
most New Testament content that we have in our Bibles today.
He was an eyewitness to many of these things and what he didn’t
firsthand see, he went and he researched. What makes us believe
that these words are the Bible? Well, the ultimate answer, I
love how our Westminster Confession of Faith puts it, the ultimate
confirmation to each of us that this is the Word of God is the
Holy Spirit bearing witness and testimony in our hearts that
it is indeed the Word of God. We love facts. We love archaeology. We love tidbits of history. And
that’s all helpful. But ultimately, the Holy Spirit
proves to us the Bible is true. But one interesting tidbit from
history. People say of Luke’s writings that for a land lover,
as he might be called, one who didn’t ordinarily sail on ships,
he got all of the maritime details, all of the processes and things
that they did along this journey. He got them right. And what great
detail we have of the shipwreck where the apostle Paul ended
up in the sea. This is given to us by the Holy
Spirit. It is for us, and indeed, it
is likely the best, most well-known shipwreck in human history. Well,
their journey begins by sailing port to port. You’ve noticed
in the reading of the scripture, they were on two different boats.
The first boat went from Caesarea, where Paul was kept in prison,
and they went from there to Sidon, and from there to other cities.
They were port hopping. You understand their boat never
really went out into the open sea. It just kind of skirted
along the shore, out far enough to get a deep enough draft for
the ship’s rudder and gears. And one of the great blessings
of the early part of this voyage is after Caesarea, they take
about a 90-mile trip up to Sidon. And Paul is able there because
there’s a couple of days break of loading and unloading the
ship’s cargo and changing passengers. Paul is permitted by Julius the
centurion to go into the city and to visit with Christian friends
and to receive probably health care from them. And it’s likely
that Paul gets back on the boat with Well, you know, some Rice
Krispie treats and some church lady cookies, and they probably
made him provisions. It was still yet a long ways
to Rome, and as we’re gonna find out, a really long ways, but
they care for Paul. Paul cares for them. We aren’t
told what was said, but we can imagine from the other places
where Paul visits with Christians, it was a serious spiritual encounter. One that they never forgot in
their lifetimes. And so when they get back on
board and make their trek, which should have taken maybe a week
or so, this trip probably took a couple of weeks. It was windy
and a headwind is hard to sail in. And it was becoming winter
when one doesn’t sail. Some of you will remember when
Paul writes to Timothy and says, bring the parchments, bring my
cloak. His final instruction to him
is come before winter. After a certain point, there
was a no-go season, about three months, where one did not sail
on the seas, not even port by port and much more. You would
not have sailed the open Mediterranean Sea for the winds and the winter
were very unpredictable, as we’ll soon find out. Well, they make
their way after some time to a little town called Mira in
Turkey. And if you’re familiar with good
old St. Nick, not the Santa Claus one,
but St. Nicholas, the Bishop of Mira,
Turkey, this would be a place in history that you would know
of. And they swap out the port hopping ship for a large grain
vessel. And this grain vessel loaded
with grain and the ship’s tackle and sailors also were told carried
276 souls. But as it was getting late in
the season, as winter was approaching, it was not a time to set sail.
And so you can begin to see the predicament that Paul’s in. He’s
a prisoner. He’s not in charge. He’s not setting the itinerary.
He’s not deciding, I can’t go on this ship. He’s a prisoner
of Rome and whatever the centurion says he must do. And so they begin their sail
on this large grain ship. It’s a slow, and difficult route. They are, well, they’re hoping
to get to a special harbor, Phoenix. They get to Fairhaven barely,
the underside of one of the islands out on the sea. And you can imagine
the chatter on board. Any of y’all heard lately, it’s
a really crass thing, but there’s a version of the Bible now in
pirate language. Y’all heard of that? I looked
at it online. Maybe you’d think of that here.
I don’t know, but what they said on the ship, Oh, we can make
it to the, to the next, to the next place. There’s, there’s
better hotels. There’s better drinking, right?
