Dennis Tuuri

Please turn in your scriptures to Acts 27. We’ll be reading verses 13-22. The topic will be manifestations of judgment. Acts 27:13-22. And when the south wind blew softly, supposing that they had obtained their purpose, loosing their vents, 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, which when they had taken up, they used helps undergirting the ship. And fearing lest they should fall into the quicksand strait sail, and so were driven. And we being exceedingly tossed at 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 to our 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.

Let us pray. Father, we thank you for your holy word and we pray Lord God that your spirit would illuminate our understanding. Father, keep us attentive. Keep us from distractions. Keep us Lord God centered upon your scriptures. And we pray that your Holy Spirit may accomplish this work in us. May open the ears of our understanding. That we may open our hands of obedience to your word and reform our lives, the life of our culture.

Father, we pray your blessing upon this time. For the sake of Jesus Christ our savior and his kingdom. Amen.

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Happened probably on the way to Idaho as well. But certainly in Idaho, various interesting things occurred. As most of you know, my brother Mike, Richard, and Howard and myself went to Moscow, Idaho last Wednesday morning early. We left Howard’s place around 6:00 in the morning and went for a 3-day conference on the Reformation of the Church at Doug Wilson’s group over there in Moscow, Idaho.

The conference is actually sponsored by Credenda Agenda. The church there is Community Evangelical Fellowship. And among other interesting things that happened while we were there is that previous to getting there, my brother and I had a conversation I believe the night before or shortly in the context of this event, maybe it might have even been at Idaho. I don’t remember the first occurrence of this particular conversation, but my brother Mike is kind of a big Lord of the Rings fan and Tolkien and stuff.

And he was mentioning that his favorite part of that particular set of books was when the company of nine who were to bear this ring to Mount Doom were on their way on their journey to have the ring of power that is being used by the evil one destroyed. There are nine. They’re a mixed company. There’s a dwarf, there’s elves, men and hobbits, etc. And as they get to the land of the high elves, the elves insist that they be blindfolded.

Actually, not that they be blindfolded, but that the dwarf, I guess, be blindfolded. My brother Mike could tell this story a lot better than I can. But in any event, they were suspicious of the dwarves for past reasons. And so there was a dwarf with the company. And while it was a righteous company, yet the high elves wanted him to be blindfolded. And so he objected to that. And the other elf that was with the company of nine said, “Well, I’ll blindfold myself, too.” And Aragorn, the leader of the company, insisted that they all be blindfolded if one had to be blindfolded.

And so they went in and got entrance into the land of the high elves and assistance there. And in the context of that, there was a quote apparently in the book where the quote is, “Nowhere is the power of the dark lord more clearly seen than in the estrangement that divides those who still oppose him.” You see, these were all people that opposed the dark lord. And yet there was estrangement and distrust of each other.

Now, the interesting thing about this quote is that it was repeated. My brother and I went to one of the teaching elders’ home for dinner on Thursday evening. They had arranged for a lot of the conference attendees to have dinner in homes. And my brother and I went to Mr. Nance who teaches at the school and is a teaching elder at the church. And he asked us what books were most influential in our development and progression as Christians.

And Mike mentioned the Lord of the Rings to which Mr. Nance replied that his favorite part of that book was and he began to tell the same story and he came up with the exact same quote. Now these are big books. They’re not thin little books. That’s pretty amazing that both these two quotes have been heard by my ears at least and I’m sure by Mike’s ears and Mr. Nance was amazed too that this correlation happened.

That’s one of the things that I will remember probably as the years go by on the trip to Idaho. Not just because the occurrence was so striking in my mind. Why do I bring all this up? Why do we have this extended account of this particular shipwreck?

We’re told by Paul in 2 Corinthians 11:25 that he had been shipwrecked thrice, three times. Okay, we know that the scriptures tell us that shipwrecks and storms at sea and storms on land are important things to remember. They’re used over and over again in terms of the demonstration of God’s actions and judgments toward men. For instance, in Nahum 1:3, “Lo, his slow anger and great in power will not at all equip the wicked. The Lord had his way rather in the whirlwind and in the storm and in the clouds the dust of his feet.” We’re told in Isaiah 29:6, “Thou shalt be visited of the Lord of hosts with thunder, with earthquake and great noise, with storm and tempest and the flame of devouring fire.” While sometimes that is analogously speaking to invading armies to Israel under the judgment of God.

