Finally To Rome

Good morning We thank Jim for doing the reading for us here the book of Acts chapter 27 verses 1 through 13 and also to Kirk Jenkins for coordinating the readings here So one of the first things we want to point out here Welcome to Paul's Mediterranean vacation not okay.

This is not a Mediterranean vacation and we're going to see a number of reasons why it's not that and It wasn't some special treatment that he got or special privilege that he got. It was, in fact, quite the opposite of that. You wouldn't call it a vacation. It was quite an ordeal.

Just in general, we're going to be covering the first 13 verses all totaled. You have another whole chapter describing what takes place. And this whole trip took something like six months, right? About 3,500 miles total traveled by ship. in this but This is a long ordeal a half year approximately Ordeal going and what we'll end up seeing is three ships.

Okay, the second ship that Paul dr Luke and the Aristarchus are on held 276 people this is not a big ship There is not a lot of room No, there's not any room. This is packed, plus the grain that is down in the lower part of the hold. 276 people on a ship that's roughly a hundred feet long. That is really packed.

Now, to give you a better idea what that is all about, the Mayflower came to the New World with 102 passengers and approximately 30 crew. So this is almost three times as many people in a boat about the same length. This boat is probably a little wider than the Mayflower was, but size-wise, in terms of length, about the same. The Mayflower did not offer a lot of room for its occupants.

Each occupant had about the size of a sleeping bag allocated to them. So the ship Paul was on, how much room did they have? you better like rubbing elbows for a long time together. You better not have somebody you can't stand because you're going to be rubbing elbows with them, right?

So, some navigation was available if you could see, okay? If you couldn't see, got too foggy, got too stormy, and it was rough. Navigation was difficult. That's one of the reasons why we'll see them going from island to island. as a common approach, not only to navigate, but also to get on the downwind side of the island to get some protection from a wind, especially if the wind was adverse. No great maps.

A lot of the maps were not super. Matter of fact, one of the points to be made is this. Dr. Luke's geography is much better than the geography of other documents of his day. Other documents of his day, of which we have examples to compare, Dr. Luke is fantastic. The other authors, not so good. Maps were not great. No way to call for help. Yelling out in the middle of a storm, HELP! isn't going to help much, right?

There. Lighthouses and warning buoys were rare, typically in some of the major and larger ports, but otherwise just pretty unusual. And they also were not as bright as lighthouses were made in more and closer to the modern era. These were, you know, what do you have to put out there that's bright? You have a fire of some kind, a flame of some kind. Not really bright.

No professional weather forecasting. When I was going to engineering school, Nancy worked for a company called Ocean Routes. They weather routed ships around storms and real high seas and that kind of thing. I notice they've changed their name, they're like Weather News or something now, but the same outfit.

Nothing like that available. It's kind of the, whatever your best guess is, what does it look like? And we'll find here that actually they saw some indicators, thought they were okay, and it quickly turned nasty on them. There were no under rowers, that is, with this particular kind of ship, If you had slow going because the wind was not in the right direction, you had a torn sail or something like that, you're out of luck because there was nobody to row, there were no oars, it just didn't happen. You were stuck with whatever problems you had. Here would be an example of the Roman warships that did have under rowers, those who would row from underneath the ship, sometimes even two layers of them in the Roman warships. Here we have none. So whatever problems there may be from not having the right wind, having too much wind, having lost a sail because of a break or a ripped sail, no way to overcome it. You're stuck.

Here is the map of this travel and you have it on the front full page on your handout so you can see what we're going to be looking at here is the beginning of this trip as it's described in today's passage leaving from the port at Caesarea which is a Roman military port and making its way as we'll see it described to the island of Crete so far as today's passage goes and then from there we're going to see further. So one of the questions we could have, this has an awful lot of itinerary and travel details.

Why is this in scripture? Why put it there? There certainly isn't all this great spiritual insight and revelation like you find in Romans and 1st and 2nd Corinthians and Galatians and all those wonderful books. So why is this here? The historical and geographical details and acts present truth about actual historical people. It talks about places, some of which we'll see here and make note of. We can recognize events which have been largely confirmed. So we'll see that. Secondly, there are multiple spiritual reasons to include this historical account. We'll look at those more as we go along and toward the end.

One of the other things we're going to see, we're going to only see the start of it here, in this passage, but Paul's life will be seriously in danger, at least from outward threat. From the text of 27.1, which we began today, into 28.13, those are the verses that cover this travel by ship, Paul's life is going to be seriously in danger at several times, at least here. The soldiers, to start off with, are going to plan to kill all the prisoners on board, including Paul. So that's threat number one. The ship becomes shipwrecked, at least the fourth shipwrecked. How do we say that?

