P. G. Mathew, M.A., M.Div., Th.M.
The Storms of Life
In our life’s journey, there are times we will experience contrary winds and sudden storms. There are times, as Jesus himself promised, when the rain will come down, the streams will rise, and the winds will blow and beat against us. Maybe some of you are experiencing such storms even now. Your young wife is suddenly sick and you do not know why. Your young husband has been sick for a long time, and there is no sign of healing. Your country that you trusted and relied upon is sick and the very foundations are being shaken. You are suffering from economic reversals. Your father is about to die. Your wife is in the hospital. Your children are rebellious. Your marriage is in serious trouble.
Many of us experience such storms, so it is good to listen to the apostle Paul, who tells us of some of his own sufferings in 2 Corinthians 11:23-29:
I have worked harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?
When we are buffeted by the storms of life, we must remember one thing: God is with us in our storms. He never tells us to go out on our own; rather, he tells us to follow him who is always leading us. It is he who promised, “I will be with you always, even unto the end of the ages.” If God is for us, who can destroy us?
Context
Acts 27 which speaks about a storm the apostle Paul endured towards the end of his apostolic ministry. For two years he was in a prison in Caesarea, having been charged by the Jewish Sanhedrin of being a troublemaker who defiled the temple, taught against the law of Moses, and was against Caesar. Though he was innocent of all charges, Paul failed to receive justice from the Roman governors Felix and Festus, so he appealed to Caesar, which meant he had to go to Rome to be tried. In Acts 27 we find Paul being put on board a ship from Adramyttium, which is on the northwest coast of Asia Minor, south of Troas, and beginning his journey to Rome.
In Acts 27:1-2 we read that Paul was placed under the custody of a centurion named Julius and that Luke the physician and Aristarchus from Thessalonica traveled with Paul to help him. In Acts 27 and 28 we have Luke’s eyewitness account of Paul’s journey from Caesarea to Rome. We may wonder what Luke had been doing during the years when Paul was waiting in prison in Caesarea. Possibly Luke stayed with Paul to help him while he was in prison and he may have also been doing research in Palestine for his two-volume work of Luke and Acts.
When they reached Myra on the south coast of Lycia, Paul and the others were put on a large Alexandrian ship, which was carrying grain from Alexandria to Rome. This freighter was about one hundred and eighty feet in length, forty-five feet in width, and forty-three feet in depth. Besides the cargo, it also carried 276 persons: sailors, prisoners, soldiers, and regular passengers.
After the ship left Myra, instead of sailing west, it was driven south by contrary winds. After many days, it arrived at Fair Havens, on the southern coast of Crete. It became clear to all on board that they could not arrive in Italy before the winter, so the centurion, the pilot and the owner of the ship made plans to winter at Phoenix, which was a better and safer port just west of Fair Havens. The majority of those on the ship favored this plan, but by divine revelation, I believe, Paul disagreed, warning those with him against leaving the port of Fair Havens (Acts 27:10). Paul was an experienced traveler who had made at least eleven voyages totaling 3500 miles across the Mediterranean Sea and had already experienced three shipwrecks. But the authorities rejected Paul’s counsel in favor of the majority view and decided to sail to Phoenix.
The ship left Fair Havens for Phoenix, but it never arrived there. Caught by a terrible storm called a “northeaster,” it was driven along off course for many days. In Acts 27:20 Luke writes, “When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and the storm continued raging, we finally gave up all hope of being saved.”
Paul in the Storm
What was Paul doing during this storm? Praying earnestly. In Acts 27:23 we read that God gave him a message of comfort as he prayed. God told Paul that not only would he be safe, but also that God would give him a gift, that all those who were sailing with him would also be saved, in response to Paul’s intercessory prayer.
