Bible Guys Classics: Acts 27 Part 1

Hey, everybody, we're the Bibble guys. And if you're just tuning in recently, just know that we are showing a little bit of reruns for a few months, and then we'll be back bigger and better than ever on August thirty first, because behind the scenes we're taking a hiatus to do some very important things. Yeah, we're building building out a new studio and we've got some new structure. Super excited about it. So August thirty first, brand new content. But in the meantime, enjoy some of our greatest hits. So, Jeff, you remember The Little Mermaid in nineteen eighty nine. Sure, the first line in the movie, A storm's of ruin. Okay, well that's actually what happens here, big shipwreck. It's a mess. So he's Chris and I'm Jeff, and we're the Bible guys. So Jeff Chris. Today we're going to be looking at mail bags. Oh those are fun. I wish we had a little jingle that said mailbaggs. That's right. Clues Yeah, well oh actually, yes, wow, maybe that's why it was in my mind it might have been it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So we watched Blues Clues. Uh uh, yeah, and then with Steve, right, and then that new guy just ruined that. The new guy ruined it. Yeah, yeah, it's not his fault. But it wasn't his fault. You're right, but Steve is going to college. That Steve is going to college. We all cried, we did. Hey real, Wow, that was rare. Now, mail bags is basically any question that comes in via email or posting on the website, whatever it is. And so from Paul H he says this, have you ever thought about inventing something? If you have, Oh, what would it be and what would the main purpose be? Yeah? Well, hi, Paul H. I know, right, what a great question. That's a good question. It's cool man invent something. Well, if I ever thought of inventing something, don't you think I would have invented it? Well, I mean not really. People have good ideas all the time. I had. I had two good ideas that I talked that I actually talked about inventing all the time. The first one was, and this was a long time ago. I'm talking like I was like twelve years old, thirteen years old, I thought, why don't they make salt that's colored? Because now they have pink salt. And everything else, right, But like I think pink salt always exists. I know, I know, but sometimes they do die like green, you know, like red and green for Christmas or whatever. But I always thought, like, sometimes you can't see the salt on your food, so a lot of times I'll pour them a hand and like sprinkling on the food. Very clever. So I thought that, And then the second one was like, you know, when I was in my early twenties, back before technology, you know, really sort of took off, right, So I guess I guess I was in my late twenties, and I actually I thought to myself, gosh, why don't they do paperless receipts. Why don't the credit card people get together? And then every time you use something, it goes into like a storage somewhere and you could access it instead of saving receipts. Wow, because I used to save receipts. Well, now they do that sort of thing. Sure, right, yeah, yeah, so I could have been very good kazillionaire. Well I'm sure. Yeah, yes, well you missed it, man, I wish maybe you missed your calling. I'm not really like an inventor guy. I never go around thinking, you know, what they should make or invent. I'm more of an innovator. I take what's there and go, hey, they should move this over, you know, two inches, it should be a little brighter, whatever, this could be done better design in strengths finders. Have you ever taken the strengths finders test? So I have maximizer, which is one of those that you just can't help it. You gotta turn the dial two degrees over, you gotta flip the swede, you gotta right. That's me. So I'm not really an inventor, but more of an innovator. Okay, Yeah, I've often thought about what it would be like to invent something that'd be pretty cool. Yeah. So a friend up my street, Greg Granger, he lived right up the street from me. In elementary school. His father invented the anchor, the patent for the anchor that the Navy uses. So he actually invented like a better anchor, a better anchor, and patent it. And guess what, they got rich and sold their house and they now moved away. Wow, so he is he is probably still benefiting from me. So it works, man, It just takes one idea, one good idea. Yep. Ye, Well, good, Chris. That was a good question, by the way, Paul, I was really good, and it gave us some more insight into the wonder that is Chris. Sarbu wonder that is Chris. That's how his brain works, man, Burt. Reynolds said, that's just part of the wonderfulness of me. Oh so now you're quitting yourself to Burt Reynolds. No, no, hey, as long as it's young Burt Reynolds. Okay, okay, Well, hey, so this this passage is a neat passage. It's kind of a fun passage on one side because it's it's almost like a movie moment, right just it turns into just a mess. But here we go. It says were chapter. Yes, did we say that? I was just saying it as you interrupted me. