Dennis Tuuri

seven for the scripture text. Now, this is a long chapter, 44 verses. I read three last week. I’m going to read all 44. Now, we’re going to begin a discussion that will go on for a couple of weeks. A good reformation topic. My topic for today in short, the bulk of it will be a continuation of our talk on friends from last week. But the introduction will be primarily on the voice of Paul. We used for an opening scripture.

Scripture is talking about the voice of God and their its effect upon creation. And the voice of Paul is emphasized in this account in Acts chapter 27 and is a model for us of the requirement of the church to open wide its voice discerning, predicting, and bringing to pass events in the world round about us. So, we’ll start this series of really sort of three reformation talks on the voice of the church, the voice of Paul, and your voice.

And we’ll read all of chapter 27. We’ll continue on by the way in weeks to come with I know another one or two other sermons on chapter 27 but that’ll be our primary emphasis. All right, chapter 27. And when it was determined that we should sail into Italy, they delivered Paul and certain other prisoners unto one named Julius a centurion of Augustus’s band. And entering into a ship of Adramyttium, we launched, meaning to sail by the coast of Asia, one Aristarchus, a Macedonian of Thessalonica being with us.

The next day we touched Sidon and Julius courteously entreated Paul and gave him liberty to go unto his friends to refresh himself. And we’ll continue here today with our talk on the refreshment of friends. And when we had launched from thence, we sailed under Cyprus because the winds were contrary. And when we had sailed over the sea of Cilicia and Pamphylia, we came to Myra, a city of Lycia. And there the centurion found a ship of Alexandria sailing into Italy.

And he put us therein. So they changed ships here. And when we had sailed slowly, many days and scarce were come over against Cnidus, the wind not suffering us, we sailed under Crete, over against Salmone, and hardly passing it, came into a place which is called the fair havens, nigh where unto was the city of Lasea. Now when much time was spent, that is at the city of fair havens, that port, when much time was spent, and when sailing was now dangerous, because the fast was now already passed, Paul admonished them and said unto them, “Sirs, I perceive that this voyage will be with hurt and much damage, but only of the lading and ship, but also not only of the lading and ship, but also of our lives.” Nevertheless, the centurion believed the master and the owner of the ship more than those things which were spoken by Paul.

And because the haven was not commodious to winter in, the more part advised to depart thence also, if by any means they might attain to Phenice, and there to winter, which is in haven of Crete, and lie toward the southwest and northwest. And when the south wind blew softly, supposing that they had obtained their purpose, loosing thence, they sailed close by Crete. But not long after, there arose against it a tempestuous wind called Euroclydon.

And when the ship was caught and could not bear up into the wind, we let her drive. And running under a certain island, which is called Clauda, we had much work to come by the boat, that is to raise the lifeboat up into the ship, which when they had taken up, they used helps undergirding the ship, and fearing lest they should fall into the quicksand, straight sailed, and so were driven. And we, being exceedingly tossed with the tempest, the next day they lightened the ship.

And the third day we cast out with our own hands the tackling of the ship. And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us. All hope that we should be saved was then taken away. But after long abstinence, Paul stood forth in the midst of them and said, “Sirs, ye should have hearkened unto me and not have loosed from Crete and to have gained this harm and loss. And now I exhort you to be of good cheer, for there shall be no loss of any man’s life among you, but of the ship.

For there stood by me this night the angel of God, who I am, or whose I am rather, and whom I serve, saying, Fear not, Paul, thou must be brought before Caesar, and lo, God hath given thee all them that are with thee. Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer, for I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me, how be it, we must be cast upon a certain island. But when the 14th night was come, as we were driven up and down in Adria about midnight, the shipmen deemed that they drew near to some country, and sounded, and found a 20 fathoms.

And when they had gone a little further, they sounded again and found it 15 fathoms. Then, fearing lest we should have fallen upon rocks, they cast four anchors out of the stern, and wished for the day. And as the shipmen were about to flee out of the ship, when they had let down the boat into the sea under color, as though they would have cast anchors out of the foreship, Paul said to the centurion to the soldiers, “Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved.” Then the soldiers cut off the ropes of the boat, and let her fall off.

And when the day was coming on, Paul besought them all to take meat, saying, “This day is the 14th day that ye have tarried and continued fasting, having taken nothing. Wherefore I pray you to take some meat, for this is for your health. For there shall not hair fall from the head of any of you.” And when he had thus spoken, he took bread, and he gave thanks to God in the presence of them all. And when he had broken it, he began to eat.