Yet, if the analogy is to hold true, the previous things being referred to holds true as well. The Lord brings judgment upon men through tempests and storms and winds and storms at sea. And they’re constantly used throughout scripture as a picture of God’s judgment. Even the righteous are in the context of these sorts of things happening to them. In Psalm 83, as David is praying for the psalmist is praying for the enemies of God to be destroyed, as we’ve sung that psalm before, we read in verse 15.

“So persecute them with thy tempest and make them afraid with thy storm. Fill their faces with shame that they may seek thy name, O Lord. Let them be confounded and troubled forever. Yea, let them be put to shame and perish. That men may know that thou, whose name alone is Jehovah, art the most high over all the earth.”

Judgments come and storms are important and storms come. And when you’re in the middle of a difficult storm, it’s a reminder to you of the power and authority of the Lord God. So they’re important. This particular storm, however, this particular shipwreck is spelled out for us in great detail. Why?

Now, why will I remember that one particular incident from Idaho? Well, it was an important thing for me to remember apparently in the providence of God. And Luke, for whatever reason, determined under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost that this particular shipwreck be given some attention. And so, I think it’s important for us also to give some attention to this particular shipwreck. Not just to briefly go over it real quickly and think, “Well, they had a shipwreck. That’s interesting.” And move on. These are historical occurrences that Luke apparently found so significant in relationship to the progress of the gospel toward Rome and the Holy Spirit so inspiring him to do that he gives us many details of what occurred on this particular shipwreck.

So, I think the details are important. You’ve heard the devil’s in the details. Well, God is in the details. Ultimately, God is one who determines the details of our lives as well as the large patterns thereof. So I think it’s important to attend to this particular shipwreck and we’ll do that this Lord’s day and for the next couple of ones as well.

Now have in your outline is this a judgment? Is this chastisement? Is this tribulation? What is it? Well, it could be any one of those things. A particular storm may not always be judgment upon people for sin. As I said mentioned earlier in the Psalms, David sometimes says, “Deliver me Lord God from these storms.” And he doesn’t seem to have sinned at all in having these storms come upon him. In Psalm 55:7, “Lo then I’d wander far off and remain in the wilderness. I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest. Destroy, oh Lord, and divide their tongues, for I have seen violence and strife in the city.” The psalmist is saying, he’s under persecution. He’s under a storm, but it’s not for his sin.

The Apostle Paul in the context of the ship is not being judged by God for his sin. In sometimes those storms do come upon us for judgment for particular actions. And this particular text tells us quite clearly. The Apostle Paul, one of the reasons I read those last two sections of verses from the account of the text is to put God’s evaluation of this storm in our mind.

The Apostle Paul says at the end of all this when they give up all hope, you should have listened what I told you to do here. You should have listened to the voice of God’s servant. You should listen to God. And when you don’t listen to God, and when I don’t listen to God, storms can come. Now, we talk about that differently than the storms coming upon the ungodly who will perish through those storms. We use the word judgment.

Now, whether or not we should or not, that’s what we do. So, the storm can be judgment against the ungodly for their actions that will lead to their demise. The storm can be chastening to God’s people for our sins. And storms and difficulties in our life, whether physical storms or emotional difficulties that appear like storms to our soul can also simply be trials to us through no fault of our own.

Trials can come upon us and therefore our developing of our patience. Therefore, lots of reasons. In this particular case, Paul isn’t being chastened that we know of. He’s not being judged. Certainly, he’s a Christian. But he is going through a trial for him personally for the end that he might be exalted in the context of that company. And sometimes the trials and tribulations we may go through have nothing to do with sin that God is driving out of us.

But it has to do with the exaltation of his people for the sake of the exaltation of the son who speaks through his people. So you know as we speak about this there’s lots of applications to the world to those Christians who are erring and haven’t heard the voice of God and obeyed to those Christians who are obeying and yet are going through the trials and tribulations anyway. To all these people the manifestation of judgment occurs in our lives.

It is a common occurrence of men and this particular place is a renewed emphatic manifestation of judgment but nonetheless it is common to all men.

I mentioned on the outline that the manifestations are judgment are first of all a sovereign God and a responding mankind. What we’re going to do in this outline is look at four particular actions of God. All pictured by wind by the way different kinds of wind. And then man responds to that wind. See they go out they first was a soft wind. Wind and they go out and they go, “Okay, let’s go. Let’s go to the next port. We think we can make it.” They respond to the soft wind.