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it came out of my mouth. Version wait wait wait wait, version ladies and gentlemen en. Yes, yes, so as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted Acts Chapter twenty seven. We're just going to read the first twenty six verses today. It says, when the time came we set sail for Italy. Paul and several other prisoners were placing the custody of a Roman soldier named Julius, a captain of the Imperial Regiment. Aristarchus, a Macedonian from Thessalonica, was also with us. We left on a ship whose home port was someplace on the northwest coast of the province of Asia. I don't even know how to say that a drama team. You sure, I don't know. It was scheduled to make several shops at ports along the coast of the province for any of our listeners from that town. We're sorry that I couldn't pronounce it. The next day, when we docked inside on Julius was very kind to Paul and let him go a short a visit with friends so they could provide for his needs. Putting out to sea from there, we encountered strong headwinds that made it difficult to keep the ship on course, so we sailed north of Cyprus between the island and the mainland, keeping to the open sea. We passed along the coast of Solicita in Amphilia, landing in Myra in the province of Lycia. There the commanding officer founded an Egyptian ship from Alexandria that was bound for Italy and he put us on board. We had several days of slow sailing, and after great difficulty, we finally neared Sinaidas, but the wind was against us, so we sailed across to Crete and along the sheltered coast island past the Cape of Salomony. We struggled along the coast with great difficulty and finally arrived at fair Havens, near the town of Lasia. We had lost a lot of time. The weather was becoming dangerous for sea travel because it was so late in the fall, and Paul spoke to the ship's officers about it. Men, he said, I believe there's trouble ahead if we go on shipwreck, loss of cargo, and dangered our lives as well. But the officer in charge of prisoners listened more to the ship's captain the owner, than the ball And since fair Haven's was an exposed harbor a poor place to spend the winter, most of the crew wanted to go on to Phoenix, farther up the coast to Crete and spend the winter there. Phoenix was a good harbor with only a southwest to northwest exposure. I think that was before it was in the desert. When a light wind began blowing from the south. The sailors thought they could make it, so they pulled up an anchor and sailed close to the shore of Crete, but the weather changed abruptly in a wind of typhoon strength called a nor'easter, burst across the island and blew us out to sea. The sailors couldn't turn the ship into the wind, so they gave up and let it run before the gale. We sailed along the sheltered side of a small island named Quada, where the great difficulty we hosted, or where with great difficulty we hoisted aboard the lifeboat being towed behind us. Then the sailors bound ropes around the whull of the ship to strengthen it. They were afraid of being driven across the sandbars assertis off the African coast, so they lowered the sea anchor to slow the ship and were driven before the wind. The next day, as guille force winds continued to batter the ship, the crew began throwing the cargo overboard. The following day, they even took some of the ship's gear and threw it overboard. The terrible storm raged for many days, blotting out the sun and the stars, until at last all hope was gone. Know what had eaten for a long time. Finally Paul called the crew together and said, men, you should have listened to me in the first place and not left crete. You would have avoided all this damage and loss. But take courage. None of you will lose your lives, even though the ship will go down. For last night, an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I served, stood beside me, and he said, don't be afraid, Paul, for you will surely stand trial before Caesar. What's more, God and his goodness has granted safety to everyone's sailing with you. So take courage, for I believe God it'll be just as he said. But we will be shipwrecked on an island. There you go. What a mess, you know? This checker is one of the reasons why I actually am glad that you are the one reading. Oh all these words, I can't pronounce them. I mean, they're just crazy. They are real places. This is one of the beauties of Luke's writing. And we've commented on this before. I remember Luke is writing the Book of Acts. As a matter of fact, apparently he's on this boat ride with Paul, which and he uses, Yeah, he says, we so Luke is writing, and Luke is so precise, and this is what's interesting. He tells you the exact places. When a problem comes up, he provides a solution. So instead of going out around, we went in between the islands. You know, it came to the point where it was the wrong time of year. We were getting that bad time of the year. When said that all the people who were reading would have known these particulars, right, they would have known these specific things, And it just gives a sense of authenticity that you don't get in fiction. Right. It's the precision is very important, and for Luke especially, And so when he's that precise about islands and sailing weather and where the best harbors were and the fact that fair Haven's was an open harbor, not a great place to winter, all those things. When he's that precise on those things, then when I go back and look about what he wrote about the