Safe departure to shipwreck!

Good morning. Thank you, Jim, for reading this for us, this rather lengthy passage, Acts 27, 14 through 44. And we have some particular things to point out to you regarding this passage. As we mentioned last week, this is not a welcome to Paul's Mediterranean vacation. It is anything but that. It's certainly not that. And we pointed also, this is the second ship that at the end of last week's passage, Paul had gotten on along with Dr. Luke and Aristarchus. Together held 276 people plus the grain headed for Rome.

Now, one of the things we might mention is that the general principle in the Mediterranean is from about mid-September to about the middle of March, you just don't travel by ship. That's the general rule. You just don't do that. It's foolish, right? So there were two exceptions.

One is short trips from one safe harbor to the next would sometimes be done if the weather looked clear enough for as far as you could tell. the other exception was this one right here and that is the Emperor knew that food riots in Rome were very very bad so what he did was he guaranteed the payment for shipments from Egypt of grain going to Rome And so that would be the other exception. So this is an exceptional ship traveling during that time of year. And the reason for the 276 people is there weren't very many ships making this trip. So the ones that did go during the wintertime were typically loaded up with people. This was typical.

Now, give you an idea what 276 people is. If this church is comfortably packed out, it holds 240 people. Suppose you had all these pews with eight people, that's called comfortable, right? Per pew. And so this would load this church building with 240 people. This is that many people plus 36 more, right? So if you were to say, okay, scrunch up, we're going to pack in 36 more people, that would be the number of people.

The only thing was, they had nothing as comfortable as a pew to sit in or lay in, right? So that wouldn't be that nice. Plus, a lot of things would be missing, like really nice bathroom facilities and, you know, when a lot of people are feeling kind of not so good and kind of green, you're wherever you are, right? So, anyway.

The Mayflower, we gave the example, came to the New World with 102 passengers and about 30 crew on top of the 102 passengers. There was room for each person with about the same size ship but a little narrower, so the grain ship that Paul was on was a little wider, but about the same size ship and a little narrower. There was enough room for everybody to have about the space of a sleeping bag on the Mayflower, okay? When they got to the New World, they got off the ship and thank God that they made it, right?

This was worse than that, okay? And we pointed out last week, we won't go into quite such detail, but there just simply were not the modern things that we have for safety, calling for help, communication. letting people know this is not a good area, lighthouses, buoys, all those things were few and far between. If you got into a place where the winds were not favorable, there were no rowers in this kind of a ship, so whatever the sails didn't provide, that was just the way it was. Last week we had this entire map that you see shown here on the first page. This time we're going to zero in on this area that you see in the rectangle. So that's what's shown on the top part of your handout.

And basically what we're focusing on today is the trip that starts from Crete and that area that heads towards Malta. They don't know it yet as they start off, but they're going to end up shipwrecking on the shores of Malta. So anyway, we're right in between those two places in today's account that Dr. Luke has recorded for us.

One of the ways we would put it is this is a whole lot of spiritual opportunity disguised as a miserable time on a ship, right? And that's really what it is. It's a very, very, very miserable time on a ship. And also, for most people, very scary, frightening. Well, let's put it this way. Those on board became more and more hopeless. Dr. Luke even records that, that they were abandoning hope. They were hungry. Why would they be hungry? There was plenty of food on the ship, at least the kind of food that stores on a ship. Plenty of food on the ship, but why wouldn't you eat it?

Because everybody is very seasick. People are also anxious because they're looking, you know, what, boy, what are we going to have happen here? How is this trip going to turn out? Maybe not so good. Is there anything we can do? No, nothing. More and more anxiety.

People were seasick. One of the things we point out, the seas, at the worst of this, were probably somewhere between 33 and 50 foot high waves. Give you an idea what that's like. The height of a 50-foot wave is about twice the peak of the roof on this church. So really tall waves and so also sleepless.

There really isn't enough room to lay down and go to sleep unless other people make room for you. So you can sleep for a while but they want to lay down too. So it's getting really bad and people are also desperate. People are desperate because they're feeling bad, they're tired, they're hungry, they're seasick. Oh, did I say they were desperate? Yes, they're desperate because then they start doing foolish and outrageous things trying to find some sense of relieving their anxiety and sleeplessness and seasickness and desperation. Dr. Luke records all the nautical and geographical and other details on this ill-fated voyage It would be fun if this were just Gilligan's Island and we could all laugh and chuckle a little bit. It's not.