This is the first one in Acts, but 2 Corinthians 11.25, Paul says, there, before he went on this trip, three shipwrecks. So this is now the fourth shipwreck.

Paul, we will see, is bitten by a deadly poisonous viper. It was, according to the wisdom of the day, just, you are going to die. There's just no other way about it if you get bitten by one of these vipers. He doesn't die as expected, and we'll see the purpose in that. Christ also had assured Paul that he would get to Rome. So in spite of all these threats, he had personal and direct assurance from the Lord Jesus. Paul, you're going to make it to Rome. You're going to get there. Will there be threats? Yeah. Will it be a real hassle? Yes. Will 276 people on this boat be a horrible time? Eh, not so good, right? But you're going to get there.

Remember, and we won't go over them in detail, but the last two weeks we have gone over them and today we'll just include them and move on, but the biblical principles of spiritual opportunity. One of the reasons why we underscore it is this is a vastly different situation from the large-scale, calm, evangelistic opportunity that Paul had in Caesarea. But here, as he heads off on this ship, have the spiritual opportunities stopped? No. They are different, however, which we'll make note of.

It took Paul, and he didn't necessarily know this at the outset, but three ships to get to Rome. The first one was the ship from Adramidium, which is a city to the north of Ephesus. It doesn't talk about a kind of ship, but where it came from. It took him from Caesarea to Myra, right?

And so it went that far. It was likely smaller. It doesn't say it was a grain ship as the other ships were, and we'll talk about why the others were grain ships and why those would be something you travel on in a bit. Secondly, the large Alexandrian grain ship, which was wrecked off the coast of Malta, that would be the second one that he was on. And thirdly, another Alexandrian grain ship in which he sailed from Malta to Syracuse, that's not New York by the way, okay, and to Regium and Puteoli.

So we'll take a look at that when we get there. Here's Acts 27, 1 and 2. When it was decided that we would sail for Italy, they proceeded to deliver Paul and some other prisoners to a centurion of the Augustan cohort named Julius. Embarking in an Adramidian ship, which is about to sail to the regions along the coast of Asia, we put out to sea, accompanied by Aristarchus, a Macedonian of Thessalonica.

Now, we call this a AAA passage. It's not referring to baseball or anything of the sort, right? But it's a AAA passage because it's an Augustan cohort. This is actually, and we talk about the importance of bringing out the history, this is confirmed by two first century inscriptions, one in Latin and one in Greek. So this isn't just some name they made up, it was actually a true and historically confirmed distinction where they had different groups going by different names and the Augustan cohort gets two inscriptions from the time. There may be more yet to be discovered. Secondly, this Adramidian ship from Adramidium, it was a smaller ship most likely, not a grain ship, but it'll get the void started getting on from Caesarea to Myra as we'll soon see.

And then Aristarchus of Thessalonica shows up in the New Testament several times. We've seen him twice already in the book of Acts. Here in Acts 27.2 is the last time he's mentioned by name. It appears from everything that's described that he goes all the way to Rome with Paul. So he started at Caesarea with Luke and Paul and stays with all three ships all the way to Rome.

He's also mentioned in Colossians 4.10 as a fellow prisoner. So it may be the Aristarchus himself got into some kind of legal trouble. And so that by the time the book of Colossians was written, he's a fellow prisoner.

Philemon 24, he's a fellow worker. So this fellow is a very faithful fellow. We don't hear mention of him, but the fact that he continues on from one thing to the next, I imagine a lot of people might think, now look, this shipwreck thing, that's too much. I'm getting out of here. Going to prison? I'm not doing that. That doesn't stop this guy. This guy is faithful and he sticks with Paul all the way. And Paul, even towards the end, calls him a fellow worker, not just a fellow prisoner.

Acts 27, 3 and 4, the next day we put in at Sidon. Julius treated Paul with consideration and allowed him to go to his friends and receive care. From there we put out to sea and sailed under the shelter of Cyprus, because the winds were contrary. So here this centurion, his name is Julius, and by the way, they only sent prisoners with a centurion. So this was consistent with the practice among the Roman military. Also, all of the prisoners from Acts, from the Gospels into Acts, all of these centurions are spoken of positively, including this guy. So that's an interesting fact, and of course earlier we'd seen how Cornelius was a centurion who became a believer, he and his household. So, Paul was allowed to stay with his Christian friends in Sidon, and given physical and spiritual care while there, which is good because, you know, moments otherwise, things would become very difficult.

