Dennis Tuuri

# SERMON TRANSCRIPT – REFORMATION COVENANT CHURCH
Pastor Dennis Tuuri

—

Hath you not brought thee relief? We turn again to Acts chapter 27, the account of God bringing relief to those sailors in a great storm and tempest upon the ocean upon the sea. Acts 27, we’ll begin reading at verse 20.

The sermon topic is the voice of Paul again. Acts 27 beginning at verse 20.

“And when neither sun nor stars and 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 life among you, but of the ship. For there stood by me this night the angel of God whose I am and whom I serve, saying, Fear not, Paul, thou must be brought before Caesar, and lo God hath given thee all them that sail 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. And 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.’”

Let us pray.

Father, we thank you for this historical account fraught with meaning for us, fraught with conviction, filled with conviction, Lord God, of our sins, of the difficult dilemmas we find ourselves in because of our failure to heed your voice, but filled also with that great hope and confidence, knowing that indeed that in our grief you shall bring us relief for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ whose ministers we are.

Almighty God, we pray that you would illumine this text for understanding and help us Lord God to cleave to it and to the truths therein. Help us to boil off and draw us in this message, Lord God, and receive deep into our souls the truth of your word that our lives might be changed. All this for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ and in his kingdom. And it is in his name and authority by which we ask these things.

Amen.

—

Two weeks ago, we spoke about the voice of Paul the first time warning these men not to put out to sea. And it’s been two weeks now. And that’s about the same period of time apparently they were in this problem they were in after having not heeded Paul’s message. You remember we said last week that after a very short time from which they let out from the harbor of Fair Haven, a great storm came up upon them.

The wind shifted. This gentle south-blowing breeze turned and all of a sudden there was a nor’easter come upon them of tremendous force. And for several weeks now we have been living in our homes for the most part, quiet and comforted when we have friends over and getting together with our families and praying to God in the context of warm houses and full bellies and many blessings. And these sailors, so to speak, had been upon the waters being tossed, turned, taken up, dropped down by the huge waves, blowing all around, not able to go forward, coming to a stop in the water, but not just able to hold their position—to frap the ship, to drop the sail, to secure their position.

They’re driven backwards by the storm. And indeed, their fear comes upon them. They’re going to go into those quicksands down off the coast of Africa. And so, they’re filled with terror of what might occur as the ship begins to not only fail to stay on its course or begin to lose course and be driven around here and there. And so these men have come to a point of despair. And the text concluded in verse 20—this first account of the great storm upon the sea—is reading that all hope had been taken away from them by the sovereignty of God.

By his providence, all hope is removed. And that is the context for Paul’s voice to come to them again. Before Paul’s voice comes the second time God brings them to a position where they will hear that voice. They would not hear the voice in Fair Havens. They would not hear the voice when the voice of experience and manly wisdom, the shipmaster and the weatherman and all that stuff. And of course, the merchants behind it all, desiring no loss to their profits from their goods they were going to sell, the grain. They wouldn’t hear the voice when all those factors were upon them.

But now, yes, they hear the voice of Paul. And God prepares them to hear his voice speaking through Paul by bringing great despair and a loss of capability in and of themselves. All sense of self-sufficiency has been totally drained away from them. And so it is with us. And so it is with this world. It is in those times of despair when we are most attentive to the voice of God. God in his providence and sovereignty brings us difficulties so that we might hear his voice.

These are ministrations of grace, severe mercies, so to speak. But in the context of a culture that has built so many barriers between it and the sovereign God of heaven, those mercies of God to his elect people and to the watching world are severe mercies, breaking through all of our culture’s supposed defenses, abilities, reasonings, logic, etc. They lose all hope. And they lose all hope in the context of no small tempest.

The storm had not abated at all. It probably gotten worse. There’s an intensification of the wind. The spirit of God is pictured in the wind in the scriptures. Our Lord and Savior told us that the spirit of God lays heavy upon these men through this storm. And not only that, but sun and stars are removed from the skies as well. They’re left in complete darkness. They’re left in a fog bank, so to speak. The clouds are difficult, so difficult that they blind out any ability to reckon their course.

So all exterior points of evaluation are removed from them again in the sovereignty of God, that he might cut them off from every hope of relief from anything other than his sovereign commanding voice. And so it is with us. God cuts off our relations. He cuts off our ability to discern the course on which we are. He takes away all hope from us and then and usually in the history of mankind only then are we able to hear that voice of God bearing down upon us in a corrective and then a comforting fashion.

Some of the single people were over our house Friday evening and they watched the movie The Mission. Robert De Niro is one of the main characters in that movie. All hope is removed from De Niro. He comes to a position of total despair for his sin. De Niro was a mercenary. He was a slave trader and had killed his fellow man, his brothers so to speak in terms of being a man in the context of that particular story.

