Bible Guys Classics: Acts 27 Part 2

So when I joined the staff years ago, I asked somebody, I said, hey, where's your family from. Where's your origin? He said, well, we're Maltese. Oh well, and I said where they falcons? No, he said, he said he was Maltese. And I said, Maltese. Where's that from? And he said the island of Malta. Cool. And I said, well, I know Malta. All right, and I know it's in the Bible. I know it from one place and it's today. Right here in the Bible. So he's Chris and I'm Jeff, and we're the Bible guys. So Jeff, yes, today we have a segment. Did you see the segment? I didn't even look at it today. It is It's an exciting thing. It is what made Chris mad. Oh. This is the favorite. This is the fan favorite, uh segment that we do. Yeah, I people love it. I don't think that they love it. They do, I mean they tune in for it is my In fact, people skip all the teaching and they just go to these segments to find out when are we doing this this, this, this segment. So so the idea behind the segment is that you are a very passionate enthusiastic person, and you have strong opinions about how your life goes and the things that are happening around you. And this informs a lot of us on maybe how we should behave whenever there's a potential we're going to run into you. So I was with I was with the Trey who's on our staff. Huh, just yes, sure, this is not what made Chris map. But I'm telling you this, okay. And and we had really bad. Customer service at a restaurant that we went to, which I've mentioned before. Wow, and U and I said, I said, I just can't believe those girls are. On their phone. You know, they hired teenagers and they're just doing the little phone thing together, both of them. So it wasn't just one person slacking office too, right, And the customers are getting ignored. What's a scientific fact. You cannot watch a cat video without showing it to somebody else. It's been proven. And then I said, I said to Tray, I said, I go, oh gosh, I said, good customer service. I said, it is just such a rare thing these days. I sort of got. Mad, right, I was like, I can't believe that. You know, we're just walking out and all these different things. And then and then he said, uh, well, well it didn't really matter at us. And I said, no, you don't get it, and I said. It out loud. I sort of projected this. I said, when I get mad about good customer service, I'm not even thinking to me, I'm thinking of the owner. Of that restaurant. That poor guy is actually getting a bad name because of those two girls. And it could be lack of training, could be his fault maybe, or it's just you know whatever I said. And then I'm thinking of like, you know, like what is this world coming to? Like like America, right, America should have good customer service? Like is you're just going to decline? You know, you're turning into your grandparents? I know, what is this world coming to? These young people stand around working. But it is true, most of the things I get mad at it's not just for me. It's usually it's for the world. So this is you are vicariously sufferings, selflessly suffering. Yes, you're angerly angry. Wow, it's so thoughtful of you. So so how are you helping us this week? What made you man today? It's just me, it's you, It's not for the world. This is only for you. You know what. I just absolutely hate and I experienced it this week. Runaway eyebrows and untrimmed nosehirs. Oh no, I know, well, you can't tell me. You can't tell me that when you see somebody with absolute runaway eyebrows that should be trimmed or especially nose hairs sticking out of your nose right and even the ears right. I understand that they creep up on you, right, But like that stuff is very easy to maintain. There is not a single person in the universe that would say, oh, man, you know, it looks really good untrimmed nosehirs right when noses when when hairs are sticking out of your. Nose, maybe there's people who think that's attractive. Yeah yeah, hey, hey baby, yeah yeah yeah. So anyway, I'm talking to this guy and it was unbelievable. It was out of control. And I thought to myself, dude, I know you looked in the mirror this morning. I know you did, and it's so bad that, like, I mean, you expected, like the Navy seals to rope out of the helicopter, out of the hair sticking out of your nose, right, they're gonna shoot down and land in the Vietnam because what is what is happening? And I thought to myself, dude, you have to have seen that and only that. But the guy's married, so I'm thinking your wife sees you, bro right, So let's just let's. Pretend that is he looked in the mirror, saw those ropes hanging out of his nose and went, no big deal, I'm just meeting with Chris today. Is that what I saw them? I don't care about. Listen, he went, Is that what he did? He went? Do you think he looked in the mirror and didn't. Notice places besides meeting with Chris? Do you think do you think that he just looked in the mirror didn't notice No, is it possible. I think that he didn't care for some reason, and he must be married to a woman who doesn't care. They don't care, Yeah, they don't care, as opposed to he didn't notice. Well, what if he's looking at. The top of his head and he's fussing about the top of his head and ever thought to look at his nose? Okay, he is he has raging eyebrows. And by the way, maybe that's what it was. He was concerned about his eyebrows and didn't notice his nose. Harris, why are you coming to this man's defense. Well, clearly this is a soft era, a touchy point for you. Okay, I'll let you have this one. You canna have it. Well, I'm just saying, I mean, your defense is. He looked in the mirror and allowed it. I'm saying I don't think he lowed it. I don't