Then a typhonic wind comes upon them and blows up the sea. Okay? And they respond a particular way. They try to secure their possession. Then a real the wind continues to blow and stir up in the context of them. And they start sacrificing things in their boat for the sake of saving their lives. And then another final wind, no small tempest, Luke writes, continues upon them after many days and their response to that is a complete despair and a loss of hope. They’re seen as responding to the wind into the storm. And it’s very important as we discuss these actions and reactions of men, the actions of God, reactions of men to remember that’s what our whole life is.

We have no control over the wind. Man can’t control it. I don’t know if any of you listened to that Oregon Washington football game yesterday, the battle in Seattle. I don’t, you know, I’ve watched one football game on TV with Oregon this year and they lost and Howard told me I shouldn’t watch anymore. The only game they lost in the Pac-10. Well, yesterday they looked like they were going to lose another—actually lost two in the Pac-10, but yesterday they looked like they were going to lose another one.

And I just had it on the radio and I got a little worried, you know, because soon as I turned on the radio in my office as I was doing various clerical sort of things there, the announcer was saying that in the first half they were doing great, but now all of a sudden they were doing feeling real bad, you know. I thought, “Oh, I better turn off the radio.” Well, I continued to have the radio on and wind shifted very interestingly in the context of that game.

Those you listen to it know, very exciting game with the wind shifting. See, man has no control over the wind. And all of a sudden, Washington’s doing a lot better because the wind is with them. The wind shifted and the announcers were going out of their mind, “Oh, this is terrible. The wind shifting, you know, it’s Washington’s going to…” Well, anyway, Oregon won, by the way. Very exciting game. Man has no control.

God is sovereign and we respond in that to that. Those responses are important and good. And we’ll see that these responses are not chided by Paul except for the first one putting out disobedience to the voice of God. Those responses are important. But never think that the responses will determine what occurs next. It is the sovereign God. Your actions are important. We’ll talk about that toward the end too.

But ultimately, you can’t determine what occurs in the context of your life. It’s the sovereignty of God.

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Well, let’s look at God’s actions, man’s reaction. First on the part of God this south wind blows up and the men respond with overconfidence and advance. We said before we’ll talk about a lot now but you remember God had spoken through Paul and say you shouldn’t put out and they put out anyway in spite of what our best experience tells us our best evaluation of the scenario tells us when the voice of God comes to us that is what we must heed these men move out in response to allurement of God really in a tense that the text says that they made a decision and then the south wind comes up and that sort of reaffirmed them in their decision and frequently in your life if you resist the word of God through the scriptures through the council of godly friends, godly ministers, godly parents, then don’t expect to say, “Well, I’ll just put out a fleece and maybe my parents are right or wrong.

Maybe the word of God is right or wrong and be drifted by experience because God will when you reject his word heard send you allurements at times and that’s what he does here. He confirms them in their rebellion so to speak. He makes it more manifest and they then sail out into the context of that particular water. There’s overconfidence here. The book of James says don’t say we’re going to go here or we’re going to go there.

Say if the Lord wills. And it says here that with the south wind they thought they had obtained their purpose. See they thought they had obtained their purpose. They were overconfident. It’s 3 or 4 hours away. Soft wind is blowing. No problem. Now, they still might want to. They didn’t under if you haven’t had the voice of God apparent. We still may make decisions. We will make decisions, but not with overconfidence.

Hopefully, hopefully with everything be undergirded with if the Lord wills. He that puts on his armor shouldn’t boast like the one that takes his armor off. If you’re going out to battle, don’t say we’ve won this battle. And don’t say obtained our purpose. They have overconfidence and they move forward on the basis of that into this particular difficulty.

Now I’ve listed some verses there in the context of this that really are just simply the verses most of the verses we had from the last couple of weeks that talk about those. For instance, in Exodus 9:20, “He that fears the word of God, they heard and they fled into their houses. And he that regarded not the word of the Lord left his servants in his cattle in the field and they were killed.” He had to have regard and fear for the word of God. “Prudent man sees the evil and he and he hides himself.” The watchman Paul through the as the watchman here has spoken forth to these particular people.

They haven’t heard. They failed to do it. But Paul has fulfilled his function as a watchman. Amos 3:7, “The Lord God reveals his secrets unto his servants. The prophets will not do anything but he will reveal his secrets to his servants, the prophets.” And again, Psalm 25:14, “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, and he will show them his covenant.” So God will give discernment and discretion to his people in increasing ways as they mature and are transformed by him and move into maturity as Christian saints.