There’s better nighttime affairs, whatever. And so the chatter
on board the boat, let’s press on. the chatter on board the
ship, let’s take the risk. They wanted their three months
winter to be a happy three months. Uh, it’s a risky journey. This
big ship is taking and Paul begins after a day or two of this voyage
to, to feel uneasy. And he stands in front of them
all and says, sirs, I perceive that if we continue this journey,
it will not be without great loss to the ship. Great loss
to the cargo and great loss to our lives. It’s hard to understand
maybe because we don’t have all the information needed. Was Paul
here just giving wisdom? Was he giving experience? You
know, he had sailed a few times and he knew the weather, he knew
the winter. Was he was he just saying not a good idea? Was he
being the voice of reason? And some would suggest it was
it was more than that. He had a direct revelation from
God. Paul, this is going to be a disaster. If this ship sails
any farther, if it goes to any other port, if it leaves this
port and goes out into the sea, it’s not going to be good. We
don’t know if it was just good, pious advice from a man of experience
or if this was a direct revelation from God. But they take a straw
poll on the boat. What do you guys think? And the
majority says, we’ll take our chances. And in some sense here,
you understand they rejected at least Paul’s wisdom. They
rejected at least Paul’s advice that they should have listened
to. But on some level, it could be that they rejected the voice
of God through Paul and he warned them through a prophecy. Well,
nevertheless, a good lesson for us. There’s always people in
the world that know more than we do. The Proverbs tell us to
gather wisdom, gather facts and act through the counsel of many. And God, by his grace, has given
us what we call common grace. The rain falls on the just and
the unjust. These unjust people would have done well to follow
the advice of the just, Paul. Natural law, the things that
are built into nature. Winter comes, winds come, hey,
stay home. Common sense, how about that? This just causes us a little
pause, doesn’t it? In our daily affairs, especially
the big ones that can put 276 souls at risk. property and economy and, you
know, the grain that’s got to be sold to feed other people.
We need to, well, think through these things. We need to seek
wisdom, pray, seek the word of God and follow it. Well, here
they don’t, and it brings great folly. Some of you will remember
back in the Gulf War days, the second one, I suppose, where
Everybody was pretty sure there were some weapons of mass destruction. That’s why we got to go do this
thing. And remember Donald Rumsfeld’s famous speech. He says, in a
situation like this, we have knowns, right? Things we know.
Then we have known unknowns. There’s things that we know we
don’t know. And then he gave a little category
that got everybody thinking. We have this third category of
unknown unknowns. And that’s where this ship is
heading. It’s sailing away into the unknowns,
much like Christopher Columbus heading for the new world. They
were really taking a big risk to leave the port at this time
of the year. They knew there would be storms
and winds, but they were willing to chance it. Well, the pilot,
the owner of the ship, and even the mates in the Centurion, They
overrule Paul. We need to get around the corner
of this island. It’s just 40 miles. We can squeak
around there. We can make it work. Better hotels,
better watering holes, better nightlife, better winter for
all of us. And our passage says they paid
more attention to the pilot. They paid more attention to the
ship owner. They paid more attention to the centurion. These men not
acting out of wisdom, not acting in the best interest the 276
souls. And our passage tells us, by
chance, somehow they hoped to get around the corner to this
little bay where they might spend the winter. But Paul had for
them the wisdom of the true God. Paul had for them his own faith
and his trust in almighty God. We remember James, the half brother
of Jesus, the early apostle who said, why do you believers say
today and tomorrow we’ll do this, we’ll do that, we’ll take up
a business, we’ll trade here, we’ll go to that city, we’ll
succeed here or there. Why do you say that when you
should be saying the Lord willing, the Lord willing, we will do
this or that. You see the difference of worldviews on this ship. Well, in hopes of getting around
to the little village of Phoenix on the other end of the island,
they set sail. 276 souls, a full load of grain. You understand
this boat was half a football field long. It was 36 feet wide,
probably as wide as this room. than a good three times as long.
It was a very cumbersome boat. Loaded down, it needed 33 feet
of water. This was a big, heavy, sluggish
boat. But as they set sail, they had
a south wind. And can’t you imagine the mood
on the deck? Look what sailors know. You’re
just an apostle. You’re just a preacher. What
do you know? And so with the wind at their backs, they make
good time. until the wind comes down off
of the mountain. And a nor’easter comes, you’ve
maybe been at the coast, and a wind comes out of the nor’east.