Then were they all of good cheer? And they also took some meat. And we were in all the ship 276 souls. And when they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship and cast out the wheat into the sea. And when it was day, they knew not the land. But they discovered a certain creek with a shore into which they were minded, if it were possible, to thrust in the ship. And when they had taken up the anchors, they committed themselves under the sea and loosed the rudder bands and hoisted up the main sail to the wind and made toward shore.

And falling into a place where two seas meet, they ran the ship aground, and the forepart stuck fast, and they remained unmovable, but the hinder part was broken with the violence of the waves. And the soldiers council was to kill the prisoners, lest any of them should swim out and escape. But the centurion, willing to save Paul, kept them from their purpose, and commanded that they which could swim, should cast themselves first into the sea, and get to land.

And the rest, some on boards and some on broken pieces of the ship. And so it came to pass that they escaped, all safe to land. Let us pray for God’s guidance. Father, we thank you for this text and what an exciting text it is of your hand, your providence, the necessity to give thanks in all things to the need for your church to lift up her voice in discerning and then speaking to the events of our day and the possible shipwrecks that we see in the context of our country and our family.

And our friends. Lord God, help us to understand this text. May your Holy Spirit teach it to us. Without that, Lord God, we come together in vain, but not before your spirit who instructs us in these things. So, Lord God, send your spirit upon your servant. Help me, Lord God, to cleave to this word and not to add things to it of my own. And help us all, Lord God, to have open ears to hear the instruction of your scriptures and open mouths to sing forth your praises for what you’ve accomplished in the earth and the basis of the work of our Savior.

And open hands to obey you in Jesus name we ask it and for the sake of his kingdom. Amen. Wonderful text, huh? Wonderful, historically very accurate. By the way, Luke does things here that have been disputed by some as the years were close or further away from our time. And then as history progresses and more things are uncovered, all the details of scripture are always borne out as man’s science develops and understand things.

There were things about a port here that they said couldn’t have existed because it was pointed the wrong direction. Since then, they’ve realized they found out the topography of the island that was mentioned or changed. I won’t get into all the details, but suffice it to say, it’s a very historically accurate text. Of course, that’s the way God is because he knows all things. He delivers those things to his servants.

And it’s filled with wonderful object lessons for ourselves and for our family. I’m going to talk today about the voice of Paul. I’ll start with that, but we won’t spend a lot of time on it. We will spend more time next week and the following week on it, but I wanted to start it today on Reformation Sunday, Sunday closest to the Reformation Day of October 31st, the anniversary of Martin Luther nailing the 95 Theses on the door of Wittenberg. I wanted to start it because I think that the Reformation is all about the voice of the church corporately and individually speaking to everything in our society and applying the word.

Now, you can’t speak to society and the dangers to it unless you discern correctly what is going on. So, we need the mind of God, but it does no good to have the mind of God if we don’t speak that truth out there. If we don’t become, as it were, the voice of God, speaking to ourselves, our families, our friends, our church, our culture about potential dangers in the way of our lives as we go through our difficulties.

Chris W. on this text said that, you know, look at Paul here, you know, he goes from a trial and deliverance from a trial and he at least has some amount of liberties. He’s on his way to be heard at Rome, but he immediately gets into a bunch of storms on the sea. And frequently that’s what the Christian life is all about. It’s going through difficulties, but it’s difficulties that properly perceived from the mind of God and properly addressed with the voice of God, the scriptures, and then our voice understanding and speaking forth what’s going to happen and why things are going on.

And we don’t know that all the time, but when we do to speak that forth, then the end result is deliverance and safety, finding the island of peace, not just resting at fair havens for a short period of time. Name of that first port. We’re going to follow Paul then talk about his voice today. Next week we’re going to talk about manifestations of judgment. I believe that storms are mentioned a lot in the scriptures.

You know, you can think of Jonah out there in a big storm. You can think of Moses really there was a storm that divided the Red Sea, a strong wind that is not a storm but one of these tempestuous winds again sent by God to deliver his people and to crush the Egyptians. Another sort of water storm you know things like this happen. Noah of course in the ark. Big storm. Biggest storm ever was, ever will be.

A lot of storms.

Our Savior, of course, asleep in a boat with his disciples and a tremendous storm comes up on the lake. Our Savior calms those waves. You notice that the voice of Paul, by the way, I’m getting ahead of myself, but the voice of Paul doesn’t calm the waves, does it? No, we can see there by way of illustration and example, the movement again of scripture, the maturation. We go through miraculous deliverances to God training our hands for war. Jericho to Ai, manna provided by God to then having to plant crops. Interim step there as they went into the promised land from manna to eating fruit that they didn’t plant trees they didn’t plant. They went into a land already prepared for them. But then they’d have to start planting a movement there and the church progresses and Jesus can just demonstrate his power over the waves of the voice and everything is smooth.