So they don’t they don’t heed that. They’re the foolish ones. And as Matthew Henry says that they ran upon a mischief to avoid an inconvenience as we often want to do. It was an inconvenience to stay in that particular harbor for the winter. And because of the inconvenience, they did they didn’t heed the word of God given through godly men. And as a result, they ran into a mischief as opposed to an inconvenience.

And so it is with us. So it is with us. They couldn’t face the wind. That’s the text says we’re literally there. They couldn’t put the ship into the wind. They couldn’t face the wind. And that particular Greek term is used frequently in the context of men looking into the eyes of an enemy. So the in the very first opening part of this storm, the wind is seen as enemy to these particular men. God has risen up as an enemy to men who will not heed his particular message.

So they try they advance the basis of overconfidence but then the wind comes up and they are stopped by God.

A typhonic wind comes up in the context of the text. Well, anyway, in this particular passage, we read that not long after the they arose against the tempestuous wind called Euroclydon, when the ship was caught and could not bear up in the wind, they couldn’t look into the face of the enemy, so to speak, God in the wind, we let her drive.

What that means is that the wind shifted as in that football game yesterday, wind shifted. Big storm came up around across that one particular island with a small hill range or mountain range there storms are want to do and bore down then upon the ship and so in spite of their overconfidence and advance now God stops them with this typhonic wind this demonic opposition I said demonic in the text simply to remind us that or in your outline rather to remind us that as I said last week the word used here has its origins in typos who was sort of a demon of the underworld and the sea etc.

So these winds come up as a result the ocean changes and They have problems. They don’t throw into advance into reverse yet, but they do come to dead stop. By the way, this typhonic disturbance indicates these words indicate that it’s the wind, it’s the heavenly forces that then have a reaction on the earth. The ship’s advance in the water is stopped as the heavenly forces change the nature of the water.

The two fronts meet, things start to swirl and collide. The winds that creates rough seas. You see, again, it’s heaven and earth. Earth responding to heaven. And that’s what happens here. The sea churns, the winds blow, and the sailing ship can’t advance. And as the seas get tougher and the winds get harder, it actually goes into reverse. So, the ship is caught. And frequently, if we’ve gone off in a direction that isn’t the best direction for us to go off in, maybe presumptuously or not, a God in his providence brings forces that catch us.

We come to a stop before we start to go back into reverse. And that’s what’s going on here. They’re going from forward advance. Now they’re stopping in the context of the storm of God coming upon them. This change of wind has come up.

I remember number of years ago I oh gee, I don’t know 23 24 years ago I lived in for a short period of time in southwestern Minnesota. Spent a winter there. And we had gone out to this abandoned farmhouse. I think it was like November, December, something like that. And we these hippies that I knew lived out there in this abandoned farmhouse. And we went out early in the day. Beautiful day. Sun was shining. Kind of like the weather we had over in Idaho. Cold but nice and clear. Real enjoyable. And then about 1:00 or so in the afternoon, these guys said, “We got to get out of here. Let’s get in the truck and get back to town.” It was about 15 miles or something like that, I think, is all.

And I said, “What’s the big deal?” You know, and they said, “Well, there’s a there’s a cloud way over there.” Well, so what? Well, they knew that particular area and the climate there. They knew that cloud meant a storm was coming and it was coming fast. So, we jumped in that truck. Started to drive back and we didn’t make it. Storm came up and the snow was not coming down like this. It was blowing straight across like this.

We had a white out situation immediately when the storm hit us. Drove off the road and you couldn’t see the road. So, soon we were in the ditch. I remember I was had newly dedicated my life to Christ. We opened the door of that truck. I walked out into that wind and I thought that I was going to be like one of those what do you call a tumble weed, you know, picked up by God and tumbled across that field.

I had a beard. My beard immediately froze up. Couldn’t breathe deep. Very cold weather. And I thought, man, this is it. You know, and we got out of that truck and in the providence of God, there was a farmhouse just very close to us and we could see this light through that white out situation. See this dim light from this farm which is actually a bright light and we made our way to there went in and was good.

But you know I was amazed at the force of God. As soon as I hit that wind I thought this is the power of God made manifest through these winds and the change happened very quick. Well that’s what happens here to these men and that’s what can happen to us. We take a course of action and all of a sudden things change. That financial decision we made was a bad one. The way we were trying to treat or ignore our children was a bad one.