We can see that, however, there's spiritual opportunity that has been prepared for the Apostle Paul, and Dr. Luke records all of that spiritual opportunity in historic detail. Dr. Luke's accounts are astoundingly accurate when compared to the other accounts that we have from his day. Dr. Luke's accounts are amazingly accurate as to history, culture, and geography.

We're going to see that today, but also even next week. Dr. Luke, as you go through the Book of Acts, has been recording, for example, with fine detail the proper title for the different magistrates and governors and whatnot in each and every instance. And that's true as we go through the rest of the Book of Acts. Describing travel by ship is recorded in Acts chapters 27 and 28.

Dr. Luke nails it in the details. We have here a couple of links that you can check out. I've also given you a couple of books, Evidence and Paul's Journeys. I highly recommend a very well done, well written book. I emailed Jefferson White just this last week and I said, hey, thanks for writing that book. It's a great one. This link will give you a part of that in the bottom link that I provide.

The Book of Acts in Hellenistic History by Colin Hamer, he was a very astute historian, records all the historical fulfillment in detail throughout the Book of Acts. These are not Bible stories. Dr. Luke did not make them up. They fit the details as we understand them with astounding accuracy, better accuracy than any historical record and the historian of Dr. Luke's day.

We presented previously the biblical principles of spiritual opportunity. I'll go through them briefly here. Point one, God has prepared good works that we might walk in them. We're called to walk in dependence upon and fellowship with Christ. Point one, for being prepared for and being in a spiritual place to look for and carry out those places of spiritual opportunity. pray and give thanks in everything, also praying that God will open the doors of spiritual opportunity. The Apostle Paul appealed to people multiple times in his letters to pray that the doors would be opened for him.

Thirdly, when God opens the door of spiritual opportunity, go through it. Go through it. One other principle we pointed out last week, there is always spiritual opportunity, but it doesn't always look the same. Along with that, You may not always like it. It may not always be pleasant, but there's still spiritual opportunity. Here's Acts 27, 14 through 20. It begins this way.

But before very long there rushed down from the land a violent wind called Urechilo. And when the ship was caught in it and could not face the wind, we gave way to it and let ourselves be driven along. You might notice that the format that you have in your handout and even on the slides is somewhat different from what I have usually, and one reason for that is simply the amount of material we're covering in one time, and so that's one reason for doing that. In most cases, I've underlined what I'm going to remark about, and the first one was this violent wind called a Uraquilo, One of the reasons I would point this out is for a long time, and I mean from the 1800s into the early part of this last century, it was thought that Dr. Luke messed up or made something up with this term that's translated as Eurychilo.

It is a mixture of a Greek and a Latin word, and of course that was one of the reasons people thought, well he's nuts, right? And so people thought he was goofy, he had made something up, he had incorrect history. Turns out, not so. It was found just to the south of where he was when he wrote this, in the Roman city in North Africa called Tuga, or Thuga, right? And what they found is in the theater, on the floor, on the windrows. Guess what they found? that word. Precisely that word.

So Dr. Luke was not messing up. He was not making anything up. It turned out he had available to him a rather unusual word that he got exactly right. Dr. Luke nails it as to historical fact. This backs up the historicity and the truth of scripture. This is not a made-up Bible story. Dr. Luke is not cooking it up. This is not fiction. This is actual fact, including this very rare and unusual term that Dr. Luke got right. Now, something else I want to bring to your attention.

This Urechilo, this particular storm that occurred during The time that Dr. Luke records here in 59 AD happened again this year, a month and a half ago. The last part of September, so the exact same time, the exact same place, that exact same storm happened. Pretty much. And so the various world weather agencies, starting with NASA and its pictures, had a record of it, and this is the way it looks. It is a Mediterranean cyclone nicknamed a medicaine, a Mediterranean hurricane. It happened this year. It was a nasty one happening in exactly the same place at exactly the same time just a month and a half ago.

The seas in the worst case were 33 to 50 foot tall waves. Any volunteers for that? It's a place where you don't want to be. So again, Dr. Luke did not make this up. This exact same thing happened, was reproduced almost to the to the finest detail just a month and a half ago. This is real stuff. This is not just a Bible story. Here is the wind intensity from our modern accounts now.

