Bible Guys Classics: Acts 28 Part 1

Hey, Jeff, do you know this one just right back? Can you hear it? You? Let's Gilligan started from this traffic board to board this tiny shipped. Wow, very good. Oh I got, I got the whole thing. I imagine you do. I would imagine. I'm not going to do it. That's right with Gilligan the skipper. Okay, forget it, I'm not gonna do it. But that's what we're doing today. We're talking about Paul being stranded on the island. Okay, through on the island now. So he's Chris and I'm Jeff, and hopefully he doesn't sing anymore. We're the Bible guys. I love gilligan Sland. Oh I love that. It was so good. It was so good. Yeah. And that's how you know you're old because most of my memories of Gillian's Island are black and white. Oh yeah, me too, Yeah, yeah for sure. And I was in love with Marianne. Oh yeah, who wasn't the whole world was first crush. My first crushed as a little kid was Mary. Oh for celebrity crush or first Chruss in general. Yeah, I get news for you, but it's not gonna happen well that's okay. Yeah, that's okay. You went out. So today this is the segment today. Jeff is that it's called Bible verse or not. So here are five Bible verses or inspirational quotes. Have Jeff, guess if it is an inspirational or a Bible verse. Yeah, these are pretty tricky. I have to warn you in advance, like you have to really think through. So here we go. So, so what are my two options. It's either a Bible verse, a quote, or a quote. And it's a bonus if you tell us where where books from? Yeah? Probably not. Okay, here we got ready, h God will meet all your needs. That's a Bible verse. Where do you think it's from? Paul wrote it? Yep, you're right. It's in Philippians. Okay, So how about this, This too shall pass? So many times the Bible says and it came to pass, This too shall pass. I'm gonna says a quote. It is an inspirational quote. Yes, okay, number three, you're doing good. You're doing good the job. Here we go. That's a tough one. God is the most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. Oh, that's a quote. You know who said it? Piper? Yes, it's John Piper, good child. Where do you go? How about this one? Don't be too proud to enjoy the company of ordinary people? Uh? Paul said that it's a Bible course. Where do you think it's from the Romans? It is Chapter twelve, yep. And then the last one is don't forget to show hospitality to strangers. You could be entertaining angels without realize. That's a Bible right, yeah, yeah, yeah, you remember where it's from, Uh, entertaining angels unaware? I can't remember. It's Hebrews. Hebrews. He was thirteen. Hey man, you get five out of five, five out of five, good job, all right. I was really intimidated by this. Well you nailed it them, You nailed it. You You even quoted John Pipper. You knew that you said the quote. Yeah, so that must have been easy. And you know if I had answered, I would have said Hebrews. Yeah, yeah, just to add that in there, just as if as if you didn't nail everything. I just want to make you but you I. Also n it was Hebrews, but I wanted to give you one. Yeah, I'm joking. I couldn't remember. Yeah, he was thirteen, by the way, So so good job, where do you go? Good? Well, thank you? That was fun, Thank you, Desiree. Yeah, it was a little intimidating. It's scary because you know, when you're a Bible guy, I know it because you've had these two right, Yes, you're thinking, yes, they're going to make us look so bad. So I'm not going to do it now because I'm not sure I could do it. But like the Twelve Disciples, right, because you know sometimes they shifted around after Judas and everything else. Uh. One time I was playing trivial Pursuit back in the day and they said name the twelve Disciples, and every every the room was like, oh man, sor I got this question. But to get it, oh, you know, I'm in Babba College and they're like, they're like, okay, he's obviously gonna get his pie, you know, and and I and I named him. I think I got ten something like this, and I'm. Like, oh, you know, learned the song. I think I forget no Disciples Jesus called to help him. No, I don't know that. I didn't grow up in some the show. Oh wow, yeah, yeah, so so yeah, so I did. I didn't know Peter. Andrew who James's brother John Philip Thomas, Matthew James, the son of Elis. You don't you know that song that doesn't rhyme, It doesn't have to rhymes. You're just storing it in the part of your brain that sings instead of remembers. That's why. Isn't that weird? Uh? How your brain works like that? Music really matters? It really does. Music puts uh. You know? So I have a music background, music degree, and this has nothing to do with the passage today, but this is why, you know. I caution young people the kind of music you take in, because music puts stuff in your brain and