And for him to actually, you know, get a fresh set of clothes and have people give him food and place to rest, he's not going to get as much rest as he gets on this ship, and especially the next one. Sailing around the island of Cyprus often meant dealing with prevailing winds, which were contrary to the desired direction of travel. Sometimes those winds would only reverse in direction for a matter of a few weeks out of the year. And so you'd have a lot of times when the prevailing winds were contrary.

Here's Acts 27, 5, and 6. When he had sailed through the sea along the coast of Cilicia and Pamphylia, we landed at Myra and Lycia. There the centurion found an Alexandrian ship sailing for Italy and he put us aboard it. So here was the pattern. The city of Rome had over a million people at this point in time. And in order to keep all those people right under Caesar's nose, so to speak, In order to keep all those people happy, they made sure that they had a continuous supply of food, and that meant shipping in grain from Egypt even when the weather was contrary. Why would they do that? Because the Roman Empire, knowing how important it was, high priority, to have the people in Rome be fed and fed well, in order to avoid food riots and things like that they had to assure that people in Rome would be fed so the Roman Empire guaranteed the ship owner payment and compensation so there was no risk even though the weather was very bad the Roman Empire underwrote the risk so the ship owner would be willing to go during bad times okay So here's the change of ship after going here along the coast of Cilicia, where Paul's from, Pamphylia.

So the centurion put both himself and Paul and the others with them on this larger grain ship that was headed ultimately to Italy. That's where they at least hoped to go. It turns out this particular ship isn't going to make it there, right? As we'll soon see.

Roman law and shipping practice put the highest authority on a ship in the Roman centurion on board. If a Roman centurion got on board, certainly he would look at other people to say what ought to happen and that kind of thing. But he had the final say. He had the final say. That was Roman law. So it didn't matter if you were the owner of the ship, didn't matter if you were the pilot, anything else, it was the centurion who had the last say. His command would be over the ship captain and all others aboard the ship. He could say who lived, who died, who went, who got off, who stayed, anything else.

We're going to see how features of this Roman law fulfills God's will for Paul. Isn't that amazing? The Lord is going to use the law of the land of Rome. What? Yes, pagan Rome, in order to make this clear and to carry out God's will with regards to Paul.

Acts 27, 7 and 8, when we had sailed slowly for a good many days and with difficulty had arrived at Nidus, since the wind did not permit us to go further, we sailed under the shelter of Crete, of Salmoni, and with difficulty sailing past, we came to a place called Fairhavens, which is near the city of Licea. Just a strange thing, you have this CN, which is a letter combination that we don't have in English too often, but anyway, so it's difficult to pronounce or look at it and pronounce it, but then we have the other point here, Salmoni, Salmoni was actually a Phoenician name, and it meant a place protected from the wind. So that would make sense. That was why they would go off Salmoni, because of a place protected from the wind. So it's very appropriate. Also, one other thing, on my second trip coming back from Uganda, guess where we flew over? At 35,000 feet, this is Crete. And right after that, I got to fly over Corinth. So that was great, you know, a bonus.

Now, so the winds often meant slow travel, remember? Because they didn't have any rowers, okay? They did have, as you see on the ship, there are two oar-looking things that are really used as rudders. So they didn't have a single rudder like we have it, but they have two oar-looking devices that are connected, and that they would use to help steer the ship. But it was slow travel, and you notice, with difficulty, twice in this passage here.

It was at least slow. We'll also see that this soon becomes dangerous. So when you went during this winter time and the winds were contrary, it meant going very slowly. Sometimes you went slowly, sometimes you had to do a lot of zigzagging. And that was very inefficient. They also didn't want to get too far away from view of land because that was one sure way of staying in proper orientation and navigating. The wind conditions and directions, the geographical names in these verses have been independently confirmed.

We're going to see next week an example where the Apostle, excuse me, Dr. Luke, uses a Greek word that people used to say, oh, he invented that. There's no such Greek word. No, there is one Greek word. We're going to see how it is nearly miraculously confirmed as we look at it next week. What we have found supports the real historicity and assists in properly understanding what Dr. Luke wrote.

And again, he is a prime historian of his day, better than a great many others who wrote much more accurate in his geography and descriptions. Acts 27, 9 and 10, when considerable time had passed and the voyage was now dangerous, since even the fast was already over, Paul began to admonish them. And he said to the men, I perceive that the voyage will certainly be with damage and great loss, not only to the cargo and the ship, but also of our lives. We're going to get further revelation on that as we look at next week's passage. One other thing that we'll take a look at here, it says, even the fast was already over. Well, you say, well, what do you mean the fast?