resurrection, Yeah, as he mentions the witnesses of Christ, as he talks about Paul's miracles and the things that he did, it gives you so much more confidence that Luke is is writing with authenticity and accuracy, and that this story is rooted in time and in place. It's not just some fictional thing. This is rooted in a real time, in a real place, in real circumstances. Yeah. And it's interesting too because he said it's dangerous to sail because it's so late in the fall. And so what's great is is that we know that, you know, it's very dangerous to sail back in those days with an overcast because they didn't have a compass back then, right, so they only use the stars to navigate. So if you think about it, you know this took place, by the way in October, and so you know, September was actually pretty dangerous. November was treacherous. So this is right sort of like right there in between, like we may get lucky, you know. We want to shoot through in the last trip. Yes, and if we're skilled sailors then we probably have you know, made this run before. You know, even though that it's it's pretty dangerous. So that's that's the context there, because it's hard for us to believe that the stars are anything more than just something to gaze at it now, but back then it was essential for people navigating ships. So so that's why it was dangerous. And I think it's also interesting that Paul had more of an insight about the danger than the actual captain, did, you know. And so it's it's believed, like my notes here, my study notes say it could have been that God gave him some insight and said, like, this is this is going to be a dangerous trip. And so Paul, you know, he was being held captive. He was in house arrest and Julius was the name of the Roman guard assigned to him, and they didn't really know Paul. Although Julius begins his journey with Paul and spends two years, as we're about to see, in this house arrest and actually Julius gives Paul incredible leeway eventually and starts listening to him. But at this point he really didn't know Paul, and they I don't think that they understood just who it was that was giving them advice, right, and so they said, oh, who's this guy? Yeah, whatever, you know, because they're trying to get to Rome, because Paul appealed to Rome, right. Yeah. Well, by verse twenty one, after the shipwreck happens, or before the shipwreck, happens. But when it looks like all hope is lost, Paul goes, listen, I told you so, right, And it's not like you guys are jerks. It's just saying listen, just to remind you. God has given me some insight and you can trust that insight. It turns out what God says is going to happen is going to happen. And from that point on they really began to pay closer attention to him. So there's a few interesting things in here. One and here's the big devotional component. I think this is because we talked about this before. When we're reading through Paul's epistles, the Letters to the Churches, there's so much theology there. It just goes from theological concept, theological concept and instruction insights, yeah, and how to live as a follower of Jesus, all those kinds of things. As you read through the Book of Acts, there's a lot of just narrative like this. This is a narrative. It's just a story. Year it's a story, and it's important. God decided he wanted that story in the Bible. And so there's times in the Bible where both Peter and Paul mentioned that these stories were given to us. For example, So anytime you come across a large, large passage like that and it's name and names of towns you can't pronounce in telling you details that you're like, why is the time? Is what you look for? Is? So what is this an example to me? For what example should I be extracting there? And I think that the big picture here is even if you're a saint, because we call him Saint Paul, Now everybody who's a believer in Christ is a saint. But you know what I'm saying, we tend to elevate Paul like he should get special treatment from God. Even if you're Saint Paul. It's not always smooth sailing, right, right, So we expect that when we follow our Jesus, everything gets better and easier. But here, for Paul, that's not what happened. Right. Nature still happens. The things in the in the universe are still going forward. So a friend of mine, who is a counselor, who used to counsel our staff of the church, used toore cut Uh, his name is Jack, and he said, uh, he said, listen, he goes, You're always going to have a storm. He talked about the storms of life, and here's what he said. He said, a major, major upsetting and uprooting storm happens on the average statistically. This is actually, you know, based on study, about every seven years there is a in your life. In your life, there's a life changing type of event that happens like every seven years. The death of a parent, major breakup, yeah, move, moving. Yep, all those things. And so he says, he goes, so, chances are you're either just coming out of a storm, or you're going into the storm, or you're in the storm. Right right, So think about that, and all of us want to be at that three and a half year mark where where man, it's just smooth hailing. That's what we want. We long for those days. That's heaven, right right, but we long for paradise. Yeah yeah, so so, and