This passage illustrates the truth that God’s decrees cannot be frustrated and what God has ordained does take place. It was God’s plan to take Paul to Rome. God revealed his plan to Paul when he was arrested in Jerusalem. In Acts 23:11 we read that the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to Paul in the night, saying, “Take courage! As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so also you must give witness to me in Rome.” In the Greek we find the word dei — “you must.” That has to do with divine ordination, divine decree. In other words, God was telling Paul, “I have decreed, it is my purpose, it is my plan, that you witness in Rome, and no one is able to stop my plan for you.” God had also given Paul a desire to go to Rome even before that. In Romans 1:15 Paul speaks of his intense planning, longing, and desire to go to Rome to preach the gospel. In Acts 19:21 Paul speaks of his plans to go to Rome to preach the gospel after visiting Jerusalem.
God’s servants are invincible and indestructible until their God-ordained works on earth are done. In Acts 26:17, we read that when God appointed Paul to be an apostle, he also promised to rescue him from all his enemies. Satan and all hell might try to stop him—all the demons and devils and every other force in the universe—but nothing can thwart the divine decree. It was God’s will that Paul go to Rome, and that plan would be accomplished.
I hope we can all understand this truth and apply it to our own lives. If God has ordained our salvation, we will be saved. Nothing can thwart that plan.
The Opposition of the Sanhedrin
Paul faced four sources of opposition to this plan of going to Rome. First, the Sanhedrin opposed him when he went to Jerusalem after his third missionary journey. Paul wanted to worship at the temple and offer gifts to the poor , but while he was worshiping at the temple, Paul was seized, dragged, and beaten by the Jews. They were about to kill him when he was rescued by the commander, Claudius Lysias. As he was being taken away to the Roman barracks, Paul was given permission to defend himself before the Jewish people. He began to speak to the crowd, but again the Jews tried to kill him and the commander had to rescue him.
Then we are told forty Jewish men took an oath to kill Paul. God delivered him from this trap and had him transferred him to Caesarea. While he was there, we are told the Sanhedrin demanded before governors Felix and Festus that Paul must be condemned to death, saying, “He is a troublemaker. All over the world he makes trouble Didn’t he defile the temple and teach against the law of Moses? And not only that, he is against Caesar!”
There was only one problem with the opposition of the Sanhedrin: They could not prove these charges against Paul. The governors themselves failed to give Paul justice and kept him in prison for two years. When Paul found out that he was not going to receive justice in Israel and had opportunity to stand before King Agrippa II, he appealed to Caesar. That meant he had to travel to Rome, which prevented the Sanhedrin from murdering him. God was with Paul. His purpose for him was to go to Rome and preach there.
The Opposition of the Storm
Paul and his group traveled from Caesarea to Myra in Lycia, where they boarded another ship to take them to Rome. The second ship, a large Alexandrian freighter, was also carrying condemned criminals from Judea and Caesarea who were being taken to Rome to die in the arena, thereby contributing to the amusement of Roman citizens. Paul was not a condemned criminal, but he traveled as a prisoner to be tried before Caesar Nero.
The Sanhedrin had failed in all its attempts to murder Paul, but then he encountered another source of opposition: a great storm came up. Once again we must ask if Paul was now going to be destroyed by this storm, thus frustrating the divine ordination of his ministry in Rome, or would God deliver him? In Isaiah 25:4 we read, “You have been a refuge for the poor, a refuge for the needy in his distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat.” He who delivered his disciples from the storm in the Sea of Galilee, the Lord Jesus Christ, is the Lord of all. Remember how he stilled the storm and saved them? The question now was whether or not he would deliver Paul from this storm as well.
What was Paul’s response to the storm? He engaged in earnest, serious prayer. God answered Paul’s prayers, sending an angel to him as he was on this freighter caught in the northeaster’s storm. The angel brought Paul a message of encouragement from God, which Paul shared with the others.
In Acts 27:21 we read, “After the men 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 have spared yourselves this damage and loss.’” It is good to pay attention to the counsel that comes to you from people of God. If you don’t, you will suffer for it. What happened to these people? Because they ignored Paul’s counsel to stay at Fair Havens, they lost the cargo and the ship. They would have lost a lot of people also, except for the prayer and intercession of Paul. So Paul told the people, “You should have listened to my counsel.” Of course, his had been the minority opinion, but because Paul was a man of God and an apostle of God, his counsel was better.