It’s a near hurricane type storm. They called it in Greek and Roman
days, a Euroclidon. It was connected to the gods. They believed it came right off
the mountain of Zeus. And they, I imagine, These sailors
were much like the sailors in Jonah’s ship, each praying to
their own God, hoping for the best, regretting their decision. Well, a couple of days into this,
they had been tossed to and fro. Maybe you’ve seen. Oh, the perfect
storm, you know, about the fishing vessel that left Gloucester in
the 90s and never came back. You’ve seen the waves and the
ups and the downs, the deeps, the troughs and the peaks of
the waves. And you get seasick just watching this on TV. Well, a couple of days of being
tossed to and fro. These men tried every maritime
trick that they could. They pulled in their lifeboat. They strapped the underneath
of the ship all the way around. Could you imagine taking ratchet
straps? and throwing them under your boat, pulling them under
the other side and ratchet strapping, or in our day it’d be duct tape,
wouldn’t it? Duct taping your boat together.
That’s essentially what they did. They pulled in their anchors.
They tossed the tackle and the gear. They offloaded some of
the cargo. They had no food to eat. They
had no stars by which to gauge their position or direction. They had no GPS. They had no
sonar, no radar, no marine communications, they were, they were in a great
fix and they don’t know it. But down in the hold is the apostle
Paul with an angel standing before him. And the angel stands before
Paul in his bunk and says, don’t be afraid. This is the final
vision that Paul receives from God in Acts. Don’t be afraid. You’re going to stand before
Caesar. And I will grant not only your life, but every single
sailor and passengers life. All 276 souls will be rescued. Well, a couple of days into this
storm tossed boat and journey, Paul begins to sense the despair
and he sees the injury and the loss. You can fill in the details,
can’t you, in your own mind? What do you do for a couple of
days on a boat that’s rocking up and down and it’s pitching
and it’s heaving and all the rest and waves crash in on it
and there’s nothing but to cry out to whoever is your God. And Paul stands up on the deck
of the boat and says, you should have listened to me. And it’s
not an I told you so speech. It’s not. This isn’t biblical
justification for going around telling people you told you so.
This is where some believe that Paul had a prophecy from God.
Don’t take the voyage. Don’t go out of the port. Stay
in Myra. Well, Paul says, you should have
listened to me. And since you didn’t before,
perhaps now I’ve got your attention. I had an angel stand before my
bed. My God whom I serve, my God whom
I worship, my God who is the object of my faith and my hope
and my trust, my God who made the world and the wind and the
waves and the sea, my God who governs all these things, assures
me there will be no injury. there will be no loss. You can
imagine by now, this is just a floating barge. This is just
an object at sea with the ocean having its way. If it sends it
this way or that way or up or down, that’s where the boat will
go. It’s useless to attempt any type
of sailing or steering. These sailors, well, they’ve
tired themselves out. permanent nighttime. They can’t
see, they can’t understand anything. It’s futile. And what does Paul
say to them? Take heart. Can you imagine those
words? Take heart, take heart. There
will be no loss of life. Everybody loves their own neck,
don’t they? quite encouraging to them. No loss of life. We’re
going to, we’re going to make it to Rome. I’ve got to be at
Caesars and it’s my faith in my God that will get us there. The whole ship will make it. Every last one of you. Why did
Paul believe these things? Was it just the angel that came
before him? Should we hope for sensational
supernatural appearances? Well, those ceased in apostolic
times. We we have a more sure thing. Hebrews tells us we have God’s
word. We have God’s word. We have God’s
spirit. And in God’s word, it tells us
of God’s covenant love for his people and what he begins and
finishes. And he’s with you all along the
way. Our union with Christ is quite
the thing. And so as you go through. Let’s
just call on the storms of life. As you find yourself in the hold
of a ship or in a dark valley or in some sickness or illness
or hardship, and to use the language of Acts 27 here, there is no
small tempest over your life. What can go through your mind
are the things that went through Paul’s mind. He had read and
knew and digested and preached and taught the Old Testament.