Paul can do that. We’ve seen Paul do miracles. We’ve seen Paul do as Jesus predicted he would do miracles in some sense in some way greater than our Savior even not because he had less power because he wants to show the power to his people that they have but the normal course of affairs is not miraculous the normal course of affairs is transformation occurs is Paul discerning what’s going to happen in the context of this storm and then speaking it forth and getting people safely through it not getting rid of the storm and so with our lives usually sometimes it’s different Usually those storms will persist but God wants us to cleave to the voice of Jesus ultimately in our lives and we get safe through those storms not because the storm is calmed all of a sudden usually.

So we’re going to talk about manifestation of judgment which the storm represents which the storm I think frequently represents in scripture as does the sea. It’s interesting in the book of Revelation we talk about the new heavens and the new earth. It says there’s no sea anymore. Maybe we’ll talk about that in the next few weeks as well. Manifestations of judgment next week. And then the following week, the voice of Paul again, the voice of Paul comes first predicting difficult times for these group of men if they sail out from Fair Haven.

That’s what he tells them. So, first there’s a prediction of what’s going to come to pass that they can’t see. But then they do it anyway. They don’t listen to his voice and they go out and they sail and the predicted events come to pass and then they lose all hope of living. Despair goes completely into their soul. Fills come up and then the voice of Paul comes again. The voice of Paul says, you know, you should have listened.

But you know, be of good cheer. I’m going to give you another message and you can listen to this one. The voice of Paul returns and in people’s lives, usually that’s the way God works again. Jesus speaks, we ignore, difficulties ensue. Jesus speaks again and we repent, blessing comes. So, we’re going to follow that pattern through. And as we speak a word of reformation to our culture, we must understand that manifestations of judgment surround our land today.

And we must speak to this culture, the voice of God, predicting further judgments if the course is maintained by this culture of course in departing from the word of God. And as those judgments ensue and we don’t just sit back and say, “I told you so. You’re on your own now.” No, no. We stay involved with that culture and we give it a voice again to help it interpret the judgments as they’re played out.

And God in his grace adds to us. He adds to the church. And he glorifies his people. God is sovereignly superintending this storm to bring glory to the Apostle Paul to bring weight and consideration to him and to his people to say this guy really knows something to help him to understand that knowledge of the most high isn’t just for the, you know, the sweet by and by. It’s for here. It’s for application to our lives here and to discerning it here.

And so God does these things. He’ll do it in us. So I want to talk about the voice of Paul today. Manifestations of judgment next week. The voice of Paul again. And then we’ll meet with Paul and these soaked, weary, despairing sailors as they hear the word of God again and then break bread with the Apostle Paul and give thanks. We’ll meet there, Lord willing, on the Sunday just prior to Thanksgiving. And we’ll talk about thanksgiving in the context of manifestations of judgment and in the context the church doing its job, speaking its voice into the culture.

So, that’s kind of where we’re headed and then we’ll proceed on from there. Today, I wanted I’ve already kind of done it. I’ve already kind of done what I said I wanted to do here, but let’s look at the text a little bit, understand what’s going on. I know that, you know, I’ve read this text over and over, and I understand that as I read it, it makes a lot of sense. But understand as you read it, first time, maybe second time, you know, it can be a little tough if you’re hearing it in the King James version, which I use.

And we just need to understand what’s happening here. So, we want to talk a little bit about the text itself and then the voice of Paul. And then I want to return to picking up what I talked about last week, the refreshment of friends and return to some biblical teaching on friends. I know that’s a big order. We’ll see how we go here. Okay. Text itself. Well, we’ll just kind of go through here real quickly. We read through the first three verses last week. You understand where we’re at.

Paul’s appealed to Rome. He’s on his way to be sent by to Rome so that Caesar may hear his appeal. Julius courteously entreats Paul in verse three as they get to their first port of call and he allows Paul to go off and to have refreshment of the care of his friends. We talked about that last week. And then verse four, we launched off from them. So we sailed under Cyprus because the winds were contrary.

And when we had sailed over the sea of Cilicia and Pamphylia, we came to Myra, city of Lycia. And there the centurion found a ship of Alexandria sailing into Italy and he put us therein. So they’ve left this first port of call and Paul’s gotten back in the boat. They’ve left off their cargo. They whatever they’ve had to do there. They go to the next port of call which is at Myra in Lycia and there they change ships altogether.