Those were Indian tribes that he was subjugating for the slave traders. De Niro doesn’t come to a point of realization of the greatness of his sin of murder and slavery until he strikes out in his wrath and fury against his own brother and slays him. He must strike out something near to himself and that is the vehicle by which God brings him to his point of despair. And De Niro’s sin has not really intensified in the movie.

His sin is real as he’s subjugating people to slavery and killing those men in the forest whom he had no godly reason to do that to. But understanding that he was killing fellow human beings and the importance of that to him did not come home to him until he’d been brought to a point of despair through the providence of God and causing him to strike out on his sin against his own flesh, against his own blood.

Then, and only then, is De Niro able to hear the voice of God speaking to the priest and coming to a position of repentance and deliverance from his sin. So, the movie pictures for us—it’s significant there, by the way—that De Niro then hauls that big bundle of his armaments by which he had sinned against mankind up the great waterfall into the tribal area. And it is the tribesmen, the very people that he has sinned against by murdering and by taking in enslaving those men, who cut the burden off his back. And at that point the fullness of his sin against God and against God’s creatures, image-bearers, hits home to De Niro and he comes to his knees and weeps. Those tears become tears not of sorrow anymore though, but of joy as he is forgiven. The picture of that being the cutting away of his bondage as he crawls up this long waterfall to get to these men that he had sinned against.

Well, so it is with us. We strike out. We sin. We are insensitive to our sin. We have no conception. We’ve made ourselves hardened against the spirit of God frequently in our lives. Certainly, our culture has as well.

—

It is in those times of despair when we are most attentive to the voice of God. God in his providence and sovereignty brings us difficulties so that we might hear his voice. These are ministrations of grace, severe mercies, so to speak. But in the context of a culture that has built so many barriers between it and the sovereign God of heaven, those mercies of God to his elect people and to the watching world are severe mercies, breaking through all of our culture’s supposed defenses, abilities, reasonings, logic, etc.

They lose all hope. And they lose all hope in the context of no small tempest. The storm had not abated at all. It probably gotten worse. There’s an intensification of the wind. The shipmaster who had been the authority on that ship—and God’s man, the apostle Paul, Jesus Christ through the voice of his apostles and messengers, the voice of his church—are established in the context of that ship. And the picture for that is the blinking out of the light of present authorities so that new authorities might take their place in the providence of God.

Men come to realize that in and of themselves they have no hope in the world. They are, in the words of Ephesians 2:12, cut off from the commonwealth of Israel, alien to it, strangers from the covenants of God’s promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. And that is the state of apostate, unregenerate man. It is the state of the Gentiles. It is the state of all mankind in rebellion against God.

And these men are graciously in the providence of God, brought to an awareness of their loss of hope, being not connected to the person who is the ultimate authority, who is the stars and the sun and the moon, the light thereof, that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Despair precedes the second voice of Paul. Despair. But despair is not to be their state.

The Apostle Paul comes to them and in verse 21 we read, “After long abstinence, Paul stood forth in the midst of them and said, ‘Sirs, you should have hearkened unto me and not have loosed from Crete and to have gained this harm and loss.’” The Apostle Paul, noting as he does the despair of the crewmen, comes that they might receive hope and establishment.

Notice that Paul doesn’t speak immediately when the storm starts to come upon them. He doesn’t speak when the winds change and say, “See, I told you so.” He waits until God’s sovereign work has done its work, has played out its full course and brought the men in whom he is the context of to a position of total despair. He waits for God’s providence to work itself out in the lives of those around him that he may then minister grace to those men.

They being brought to a position of having their ears opened by having their hope completely taken away from them. After long abstinence, Paul stands forth in the midst of them. How unlike us. How so often somebody begins to have a problem. We want to rush right over, tell them, “Oh, well, you shouldn’t do that.” Give them all this advice, not recognizing that frequently it is the waiting upon the Lord for the correct timing when dealing with a particular situation and person.

Sometimes it is the best course and frequently it is to have long abstinence before we bring the word of God. We want to wait and see and test the waters to see if the people we want to address have come to a position of despair within themselves. Otherwise, they’re not going to hear you. Paul had spoken to them when they were in Fair Havens. Paul spoke and they thought they had all the experience they needed in the context of their own little group and everything.

And he wasn’t heard. He’ll only be heard when men lose confidence in their existing authority structure. And so it is of this world. We take messages to the world. That’s what the parents education association is all about. It’s helping them to interpret the despair and provide the biblical solution which involves a command and imperative to worship God. But that voice isn’t heard until despair comes into that particular arena.

And so it is here. Paul after long abstinence stands forth in the middle of these men. And actually the term abstinence there is specifically a term that should be translated fasting. It is after a long cessation from food even that really is being pictured for us here. It is a length of time, but it’s a length of time accompanied by the loss of food. And we’ll see next week when we meet Paul and the crew for Thanksgiving on board this ship.