You know, they've got a bunch of Gentiles on board. You have on page 3 here, this is a Jewish feast calendar. So it starts with Passover as the first one in the year, Feast of Unleavened Bread and Firstfruits, Feast of Weeks, Pentecost, right? And then Feast of Trumpets, and then the Feast of Atonement.

That's the fast. They would fast. There's the rest of these. The rest of these would be something where you'd eat. Here, it would be you would fast, right? After that you'd feast, but first you would fast for the Day of Atonement, the one day of the year. That's the fast of this passage here.

One of the things to note as Paul begins making pronouncements, you can imagine, here's 276 people on board, just getting somebody's attention was not necessarily easily done. Here's Paul. He is an experienced sea traveler. It's been estimated that he traveled about 3,000 miles and then the 3,500 miles of this trip. He survived at least four shipwrecks by this time. Everybody on board would not right then understand Paul's substantial travel experience, but then the other thing that's going to be added, Paul's going to say, next time he makes a pronouncement here, he's going to say, an angel appeared to me and told me this. So he has not only travel experience, extensive travel experience, been through three shipwrecks and seen how that happens, soon to see the fourth one, but he also is one who has God's revelation to add to this.

Acts 27 11, but the centurion was more persuaded by what the pilot and the captain of the ship and by what was being said by Paul. Let's talk about pilot and captain here. So the pilot is the guy who is called the steersman. He is the one who steers things from the tail end where they got the two oar-like structures that steer. He's also the one that gives various commands to the other sailors who put the sails up and down and the angle that they go at. Also talks about put down the anchor, all that.

He is called here the pilot. In one sense, we'd say, well, he's really kind of the captain. What's translated captain here is actually the owner or owner's representative. See the difference there? So the pilot is the one who's really steering things and calling the shots so far as we go here, we stop, we start, where are we headed? The one called the captain here is actually an owner or owner's representative.

He represents the financial interest in this ship. probably doesn't care one bit about all the lives, 276 of them, but it is a matter of the ship is worth a lot of money and the grain on the ship is worth a lot of money and so that's what he's looking at.

He does have in this case the guarantee of the Roman Empire, don't worry, go ahead and travel in rough conditions in difficult weather, we'll pay you for it. If there's a loss, we'll pay you for it. Certainly if you get there, we'll pay you, but if you have a loss, we'll pay you.

So it says the centurion was more persuaded, and at first you would see that even though the centurion was favorable to Paul and gave him latitude and kindness, the word used earlier for the centurion with regards to Paul at Sidon, It was a word, he was a philanthropist, he was a philanthropist, he was kind to them, right?

So, but when it came to the sailing thing, he didn't realize that Paul I was a very experienced, you know, ship traveler, but also he would have divine revelation. So, at first here, this is what we see. We're going to see that that changes, however, as the centurion recognizes, hey, this is no ordinary prisoner. We can understand that the pilot, and again that's the steersman, and the centurion would be trusted more at this point. The centurion would not know of Paul's substantial experience, nor of God's revelation.

Acts 27.12, because the harbor was not suitable for wintering. You may have a harbor, but it isn't a place necessarily to stay for the winter. The waves and whatnot will beat the ship up.

The majority, so what that tells you is that the Centurion and the other officers on board, who we call the pilot and the captain, they are listening to what other people are saying. So it isn't a matter of we're going to do what we want, but they're actually listening to other people since they're kind of sharing in the risk. Also, there's so many people here that the crew does not have final say. If the people are completely contrary, It's not going to help. They won't be able to hold power if they do something contrary. So they decide to put out to sea. Somehow they could reach Phoenix, a harbor of Crete, facing southwest and northwest and spend the winter there. That would be on the west end of the island of Crete. So you'd see that on the one end.

So 276 people on board. Aside from all the grain, so usually what they would have is you'd have the upper deck and you'd have some cabins for the crew at one end typically. There's 276 people on board who'd be on the upper deck and then the next deck down and then the grain would be in the lower deck typically. That would be the usual arrangement.

So then Centurion had the final say. Apparently the people on board were polled in some way. to discern the majority opinion among those on board. So travel in the Mediterranean was considered riskiest mid-September to mid-March, and it was considered it gets worse during this time. So they started in August. So the start is not too bad. From then on, it gets bad, and it gets even worse. So anyway, that's the pattern.

Acts 27.13, when a moderate south wind came up, supposing that they had attained their purpose, they weighed anchor and began sailing along Crete close inshore. Now anchors in those days would be of a structure like you see on the left here, and that would probably be more typical of this ship, which would be a more expensive and larger ship. Some of the smaller ships would oftentimes use a large stone with a hole carved in at one end and just kind of weigh it down. Most likely it's the kind on the left side here, and so that's what we show. So weight anchor means to pull it up, okay, to pull it up so that you're free to begin, you know, moving the ship.