stores it in ways that your regular memory doesn't work, right, it doesn't do, and so it embeds concepts and ideas and philosophies in areas of your mind that you will never ever forget. Yeah right. I watched the thing recently, a very famous singer struggling with Alzheimer's. He's coming towards the end of his life and it has a hard time with family and friends. But as soon as the band struck up, he knew every lyric. Right, this is with Lady the Jazz Lady Gaga. Yeah, yea yeah, Tony Bennett. Yeah, and he's able to pull out every song. It's because it's stored in a different part of your brain and your brain processes that, so art is really really has way more impact than just oh it's a cool tune. Right, Hey, just so you know real quick. So I was in Brazil about three or four years ago and our lead pastor said, hey, can anybody name all sixty six books of the Bible in order? Oh? Yeah, And when I. Was in college, I remember the very first day of college. First day, he said, come come tomorrow memorizing all sixty six books, and oh, it was actually two days because it was Monday, Wednesday, Friday class. And everybody was like, oh ha, because all these people are like Christians from birth, you know, and so everybody knew it. And I felt like, I, you know, I just started reading the Bible. So I went home and made up a song. And it was one little, two little, three little Indians. Right. It was Genesis, Sex, Slavidicus, Numbers, Dronomy, and Joshua Judges, ruth Yea saying first Sying Chronicles first in Kings first and second no, it was first thing Samuel for sin Kings, first and second chronicles and and anyway. So I so I went through the whole thing right as raight name, I esther Joe. And by the way, proverb, psalms, proverbs, because that's the song of song it so anyway, the point is is that like I sang the song and I can remember it and uh. And then he ended up saying, he said, out of everybody I've asked, he said, I've been asking all weekend. I didn't know this, he said, I asked over fifty people. All these guys are pastors. Not a single person could do it. Oh, he goes, but you did it. Wow, I was the only. One they could do. How long ago was that? Like four or five years ago? Oh? Wow? Wow? Yeah, yeah, good for you. Yeah, four or five years ago. You just learned all all sixty six book to the Bible. No, no, no, years ago. You used a song that you learned in college. I taught myself in college. I see, I see. I didn't explain that very well. I thought you were saying you just memorized this. No, no, no, no. I was able to quote it to him a couple of years ago. In Brazil because I still remember that Goofy song. Thirty years ago. From thirty years ago, y y, yeah, it's crazy. Okay, I'm tracking now a little slow today, No no, no, I might not said it on So that's fantastic. So that was a little free aside, right, talking about the importance of music and the kind of music we take in This is why the Bible says that we're supposed to encourage one another with songs, hymns and spiritual songs. Right, It's because we want to be filled with God's spirit and that's a different side of our brain. That's what music does. So anyways, a whole other thing. So we are wrapping up. We're kind of on the final lap. Now. We are on the final lap of the Book of Acts. We're in the last chapter twenty eight. Yeah. This has been a great series. I've loved it, man, it's been fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. It really is the choice to go through acts chronologically and then to pause during the Book of Acts, to break off and then you know, like when when Paul was writing the Book of Romans, somewhere chronological in the Book of Acts, we broke off and covered all of Romans, and then we came back and we covered several books in this in this series. And then you know, when we finish this up tomorrow or yeah, on the last episode, the next thing that happens is he writes a few more letters, but he's in Rome. It's just the Book of Acts ends with him getting there, right, and then there's several more books to cover, so it'll be good. By the way, it's important to add on that the reason why the Book of Acts seems to end abruptly is because it's not actually following the life of Paul. It's following the spread of the Gospel, that's right. And so it's it is it is. You know, we're going to arrive at the point here as we're wrapping up the story to sort of you know, put the building blocks together and say that, you know, the Gospel has been spread far and wide, and then from there it's just gonna you know, take over like a plague. And and so it doesn't continue to follow the life of Paul because Acts not a life of Paul book. That's right. So let's pick up at chapter twenty eight. We'll just read verse one through sixteen or so, and it kind of unpacks what happens