God accompanies us! - Paul on the journey to Rome (Acts 27:1 - 28:10)

[Stephan Choe]

2024.5.20

Key verses 27, 23-24: “For this night the angel of God, to whom I belong and whom I serve, came to me and said, 'Do not be afraid, Paul, you must be brought before Caesar; and behold, God has given you all who are traveling with you.”

There are times on our journey of life when we suddenly encounter storms. What is our confidence in such storms? Today, we want to learn the confidence of victory through Paul.

For two years, Paul sat in a prison in Caesarea after being accused by the Jewish High Council. When the chief priests tried to murder Paul by deceit, he appealed to the Roman emperor so that he had to be taken to Rome by ship. Acts 27 tells us about his journey to Rome as a prisoner.

Paul was placed under the care of a centurion named Julius. And Luke, the physician, and Aristarchus from Thessalonica traveled with Paul to help him.

Paul's journey to Rome[1]  :

Jerusalem  Caesarea (imprisoned there for two years)  Sidon  Myra (change to the ship from Alexandria to Italy)  at the height of Cnidus  at the height of Salmone  Good harbor at Lasaea (decision to continue to Phoenix)  (storm wind)  past Cauda (cargo and ship's gear thrown away into the sea)  Malta  after three months by ship from Alexandria  in Syracuse three days  Puteoli  Rhegion, stayed one night  reached Puteoli after two days and stayed there seven days with brothers  brothers came to meet Paul and his companions as far as Forum Appii and Tres-Tabernae  Rome in a rented apartment (held captive there for two years)

Paul and his group traveled from Caesarea to Myra in Lycia.

When the ship reached Myra in Lycia on the southern coast of Lycia, the centurion had Paul transferred to a large ship that was transporting grain from Alexandria to Rome.

This ship was a combination cargo and passenger ship. It transported both normal passengers and prisoners from Judea and Caesarea with soldiers as guards. There were a total of 276 people on the ship: sailors, prisoners, soldiers and normal passengers.

All attempts by the high council to assassinate Paul had failed, but then he encountered another emergency situation, namely a great storm on the sea.

After leaving Myra, the ship was unable to sail west and was driven south by a headwind. After many days, it reached Fair Havens near Lasea on the south coast of Crete. Paul warned of the storm and suggested spending the winter in Fair Havens near Lasaea. But the centurion believed the opinion of the helmsman and the master of the ship more than Paul did. So they wanted to sail on and spend the winter in Phoenix on the island of Crete, because Phoenix was a better and safer port to the west of Fair Havens. The masters of the ship therefore ignored Paul's advice and followed the opinion of the experts.

The ship left Fair Havens for Phoenix. But it was caught in a terrible storm called the “north-east wind”. The ship was blown off course for many days. Luke described the situation: “But since neither sun nor stars shone for many days and a violent storm beset us, all our hope of salvation was gone” (20). 

What did Paul do in the time of the storm, when the ship was caught in the storm of the northeast?

He prayed to God.

And God gave him a comforting message. God said that he would save Paul and everyone from this storm.

God had already revealed his plan to Paul in Jerusalem when Paul was arrested in Jerusalem. He had said: “Be of good cheer! As you have borne witness to me in Jerusalem, so you must also bear witness to me in Rome.”

So Paul had accepted God's will to go to Rome and preach the gospel there.

If God intends to save us and use us as his servants, we will be saved and used by him for God's saving work. Nothing can thwart this plan. We can realize this truth and be convinced of our victory in Christ Jesus. Therefore, we are invincible and indestructible until we have completed God's appointed work on earth. Satan and all of hell may try to stop us, but they cannot thwart the divine plan.

What happened to these people? Because they ignored Paul's advice to stay in good harbor, they were caught in a storm and had to throw sheep cargo and ship's gear into the sea to prevent shipwreck.

When Paul prayed to God, God sent him an angel.

The angel brought Paul a message of encouragement from God, which he shared with the others.

It is good to listen to the advice given to a person by God. If we do not, we will suffer.

The people on the ship had become fearful and hopeless in this great storm, but one man on the ship was full of hope.

In Acts 27:21 we read: “After the men had not eaten for a long time, Paul stood up before them and said: <Men, you should have taken my advice not to sail from Crete; then you would have spared yourselves this damage and loss.>”

God continued to tell them through Paul: “But now I urge you not to lose heart, for not one of you will be lost, but only the ship will be destroyed.”

Paul always had confidence and a living hope out of trust in God.

He wrote in Romans 5:3-5: “Not only this, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings patience, 4 but patience brings probation, and probation brings hope, 5 and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

In prison in Philip, he wrote to the Christians in Rome: “Rejoice in the Lord always. I say it again, Rejoice!” (Phil. 4:4)

Paul prayed in the time of the great storm, and God answered his prayer. And God sent an angel to this drifting ship to comfort Paul. Our God is a shelter in the midst of storms!

