Awaiting True Justice - Pastor Tom Loghry Rockland Community Church Download

Paul’s journey to Rome lands in turbulent seas, which lead the crew of his ship to toss all equipment and goods overboard. They trusted his word that life would be preserved; will we hold fast, trusting God at his word?

Transcript:

When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and the storm continued raging, we finally gave up all hope of being saved. After they had gone a long time without food, Paul stood up before them and said: "Men, you should have taken my advice not to sail from Crete; then you would, then you would have spared yourselves this damage and loss. But now I urge you to keep up your courage, because not one of you will be lost; only the ship will be destroyed. Last night, an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I, I serve stood beside me and said, 'Do not be afraid, Paul. You must stand trial before Caesar; and God has graciously given you the lives of all who sail with you.' So keep up your courage, men, for I have faith in God that it will happen just as he told me. Nevertheless, we must run aground on some island." Acts 27:20-26.

Let us pray as we come before God's word. Dear Father, we pray that as we hear the testimony of Paul's journey to Rome across the sea, that you would minister to us by his example.

That by the work of the Holy Spirit, you would create in us the same sort of faith that we see on display in him. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. You may be seated.

With temperatures rising, we are entering into the season of amusement parks. Most of us have been to one at some time or another in our life, and some of us are bigger fans of them than, than others. I have to say for myself that I'm not really the biggest fan of riding on roller coasters, though I do enjoy some water rides. Perhaps some of you enjoy floating on the lazy river, that tranquil ride on a tube that just coasts along a man-made waterway at a leisurely pace. The water is shallow and usually warm, and apart from possibly some sprays of water, there's nothing that would disturb your peace too greatly.

Other rides, however, have us on the edge of our seats, thrilling us with seeming danger. Perhaps some of you have taken a ride on the swinging pirate ship, a ride like the one pictured behind me. My wife hates this ride. I've always liked the concept of the ride, I like the idea of getting on a ship, and it's kind of like a pirate, you know, being in the middle of a storm. But it can be a stomach-turning experience. When the ride is swinging at its greatest height, you might be attempted to abandon ship, to get off the thing. But as with any of these thrilling rides, that would be the most dangerous thing that you could do. Because while the ride might scare you more than you could have anticipated, in the moment, the safest thing that you can do is to be still, to hold fast. Because you know that those who have designed the ride have ensured that it's safe enough to welcome you and all others to ride on it. The best thing that you can do is to take them at their word, that it's gonna be all right. The worst thing that you could do would be to try to take matters into your own hands.

Now, outside of the amusement park, we of course face dangers that have not been contrived by human design to merely offer you a thrilling ride. We encounter real risk, the greatest risk of all being death. We encounter dangers that are beyond our control. And this raises the question of what will we do in such circumstances? It raises the question of who or what we will trust, when in the midst of such calamity, we hear the Word of God telling us to be still and to trust in Him. The Apostle Paul and his companions find themselves in just this kind of situation as he is being transported from Caesarea to Rome to stand trial before Caesar. And we're going to pick up the narrative now here in Acts 27, and it's worth noting that Luke, the author of Acts, includes himself in this journey as he refers to Paul and his party as we. So picking up in verse one of chapter 27, we read, "When it was decided that we would sail for Italy, Paul and some other prisoners were handed over to a centurion named Julius, who belonged to the Imperial Regiment. We boarded a ship from Adramyttium about to sail for ports along the coast of the province of Asia, and we put out to sea. Aristarchus, a Macedonian from Thessalonica, was with us. The next day we landed at Sidon; and Julius, in kindness to Paul, allowed him to go to his friends so that they might provide for his needs.

From there, we put out to sea again and passed the lee of Cyprus because the winds were against us. When we had sailed across the open sea off the coast of Cilicia and Pamphylia, we landed at Myra in Lycia. There the centurion found an Alexandrian ship sailing for Italy and put us on board. We made slow headway for many days and had difficulty arriving off Cnidus. When the wind did not allow us to hold our course, we sailed to the lee of Crete, opposite Salmone. We moved along the coast with difficulty and came to a place called Fair Havens near the town of Lasea."

So Paul is sailing to Italy. He's on a trip to Italy as a prisoner because he appealed to Caesar concerning his case. And you'll recall that the reason why he's imprisoned in the first place is because the Jews have made accusations against Paul that he's causing trouble. He's a troublemaker. He's part of this, this Nazarene sect. Of course, the Roman authorities, as they've assessed Paul, have said this is just a religious matter among the Jews, 'cause Paul's a Jew himself, was brought up as a Pharisee. But because the Roman governors were trying to pay favors to the Jewish authorities, Paul was compelled to appeal to Caesar. And in fact, this was God's purpose all along, that he would be taken to Italy to stand before Caesar himself The journey, though, to Caesar is no small feat. It includes much danger, and it's danger that becomes realized as Paul proceeds.

He's entrusted into the care of Julius, who is a, a centurion, says that he's part of the Imperial Regiment. Perhaps he was a member of the Praetorian Guard, so very upper echelon military officer. And as they proceed, Paul, and apparently along with Luke, another of their companions joins them named Aristarchus. You'll recall that he appeared in Ephesus. It seems that this is the same Aristarchus, because when there was controversy there with Paul, Aristarchus was one of the ones that got dragged into the theater there in Ephesus before a very enraged mob. And so you have Paul, some of his companions, you've got other prisoners, soldiers, and they're gaining passage to Italy on apparently merchant ships. They're catching a ride. While he's in Sidon, Julius allows Paul to see some of his friends. And so we can see that Julius seemed to have some affection towards Paul, perhaps. He's kind enough to let him see his friends so that they can help take care of his needs.

Now, if you're trying to envision what this journey would have looked like, he's starting from Caesarea down here in Israel. He jumps up to Sidon, and they're working their way up around here because they're trying to get to Italy, to Rome. Now, when they're in Myra, they get on a new ship, and this is a merchant ship that is going from Alexandria to Italy, and it's carrying grain. And this makes a whole lot of sense because Egypt was basically the breadbasket of the empire.

And if you're wondering maybe what this ship would have looked like, it more than likely was a ship known as the Corbida. It would range in its size, but these types of ships could carry up to 400 passengers and could carry up to 1300 tons of, of cargo. So, kind of the mules of the empire bringing goods back and forth.

Now they experienced some slow headway as, as they went along, and these ships in particular could be vulnerable to winds that were not going in their favor because there's just those kind of perpendicular sails, and so it was very difficult to sail into the wind. And so if you had winds that were going over 17 miles an hour, you were gonna have a tough time having things going your way.

As they're coming nearby to Fair Havens, they begin to reckon that things are going against them. They need to make a decision as to whether they're going to cease their journey or they're going to continue forward. So we continue on in verse nine. It says, "Much time had been lost, and sailing had already become dangerous because by now it was after the Day of Atonement. So Paul warned them, 'Men, I can see that our voyage is going to be disastrous and bring great loss to ship and cargo, and to our own lives also.' But the centurion, instead of listening to what Paul said, followed the advice of the pilot and of the owner of the ship. Since the harbor was uns...