We’ll see that they had gone quite a long period of time without eating virtually any food. You know, men in a position of despair stop eating. Proverbs says the slothful man won’t even bring the food up to his mouth. And I don’t think that means he’s just so lazy. I think that means that men in a position of loss of heart and sloth, they don’t attend to task because they’ve lost heart for the task. God has given them to do.

They’ve rejected the task. They’ve said, “It’s not my job. It’s not something I need to have care for.” And their care is removed. And they fall into depression. Depression is sloth. It’s a loss of heart and accompanying loss of activity. And men in that condition won’t even feed themselves. They’ll starve themselves to death. They get weak and tired. And then that weakness and tiredness needs to be exhorted out of them, so to speak.

So that’s the position there. That despair was accompanied by a loss of food. And Paul stands forth in the midst of them. And he says, “Sir, ye should have hearkened unto me and not have loosed from Crete and to have gained this harm and this loss.” They’re ready to hear now. But he doesn’t bring them a message of hope immediately. The first thing that Paul does in his voice is to bring a voice of conviction, to bring words of conviction, to bring words of evaluation of the state in which men find themselves.

Greg Skipper was speaking with me during the meal last week and he said that you know what Paul is doing here is he’s telling them these difficulties aren’t because God has done this. It’s not due to the winds and the storms and the elements round about you. It’s not due to the fates. It’s not due to your fellow man. It’s not due to me. You’re the problem. Just like in our day and age, the particular culture at this time believed in external causes creating all things.

Kind of an environmental determinism. Same situation we’re at in our culture today. And men will blame everything else around them and instead of themselves for a particular situation that begins to unfold in a negative sense. And so what man needs to hear, what these men needed to hear, and what men need to hear today, and what you and I almost always need to hear when we’re in a position of despair, when God has turned out the lights for us, so to speak, we need to hear it’s your fault.

It’s your fault. Now, you know, sometimes it isn’t. You know, we know everybody. When you give this kind of interpretation of a text, immediately people start thinking, “What about Job? You know, he told him it was his fault. They were wrong.” Well, that’s right. But you’re not Job. You know, you probably aren’t as committed to the cause of the Lord of the Heavens as Job was. Careful as he was. I doubt if God brags about you to Satan, so to speak.

And maybe he does. And I’m not saying that every time we run into difficulties, we have problems, but almost always sin on our part and in us is part of what God is addressing in our state. And this is talking about those circumstances in which men have heard the voice of God, rejected God’s wisdom, and taken their own course. And so troubles come upon them. They’re not content with their present state at Fair Havens.

They want a better life over here going to another port. And seeking that better life, they lose what they already had, the well-being of contentment. And so it is with us. Well, Paul brings this awareness to them that as David told to David—excuse me, as Nathan told to David—you are the man. This is happening because you screwed up. And nine times out of 10, that’s what we need to hear from God’s servants, ministers, our friends, the wounds of a friend.

That’s what we need to hear. You screwed up here. Don’t blame your wife, you know. Don’t blame your husband. Don’t blame the kids. Don’t blame the weather. Don’t blame the church. Don’t blame the society. You screwed up. You didn’t hear the voice of God, and you didn’t hearken to that voice. And that’s what God wants you to realize. First is your own culpability for the situation in which you’re at.

So often we want to rush right in and comfort people. They’re having difficult times financially, interpersonal relationships, whatever it may be, drugs, whatever, whatever they’re doing, and they start to feel a little bad, and we want to rush right in and bring them hope from the scriptures. No, you want to let—you want to let the conviction of God work its way out. You want to have an absolution period of speaking to people at times that they might come to a point of despair and then you want to make sure that their despair is not simply despair that is a fatalism giving up on the world around them.

You want to turn that despair into a realization of their own personal sin, their rejection of God. And that’s what Paul does here. He corrects them. He brings home conviction as his first message in this second talk of his to these men. Start with yourself. You are the man. Paul says to these men.

Now, it is interesting that this word obey is used. He says, “You ought to have hearkened unto me.” And this word hearkened is a word for obey, to submit to an authority. That’s what the word means. It’s composed of two words. One is to submit. The other is arco—the authority, archon, the ruler authority. And so Paul definitely tells us here, as I mentioned last week, that he is the authority. The church rules in the context of the world and as its council coincides with the voice of God from heaven and his word in the scriptures. The church should be hearkened unto.

Now I’m not talking about the church ruling over all spheres. But I am saying that the word of God is the ultimate ruler over all spheres. And when men bring that word of God to a particular setting, they should be obeyed. They have the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. This word obey, or submit to, or hearken unto, is only used four times in the scriptures. In Acts 5, Peter talked about the need to obey God rather than men.