We don’t know why but you know the ship was probably you know these ships are not primarily there for carting Roman prisoners around. They’re doing commerce. You know the big thing was commerce. And so they kind of hitch ride with commercial ships. And here they end up going onto a ship of Alexandria that was the capital of Egypt, the big city of Egypt. And these were huge ships, these grain ships that would take grain to Egypt.

And it would ply these waters. These ships were like 180 ft long, 45 ft wide, 45 ft deep. They’re big ships, not little ships. Josephus, I believe, I believe it was Josephus, was on such a ship and suffered shipwreck himself. And I believe he says there were 600 people aboard the ship he was on. We have 276 here. That’s told us later in the account and they would fit quite easily on the deck of this ship and that’d probably be where they were was basically on the deck.

The hull is essentially loaded with grain and there’s a lot of things being carried on it. Okay. So they get onto this big merchant ship and they sail for many days and we scarce come over against Cnidus the wind not suffering us. We sailed under Crete over against Salmone. We’re not going to take time to go over the geography. Maybe if I find a good map I’ll bring one next week. Or the week after. But suffice it to say, what should have taken just a very few days is taking them a goodly length of time because of contrary winds.

These were sailing ships. Didn’t have any engines on them. And so they could make headway because the current was going the right direction. The winds were going the wrong direction. So they made very slow headway. Okay, these were not big clipper ships with a whole bunch of sails with a lot of different directions so you could use the wind no matter which way it came. Wasn’t like that. They basically for the most part had one big fixed sail either let up or let down.

Okay, so it was a difficult thing to apply the waters when the winds were contrary. So they’re taking a lot of time here on this voyage. And then verse 8, having passed it, we came into a place which is called the fair havens and nigh where unto was the city of Lasea. So they finally make it to a port called fair havens. Just by way of side comment, Matthew Henry says that not all fair havens are their haven.

It’s not really where they wanted to be. Eventually. And a lot of times it’s easy for Christians to find a nice little resting place and just rest there and never get to where God wants us to go. Fair havens are not always our havens. Additionally, he said fair havens are not always safe havens. This is Matthew Henry. Why did he say that? Because the problem with fair havens here is that it’s not really set up to give sufficient protection from the winds that would come in the winter.

They’re looking for a place at least to winter over to. Okay? If they can’t make it to Rome, they at least want to find a place they can get safely put the ship in someplace for the winter’s coming. This voyage happens like late August, mid-September, maybe even late early October. There’s a reference here to the days of the fast. And the fast they’re referred to of course is the fast in Israel preceding the Day of Atonement.

And so we know that the fast here occurs in mid-September to mid-October depending on what year it was about this time of year maybe a little bit earlier. Now from November 11th to I believe March 11th. The waters were off limits. Nobody would sail once the first week of November was passed because it was just far too dangerous. You’d end up dead most of the time. From September, mid-September to mid-November, it was iffy season.

Depending on how the weather was, how the winds were. Well, you see, because it’s taken them so many days, they’re into iffy season here. They even started off a little bit late. So, they’re into iffy season relative to the weather when the going is so slow they can only reach this one harbor, which isn’t really a big harbor at all. Not a commodious one, not a big city. They’re thinking, well, maybe we can at least get to the next place, which is Phenice, where we can winter over successfully.

So, they’re looking for some place to winter over. Now, it says much time was spent in verse 9. That doesn’t mean at fair havens. That means that much time is already spent from the beginning of their journey to the place that they have arrived at. And when sailing was now dangerous, the winds have now changed to winter, wintry weather because the fast was now already passed. It was already probably mid-October or later and we’re getting close to mid-November when everybody knows get off the water.

Paul admonished them and this is when the voice of Paul comes to him and he said unto them, Sirs I perceive, I see, I understand, I discern. It doesn’t mean I just look at something and perceive it. It’s not like I perceive that fan is moving around. It has more the idea of a discernment process, a perception deeper than just what is obvious on the surface. I perceive that this voyage will be with much hurt and much damage not only of the lading and ship but also of our lives.

So he gives him warning here. Now this is an odd scene. This is a prisoner. Okay. And this is a now the prisoner’s gotten special treatment already. He was let to go off ship by a centurion. This wasn’t just any prisoner. Of course this was Paul. He had an audience with King Agrippa. He’d had an audience with the Roman governor. See they knew that plus he was a man of some degree of magnetism I would think you know if you if you look at men who whose lives are marked by a moral compass so to speak by a Christian moral compass I remember seeing Billy Graham years ago with Mike Douglas on his not the actor but the talk show fella and you know he didn’t treat Billy Graham the way he did most guests and you could tell that there was something about Billy Graham that almost intimidated Mike Douglas I’ve seen this before there is a depth of character to men as they know the person of God that is discernible by men.