These people suffered the loss of their ship and cargo, but God showed mercy and told them through Paul, “But now I urge you to keep up your courage, because not one of you will be lost; only the ship will be destroyed.” The Bible tells us that the people of the world are without God and without hope, and certainly we see this demonstrated here. The others on the ship had become anxious and hopeless in this great storm, but one man on the ship was full of hope. He spent the time praying to God, and I believe he also sang, as he had done previously in the Philippian jail.
It was this same Paul who wrote in Romans 5:3-4 that “we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” Paul knew that God ordains suffering for his people so that their character could be developed. He also wrote in Romans 8:28, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” In Romans 8:8:39 Paul wrote, “Neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Paul wrote from his prison in Rome to the Philippians, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” (Phil. 4:4) I am of the opinion that in this time of hopelessness during this great storm, Paul, perhaps together with Luke and Aristarchus, was having a great prayer meeting, and God answered his prayers.
God Encourages Paul
Paul said an angel of the Lord appeared to him in the night. The Lord had appeared to him on the road to Damascus and saved him, as we read in Acts 9. The Lord appeared to him again in Corinth and comforted him, telling him to keep on speaking and preaching the gospel (Acts 18). The Lord appeared to him in Jerusalem and told him that he must witness to Christ in Rome (Acts 23:11). Now God was sending an angel to this drifting ship to comfort Paul. Truly, our God is a shelter in all our storms!
Remember, God took care of Paul and those with him without stopping the storm. Oh, yes, Jesus Christ could easily have ordered the storm to cease. He did another time, did he not, on the Sea of Galilee? God has put all things under his feet and he is Lord of all. But in his sovereign will, he did not do so this time. While the storm continued to rage, God made a promise to Paul that he would save all the people on the ship for Paul’s sake. That was the message of encouragement the angel brought to Paul. So Paul said in Acts 27:21-22, “Men, you should have taken my advice not to sail from Crete; 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.”
How did Paul get this message? “Last night,” he says in verses 23-24, “an angel of the God whose I am and whom I serve stood beside me and said, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul. You must stand trial before Caesar.’” Here we note that in the Greek we find the word dei again, meaning all this was divinely ordained. The angel continued, “’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.’”
“Whose I Am”
Paul said an angel of the God “whose I am and whom I serve” spoke to him.The first thing we must note is the phrase “whose I am.” Paul was telling those on the ship with him, “I want you all to know that I serve the true God. I belong to him—the only God, the infinite personal God, the holy God”—the God whom Jonah spoke of when he was in a storm as “the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land” (Jonah 1:9). Paul was saying, “I belong to this God,” meaning, “I am his property, his portion, his inheritance. I have been bought with a price, the blood of Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ takes good care of his property. I am not my own; I am his, and he will not let his property suffer destruction.”
What great comfort this brought to Paul, and what great comfort it should bring to every believer! If you have not trusted in Jesus Christ and surrendered your life to him, you cannot say that you are God’s property and he is going to defend, protect, shelter, and save you. You can have no such hope.
Paul was telling these people that Christ was his bridegroom and he was the bride of Christ. The bridegroom is very much interested in the salvation and protection of the bride, is he not? (PGM) He was saying, “I am God’s child and he is my heavenly Father.” Won’t the heavenly Father do everything to take care of his child? Yes. He was saying, “I am his sheep and he is my good shepherd, who gave his life for me.” That is what Paul meant by the phrase, “whose I am.”
“Whom I Serve”
Then Paul said, “whom I serve.” Paul served the true and living God, the Lord Jesus Christ. He ascended into the heavens and all things have been subjected to him. He is Lord of all. When Paul said, “whom I serve,” he was saying, “I fear nothing, because I am not doing my own will but the will of God. I serve him as his apostle. It is his plan that I should be in Rome and bear witness to Caesar. The will of my master must be fulfilled.”