after the shipwreck says Once we were safe on shore, we learned that we were on the island of Malta. The people of the island were very kind to us. It was cold and rainy, so they built a fire on the shore to welcome us. As Paul gathered an armful of sticks and was laying them on the fire, a poisonous snake, driven out by the heat, bit him on the hand. The people of the island saw it hanging from his hand and said to each other a murderer, no doubt. Though he escaped the sea, justice will not permit him to live. But Paul shook off the snake into the fire and was unharmed. The people waited for him to swell up or suddenly dropped dead. But when they had waited for a long time and saw that he wasn't harmed, they changed their minds and decided he was a god. Near the shore where we landed was in a state belonging to Publius, the chief official of the island. He welcomed us and treated us kindly for three days. As it happened, Publius's father was ill with fever and dysentery. Paul went in and prayed for him, and laying his hands on him, he healed him. Then all the other sick people on the island came and were healed. As a result, we were showered with honors, and when the time came to sail, Peop supplied us with everything we would need for the trip. It was three months after the shipwreck that we set sail on another ship that had wintered at the island, and Alexandrian ship with the Twin Gods as its figurehead. Our first stop was Syracuse, where we stayed three days. From there we sailed across to Reggium. A day later, a south wind began blowing, so the following day we sailed up the coast to put Putioli. There we found ourselves some believers who invited us to spend a week with them, and so we came to Rome, and the brothers and sisters in Rome had heard we were coming, and they came to meet us at the Forum on the Appian Way. Others joined us at the three taverns. When Paul saw them, he was encouraged and thanked God. When we arrived in Rome, Paul was permitted to have his own private lawsjudging though he was guarded by a soldier. There you go, man. So three months they spent on the island. A month, yeah, and that's something. Yeah, and then he finally found another ship. So so think about this is his stay on Malta was only three months, and I say only I mean that's a long time to stay on the island of course for us today, but back then, you know, people used to camp for the winter. Remember that's that's actually why they were searching, you know, the next city, because they didn't want to stay in this one place and they wanted to go to the next place where they found themselves fourteen days. So here's what we know. They set sail in October, which means by the time they got shipwrecked in Malta, it was dead winter, right, So the three months that they stayed on the island were winter, right, So which means makes sense. Then you know, think about like him starting a fire. This isn't like necessarily the scene on Castaway. This is you know, probably something quite cold, and then the snake comes out. I mean, it's still the Mediterranean, but for them where they're accustomed to higher temperatures, and higher humidity. Now in the winter, it can get pretty chilly. I was in Sicily a while back, and it was during the wintertime and at night it would get down into the low forties, you know, pretty chilly. So you're not thinking frozen tundra, you know, three feet of snow, but it's pretty chilly, and you know, so they're not worrying about frostbite, but maybe, you know, some of the other weather related issues could be a problem. They get sick very easily, and so yeah, for them, it'd be very, very cold. So so Paul builds a fire, and so think about this. So here's my point. My point is three months compared to places where Paul has stayed for years, three months is actually a pretty short stay for Paul, you know, extended stay at least. And think about what happens in that short time on that small island. They witness him being immune to a poisonous snake, decide that he's a god with a little g and then he heals somebody with dysentery and the fever, and then other peop people come out from the woodwork asking to be healed, and then he starts healing. It's part of me thinks that this is the first time I think it's recorded this way. I think it's the first time that that Paul's captors have seen Paul in action doing miracles, doing miracles like that. Yeah, probably right, So and so think about this, So Paul remember a time? Yeah, so Paul. So Paul starts to heal people, and and and and the guys who are about to kill him probably thought to themselves, we didn't know who we had here, Like, who is this guy? Because when you know, when somebody does, you know, first of all, he's claiming to have insight from God already. Don't worry, nobody's gonna die, not