All of a sudden, problems happen and you come dead stop in a course of conduct in which you’re trying to go in. And that’s what happens here to these men.

And then third, the judgment increases. And now they don’t just get caught with the wind as the text tells us. Now, as the wind continues, they actually start to go in reverse. They were first able to just be caught by the wind and then it says that they began to go in reverse.

Now, before they did that, actually, I should mention first that as they’re caught, their reaction to being caught by God in these winds is that they then try to secure the ship. In verse 17 rather, well, actually verse 16. And as they’re caught in this particular wind, it says that we had much work to come by the boat, which when they had taken it off, they used helps undergirding the ship.

So when they got caught, when their forward advance stopped, they tried to just secure their present position. There’s a dinghy, a large boat, probably a rescue boat or whatever. It could bang against the side. It was towing and towed behind is what they commonly did. It could bang the boat. It get broke and hurt the boat. It was potentially a rescue vehicle or an escape vehicle if the ship went down. So, the first thing to do is secure that boat or dinghy and bring it up close to the ship.

And then they undergird they frapp the ship. And what that frapping of the ship refers to is you take cables and this is a common thing they did in those days and the cables would go around the whole hull of the ship and they tighten those cables up to keep the boards in the bow of the ship from splitting and coming apart under the pressure of the storm. So the idea is that they’re actually being held together by bailing wire is what this picture is for us here.

And when God corrects you in a course of action and when you’ve gone a particular way and it’s not his way whether it’s disobedience or trial whatever it is when he stops you that’s a correct response to secure your position to try to hold together just where you’re at to try to just recover enough to just stay intact where you’re at in one place nothing condemned by that here by the apostle Paul and so they try to secure their position and some of you know when you have financial difficulties what you want to do first is you don’t want to go in reverse you want to stop where you’re at evaluate the situation what do I got to do to failing wire together this particular financial difficulty got a problem with the child problem in my relationship with my wife problem in the context of the church problem in the context of our culture first you stop and you try to secure your position as you’re stopped by God that’s the correct response and that’s what they did here but then it says that they feared lest they should fall into the quicksands off the coast of northern Africa northern coast of Africa there were a couple of sand bars and there are termed quicksands because ships would get thrown off course by these strong northeasterly winds and get driven down there into those sand bars.

Archaeology has discovered a ton of ships were shipwrecked there in the context of those particular quicksands. So now they’re fearing that they’re not just going to be stuck in a particular place. Now they’re fearing and going backward and so they strike the sail. Striking the sail, I think means that they just simply let down the main big sail so they wouldn’t be blown off course. They could use a small navigational sail on the top yet.

So they strike sail and then they were driven and so they go here in the context of the picture that God gives us in this account. They go not just to a stoppage point here letting her drive that is the ship but they go to a position now of being positively thrown back in their attempts to reach this next harbor. They go from letting the ship drive let her drive to now that she’s driven back. Okay, she’s driven by the storm now itself.

And so she goes into reverse position, so to speak. And their reaction to that is to begin sacrificial action relative to the ship. We read in verse 18, we being exceedingly tossed with the tempest, the next day they lightened the ship, and the third day we cast out our own hands the tackling of the ship. So the third we had a southernly wind bring their action against the word of God at first. They had go advance.

God brings up this impetuous wind at first, this typhonic wind. They get caught and they try to secure their position. And then this third action of God then is the storm now is really blowing hard. Another reference to the wind and they start having to they don’t want to be caught down. They don’t want to be going to negative position down to those sand bars. So they take sacrificial action. They don’t just try to secure the ship with ropes, secure the dinghy.

Now they actually start throwing parts of the boat over the side or at least cargo, whatever it was. The picture for us is self-sacrificial action in the context of the manifestations of God’s judgment that drive us in a reverse fashion. Okay? And so that’s what they do here in the face of this particular wind. They sacrifice themselves or portions of their boat. They fear burial. They fear death. They fear their imminent destruction.

I mean, they go from we let her drive to so we were driven and so they lighten the ship. You know, Tom Petty has that song, “I won’t back down.” Well, it’s a nice thought and morally I suppose we can make that statement, but in point of fact and frequently in our endeavors as men, not being consistent with the word of God and even sometimes just for our trials and tribulations of our patience and submission to God, we will be backed down.