And Paul was recognized somehow here as being a man of great importance even though a prisoner. Now Paul has been he said in Corinthians that he suffers three shipwrecks. Now he’s been on the sea a lot. He suffered shipwrecks. He does have some experience but let’s face it folks his experience is not going to match up with the captain of the ship or the owner of the ship. And he’s given these guys advice to put to put not to go out to sea.

Tie it up for a while. It’s going to be tough on us if we take off. That’s an amazing thing. It’s amazing that they even listen to him somewhat. And apparently they did. It says that nevertheless the centurion believed the master and the owner of the ship more than these things which were spoken by Paul because the haven was not commodious to winter in the more part advised to depart then also if by any means they might attain to Phenice and there to winter which is in haven of Crete and lieth toward the southwest and northwest.

The directions are given because that made this port at Phenice instead of Fair Havens a safer port for the winter. The winds always came particular direction. This is one that would give more protection to this large ship as the winds of winter came. What’s being described here is that you got kind of like a council of guys figuring out what we should do here. Now, we’ve had a tough time already. What are we going to do now?

And the council tells us there were four men involved. There was Paul. There was the owner of the master and the owner of the ship. That means the captain and the guy that owned the ship two bells there and then there’s a centurion and the four of them are deciding how to proceed here. That’s what it looks like. And the vote is three against one. Sounds like the centurion might have been not quite sure.

He gave a lot of credence to Paul. But he figured, well, these guys are better shipmen. I better side with them. And so you had a 3-to-1 vote and they decided to put out. And then of course they’re enticed into this in a degree. Verse 13, the south wind blew softly and they suppose that they had obtained their purpose and they loose thereof and they sailed close by Crete. So they ignored the voice of God’s messenger for whatever reason.

Some people think financial gain. They were hoping still to get to Italy and not suffer the winter you know if they had to winter over someplace. They got to pay the crew and all that stuff. It increases their overhead charges for that delivery of wheat. And frequently, you know, money can be a detractor to us when we’re trying to evaluate properly good counsel from Christian men and women. So we could have a picture that here.

We’re not sure why. And then they don’t know how to give heed to him. And then not only that, but they’re kind of tempted in a way. God puts a stumbling block in their way by having this south wind blow softly. The word means to underblow. Not blow hard, but underblow, you know. So it’s a nice soft southern wind. Oh, wow. This is going to make it okay. They should have been able to make this track from what I read in four or five hours to this next little harbor.

I mean, they’re that close. See? You can hardly blame them here for putting out, but they do put out. But verse 14, but you know, they had their own experience. They thought the conditions weren’t that bad yet this time of year. It wasn’t quite mid-November. And a soft wind came up. All these things are pointing this way. The only thing on this side of the equation was the council of God’s messenger, the voice of Paul.

And by way of allusion, the voice of God speaking through Paul. See? Oh, they have all this stuff over here. They go off But they don’t make it that four or five hours to the next port. Straightaway not long after there arose against the tempestuous wind. A typhoon. A typhoon comes up. Typhonic wind is the Greek word here. And by the way, that word has its origins in typhos, the god of the deep or something. The god of the waves and wind and terrible storms.

Demonic. So there’s a demonic connotation of this wind, a tempestuous wind called that came up called Euroclydon. And I know what the name means. Nobody really does. They think it might mean like a northeastern wind. They apparently have found a disk with 12 points on it and each of the 12 points of the compass a wind associated with it would be given a particular name a personification to the winds and this is this particular wind is called this I don’t know what it was you know might have been just a kind of it might have been given a particular designation of wind that came up early in the season that was really bad that you know sailors have a tendency to do that.

We don’t know. But what we do know is that the best-laid plans of mice and men came to not here. They didn’t make Phenice. And then we read of the terrible things that happened to that ship. How they had to just struggle even get the lifeboat deck tied close to the ship run it so it wouldn’t bang the ship to pieces. They had to lay cables all around the hull of the ship and tighten them so the ship wouldn’t fall apart and wouldn’t leak because of the great pressures of the wind.

Terrible stuff happening here. They had to jettison all their cargo. They had to throw off the mast. Throw off the cargo, throw off all this stuff lightening the load for whatever reason. They were in deep trouble, folks. And by the time they finally reach port, it is on planks of flotsam and jetsam. It is swimming to the shore and on the break up of the ship. See what small thing here this decision seems and yet it is momentous for the course of the men these men’s lives.