“You see,” Paul was saying, “if I were doing my own thing, then I could not have any assurance that God would protect me, especially in the midst of this great storm. But I am not doing my own thing. God is sending me to Rome to be his apostle, and he is the God of every circumstance, including this storm. Last night I received a message from heaven, which told me not to be afraid. Yes, I was fearing, because, like you, I was troubled. But then I heard the angel declare, ‘Stop fearing, Paul. You must stand before Caesar.’ In other words, he was saying, ‘Everything is going to be all right. You will arrive in Rome. I will save you.’”
“The Lives of All Who Sail with You”
Then Paul said the angel gave him a surprise. In verse 24 in the Greek he says, “Behold!” meaning, “Surprise!” What was the surprise? “I am giving you as a gift all those who are sailing with you.” You see, Paul had prayed for the others also, and God heard his prayer.
True Christians are a blessing to others around them, wherever they are in the world. True Christians are a blessing to their country, to their state, and to their neighborhood. We can prove this from Genesis 18, where Abraham asked God if there were only ten righteous men in Sodom and Gomorrah, will God destroy them?” What was God’s answer? “No.” Ten righteous people would have saved those cities from destruction. We find another example of this principle in the life of Joseph. Potiphar was blessed because of Joseph, as was the entire land of Egypt.
I want you to know we are a blessing to this country as well. America should be proud of true Christian people, because true Christians are preserving this country from disintegration, although I don’t know how long it will last. Paul spoke to the others on the ship, who were troubled, anxious, sick, tired, and ready to die. “Be of good cheer!” he told them. Only a Christian can say such things. Only one who has heard from God can say, “Be of good cheer! Be happy! Don’t worry, because God has spoken, and I trust God and his word.” Yes, the people of the world are without God and without hope, but we can give hope to the world through the word of God. Christians truly are the light of the world and the salt of the earth. So Paul told the others, in essence, “Don’t worry, because not one hair of your heads will be lost. God has promised to keep you safe.” And in Acts 27:44 we read, “Everyone reached land in safety.”
The Opposition of the Soldiers
As the ship neared land, it ran aground on a sandbar and began to break up. Now another problem developed which threatened to frustrate God’s plan of bringing Paul to Rome. The soldiers who were in charge of the prisoners wanted to kill them, including Paul, because they knew that if any prisoner escaped during the shipwreck, the soldiers in charge would be killed. Remember the Philippian jailer of Acts? After the earthquake, he was about to kill himself because he thought his prisoners had escaped and he would be killed in their place.
The soldiers were about to kill Paul, but at the right moment, Julius the centurion intervened and stopped them. Why did he intervene? Because no one can frustrate God’s plan. The Lord ordained that Paul must witness in Rome. He was indestructible and invincible until his work was done. And, as we said before, God had also promised the safety of everyone on the ship, so these soldiers were prevented from killing the other prisoners as well.
The Opposition of the Snake
The Sanhedrin had tried to frustrate God’s plan, but they could not. The storm tried to frustrate God’s plan, but it could not. The Roman soldiers tried to frustrate God’s plan, but they could not. But that was not the end of Paul’s troubles. He now encountered opposition from a snake.
After many days of being tossed about in the storm, and after suffering great loss of the cargo and the ship, all 276 people came ashore safely on an island called Melita, which means refuge. The modern name is Malta. Malta is in the center of the Mediterranean, sixty miles south of Sicily. This was the fourth shipwreck that Paul survived in the Lord’s service.
The natives of this island showed unusual kindness, we are told, to the cold, shivering company of people who swam up to the shore in the early morning. It was still raining and cold, and we may begin to wonder, “O God, couldn’t you have done a better job in saving Paul?” but this was God’s way of doing it. We can pray all we want, but what is going to happen is what God ordains to happen.
The people of the island kindled a fire and welcomed the survivors. Paul also helped out by gathering a pile of brushwood for the fire, and in Acts 28:3 we read, “as he put it on the fire, a viper, driven out by the heat, fastened itself on his hand. When the islanders saw the snake hanging from his hand, they said to each other, ‘This man must be a murderer; for though he escaped the sea, Justice has not allowed him to live.’ But Paul shook the snake off into the fire and suffered no ill effects. The people expected him to swell up or suddenly fall dead, but after waiting a long time and seeing nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and said he was a god.”