We will go in reverse financially. Context of our children, our wives, our church, the culture, whatever it is, under the providence of God, you can’t make all the right decisions. Number one, and even if you do make a lot of good decisions, God can reverse your fortunes. And that’s what happens here. It happens to a godly, righteous man, Paul, and it happens to sinful men, the rest of the men on this boat.

We will be back down in the context of our lives. So, when you’re backed down, doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s for sin, but you should evaluate that in the first instance.

Michael Martin Murphy, remember the I showed him this videotape of an old PBS Austin City Limits from a couple years ago where Michael Martin Murphy does these cowboy songs and there’s this real funny song he sings about these guys, you know, who are cowpokes and they’re branding up stuff. They go into town, they have some drinks and they, you know, tie one on and whatnot. And on the way back to their camp, they had come across the devil and the devil says, “I’m going to take your soul.” You know, and uh Michael Martin Murphy kind of cocks his hat. Now he’s the cowboy singing in the song. He says, “Well, you know, I may be a little bit tight but I’m not going to let him take my soul without one hell of a fight, you know.

And so they get in a fight with the devil and they tie him up and they brand the devil all over the place and they tie his tail in a knot just for a joke, you know. It’s kind of a picture. It’s kind of I mean it’s you it’s funny. It’s fun to watch. It’s fun to watch the assertion that we can do battle with the devil and prevail. But of course it’s ridiculous in the sense that is the error of man of America in large part is a rugged individualism that says that I can on my own do battle with the devil and you know tie up his tail and knots.

Devil’s not a joke. There’s no opposition in the context of our world. There are typhonic winds. There’s demonic oppression all under the providence and sovereignty of God. But nonetheless, the point again here is that we will be back down. We will be brought to a place of sacrifice. We will be brought to a place of throwing things in our life overboard. And you know, God wants to test us many times if we’ll do that.

Very thing. Philippians 3:7 and 8. “Whatsoever things were gained to me, says Paul. These I counted loss for Christ. Maybe he was talking about this ship. I don’t think so, but maybe, who knows?” Yet doubtless. And I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things. And do count them, but dung that I may win Christ.

Hebrews 12:1 tells us that being compassed by the great cloud of witnesses, we’re to lay aside every weight. And there are times when it is our weights, our difficulties, our possessions, our attitudes, our relationships sometimes even that we must jettison for the greater sake of the excellency of the Lord Jesus Christ. Cause that demonstrates to Christ that all other things are loss compared to our life in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so as they’re driven backwards, their proper and typical response to God’s judgment is sacrifice. Sometimes that lightening of the ship, throwing of possessions over the board in the context of a financial crisis, whatever it is, sometimes that’ll work. But not this time. This time the story continues and the winds continue and strengthen. This time we read that after they had done this on the third day in verse 19, then verse 20, when neither sun nor stars of when neither sun nor stars of many days appeared and no small tempest lay on us.

Another reference, this is the fourth reference to the wind here. No small tempest lay on us. All hope that we should be saved was then taken away. And so the fourth, you start off going this way. God stops you. Three, he drives you in reverse. Point four, they’re not just driven reverse. Now they’re driven down. So the outline is arrow going forward, stop point, arrow going backward, arrow going downward. Now, now they’re going down for the third time, so to speak.

All hope is lost. All hope is lost. And it’s lost in the context of the wind again, the actions of God, manifestations of God’s actions, but also at the absence of sun and stars. They didn’t have the lodestone discovered, at least I don’t think they did. Nautical terms, you didn’t have compasses, etc. They needed external reference points. You drive here to church and some days it’s real foggy in this time of year.

Fog’s an odd thing. It isolates you from everything around you. Can’t see any reference points anymore, you know. On Howard’s van. He’s got a compass, electronic compass cuz he got it in Chicago, very flat there and there no reference points around. To know what direction you’re going, you tend to get disoriented. Well, these men have become totally disoriented. Great storm blowing it every which way. They’re up and down and all over the place.

And now they can’t see sun or stars. They can’t navigate. External reference points are taken away in a time of extreme judgment. This country in many ways is like a country now that has lost sun and stars. It’s lost the word of God that comes down from those heavenly lights to represent the light of God’s discerning capability. That’s what they’ve thrown overboard, the culture. And there’s no reference point left for them anymore.