Providence of God, it’s given to glorify him and glorify his servant, the apostle Paul. But the lessons here are quite clear, aren’t they? The lessons are that we have all these factors sometimes affecting our decisions. Enticing soft winds looks like it’s going to be okay to do this. Makes sense financially makes sense the eyes of sight to look at this. This is probably the way to go. And then we might have the still small voice of God over here through the scriptures, maybe through a biblical truth, through the council of friends who might have discernment.

And when we ignore that, that we frequently end up sailing into manifestations of judgment on our lives. God wants us to put above all other consideration when we make our plans the voice of God, the scriptures the word of God. And if you disobey the word of God, you can expect to sail into incredibly stormy waters if he’s gracious even. Because ultimately what he wants, of course, is for his people to call on his name and be rescued.

You may ignore the counsel of God’s people and you may for a while have a nice life. You may not suffer those tempestuous storms. So David wondered about this. Why do the wicked? They increase riches. They don’t seem to have trouble in this life. What’s the problem? And he goes into the temple and he sees the calf batten for slaughter. He knows that there’ll be a day coming. Pay me now, pay me later.

And if you postpone the payment of that price, a humbling of yourself before the sovereign God of the universe and his word, his voice, including the voice of his church. If you do that all your life and resist the people of God, and you walk into hell at the end of that rich life, that’s what you have at the end of it. And David to understand what God’s doing here. Well, God wants us to humble ourselves well before that point.

Wants us to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. He wants us to humble ourselves and put aside what we think life is all about and lose everything if need be for the sake of following the Lord and master of the universe who made you. We’ve got this track we’re working on for the parents education association. It’s kind of one of the voices that we’re trying to have as a church and as people in the church and as a group, you know, explaining who we are now.

And I’ve got at the bottom of this, this isn’t finished, a Christian the difference the distinction with the difference that makes the difference. And we’re going to self-consciously say on here, our operating presuppositions are not conservative. We’re not Judeo-Christian. We’re not traditional values. No, we’re basing ourselves explicitly on the word of God as Christians. Now, we can be wrong and we are wrong frequently, but our attempt is to have that word undergirt our political action, everything in our lives.

Another thing we I say in this little rough draft, I don’t know if it’ll make the editor’s test or not, but what I put in here so far is that our goal is not the well-being of humanity. That’s not the purpose of the parent education association. That’s not the purpose of Reformation Covenant Church. It’s not the purpose of the people in this church, the well-being of humanity. Not our goal. Oh, what is our goal?

It’s the glory of God. And if for God’s glory, we suffer a life filled with trials before ungodly rulers and filled with stormy tempest. And even if we suffer shipwreck and don’t make it to the island, if we brought glory to God, praise his holy name. See, we’re not here for the well-being of ourselves or our community. Now, it so happens, of course, I want to say quickly that if we glorify God, it means glorifying his people.

It means assisting his people. We’ll talk about that here in a couple of minutes with his friendship stuff. But I want us to understand here that this, we’ll develop this more in the next couple of weeks, but the voice of Paul comes first, discerning and predicting and bringing to pass things as well. You know, we were out the other night uh doing a little planning session for the church and we’re in a place that I was drinking some coffee.

Another one of the fellas said, “Oh, you got coffee?” And I said, “Yeah.” They didn’t realize I could get coffee at that particular establishment. And I said, “Well, you know, you have not because you ask.” That was a smart aleck thing to say, but it’s true. Now, if you don’t ask for the coffee, you’re not going to have the coffee. And if you ask for the coffee, things will change in your life, won’t they?

See, our voice, and now I know this is I’m going to talk about this in a couple of weeks more, but just kind of plant a little thought in your head. Our voice doesn’t just predict what’s going to happen. Our voice is interactive media, if you want to look at it that way. Okay? Our voice changes things around us. The book of Revelation, if you understand that the angels in the book of Revelation blowing the trumpets are the ministers of God.

Now, I know that some of you don’t necessarily believe that. But if I’ve convinced you of that, then what you’ve got to see is that as the ministers of God proclaim his word, things change in the earth. Judgments usher forth in a particular way. And as we pray in preparatory psalms, for instance, God answers those prayers and things change. There’s a sense in which the prophets of God don’t just predict what’s going to happen, but bring to pass what’s going to happen.

See, I don’t know what Paul’s relationship in this whole story thing is, but I know that there are times in which the people’s voice as it comes forth in concert with God’s purposes, controlled and governed by his word and the power of the spirit changes things around us. You see, prayer does change things. And there’s no contradiction between that and the sovereign God. The sovereign God has chosen to make use of secondary means.