When the natives saw the snake bite Paul, they immediately concluded he would die, because they knew this type of snake was poisonous. “When a venomous snake bites, its poison enters the bloodstream and breaks down the capillaries, causing massive internal hemorrhage. The affected area begins to swell, and if the poison is sufficiently powerful, the victim will die almost instantaneously” (Simon Kistemaker, New Testament Commentary: Exposition of the Acts of the Apostles, [Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1995], 949). That is why these natives were waiting to see Paul fall down dead.
But Jesus Christ said in Luke 10:19: “I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.” The truth is, nothing will harm a child of God while he or she is in the service of the King of kings and the Lord of lords.
In this passage from Acts we see Paul encountering opposition from the Sanhedrin, the storm, the soldiers and the snake, but none of these destroyed him. He was the apostle of Christ and God’s purpose was for him to go to Rome.
God Is with Us
Let me ask you this: If God is for us, who can be against us? When we are in the service of the King, Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all and head of the church, which is his body, we are indestructible. No weapon forged against us will prevail, for God is with us. He is with us in all the storms life sends us. We can have great confidence, knowing that he will either save us by calming the storm, or he will save us without calming the storm, as he did with Paul in this storm.
Our God is with us, in us, and for us. He will never leave us nor forsake us. He is the truth and he can be trusted. The Bible says that no matter how many promises God has made, they are all “Yes” in Christ because God cannot lie. “Let God be true, and every man a liar,” Paul wrote in Romans 3:4.
In Isaiah 43:1-3 we find a divine promise in reference to the people of God, those whom God has purchased, who belong to him and serve him:
But now, this is what the Lord says—he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.”
This God is with us in our storm to comfort and cheer us, and, as I said before, I am sure Paul sang as well as prayed, knowing that God was with him in the storm. He is with us in our flood and in our fire. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were thrown into the fiery furnace because of their exclusive worship and service of the true God, but God did not abandon them in the furnace. He was with them even there, to the great astonishment of King Nebuchadnezzar, who said, “Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.” Not even one hair of their heads was singed when they came out of the furnace.
Remember Joseph the patriarch? He was thrown into the pit, but God was with him in the pit. He was sold as a slave to Potiphar in Egypt, but God was with him there. He was thrown into the prison, but God was with him in the prison.
Let me assure you, people of God whose you are and whom you serve, God is with you, as he was with Paul, and you are safe. He delivered him from all harm—from the Sanhedrin, from the storm, from the soldiers, and from the poisonous snake. Why are we safe? Because God sent his only Son to achieve our salvation. We learn from the gospels he suffered alone our storm. The innocent was condemned and crucified in our behalf. We are told that for three hours darkness came over the land. We are told that he cried out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” yet received no comfort. He experienced hell in our behalf.
In Romans 4:25 Paul wrote, “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.” The curtain separating the Most Holy Place and the Holy Place was torn from top to bottom, making a new and living way for us to God our Father. His Son was forsaken so that we may never be forsaken. So we are never alone, especially in the hour of our death. We are always with God, seated with Christ, who is seated on the right hand of the heavenly Majesty. Paul wrote, “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37). “But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ” (2 Corinthians 2:14).
Priscilla Owens wrote of the hope and the strength and confidence of every true Christian:
“Will your anchor hold in the storms of life, when the clouds unfold their wings of strife?
When the strong tides lift and the cables strain, will your anchor drift or firm remain?
We have an anchor that keeps the soul steadfast and sure while the billows roll,
fastened to the Rock which cannot move, grounded firm and deep in the Savior’s love.”
What about you? Have you trusted in this Christ as your Savior? If so, I promise you that he will keep you when your ship disintegrates because you are in him. No enemy can touch you. Safe and secure from all alarms. May God have mercy on all of us and help us to know where safety is. May he help all of us to trust in his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and be saved forever. Amen.
Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 Biblica. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
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