Dr. Luke did not have the advantage of this and this and neither did the sailors but we do and so we get some sense of yes this does in fact happen as a matter of fact the way this played out was so much like the storm that happened there in Acts 27 that we get a good idea of the details what actually took place So next we have, starting with verse 16, running under the shelter of a small island called Clauda. Now, Clauda, sometimes you'll see it also spelled as Cauda, and the reason for the difference is because even during Dr. Luke's day, it was spelled and pronounced both ways. And so, what they would do is get behind an island, there was apparently no good safe shelter there, it was a small island, but nonetheless they could get in on the leeward side that is the downwind side of the island and get some reduction in the wind and the waves and use that as a time to try to get themselves better situated for whatever came next. And that's exactly what they did. They were barely able to get the ship's boat under control. Now, what's the ship's boat?

What they would do in those days is the ships would have sometimes one, sometimes more, but at least one smaller boat. Sometimes our modern term, we might call it a dinghy. A smaller boat, sometimes a sailboat, sometimes a rowboat. But it would be used when they needed, for example, to drop somebody off in a place where they didn't have a port, or if they needed to go to land for whatever reason and they didn't have a port to go in, they would be out farther in the water so they wouldn't run aground and go in with a smaller boat. And so the typical thing was to drag that dinghy off to the side. and not try to carry it alongside the ship. They didn't have enough of them typically, especially 276 people, they didn't have enough of them to act as lifeboats for everyone. Occasionally, as we'll see later on in this account, the crew would sneak off, or try to sneak off, and use this dinghy or the dinghies that were available to do that. We're going to see that that's not what works out even though the crew has that in mind.

So this is the ship's boat and we find that not only mentioned here but elsewhere. And then they use supporting cables in undergirding. That's not done today because most often today things are done structurally. We've got other structural methods between fiberglass hulls and things of that sort. And then in larger ships where they have plate steel and those are all welded, we don't have the same instance.

But back in the day when ships were put together from beams and planks, The idea that those beams and planks might start to come apart was a little frightening. So what they would do is they would slip ropes underneath the bottom side of the ship and they would actually do a number of those alongside the bottom side of the ship when things got particularly scary and that was called frapping and they would tie that in order to hold the ship together and to keep the planks and boards from coming undone from the force of the waves. So that's the supporting cables undergirding the ship, fearing that they might run aground in the shallows of Sirtis. That's a particular area right where they were where you could possibly run aground and so they're worried about trying to keep everything together in case that happened.

They let down the sea anchor. Now this word for sea anchor, it's translated sea anchor, but the word actually means just equipment or gear. So it may have been that there was other equipment or gear involved in this letting down, but including the sea anchor.

So in this way, letting themselves be driven along. So what would happen is they would say, okay, we're going to take down the sail so that the wind's not driving us. These winds will tip us over. sails will tear. We're in danger of having these crazy winds do too much so they would stop that. They would sometimes drop anchor in order to drag the anchor along and slow themselves down from being thrust about by the wind. And so he says, in this way, letting themselves be driven along so they would not fight the storm but they would do everything to keep it from thrashing them about and carrying them way off track as much as they possibly could.

So the next day as they were being violently storm-tossed, they began to jettison the cargo. So what are they doing here? They're starting to take the cargo, which would be in the bottom hold, the bottom layer of the ship, and they would start to dump it off. Are they done with it?

No. They don't want to get rid of all of it, if in fact they can possibly save it, but this will make them a little bit lighter in the water and up a little bit higher. with really tall waves. One of the problems was that really tall waves would just overwhelm the top of the ship and you'd be taking in a lot of water. The ability to just turn on a pump and start pumping out water was not there. A lot of hand carrying water a lot of times was counterproductive.

So they began dumping out the cargo. The main cargo that they had at the bottom was a lot of grain coming from Egypt, probably wheat. I couldn't eat it, but other people can, right? So, okay. And on the third day, they threw the ship's tackle overboard. So the tackle is things like ropes, blocks, blocking tackle, various kinds of pulleys and things of that sort. They start dumping off their ropes and control ropes and things of that sort. just trying to get as much stuff off the ship as they can with their own hands. Even the sailors are doing that and they might have enlisted the help of others.