die, your head on your head. And then all two hundred and seventy six people live right. Right, and then and then and then so they're sort of, you know, respecting him. You know, they're being persuaded to eat bread because he says, hey, everybody needs to eat everything else. And now he's doing miracles. And I have to believe that his captors, and there's one of the reasons why Julius is we're about to discover gives an incredible leeway because he goes into like an airbnb, right, he just goes into a house that he's rented for two years, and Julius gives them incredible leeway. And it's probably because of this experience on Malta. And think about the island of Malta after Paul leaves, so Paul zooms in, stays there for three months, leaves and every Malta is healed, right because it's a small island, very small island. And they just kept bringing him sick people to you. And it says that he healed them. Yeah. I mean, you know, listen when Jesus commissioned the Disciples, remember when he sent them out two by two and he sent them out and he said, you're going to do great miracles like I have done. I was just watching the Chosen. Have you seen any of the Chosen? A few of them? Yeah. Yeah. So I'm just starting chet you know, season three. I decided to wait and then sort of binge watch because I like more binge watching. And I'm just right now at the place quite literally, like my stopping point was like like ten sentences in to him sending them out, and they realistically, you know, added in the dialogue of like how the disciples must have felt and and and one of the disciples, like Simon says, he goes, did I hear you right? Like you're sending us out? Like what are you talking about? Like what do you mean we're going to do miracles? Like what are you talking about? I just remember thinking, like, yeah, that's right. It doesn't say so in the scripture, but can you imagine how the disciples must have felt when they when they have been following Jesus. Jesus does these miracles, and then Jesus turns around and says, I'm going to send you had two by two to go in every direction and to perform the same kind of miracles I did. And they're probably thinking I'm not qualified to do that. And here's Paul, who's you know again, he's not one of the original apostles. He comes later on and meets with Jesus several times in person, the resurrected Jesus and then and then here he is, he's he's doing like a Jesus moment. Here we tend to think that we are not qualified. Remember I mentioned a couple of days ago, Jack, was it yesterday? Jack? The missionary that you used to say every problem is a prayer problem. Yeah, another thing. Yeah. Another thing that he used to say, which was is so powerful. He would say, you're gonna feel like you're not qualified for the miracle God needs to do today. He'd say that all the time. Right, Wow, that's really good. And he would say, because you think pastors and apostles and all these great superstar Christians, and it turns out you're the Christian that's here that God needs to use today. So He's going to use you. And he said the reason why Americans don't see lots of miracles is because we don't live lives that need lots of miracles. Right, And so he said, you think of miracles, you've got to go home. He said, you think miracles happen like Harry Potter. You get your wind, and you've got to go practice how to use your wand right, keep practicing, practicing, and finally you're qualified to use it. And he said that is not how God. God doesn't do magic. It's a flick in a swish. Yeah, yeah, he said, it's not magic that you have to practice. He said, this is God's power working through God's people to fulfill God's purpose. So God does it, you don't do it, right, So he said, sometimes somebody needs prayer and they need healing, and you don't you feel like, oh, I'm not qualified to pray for this person and to heal them. He says, you're not qualified to heal them. You are qualified to pray for them. You do your part, and God will do his part. If God chooses to heal, heal. Right. So not every single person I've ever prayed for was healed, but some people are. Right, My job is not to heal them. My job is to pray for them, to lay hands on them, pray for them, and lead them to faith in God's healing ability. And if God chooses in that moment to heal, he will. So in this situation, Paul gets bit by a snake. It wasn't his turn to die, right, But Paul does die. Eventually they take his head off. That kind of ends it for him, right, but not that day. Right. So God had a purpose. And while Paul was fulfilling the purpose God had for him, he was invincible. Then when his purpose was fulfilled and he'd done everything God wanting to do, then his life was taken. That that's how it works. We all die, right, So you know you're not qualified