I'm not sure you know. And by the way, those are those are major events. So that's not counting the little thing in our lives, you know that. You know, Oh this lady at work, Oh she's just giving me the hardest time, and she's she's going to be the death of me, you know that kind of thing. So, so I think that that's interesting because you know, we have to understand that we need to prepare this in this walk, in this life that God calls us her like like, I think that most of life is having to deal with things that we don't want to deal with. Absolutely. So you know, Paul comes to the conclusion at the end. He's not really saying I told you so, I told you so, like rubbing it in. He's just trying to say, hey, listen, you can trust me when I tell you these things because God's given me this insight. And this is one of the reasons why you invest in faith, that you keep investing and growing faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, according to the Book of Romans, and so we need to spend time in God's word. It builds our faith. The experiences in our life that we survive that we make it through builds our faith. And so he's very confident that God is going to bring them through the problem. Right. He's not going, oh my, what are we going to do? Which he's not freaking out, he's not running around. He kind of becomes a rock in the middle of all of this stress. And he's saying, and then God gave him confidence too. Right, the angel came and said, listen, nobody's gonna die. It's gonna get rough. This is gonna be awful, right, so embrace it. But nobody's gonna die. You're gonna survive this. And so if you knew a bad thing was coming, but you know you're gonna survive, Okay, that's very different. Then you kind of just the Navy seals say, embrace the suck. That's what they say. Right, So it's gonna be bad. This is gonna be bad, Just embrace it, go through it because you're gonna live through it. Right, You're gonna push through. Your training is gonna bring you this, bring through this. And it's kind of the same thing here. I think that's what he's trying to say, is it's not gonna be nice. It's gonna be rough, but we're gonna make it. And it gives you so much more confidence when you find out you have cancer, when you find out you're gonna lose your job, or when you can find out that there's some kind of crisis that's happening in your life, to go to be able to rely on the fact that God's got this right, God's got it. We're gonna go through it. But God's got it. So if you, if you'll allow me and just to kind of beer with me through this example. I was at physical therapy because I tore my rotator cuff on my shoulder, and uh, this guy, you know, the guy who owns the place, comes up and says, hey, he goes, would you be up for dry needling? It will help you with your pain? And I and I was like, hey, what's dry needling? And he's like, it really helps, and then he goes, are you afraid of needles? And even though I needles, I said, no, I'm not afraid of needles. No, I'm not afraid of Yeah. So she comes out and and uh and she's like, oh, and by the way, I should have I should have known because then he says to the lady who's going to do it? He says, hey, he seems to be up for it. Oh yeah, yeah, anytime a doctor says he seems to be up for something. And I was like, yeah, buckle up because pressure's coming. So anyway, so she takes up these needles. Feel a little pressure, I'm good under pressure. Pressure is the very definition of pain. So Anyway, the point is is that he took she took needles, and she starts sticking them like acupuncture and my shoulder what and when. She stuck it in, she just stick them in the surface. Well no, no, no, she goes, she goes, you're gonna feel me drive it all the way down into the muscle. So she sticks me and then she like starts driving it down and it felt like it went down three inches. Did it feel like she was stabbing you? I mean it was, you know, she was great. But the point is is. That you know, I didn't do anything. They just were back in the back room laughing. Right. Well, it was. It was a weird sensation. And then she goes, when I let go, you know, you won't feel it, and she was right, like I felt it was there, but it wasn't like painful anymore. Well, she stabbed me five times in the fifth when I jumped out of my chair, I was like, oh, She's like, I'll use the thinner needle in the same place she stabbed me. So finally I'm sitting there and going and then she's like, now I'm gonna look electricity up to it. So she looks electricity up to the things, and then she turns it up and says, I'm gonna increase the intensity, and so my my shoulders went bump, bump, bump, like this. Were you in an episode of The Princess Bride. No, there's out of the machine. Yeah yeah, yeah, so. You've been tortured. As one day goes high as level five. But I wouldn't know what that would do to you. Nobody's ever survived. So anyway, whatever, what end up happening was she said, hey, you know, go as high as you can without you know, without thinking it's unbearable. So I'm thinking, what is this? What is going on? So she turns it up, and finally I get to the place where I'm like, okay, okay, okay, right there, I think I could bear it in any higher it'd be unbearable. So my shoulder's thumping, right and every time