God took care of Paul and his companions, this time without stopping the storm. He could also have ordered the storm to stop. He had done that on the Sea of Galilee, for example. He is Lord over everything. But this time, he didn't do it to announce Paul as his servant to everyone.

Paul said to the people: “Men, you should have followed my advice not to sail from Crete; then you would have spared yourselves this damage and loss. But now I urge you not to lose heart, for not one of you will be lost, but only the ship will be destroyed” (verses 21-22).

Paul went on to say, “Last night an angel of the God whose I am and whom I serve stood beside me and said, 'Do not be afraid, Paul. You must stand trial before Caesar'” (verses 23-24).

God wanted to save all the people on the ship in order to use Paul as a witness of the gospel in Rome. That was God's message to Paul.

Paul said: “I belong to this God”. That means: “I have been bought with the price of Christ's death. Now I am not an old Saul, but a new man, a Christian called Paul. I belong to him and he wants to do his will through me”.

Salvation through Jesus Christ is a great miracle of grace for Paul and also for every believe

And God does everything for his children, i.e. Christians. Won't the heavenly Father do everything to care for his children? Yes. He said: “I am his sheep and he is my good shepherd who gave his life for me.”  And won't we gladly do God's will? We certainly will!

Living Christians are a blessing to their fellows, wherever they are in the world, because they recognize God's will and are happy to do it. We are a blessing for the state and for our neighbors. We can learn this from the example of Joseph. Potiphar was blessed by Joseph and so was the whole land of Egypt.

So we too are a blessing for this country because we believe in Jesus Christ and follow his will. Germany should be proud of living Christians, because we protect this country from evil. Paul said to the people on the ship, who were worried and anxious: “Be of good cheer!”

Those who are convinced of God's goodness can say: “Don't worry! I trust God and his Word.”

Although people in the world are without God and without hope, we can give hope to the world through the Word of God. Christians really are the light of the world and the salt of the earth.

As the ship approached land, it ran aground on a sandbank and began to break up. Now another emergency situation arose. The soldiers in charge of the prisoners wanted to kill all the prisoners, including Paul, because they knew that if any prisoners escaped during transportation, the soldiers in charge would be killed. We remember the Philippian jailer from the Acts of the Apostles. After the earthquake, he wanted to kill himself because he thought his prisoners had escaped and he would be killed in their place.

The soldiers wanted to kill all the prisoners as well as Paul. But at just the right moment, Captain Julius intervened and stopped them.

Why did he intervene? Because he wanted to save Paul. No one can thwart God's plan. The Lord had planned for Paul to witness in Rome. Because God had planned it this way, his plan was indestructible.

The High Council had tried to thwart God's plan, but it could not. The storm tried to thwart God's plan, but could not. The Roman soldiers tried to thwart God's plan, but they could not.

But that was not the end of the dark power's attempt. The devil mobilized a serpent this time.

After 276 people managed to save themselves on an island called Melita (Melita is now called Malta), they were warmly welcomed by the natives of the island.

The inhabitants of the island lit a fire and took in the survivors. Paul also helped by collecting a pile of brushwood for the fire.

As Paul gathered a pile of brushwood and put it on the fire, a snake attached itself to his hand, driven away by the heat. When the islanders saw the snake clinging to his hand, they said to one another, “This man must be a murderer, for although he escaped from the sea, the goddess of vengeance has not let him live.

But Paul shook off the snake into the fire and suffered no harm. People expected him to swell up or suddenly drop dead. But after waiting a long time and seeing that nothing worse happened to him, they changed their minds and said he was a god.”

In this passage from the Acts of the Apostles, we see how Paul overcame the resistance of the dark powers of the Sanhedrin, the storm, the soldiers and the serpent with the help of God. God was with him and wanted to save people in Rome through him. No one and nothing can thwart God's plan.

This God is also with us and wants to save people in Germany and the world through us.

If God is for us, who can be against us? If we place ourselves in the service of King Jesus Christ, we are indestructible. He is with us in all the storms that life sends our way. We can have great confidence because we know that he will save us.

Our God is with us and for us. He will never leave us nor forsake us. He is the truth and can be trusted. And God can use us as his instrument. The Bible says that God's word is always “yes” in Christ.

For God says in Isaiah 43:1-3a: “And now thus says the LORD who created you, O Jacob, and made you, O Israel: Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are mine. 2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; when you pass through the rivers, they will not drown you. When you enter the fire, you will not burn, and the flame will not scorch you. 3 For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.”

This God is always with us to comfort and cheer us up.

Amen!

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[1] http://www.glauben-und-bekennen.de/bibel/landkarten/rom-reise-paulus.jpg