Since neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, many days in some contexts would imply 40 days, in this case certainly much less than that as we'll see, and then no small storm previously in Acts 2.18 and Acts 18.23 Dr. Luke had used this figure of speech.

If something was big, he said, no small. Previously, in those prior passages, he said, no small disturbance. What does he mean by that? A really big disturbance. In this case, this was a no small storm. As a matter of fact, it's a really big storm. This would be the kind of thing you make movies out of, like Perfect Storm, right? This really big storm was assailing us from then on, and look at the emotional environment here. All hope of our being saved was gradually abandoned, or finally abandoned. The idea is, are they getting more and more hopeless? Yep. This is looking really, really, really bad.

You can't yell Mayday, nobody's going to listen. You can't send any messages, not even smoke signals are going to work here, right? No way to call for help. They're out there in the middle of the Mediterranean in the time when most ships just say, hey, we're not doing this.

You got 276 people on board. The place is packed out with people. There's nowhere to really get dry. Up top, you get really wet. Down in the next layer below, you get not quite as wet. So pick one. All hope of our being saved was gradually abandoned.

Next, Acts 7.21-26, when they had gone a long time without food, then Paul stood up in their midst and said, Men, you ought to have followed my advice and not to have set sail from Crete and incurred this damage and loss.

Is Paul going, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, you should have listened to me? Is that what he's saying? No. What he's trying to get them to do, and we'll see how well he does, is to say, look, I had something valid to say, didn't I? You need to listen more carefully to what I have to say from here on out. He's not going, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. Instead, he is trying to get them to understand, I have something valid and important to say. You need to listen. And the next things he's going to say are going to be important for them to pay attention to.

Verse 22, Yet now I urge you to keep up your courage, for there will be, look at this, listen to this, there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. Oh. Now, first of all, is this an absolute statement that he's making? Yep. Guess what?

It is a testable prophecy. One of the things about prophecy is sometimes things are prophesied and there is a near-term fulfillment. Sometimes things are prophesied and there is a long-term fulfillment. Round numbers, the Bible has 10,000 specific prophecies. 5,000 of those have yet to be fulfilled. In this case, it is a near-term prophecy.

They are going to see the fulfillment of it before we get to the end of this passage, or by the end of this passage. And this is also a great point of encouragement to them. And one of the reasons he's saying, keep up your courage, is because while many of them are concerned, are any of us going to live through this? He's telling them, every single one of us will live through this. That is not just a good guess. That is a spectacular prophecy to be fulfilled within a very short period of time.

For this very night an angel of the God whom I belong." Why do we say, the God of whom I belong? Because these people in general have all kinds of gods. And in general, having multiple gods was considered a good idea. Because you never know. Paul, in contrast, is an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve. This is not just a God that I happen to talk to, happen to talk to me. This is the One to whom He belongs, the singular One, and the One that He serves. Stood before me, verse 24, saying, do not be afraid. And by the way, that's usually what angels say, right? Don't be afraid, right? Why? The first reaction is to what? Be afraid! Ah! Right? So, don't worry Paul, this is not an adrenaline moment, right? Don't be afraid, Paul.

You must stand before Caesar. You'll probably stand before Caesar. I hope you're going to get there, right? No. You must stand before Caesar, and behold, God has granted you, all those who are sailing with you, 276 by count to the person. Do you realize how phenomenal, even if you're shipwrecked, how phenomenal a prophecy that is? We're not going to lose a one. Can you imagine? Here's the centurion and the captain when they get all on shore. One, two, three, you know, 273, 274, 275. 276 of us all made it just exactly. This is an amazing thing. It also would have been a great point of failure if it did not happen. They would have said, Paul, you're just so full of it. God has granted you all those who are sailing with you, 276 souls.

Therefore, keep up your courage, second time, keep up your courage, men, for I believe God. Now, what should you believe God for? The Lord in this time was in a pattern of setting out specific prophecies on the fly, so to speak. He's not doing that now, but for what scripture has laid out, we can count on what he says. I believe, God, that it will turn out exactly as I've been told, but we must run aground on a certain island. So we are going to run aground, we are going to lose the ship, all the cargo, forget it. not happening, but every single life here on this ship will be saved.