it's thumping, it's like it feels like it's being stabbed, which it is like five times with five needles and so and then I said, okay, right there, right there, And then. She said, that was your max. That's my max. That's all you could handle. That was my max. And then she says to me which, by the way, they didn't even tell me any of this. They didn't tell me electricity, what was happening? Then tell me anything? And then she goes, okay, I'll let you sit there for fifteen minutes. So you pushed it your max all the way. Yeah, and then she leaves and says fifteen minutes. Oh. She hands me a bell, and I thought I was going to ring that bell like thirty thousand times. I was like, I can't handle it. So it's going thump, dump, dump, and you know, it feels like it's being stabbed every thump. And then here's here's the fun. That's the fun part of the story. The here's the meaning of the story. And this is honest to goodness truth. Right about seven minutes in, I actually thought to myself, I cannot survive any longer, right, I'm just surviving, like by the second here, I cannot take this any longer. And here's what I thought of. I thought of Navy seals. Oh yeah, I did. I thought I thought of Navy seals. And I thought to myself, wait a minute, I'm comparing this pain to what before they stuck in my shoulder. But what if I compared this pain to like, you know, like what a man should be able to bear or a human should be able to bear. And so I actually said to myself, this is bearable and I can handle this. Are you trying to tell me that other people can do this and I can't do this. I'm just as strong as other people. And so I changed my attitude and I said, I wonder if a Navy seal would say, ooh, take it out of my arm right, like they would never do it right right? And I swear to you that's what I thought of. I thought of Navy seals. And would you know, I promise you that at that point, after that, I was like, this is this is fine. It's bearable. It's easy. Yeah, it's not wasn't easy, but like I felt like it was pretty easy to. Knowing that you can survive. A lot of it is mental. It is mental. It's so. Chuck Swindall one of my favorite Bible pastors preachers. He's going to be ninety in October, but I mean he was a dynamic through my lifetime growing up. He has a book called life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond? Right? What a great title, right, and that's true. So we get freaked out about what's happening sometimes and we convince ourselves in our minds. We convince ourselves, I can't make it through this. Yeah, But then when you make that pivot and you go, you know what, I can make it through. That's right. It's just what your brain is telling you. What you tell yourself is what's probably going to happen. So when you tell yourself I can't make it, you can't. But when you tell yourself, you know what, it's only five more minutes, I can make it. That was my wife the first time we were going to have our first child, and Bonnie was nervous. She's like, I just don't know. I don't know I can live through this. And I was really flippant, and I'm like, what do you mean. At the time, it's like seven billion people on the planet, seven billion other women have gone through this. Wow, And she goes, it's. Easy for you to say, hey man, you have the gift, my friend, the gift of them. But was that true? It was true? Of course, every person you see say this is what people went through. It's just quite possibly the worst thing to say at that moment. Yes it was, Yes, it was. It was horrible. It was the dumbest thing. But in my mind, when I find when I find myself facing something like that, I've had. I've had twenty sets of stitches. Wow, I'm just a little clumsy, and you know, the first couple of times you're freaking out somebody's poking thread through you. By the end you're like, here, you want me to do it? And so I had a nurse one time. She was getting ready to do some stitches on my hand. I cut myself with the saw and she's going rey to do and the guy was going to do it, and then he said, hey, we have a new nurse. She's never done stitches. Could she do it for you? Sure, it's on my hand. I don't care how it looks. So she comes in and she looks so nervous, you know, and I'm like, calm on her down, it's gonna be okay. And she says, why are you so calm? This is horrible. I said, this is my twentieth set of stitches, right, so here, just don't worry about and it's going to need to be a little bit deeper. And the guy who's teaching her is laughing because I'm helping guide her through watching her sew me up. Well, the reason why that wasn't scared to me is because that was my twentieth time right to have those stitches right. So it's gonna pinch a little bit. Okay, you know you get all this stuff. Once you've experienced something, you're gonna be okay. Well, we know Paul went through three shipwrecks, right, right, and so this is this is one of them, and so it's gonna be okay. And I think that there is a lot to be said about trusting that God's in control. That life is not always going to be smooth sailing. It wasn't for Saint Paul, it's not going to be for us, but we can trust that God's in control. Well, that's a great place to end in a great message out of this passage. So we will see you next time on the Bible guys. Twenty