think he noticed it. Oh, there's no way he didn't notice it. Okay. And by the way, he is a barber. Guess what that dude gets his haircut. Okay, right, and so with. The so so, a word to the wise is we wrapped this section up because I mean, I'm pretty sure we could take this most of the session today. Apparently, if you have a meeting with Chris and you have to have a person, sure you're well groomed. If you want to talk to him in. The lobby at the church on Sunday, yeah, make sure you come in look in your best, don't come in. Raggedy, don't And you got to cover it all. You got to cover the whole thing. Not just as intelligent as you are It's amazing how you can come up with the worst conclusions. What Now, here's the conclusion. What am I supposed to take? Here's the conclusion if you accidentally overlook, yeah, here's infuriate. Look in the. Mirror and trim the unwonted ross hair that seems to go out of control. Okay, just have some common sense. All right, man, I'm going to try harder. I'll try You're fine, I'm fine today. Yeah, I'll try harder today. Okay. So yesterday they were anticipating this storm. They were anticipating the shipwreck, right, yes, Now today it actually happens, right right, So here we go verse twenty seven in chapter twenty seven of the Book of Acts. As we continue through, we're coming close to the end. Here it says, about midnight on the fourteenth night of the storm. Fourteen nights is a two week storm. I'd be throwing up this well every moment. Especially in these little boats. This isn't a giant cruise ship, right, he says, So, about midnight on the fourteenth night of the storm, as we were being driven across the Sea of Adria, the sailor sensed land was near. They dropped a weighted line and found that the water was one hundred and twenty feet deep, But a little later they measured again found it was only ninety feet deep. At this rate, they were afraid we would soon be driven against the rocks along the shore. So they threw out four anchors from the back of the ship and prayed for daylight. Then the sailors tried to abandon the ship. They lowered the lifeboat as though they were going to put out anchors. From the front of the ship. But Paul said to the commanding officer and the soldiers, you will all die unless the sailors say aboard. So the soldiers cut the ropes and to the lifeboat. Let it drift away. That's a sad moment. Just as day was dawning, Paul urged everyone to eat. You've been so worried that you haven't touched food for two weeks. He said, please eat something now for your own good, for not a hair of your heads will perish. Then he took some bread, gave thanks to God before them all, and broke off a piece and ate it. Then everyone was encouraged and began to eat. All two hundred and seventy six of us who were on board. After eating, the crew lightened the ship further by throwing the cargo of wheat overboard. When morning dawned, they didn't reckon ignize the coastline, but they saw a bay with a beach and wondered if they could get to shore by running the ship of ground. So they cut off the anchors and left them in the sea. Then they lowered the rudders, raised the foresail and headed towards shore, but they hit a shoal and ran the ship of ground too soon. The bow of the ship was stuck fast while the stern was repeatedly smashed by the force of the waves and began to break apart. The soldiers wanted to kill the prisoners to make sure they didn't swim ashore and escape, but the commanding officer wanted to spare pall, so he didn't let them carry out their plan. Then he ordered all who could swim to jump overboard first and make the land, and the others held onto planks or debris from the broken ship, so everyone escaped safely to shore. Okay, this is If this were made into a movie, this would be one of the most intense shipwrecks ever, yeah, and it's so amazing how Luke again he's riding because he was there right apparently, and yet he doesn't give as much attention to how they felt. Like he could have said everybody thought they were going to die, you know. And it was like, so think about this. How bad does it have to be for skilled sailors, skilled sailors who know like what to do to cut their life rafts and then to cut their anchors, to say, we're going to leave the anchors in the sea at a desperation to head to the beach. And then for them once. Their shipwrecked and cut off the rescue boat. Yes, and then which is what I try to say, lifeboats, and then not to mention, throw their wheat overboard, like in other words, like hey, I know it's wheat, I know it's food, but it's either that or you know, obviously we're going to die here. And then they shipwrecked, the boat gets crashed up, and then imagine in that moment, it's so weird how the Roman soldiers they were charged to have prisoners, that was their job, and yet here's what they thought. They thought, We're going to die. So the best, the best, you know, forget orders, forget everything else. Let's just kill the prisoners just so that we're not charged with letting them escape. And then let's save ourselves. That's how desperate they were. Let's save ourselves at any cost. And yet somehow they all grab planks of boat and then just use debris to sail ashore. I mean, think about the imagery of that. It's got to be incredibly desperate. Yeah, so it drives them to prayer. Yeah, is what happens, right, and which, unfortunately for many Christians, has got to get this desperate before we pray. But hey, when there's nothing else left, you better that's all you've got left, you better pray. I think it's always better for us to have it a habit of prayer that we spend regular times in prayer. But when it gets particularly bad, we have to remember that every problem