So 27 to 32 goes like this, but when the 14th night came, so this is two weeks, can you imagine being on a storm-tossed ship with waves as bad as twice the height of this church building at the top for two weeks. Imagine, let's start being on a storm.

All of us here today gathered together, packed out in a boat in a huge storm, so bad that we don't want to eat until now, until two Sundays from now. How many volunteers do we have for that one, right? Yeah, that's a rough scenario. None of us would sign up for that.

When the 14th night came as we were being driven about in the Adriatic Sea, now I need to comment on that even though I didn't underline it. The term Adriatic is a term that is used today for the area between Italy and the coast to the east. Bosnia and all those places, right? And Lindy's shaking her head because she's been there recently, right?

But the term Adriatic in biblical times went farther to the south. And so they didn't travel up north into what we know as the Adriatic. The Adriatic Sea in those days came down as far south as Crete and all the way over to Malta. So it included that and that's what that includes. The terminology for what sea and what not is included within the name. has changed.

But about midnight the sailors began to surmise that they were approaching some land. You imagine you're trying to get a good vision. You put some guy up on a mast so you can get a good look and he says I gotta wait for the for the waves to clear a little bit so I can see anything. And then you've got storm between there and there. I think I see something. I think we might be getting close.

So as we were approaching some land, they took sounding. So what they would do is they would take a rope that would have typically knots or something tied around it at about six foot intervals. So that's a fathom, right? So they took soundings, found it to be 20 fathoms, 120 feet here, and a little farther they took another sounding, found it to be 15, so 90 feet down.

So they figure we're getting closer to something, so what's the concern? The concern is that we get to a place where the bottom of the ship, they hit rocks at the worst, or at least run aground and the ship starts breaking up and they can't move anywhere and they're stuck. That's the problem. The problem that they started thinking about was, we're coming close to land, this can be scary, this can be hazardous. So, fearing that we might run aground somewhere on the rocks, so that was the worst fear, hitting the rocks, they cast four anchors from the stern, the stern was the back, right?

So you got the bow, the front end, the stern on the back end, port side to the left and starboard side to the right. And so on the back end, the stern of the ship, they would cast four of their anchors over to try to stop themselves from getting hauled in on things. and wish for daybreak. Hopefully we can see a little bit better because it's not nighttime and you can see over these huge waves. But as the sailors were trying to escape from the ship and had let down the ship's boat into the sea and on the pretense of laying out anchors from the bow, so what they were doing is they hauled in this boat, they were now going to put it down and while pretending to do something else, they were then going to use that, this is our time of escape. So the sailors are jumping ship. At least that's their plan.

This isn't good, right? So Paul said to the centurion and to the soldiers, because remember, the centurion is the one on any ship, even though this is not a military ship, he being on board means he has the final say as to what happens. Paul said to the centurion and to the soldiers, unless these men remain in the ship, you yourselves cannot be saved. You got to keep these guys on here because we've got to have good control of this ship until we get to the place where we run aground and the ship is done.

Verse 32, then the soldiers cut away the ropes of the ship's boat and let it fall away. So you imagine, they pull out their swords, they go whack! And they cut the ropes, and that little ship's boat that the sailors were hoping to get off on drifts off in the storm. And so, oh no, and of course the sailors are thinking, well now it's hopeless, right?

No, no, they need to have them on board and stick around. 2733 through 38 goes like this until the day was about to dawn Paul was encouraging them all to take some food saying today is the 14th day Remember here was it had been counted before 14th day that you have been constantly watching the going without eating Because people are too seasick you say now you need to get up some strength because you're you're going to go into a different mode here as we run aground and as we all need to get to the shore.

Therefore, I encourage you to take some food, for this is for your preservation, not a hair from the head of any of you will perish." How many? None, not even burns, right? Okay, so not a hair from the head of any of you will perish. You will all live through this experience, and you won't be losing arms and fingers and legs and things like that to do it.

Verse 35, having said this, he took bread and gave thanks to God in the presence of all, and he broke it and began to eat. So what is he doing in this? He is himself taking on food to give them an example. He is also in the midst of this thanking God in front of everybody. Even the food that we have, even the food that we have, we're thankful for. Even though we haven't eaten anything for a couple weeks probably. We're thankful for it. We're giving God Even what we have, we acknowledge God as the provider in front of everybody.