God's qualified. You're qualified to pray. That's all you've got to do. And I think that if more Christians would be aware of that in their workplace or at the school that they're at. You don't have to feel like you're super Christian. Also, you have to decide to do is say, you know what, how can I pray for you today? That's it? And then you pray and then God has it. God does God's part. Yeah, right, yeah, I think that's great because you know, when we when we think of ourselves as somebody less than you know, God, God continuously in the scriptures tells us who we are. You know that we have the power of God. Then we have the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives. You know. It says we can do all things through Christ, who strengthens us. Right God, God says that we're given just as much as the Holy Spirit as that we'll ever need, as much as any other person. And so every Christian you know, is gifted as the priesthood of the believer. Right, So the priest of the believer says that you know that every follower of Christ has been gifted in a miraculous way. We have direct access to the throne of God, right right right. Yeah, which is which is great? And by the way, that's that's that's not how I was raised. I was raised to say that, like, if you want to find God, you get to go to a certain building. You know. That was the mentality, right it was. It was not not true. And then you needed the buffer person between you and God. Yes, you needed to go to this person, you know, confess your sins or talk to them, or have them pray for you, or give them give me an assignment. And I was raised that way. And and that is not what the scriptures say at all. But it depends on you know, it just depends on sure you believe has the authority? Sure does the church and the people of the church have the authority? Where is the Bible have the authority? And we believe the scripture has the authority. So when Paula finally does arrive in Rome the Appian Way, I was on the Appian Way one time. That road's still there, man, The Romans can build roads. Let me tell you. Here we are two thousand years later, and that road still they still drive on it. It's not like it's a tourist thing over there is the Appy Way. They still drive on the Appian Way. It's crazy, right, So is it cobblestone, Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's fabulous. Almost got hit by a bus on that's whole other story. But what's cool is in del Yeah. Yeah, I was crossing the road, but I've been getting a really narrow spot. There's two walls on either side and there's almost there's no sidewalk, and I was just was walking down the spot, trying to make where I was going. All of a sudden, this bus comes through, doesn't slow down, it starts honking. I'm pupting up against the wall while the bus is driving, you know, like a foot away from me. It was crazy. Anyways, Chad was with me. He can testify. I'm not making that up. But what I'm trying to say is, again, it was at the Forum on the Appian Way. This is a town about forty miles south of Rome. He's being very specific, But what I wanted to highlight is the delight of the Christians that were already in Rome. So you can kind of get the idea that this is only happening because that this book of Acts is all about Peter and Paul. They're the ones. But when Paul arrives in Rome, neither Peter nor Paul have been there yet, right, and there were already lots of Christians, and the delight of those Christians being there. The gospel spreads sometimes through the famous people, but more often through just the every day Christians sharing their faith and living it out right. So by the time he arrives in Rome, there's all these Christians. They're delighted to cem and what a joy it is. Even when we and you've had this before, even when you meet people for the first time you've never met before, we have commonality and joy in christ. We immediately know that we're family and there's there's a delight here that's happening. So the ministry was going on in spite of or because of, or around or without, and with Paul's participation, it's just happening. It's not about the superstar. We just the superstar we know because his story is written. But there were lots of non superstars that are also sharing the gospel, and there were already Christians in Rome before you got there. Yeah, So it's a great message to end with that. You know you're equipped, that God has called you that you're the miracle. You're the answer to the miracle that God wants to do. That's right. That's because you're the Christian there in the moment. That's right. You're the one who knows Christ and has the power to pray and spread the news and bring about healing. So all right, well that's a great time to end, and so we will see you hopefully tomorrow on the Bible. Guys,