He had already by this time written letters to Corinthians and Romans
and Galatians and several others of the letters. Scripture is
in his mind and heart. And perhaps Romans 8, we don’t
know, but it’d be a good one to run to if it was us in the
hold of that ship. What can separate me from the
love of God and Christ? Can tempest, can storm, can danger,
can hardship, can Satan, can the world, can any enemy separate
me from Christ? The answer is resounding no. And so the ship begins to toss
its cargo. And our passage tells us this
storm went on for 14 days. I can remember somewhere back
in the 90s going on a deep sea fishing trip and somewhere off
Myrtle Beach started to get away where you couldn’t see land and
the panic came. And I’d been, I was young. I
said, oh, I don’t need any of those drugs. None of that. I’ll be,
I’ll be just fine. And the only thing that took
away The fear of being away from land was that fish started biting.
But boy, when we got back to dock to that nasty wharf covered
in fish scales and whatnot, he wanted to kiss the ground. And
you can imagine after 14 days, these are good sailors, they’ve
seen some stuff, but 14 days they begin to hear the sound
of land. Perhaps it was the waves crashing on the sea. And so they
began to take measurements. They were marking the depths
and it was 20 fathoms and less and less and less. And so they
began to drag the anchors so they couldn’t run aground. Remember
it’s dark and they cannot see. Someone to lower the lifeboat
and escape. And Paul sees and says no to the centurions. It
cannot be unless they all stay on the ship, none will be saved. And so, Standing on the bow of
the ship the 14th day, the 14th night, let’s eat together. You
know what a good meal is after a long day, after a long trip,
after a hard stretch. It’s comfort food, we call it.
And sometimes we binge, don’t we? All they got was a morsel
of bread. But you see the beauty of Paul here, he takes bread,
he gives thanks to the God of heaven, the God of earth, the
God of salvation, and he gives them all bread. And as they’ve
been in suspense for all these days, all these weeks, all these
nights, all these hours, all these moments, they’ve been in
suspense, will the ship come apart? Will we make it safely
to land? Paul says to them very plainly,
Not a hair of any of your heads will be lost. Could you imagine
saying that to a boatload of sailors, a boatload of prisoners,
a boatload of pagan Romans, a boatload of people from all kinds of nations.
Friends, you never know where your confidence in God will come
in handy and be a great witness. You see, Paul, has what we are
given in the book of Hebrews chapter six. He has the anchor
of the soul. And that chain that is wrapped
around each of us and connected to an anchor, that anchor does
not reach down into the depths of the sea and stand fast on
a sandbar or a reef. No, the anchor that we have of
hope reaches up into the heavens and it is anchored inside the
most holy place where the finished work of Christ has been placed
for us. And Paul has this anchor of the
soul, a firm hope in God almighty. And we also by faith in Jesus
and by the knowledge we have of the scriptures can have that
same hope. It’s why every couple of weeks
in our confession of our profession of faith, we use Heidelberg catechism
one and two. What is your only comfort in
life and in death and fill in the blanks? What is your only
comfort in the hold of a ship that is sinking? It’s that I
belong to my faithful savior, Jesus Christ. He’s bought me
with his blood. Not a hair can fall from my head
without it being his will. Jesus cares for the lilies of
the field. Jesus cares for the sparrows. And so in Christ Jesus,
we can have hope and hardship. Well, they’re gonna lighten the
load. They’re gonna run the ship aground on some island. Next
week, we’ll see. They spend three months on the
island of Malta. But it’s every man for himself
till they get off the broken ship, holding on to planks and
life preservers and whatever else they can get. The soldiers
aren’t allowed to kill the prisoners, including Paul. And our passage
just very well ends with words we should never forget, especially
as you look forward to going home to heaven. And the words
that our passage ends with, and so it was, all were brought safely
to land. Do pray with me. Lord, what a storm-tossed life
we do live. It’s hard, it’s painful. There’s
so much difficulty in every one of our lives. And we thank you
that our anchor is for sure gripping the holy of holies, the promises
of God, the oaths, the covenants, the completed work of Jesus.
And we thank you that when this tempest that is upon us is over,
we will land safely on heaven’s shore. Encourage us in these
truths. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.