Verse 36, all of them were encouraged. So did Paul's encouragement work? Did it work for most of them? Did it work for all of them? All of them were encouraged. So what he did and said was effective here. All of them were encouraged and they themselves also took food based on Paul's example. One of the things that we see starting to happen here, previously did they listen to Paul? No. Paul is a person of zero power.

You got that? but of great and greater influence. There's a difference. A lot of times we lose sight of it. There are those who are given power and there are those who are given influence. Paul's power is still nothing on this ship. He is a prisoner of Rome. His influence, however, is increasing. And why? Because he sees the spiritual opportunity put in front of him by God.

We want to keep hold of that because we're going to return to that. Verse 37, all of us in the ship were 276 persons. So we're going to count them now. We're going to know the number. We're going to count them now, and when we get to the shore, we're going to count again.

When they had eaten enough, they began to lighten the ship by throwing out the wheat into the sea. The wheat that was remaining was now being dumped out. Previously, they needed some wheat, even though they had started to throw some of it out, as ballast to keep the ship upright, put weight down at the bottom. This is a typical thing, even done in today's ships, using more sophistication.

But at this point, they're wanting all the wheat out they can. They want to get as far as they can before they run aground, which is going to happen by being higher in the water and not lower. They don't want the ship to get stuck farther out. Instead, they want it as far in as they can get it before it breaks up and before they abandon everything. They begin throwing out all the cargo.

Acts 27, 39-44, when day came, they could not recognize the land. So by the way, this ends up being Malta. and they did not come into the typical port. That's why they didn't recognize the land, okay? That's important. There's a place called St. Paul's Bay that is exactly the place where they came in. Some others have tried to put other places and it doesn't calculate. They didn't come into the usual ports. They came instead into an area that the sailors didn't recognize because it was not the usual port that they stopped at.

They did observe a bay with a beach and they resolved to drive the ship into this bay with a beach. if they could. And casting off the anchors, they left them into the sea about the same time they were loosening the ropes of the rudders. So what they do, they cut loose anchors. No more anchors. We're not trying to slow the ship down. We're not trying to stop it. We're just wanting to get everything cut loose. So they just cut off the anchors. Just let them loose.

The ropes of the rudders would help control it, but might end up dragging the ship. So instead, here they go. And hoisting the foresail to the wind, they were headed for the beach. So they deliberately lightened up the ship for everything they could, and they deliberately set a course to go and essentially crash into the beach as far as they could, striking a reef where two seas met. So this was kind of like a high spot there, but one body of water and then another, and then it came up among them where it was shallow. That's where they met. Strike and Reef where the two reefs met, they ran the vessel aground and the prow stuck fast and remained immovable, but the stern began to be broken up, so the back end of the ship began to be broken up by the waves.

The waves were still, even though they were close to the beach, pounding so hard that it started breaking up the ship. And it was breaking up the ship that actually allowed some of them to grab hold of pieces of planking and beams and things of that sort to help survive this.

Verse 42, the soldiers' plan was to kill the prisoners so that none of them would swim away and escape. Now, were the soldiers being wicked and evil? No, they were not, and here's why. The soldiers ordinarily, in a situation like this, were told, if you let a prisoner go away, and that prisoner lives, and you live, guess what? The prisoner Whatever penalty and punishment he got was now yours. If he was going to die, if he was going to die, then you'll die. If he was going to be beaten up or whatever's going to happen to him, that's your punishment. So the prisoners would typically do this because they didn't want any prisoners to escape because if both they and the prisoners came through this, then they were in trouble.

So the centurion, however, is looking at the situation and now, in contrast to what had happened earlier where they didn't listen to Paul, now what's the centurion doing? He's listening to everything Paul says, which is a good thing, okay? And so the centurion, wanting to bring Paul safely through as one of the prisoners, kept them from their intention, commanded that those who could swim should jump overboard first and get to land.

Don't worry about these prisoners. Just, you know, I'll cover you for it. Everybody should get to land, okay? The rest should follow some on planks, others on various things from the ship. And so it happened that they were all brought safely to land. How many? 276. What are the chances of that happening? Odds that you would lose even a few percent are very high. The chance that you would save every single one?