And they’re going here, there, and everywhere. And the church is no different by and large. The sun and stars have not just been removed by the sovereign act of God. He’s used them in their own as their own secondary means of bringing about their own judgment. They’ve rebelled against him and as a result, he has removed the standard of evaluation that gives them direction in terms of how to steer the ship of state or the ship of the church.

And so now they go down. That’s the last step in this cycle of manifestations of judgments is down. They lose all hope of being rescued. They fall into total despair and loss of hope. They go from throwing things out of the ship to giving to giving out. They gave out on them. Their hope gave out. They go perhaps from throwing up in the context of the waves and everything to giving up. They go to this fourth cycle, the manifestation of God’s judgment.

That fourth cycle being despair and loss of hope. Hope is taken away all around. Hope is taken away. Vessel very well might have and taking on water by this point as well. We don’t know, but there seems to be some indication of that. They were at the end and this is the important picture for us to see before salvation comes to them before deliverance occurs to these particular group of men who had disobeyed the voice of God through Paul.

Before they reach that point, they reach first the end of human resources in the context of their own salvation. They can’t save themselves and they come to a position an epistemological a knowledge self-consciousness awareness. They come to an awareness of the knowledge that they cannot save themselves. And that’s the awareness of knowledge that men must come to before salvation comes to them in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And you know if you’ve been a Christian very long that isn’t a one-time thing either that God the sin that is deep rooted in our hearts is most of all a belief that we can through our own efforts, our own self-sufficiency care for ourselves. And you know, when you become good Calvinists, that doesn’t go away. It’s not an intellectual thing just to toss that overboard. God drives it out of your soul. He whips it out.

Cuz when you become a Calvinist, well then, yeah. Well, well, yeah, I’m a Calvinist. I know God’s sovereign and I know that I can’t take care of myself, but I’m the secondary means God uses. And now you are. I mean, you are the secondary means, for instance, for provision to your household. But ultimately, you know, you’re what That’s what we tend to do in our sinful state is to take that drive of self-sufficiency and a reliance upon our own resources and disguise it as secondary means before God.

And we don’t even know we do that. You know, the worst, the ones you can’t even discern in yourself. But God makes us aware of that through storms that take us from our advance to a stop to a reversal and then to a despair. And I have been despairing in the last 20 years at various points in my life. And that is a good thing for the Christian. It’s different for the Christian than for the non-Christian.

The non-Christian, his despair is totally hopeless unless the voice of God comes to him again, lest God regenerated to hear that voice of God again from Paul, as apparently happens to these men. They despair. They mourn with total despair. Our despair always has as its base, if you’re a child of God, a regenerate, the despair always is an elimination of reliance upon self. Because at the bottom of our despair is a hopefulness that God will somehow get us out of it.

It’s there in you. And God makes it shine bright by causing chastisements and manifestations of judgment leading to personal despair. Giving up of all hope that I can do anything about my relationship with my wife or my husband or my children, my economic state, my relationship to this church or this group of people or this particular friend. I give up. I can’t do it anymore. And that isn’t bad. It’s bad if you give up and walk away from those things you’re called to do.

But it’s not bad if you give up and discover at the base again your basis of your faith is that God can and will accomplish your salvation in those particular areas. So they go through these manifestations of judgment and I think that we do in the context of our lives as well.

Now Psalm 107, we could spend a lot of time showing the correlation between it and this particular account for us. But in chapter 107 rather verses 23-32 we read about some of this stuff. Paul Solomon says “They that go down to the sea in ships. They do business in great waters. These see works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep. These men saw the works of the Lord and they saw some wondrous things in the deep. He commandeth and re and raiseth the stormy wind which lifteth up the ways thereof. They mount up to the heavens. They go down again to the depths. Their soul is no because of trouble.

Up and down to the waves, up and down, and their souls are going up and down, and their souls melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken men.” That’s what these men have been doing. They’re at the wit’s end. And that’s the point they come. They’re at the wits end. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm to calm.

So if the waves are ever still, they then they are glad because they be quiet. So he brings them out into their desired haven. Oh, that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men.

The purpose of all this is that the elect might come to their senses as they get to their wit’s end. They might come to their spiritual beginning and have the reliance and trust in a sovereign God and cry out to him and he will deliver them. And that is in the context of this as well.