The south wind was telling them, oh, it's okay now, but guess what? that changes quickly and especially this time of year so that it was a false signal oh it's okay to travel now right it was not okay as they were soon to find out it looked like a safe time to travel but rather soon is going to get very dangerous for this ship for the contents and for all aboard the ship now what are the spiritual reasons for this passage Words, terms, places, events, seasons, Roman officers, Roman laws and customs, weather, even geography, all tell us that the events recorded in Acts are real history and that Dr. Luke, when it comes to recording history, was second to none.

The best of his time. An outstanding historian. Since these all are a good fit to what is known otherwise, We see scripture vindicated as being historically true. The message of scripture is also historically verifiable. If you look at other scriptures, and many people of the world would just look at, okay, the scriptures of the Hindus and the Buddhists, and they'll look at different ones, and they'll just consider them all the same. Christianity is historically testable and verifiable.

Buddhism tells you that there's an eightfold path to enlightenment, but Buddha's historicity and the details of it are not particularly critical. It does matter that Christ was crucified on a Roman cross just outside of Jerusalem. That does matter. History matters in the Bible.

The other point, in spite of great danger, God is faithful to his word. Paul had a godly motivation to go to Jerusalem. He says, I go there and then to Rome with the blessing of Christ and the will of God. He was led by the Holy Spirit in these things, it says in Acts twice.

In spite of the many hazards, dangers, and risks known before and discovered later, He's going here next. But when God clearly tells us and promises us in his word and confirms what is in his word, we have every spiritual reason to trust him through even the stormy times that come. This is really, really important. We see Paul going through this and we see rougher times even more so are ahead. and he's going to have a triple threat to his life all within a fairly short period of time. But he knows he can trust the Lord in this. And when God confirms something in Scripture, we can too. We can trust the Lord through them no matter how stormy it gets. Also remember that they did what the majority thought best.

We are in a period of time right up against a midterm election. People are voting and many of them are not saved. I want to assure you, no matter how this next election turns out and all the propositions, nothing that God has established will be thwarted or bent in the least. Your position in Christ, individually and together, will be untouched. No matter how badly they vote, right? No matter how it turns out. When people vote, they buy, they sell, they express their viewpoints and their emotions, they seek to influence and persuade us, God knows better.

We can trust what the Lord has laid out for us. And we can trust what the Lord said, this is how it's going to end up. I may go through things that are an absolute mess here on planet earth, but you know that those messes are all designed by God to conform me to the image of Christ. They're all designed by God to conform me to the image of Christ.

There is no place in which God messes up. Here is the Apostle Paul. He's an apostle! Right? God puts him on a journey with three ships, three times at least his life is threatened. Did God mess up? No. So just as we're going to continue to see Paul trust the Lord and listen to the Lord, even when the world tells us differently, We're called to continue to trust the Lord and walk in fellowship with Him each step of the messy way.

By the way, this is the cottage where Nancy and I are moving. Our downsizing is quite an adventure. We've never been through that before. Oh, by the way, the cottage is furnished. Anyway, so we have a lot of stuff to deal with. The last thing to leave you with, there is always spiritual opportunity, but it doesn't always look the same. You see that? There is always spiritual opportunity, it doesn't always look the same. Paul's spiritual opportunity when he's there in Caesarea, And the Lord arranges it to gather probably what were hundreds of people in this auditorium to hear the gospel, many of them for the first time. For the Lord to arrange that, and things were fairly calm, and the worst thing was that Paul had chains.

Here he's going to go on this hazardous, very uncomfortable journey. and especially the middle part of it. Very hazardous and very uncomfortable. He's going to go on this journey. It has spiritual opportunity even if it's very uncomfortable, even if it's painful, even if threats appear. There is always spiritual opportunity. It does not always look the same. This is key.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for what you have chosen to reveal for us through the Lord Jesus and through the Holy Spirit. We just thank you for the things that you have accomplished and are credited with, our blessings, our unfathomable riches, our seating with Christ in the heavenlies. Thank you for these wonderful and marvelous truths.

As we continue to look at the Apostle Paul here and see him heading towards Rome, It's certainly not uneventful. In matter of fact, some of it's uncomfortable, messy, and painful, and dangerous. But we see your faithfulness in it. Pray that we would have eyes to see the spiritual opportunity you're laying before us. Thank you for your faithfulness and your steadiness in the midst of it. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.