And the voice of Paul is a secondary means here. And the voice of you is a secondary means to affect change in your life, to bring forth reformation in your life, your family, your culture, your church, and our country and the world. See, there’s a sense in which you create the future by you as a Christian, the voice of God working through you, amplified through his people. So Paul does that here. He’s if you’re going to speak to a culture though, there are two things you got to do.

The first thing you got to do is discern what’s going on. I don’t know how Paul made the discernment about the storm. But I know that his relationship to God leads him to a deeper discernment of everything in the world. Those who are in connection with the man who is wisdom incarnate, the Lord Jesus Christ, are given that wisdom so they can become wiser in the predicting of storms than ship masters. Okay?

That’s what the scriptures say here. It seems to me by way of illustration. That’s what it what’s going on. Here we have a discernment capability that maybe we don’t call on very much, but we ought to. We have a discernment capability. We got to discern things. We got to understand what’s going on in our culture and speak to it. That’s the second thing you got to do. You can’t speak if you don’t discern. You’re going to speak of your own mind and not Christ’s mind.

And if you discern and don’t speak, God’s not going to give you any more discernment. He doesn’t just give you stuff for intellectual curiosity. He gives you stuff for obedience sake, for reforming the world. Okay. Got to discern. You got to speak the context of our world today. We got to discern. We got to speak. This is why, you know, I know that there you have to there a balance between personal piety and becoming involved in understanding what our culture is doing.

But I don’t like the idea that TV is always evil or something or that the news is always a waste of time or that secular business is not important. It is important to understand what our culture is doing. I can get overbalanced that way. I’m probably a guy that tends to get overbalanced that way. If I, you know, I mean, that number of years ago, the stock market had a big problem and my wife and I were going on vacation to the beach and I spent, you know, two days in there in front of, you know, CNN watching the financial news.

I mean, that, you know, that’s not good. I mean, I tend to overbalance that way. You know who you are. But what I’m saying is you don’t want to retreat into a Christian ghetto because you give up your whole purpose of being here. Your purpose in being here is not to coast till you die. You’re here to serve. That’s what James B. Jordan was trying to teach us about at family camp. That’s what the Jews had so wrong in the first century.

And Paul rebuked him again and again. You’ve been given the word of God not just to make you have a good life and not just to glorify God in the context of your little group, but to take it to the Gentiles. You’ve been given the word of God not just to change who you are, but to take to this world. You have a mission from God. You’re servants, your Nazirites, you got to fulfill the vow that Jesus has fulfilled for us and we’ve got to fulfill it in acting out this stuff.

We got to understand our world and discern it. The reformers did that. The Reformation didn’t happen because they just said, “Oh, Roman Catholic Church better not think about that. They’re evil, wicked. Let’s just get off in our little city and do our own thing.” No, they understood that Roman Catholic Church. They understood the errors that had developed. They understood why they had developed. Now, that was partly studied.

It’s partly the gift of God. And then they spoke to that and they said, “You are wrong when it comes to understanding of the basic doctrine of justification. You’re wrong. You’re sinful and you’re wrong in terms of the denial of personal piety and the offices of the church. And you’re wrong in how you worship here with icons and images and idolatrous ways of worshiping. You’re wrong, wrong, wrong. And if you continue on this course, God is going to judge you.” And he did.

So if we’re going to have a reformation in our day, we have to discern and you’ve got to speak the word. Now, God helps us an awful lot in this stuff, you know. I mean, this is this is a big pattern throughout the scriptures, discernment, supernatural discernment. Daniel was able to interpret the dream. And Daniel said very explicitly, “This isn’t because I’m wiser than anybody. This is because God’s doing other things with this culture.” Daniel said, “Not because I’m so wise.

Daniel was given the interpretation of the stormy dream of the ruler by God. You see, Joseph given discernment of the stormy dreams of Pharaoh by God. You see, it’s a big pattern in scripture. Scriptures tell us Psalm 25:14, the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, and he will show them his covenant. Secrets with those that fear him and he’ll show them his covenant. Amos 3:7, surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he reveals his secret unto his servants, the prophets.

See, God says you’re a prophet and he will reveal his secrets to you. He revealed his secret to Paul. Storm clouds rising here, Paul. Speak forth the word and he speaks to you and you have discernment. The scriptures say you have an unction in the Holy Spirit and you know all things in principle in your union with Jesus Christ. The gift of the spirit is the gift of wisdom. You know things. God will make clear to you the secrets of his doings.