You hopefully you can identify in your own life a trials and tempests, difficulties that you’ve gone through. In this same cycle, you have a good plan. The plan stops. You actually start to take on water and pretty soon you give up hope you can ever recover. Maybe you’re going through one of those times right now in reference to a relationship. The death of loved ones is a very difficult thing to put up with. Doesn’t sound like it should be. But you know if there is anything that we evidently on the face of it have no ability to change. It’s the death of a loved one. No ability to resurrect that person up. If you have the death of a relationship, who knows? You might be able to work and get it back. Problems with your kids, who knows? You might be able to work out it still and get it back. Problems with money, fortunes are reversed all the time.

Death is a hard thing to face. Maybe you’re going through a situation like that. Maybe you’re going through a financial difficulty. And try as you might and you’ve heard the voice of God in judgment to your sins because your sins have gotten you into a financial difficulty. And try as you might, you can’t right the ship. Well, don’t despair without hope. That is come to your wit’s end, but rely upon God. Know that these storms and tempests are for his purposes to manifest himself.

One of the things he does with this is to exalt the voice of his servant over all the judgments come upon this country right now. Why our judgments upon the church that the voice of God might be heard again and those that speak the voice of God might be magnified. That Paul might become the captain of the ship instead of the prisoner on the ship. That you might become the captain of the ship instead of a prisoner in the context of an apostate church or an apostate culture.

Well, the scriptures tell us in Matthew 8:24 and Mark 4:27-28 that storms like this occurred to the disciples. Tremendous storm. They’re taking on water, strong tempest. Same sort of words being used. Jesus is with them in the context of the ship. When we despair, our despair is always with the knowledge that Jesus is with us as we go through our particular storms and difficulties. And so we don’t despair as those around about us do.

In fact, those very storms are at the command of God of Psalm 107 made clear in that text. To advance the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I’ve mentioned this before. I’m going to read two short quotes here from an article recent article by Richard Bledsoe, a friend of Jim B. Jordan’s in Jim B. Jordan’s Biblical Horizons magazine. He’s talking here about progress and he says that says that prophecy let’s see says the basis of progress in both theology and science is despair, but not final despair.

Rather, it’s a despair that deep underneath still hopes in the father. It’s going through a storm that brings you to despair, but you know that Jesus is on the boat and when he’s ready, he’ll wake up. He’ll respond to the prayers and he’ll deliver us. Deep underneath still hope in the father. Every advance in science is a result of despair at dealing with the physical universe. Advance only comes when common sense entirely fails.

Let me get to your wit’s end. Then, because we’re at least Christianized in our culture, that is, if not truly Christian, and for no other reason, our despair leads to hope of deeper but less obvious knowledge. Because the Bible teaches that the Lord by wisdom established the earth and he who is wisdom has visited us and he’s given us his own mind. We have the mind of Christ. Therefore, in an unobvious and profound way can be found forward that in all likelihood contradicts common sense.

So like in science, science has advanced because each new paradigm or model that man builds as he should as dominion man should doesn’t fit what is in the world about us. Anomalies occur. God brings science to a position of despair. One so that we understand our salvation isn’t in science and two to help us to realize that everything is not obvious. He drives us to deeper, more fundamental knowledge of the way things work.

He gives us his mind. And so we have things today like magnetic compasses that they didn’t have and they kind of were given here 2,000 years ago. Things are less obvious. Who know that this rock has this plane device that there’s magnetic structures all over the course of the earth? Who would know that back then? See, it’s less obvious. But you don’t look for it until your present capabilities are completely shown to be not consistent with the particular reality of the world run about us.

Anomalies occurs. God shakes everything that can’t be shaken. Okay. And Bledsoe goes on to say this is true in terms of theology. Likewise, theology finds its way forward by means of hopeful despair. Theology only progresses as the church must more deeply deal with her despair that she is inherently damned. That’s the that’s the basis for our despair is that we have no worth in and of ourselves. We’re inherently damnable.

Whoever God is, he is always the God who is greater than my sin and despair. And as the ages went forward, fresh and terrible causes of despair are revealed. And then relieved. And we’re in the context of great despair of the body of Christ. Now, you may not know it. We’ve been talking about that in this church for longer than some churches have. Others will catch on.

As the despair continues, as the anomalies increase, one of the central areas of despair is in the context of ecclesiology, knowledge of what church is. There is increasing despair. The denominations haven’t done what they thought they could do. The reformation of the institutional church and the reformation of the ecclesiology of the church that we rejoiced in last Tuesday night. has given birth denominationalism and splinters that continue now to move in the context of despair.

How can people work together? Despair is coming. But despair is always