is a prayer problem. We had an old grizzled missionary that I used to work with, and he just had this calm about him. You know. I would bring teenagers with me back when I was a youth pastor, and we would go to do some mission work, and it was always a little intense and scary, and they were doing things they'd never done before, and they were you know, cross cultural work is hard. And then you know the way that the police work and the way that all the cultural things were happening. And then we were in an area that had a certain amount of danger to it, and so there was just a lot of intensity because of that. There'd always be little just scruffs between students, kids that have been friends for years now, all of a sudden it kind of at each other's throat. Everybody's tired, it's uncomfortable, it's hot, it's gross, dirty kind of stuff, and so it gets frustrating. So every time I was with Jack, Jack could get up, he'd always give the same speech. Listen, it's going to be uncomfortable. Listen, you're going to be in situations you don't want to be in. But he said, you have to remember whether it's you feel like you're on a verge of persecution, or you're in real physical danger, or it's just that you're uncomfortable because it's hot and you feel grumpy towards the person who was you know, getting too loud. Every problem is a prayer problem, he said. If you don't learn anything else from this drip, I hope you go home knowing every problems a prayer problem. And of all the things in my life that I've learned from grizzled old Christians that came before me, that's probably the most important thing that I've ever learned. It's every problems a prayer problem. And you find that here. So he's giving all these details in verse twenty nine. You know, hey, it was one hundred and twenty feet, then it was ninety feet, and you're reading, going, what, no world? Why? Why? Why do we even care that this is in the Bible. But what you get in the back is so they threw out four anchors from the back of the ship and prayed for daylight. Right, so they finally prayed. They did everything they could do. At this point, they've thrown everything out, they cut off the life raft, they did everything, and the only thing left is prayer and the really great note. You know, we love the Life Application Bible, so I know this is a long, long piece for me, But Life Application Bible. The note for verse twenty nine is in the middle of a midnight squall, the passengers and crew did all they could possibly do. They dropped some anchors to try to stop the runaway ship. Then they prayed. Of course, Paul Luke and Aristarkis were praying to the true God, the only one who could do anything about this situation. It's a good reminder for us we must never rely solely on our own wisdom or skills. But it's equally wrong to sit and do nothing when there are still actions we can take to overcome certain problems. Do all that you can to fix the problem, then trust God to do his part. And I think that that is the lesson to take away from this passage. You know, it reminds me of one time I did a message a long time ago, like twenty something years ago on self help, and it's the idea that, like, you know, we are told, you know, self help is a good thing, and it's sort of elevated. Way beyond what it should be. Like. For instance, if you go into Barnes and Nobles, oh sure, it's like the. Second biggest section in the entire in the entire store is self help. You know, go to you to fix you. You can help you, only you can help you kind of a thing. And it sounds like, you know, we finally get to the end of ourselves, you know, when circumstances are beyond our control and everything is out of our control, then we go to God. Anyway, in this message that I wrote, I remember that I said, like, I don't know anybody who when you know, when circumstances are beyond their control and in the bottom drops out beneath them, nobody drops to their. Knees, looks up in the sky and yells self help. Right right, they yell God help, you know, because the problem is this, let me see if I can get this right from all those years ago when I wrote it, I wrote that, so when you go to self for help, self will help. But the problem is the help that self gives usually isn't really helpful help. And then you'll be going to self asking yourself to help you get out of the help that self helped you get into in the first place. Right, And so it's just a whole entire idea that like self help is only going to get you so far, which is exactly what you just read. You know. So they are in a boat, apparently a big boat, two hundred and seventy six passengers. Yeah that's a big boat. Yeah, it's not as big as a cruise ship like you mentioned, right, it's going to be a big book. Yeah, this is going to be like we're thinking the big wooden ships. This isn't just a little tiny fishes. Which, by the way, when they said they threw the wheat out, it wasn't just one box of wheat. No, no, no, this was cargo right, not for. Two hundred and seventy six people, right, right, Well it might. Not have been for feeding either. This could have been a cargo ship because they caught an Egyptian ship that was already going. Oh that's right, So this isn't necessarily yeah, so it was an Egyptian ship that was already heading there to Malta. They get on that boat and put them on as passengers. Well so still, I bet you they wish they would have had a multa. Y yeah, yeah, exactly. So the the well, they gave up some of their living here if this was a business proposition, they threw off a bunch of stuff. They're sacrificing everything at this point. This is Hey, we're filing chapter thirteen, right, is what we're going to. Have to do on this. But so you have humans that I have conquered the ability to make floating things so they're very in you know, ingenius, they're very intelligent. They figured out how to travel, they figured out how to find. Malta is a little island out in the middle of the of you know, they're not going for Sicily, which is odd. They're going for Malta, which is a little tiny island, so their ability to navigate by the stars, they. Weren't going for it. They said, they give up. It's just where they found themselves. Yeah, because they gave up. It says that they wanted to sail into the wind, but they give up, let the storm take them where it was going to go. And said when they saw the beach, it was unrecognizable. They didn't recognize that. Oh that's true, which means that they actually didn't know where. Here's what they thought land. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what they thought. Yeah. So which, by the way, let me just say this. It says that Malta was eighty miles south of yeah, which which yeah, there you go. Yeah. So the the point that I was making is they have leveraged every bit of human wisdom. They know how to make the sails, they know how to make a boat that floats on this thing. They they've built such a great system that they have this great commerce that's happening all over the Roman Empire, all around the Mediterranean Sea. These guys are courageous. They think they know a better way. Even though it's not a good time to sail. We're really good sailors. We're going to go ahead and do it. And there's a certain amount of control and belief in themselves, and then real life happens. Circumstances out of their control happens. They're in the middle of a storm that lasts for fourteen days, and they've lost all hope. And then they turned to the one who is bigger than the storm, who's bigger than this the Mediterranean See, who's bigger than all the things. They came to the inventor of the universe. And that's all that they had to rely on. And that's okay. That's a pretty good place to be, right when you get past yourself and your ingenious things. They did all the work they could do, and we all have responsibility to do the most, do everything we can to help. But then at the same time, simultaneously you've got Paul and Luke and Aristarkis who are trusting in God, they created the universe to overcome these things, and God says, hey, not even a hair of your head is going to perish. Yeah, And when it was giving all the specifics, and it said, by the way, when I said they were driven across the Sea of Adria, it says in my notes in my Life Application Study Bible that the See of Adria refers to the center part of the Mediterranean Sea between Italy Crete and the northern coast of Africa. So really it's just like the deepest part they referred to it. So so think about that. So think about not only were they in peril, but they were in the deepest part, which means it's the worst place to be. Yeah, when you drown there, you're really drowned, right right. Nobody's going to find you. Nobody's going to find your remains, noboy's going to find the ship. Or anything like that. So yeah, And I think it's also interesting that, you know, Paul is the one that starts to take command a little bit, He's the one that starts to say, hey, eat you know, normally you would see Julius or the Roman Guard or the captains or. Those who are in charge. Obviously they were busy, you know, doing whatever they could for the ship. But Paul says, hey, let me, let me, let me encourage you to do this. And so in this moment, Paul becomes a little bit of a leader. But think about it, he's thinking of the care of the people. I was just gonna say that, So think about it. It's it's a leader for caring. It's a leader for the needs of everybody. So he's showing compassion. He could just be in the corner eating himself. Yeah. Well, the best leaders are servant leaders, right right. Yeah, So then to finish up the soldiers after this shipwreck happens, the soldiers like, all right, well we have to execute the prisoners because the Roman soldiers would have to would pay with their own lives if they lost, you know, some prisoners. And now they're thinking, well, we're out of control, man, we're shipwrecked and all this stuff. These guys might get away, let execute him. But Julius stepped in and saved their lives. And you know, this is just a reminder that God uses unexpected people to fulfill his purposes. Right, So sometimes God will bring you allies from the most unexpected places. Here's his captor who's saving his life, when in reality, standard procedure for the Roman soldiers would have been to execute them all. So it wasn't like the Roman soldiers were trying to do a bad thing here. This is what their normal procedure, just what they were taught to do. If you're in a situation where you lose control, execute the prisoners. It's worse to let them get away than it is to execute them. Right, And then God used Julius to step in and say, no, this isn't Paul's time. He saved all their lives. And I think we can just have confidence that when God is in control, which he always is, God will use sometimes unexpected people to fulfill his purposes. Well, that's great. I think that's a good place to end and wrap up. So the lesson, if you were to put in one sentence for us today, Actually there's a couple of different lessons, isn't there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Keep praying, Keep praying, praying every prayer, do whatever you can do. Every problem is a prayer problem. Do what you can do. Trust God for the most important things. Be on the lookout for unexpected people in our lives. Right, And that's great. Those are great lessons. All right, Well, we'll see you next time. All the Bible guys,