This has got to begin to get these guys' attention. Certainly the centurion is listening, but others, as we'll see in the passage next week, others are beginning, they're watching Paul like, ooh, this guy, this guy is awesome. Not sure I believe in his God just yet, but this guy is amazing. Keep an eye on him. And we're going to see what God does with that.

We brought out briefly the biblical principles of spiritual opportunity, and as we have in recent times, only this time we corrected the word thinks to thanks. So you have that. We also pointed out there's always spiritual opportunity and it doesn't look the same. But there are other things.

Sometimes the most critical actions are to bring encouragement to help people avoid doing selfish and short-sighted things. You see that? Sometimes the most critical actions are to bring encouragement. Because what happens when people become desperate, when they become at the edge of themselves, they will oftentimes do selfish and short-sighted things, like these soldiers who wanted to kill all the prisoners. Like the sailors who wanted to escape on the little dinghy, the ship's boat.

Sometimes the most critical actions are to bring encouragement to help people avoid doing selfish and short-sighted things. Next, even though the centurion and others learned that Paul could be trusted, Paul always respected the earthly authority that was given to them by God. We are right on the brink of midterm election. You may even find, oh heaven forbid, you may even find somebody gets elected that you didn't want elected. You may find that the propositions don't come out quite like you want. Guess what?

In the most desperate of circumstances, the Apostle Paul respected the authority that was given to him by God. Given also to Dr. Luke and to Aristarchus with them. They always respected the authority that was there. They didn't say we're going to come up with some other devious plan, right? And it's our place to do that too, even if the election turns out not at all like we'd like. There's still a place of respecting authority.

Even the Apostle Paul, with the absolutely crazy people who were in charge in the Roman Empire, said, pray for kings everywhere. For what? That we might have the opportunity for the gospel. Caligula, who is an unnamed emperor in the New Testament, He ruled as emperor before this time we're reading about right here. Caligula was the emperor and he was bonkers. Do you know what he commanded? He declared war on the god Poseidon. And he ordered his soldiers to go up to the shore along Italy and stab the water to battle Poseidon. What a fruitcake! Right? The guy was nuts! So what did Paul say?

Pray for kings and rulers everywhere that we might have opportunity for the gospel. What are you to do about this election season? You may even think, oh, heaven sakes, no matter how this election turns out, the ones in charge will be politicians. You know? But, but, The respect of authority needs to be there, and we always, no matter how ghastly the election may turn out in our view, we always have a place to recognize the authority that's there.

Even though God had granted that all 276 people aboard would be preserved through this shipwreck, There were still critical decisions to be communicated and made and actions to be taken. When God guarantees something in our lives, and He has guaranteed many things, when God guarantees something in our lives, that's not the place for us to be passive or foolish. We're still called upon to think and to make wise and prudent decisions.

Still. And that's good. God's assurance did not mean that people could be presumptuous or careless. Paul did not say, now look, all of you are going to be saved through this, it doesn't matter what you do. Do whatever stupid stuff you want and it will be okay. No, he still said, you guys need to eat. He still said, centurion, soldiers, you need to stop these guys from escaping. There were still wise and prudent things to do. There were still things to think about, and there were still right things to do.

Here was a real Roman shipwreck. And by the way, I had no trouble at all coming up with pictures of Roman shipwrecks. There were plenty of them. Real Roman shipwrecks happened a lot. Matter of fact, in this one, they threw all the food overboard. In the one that we just read about, in this one that you see right here, all the food was still left on board. Archaeologists found it. Let me tell you, it wasn't any good after 2000 years, but they found it nonetheless.

So just because God assures us something does not mean that we should be foolish. Even in the midst of the most desperate of circumstances, the most difficult of outcomes, that is still time to recognize God's mercy and grace and to be thankful. Even in the midst of that. Just as Paul thanked God for the food. Let's pray.

Thank you, Lord, for your faithfulness. Thank you for the things you've revealed and what you might otherwise look upon as simply a bunch of nautical detail, a bunch of historical description. No, it is in fact a passage that's inspired to scripture. It is in fact a passage in which we can find confirmation that what you have written is true, but also a passage full of spiritual principle. We thank you for that. Thank you for what you've revealed here, because you love us and you care for us so very, very much. We pray and thank you, Heavenly Father. In Jesus' name, Amen.