But he does that for the purpose of obeying him. Exodus 9:20. He that feared the word of the Lord among the servants of Pharaoh made his servants and his cities flee into the house. And he that regarded not the word of the Lord left his servants and his cattle in the field. And you know what happened to those? Proverbs 27:12, “A prudent man foreseeth the evil and hideth himself, but the simple pass by and are punished.

Our job actively is to discern and to speak. And on the receptive side, it is to hear the words of those who discern and speak. And if you’re prudent, you will hear the servant of God. You will hear the voice of Paul. You’ll hear the voice of the church. You’ll hear the voice of your friend and your pastor who have discernment on an issue to bring to you. And you will hide yourself from the problems that are coming up.

And if you don’t have discernment, you go ahead to your shipwreck and maybe you get to the island safe, maybe you don’t. So the scriptures say that this is a very important thing. Calvin writing on this text says, that Luke reciteth this not in vain. That is Paul’s prediction here. But that we may know that Paul was from the beginning furnished with the sense of the spirit so that he did better see what things were profitable than did the masters of the ship themselves.

Matthew Henry he says that every man is to be credited in his own profession ordinarily. In other words, the ship masters be credited. I mean most often than not a guy who is expert in a thing is has expertise in it for a reason and that’s the way God normally worked. But such a man as Paul who was so intimate with the heavens was rather to be regarded in seafaring matters than the most celebrated sailors.

Note those know not what dangers they run themselves into who will be governed more by human prudence than by divine revelation. You know we waste run into a man with the ends there of the ways of death. See so that’s what he’s saying. Then he says the centurion was very civil to Paul. yet would not be governed by Paul’s advice. It’s a picture of having respect for the man of God, but not really being governed by his counsel.

Note, Matthew Henry says, “Many will show respect to good ministers that will not take their advice.” I know that full well. Not that my advice should always be taken or that it is always that sound, but I do know that God has given me an office and he’s given Elder M. an office. He’s given Deacon Garrett a particular kind of office in the church and you know men who may not have office and yet have a very close walk with the Lord and with his word.

And I’m telling you that it is to your benefit before you sail your ship into what may seem like pleasant, nice, beckoning breezes to get counsel to get counsel from your friends and to get counsel from your church and from your ministers. And God says, you know, that you should heed that counsel more often than not. Our you know we live in a day and age where you know the minister’s advice is deemed as absolutely nothing.

That guy may know how to pray may know how to study the scriptures but he didn’t know anything about business. You know he didn’t know anything about sailing they can say to Paul. In our day and age the institutional church is seen as the least important practically speaking in people’s lives the least important of all the institutions, state, family, business, et cetera. And yet the scriptures say that all those other elements are spoken to by the word of God.

And if you heed the voice of Paul, the voice of the minister, the voice of the Christian friend, the voice of the one who knows God, then you’re going to be blessed. And if not, all those other endeavors will be adversely affected. Well, that’s probably a good start. I am, I don’t know. Maybe I should just throw in one or two things here on the use of the tongue. Yeah. If I don’t get to the I think this is so important all of this which we haven’t touched yet.

This is on the friendship thing and continuing get on it. I think it is so important for us to consider, you know, how we can be friends because you know Paul and the way the story is written for us is that Paul gets that refreshing of friends and then he goes and does this prophetic work. And I think that the scriptures teach us that the communion of saints and the friendship and relationship of the close covenant community is vitally important for properly discerning and properly speaking and hearing biblical counsel.

See, those things are related. If we don’t tend to the refreshment of friends, if we don’t prove ourselves friendly, and if relationships then start to crinkle and break down a little bit, all this stuff is affected. I don’t think God gives discernment to people who do not embrace the Christian church and prove themselves friendly in a biblically defined model. He doesn’t give discernment, you know, to lone guns out there, lone rangers out on their own.

I don’t think it happens. Why? Because he loves his son and he wants us to love the son. And the son says, “If you love him, then you’re supposed to love his people because that’s who we are. We’re in covenant with God the Father through the Son.” We have an agape every week to remind us of the fact is the primary symbol in the life of this church of community and the need to use our tongues and our actions and our attitudes in a friendly biblically defined way to build the body of Christ up.

Okay? And if we’re despising the body either through direct sin or just through a failure to do what’s right. Sin is as flies right out of the head. Lot of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God. Thank you. So it doesn’t mean just not slandering somebody. It means possibly you got to conform yourself to using your tongue to build up the church. And then that’s how God increases discernment, increases the voice of the church and increases the reception of that voice.

Voice. So, they are linked and I’ll just try to throw in one or two things maybe every week and we’ll do that. Let me just throw in one or two real quickly to give me some be patient, please. Let’s see. Of course, we’re keying off of Proverbs 18:24. A man that hath friends must