And again in Acts 5, we read that God has given certain things to those that obey him. So there’s the second occurrence of the word and it’s used in reference to God. Here in Acts 27 is the third occurrence. And then in Titus 3:1, we are told to put them in mind, that is the congregation of God to be subject to principalities and powers to obey magistrates, those image-bearers of God in the civil state or in the church arena.

And so Paul definitely brings to a position of conviction for rebellion against the authority of God by rebelling against his council. So Paul is completely the reverse of Jonah here. Remember Jonah on board his ship? Jonah was the cause of his difficulties. Paul is the savior, the comforter, so to speak, of the men in his ship. Jonah brought the judgments of God upon the ship in which he was because God was angry with Jonah and they had to cast him off.

Paul, on the other hand, is the voice of God to mankind, so to speak, and the image that’s presented for us here, bringing comfort to that situation. Even as Jonah was a picture of the blemishes of the character of the prophet in the Old Testament, so Paul is picture to us of the integrity and the correct personage of the apostle or the messenger of God who brings a corrective evaluation to those people in total despair.

Now notice here by the way that this is one man doing this talking—Paul is one man. It now Paul, we know that Aristarchus and Luke, there are at least two other men with Paul on board the ship who are part of his company. But it’s Paul himself who stands up and addresses these men. Charles Spurgeon in his commentary on this particular text thought this was worth pointing out just in passing. He says—let’s see—he points this out that this is Paul as an individual speaking here, albeit, you know, of course in his role as a messenger of God.

But he says, “You must have seen that is the reader of this text, and you must here in this congregation have seen in many events in history that it is the one man after all that wins the battle and all the rest play their parts well when the one heroic spirit lifts the standard. Every now and then we have some simpleton or other talking against a one-man ministry when it has been a one-man ministry from the commencement of the world to the present day.

And whenever you try to have any other form of ministry except that of each individual saint discharging his own ministry and doing it thoroughly and heartily and independently and bravely in the sight of God, you very soon run upon quicksands. Recollect Christian man that wherever you are placed, you are to be that one man.”

So he speaks here. Spurgeon points out that one of the things we can see from this text is that it is a one man, a single individual who stands up in the context of difficulties and ministers to his people. And so it is with us. Boards don’t work. In the context of the providence of God, he uses single men engaging themselves in single acts of ministry to achieve societal progress.

And so it is here. Paul brings his voice to them in a position of despair. And he brings that voice first by way of conviction. But secondly, he brings that voice as a voice of hope. He moves on quickly that they may not understand him to be simply chiding them without providing a solution. He tells them in verse 22, he gives them a new command.

Verse 22: “And now I exhort you to be of good cheer.”

There is a transition in this text from the convicting power of the messenger of God to the messenger of God bringing hope to men who have been brought to a position of despair and a position in which they are attending to or listening to the voice of God through his servants. Paul brings them hope. Now he brings them that hope in the context of this setting rather immediately upon his convicting message to them of their own difficulties.

Despair has a way of wiping out all hope. And you don’t want to leave people hopeless or totally desparing. These men are tired. They come to a position of despair. And what they need now to face what’s going to occur to them in the next few days is courage. But courage that doesn’t come from an evaluation of their own abilities, but courage based upon the word of God. And that’s just what Paul does to them here.

Having given up courage in the sake of their own self-sufficiency, he doesn’t want them to sail on without any courage or hope. He wants them to be hopeful but hoping in the word of God. And that’s what his message is going to do to these men. Vince Lombardi said that fatigue makes cowards of us all. He’s a football coach, was a football coach, of the Green Bay Packers, tremendous picture of masculinity in that day and age. And he told his players that fatigue makes cowards of us all.

He said that when you’re fatigued—now, that’s worse than tired. That’s being going beyond being tired. When you’re fatigued, take yourself out of the game if you can. Sit down because you’re not going to be able to engage yourself in the warfare that is professional football when you’re that fatigued. There is a time to rest and a time to take comfort and to reassess where you’re at. And Paul is doing that to these men here.

God has taken them out of the battle that they may sit and receive refreshment and energy and hope from his messenger and then he’s going to throw them right back into this same battle. This tempest continues at sea. So Paul transitions here to a message of hope. He brings them encouragement and he brings them comfort. He tells them by the way that this comfort that they are to receive is to be seen as a command from him.

This word “I exhort you to be of good cheer.” This word is only used twice, this particular form of this word in the New Testament. And both occurrences we’ve read in the last couple of weeks in this text. This is the exact same word as back in verse 19 when he saw the difficulties that lay ahead of them while they’re at Fair Havens and he admonished them not to put out.

That word Paul admonished them in verse 19 is the exact same word and form of word as the word “I exhort you” in verse 22. Now that’s real significant, isn’t it? He’s told them, “You’re in this difficulty because you didn’t obey my exhortation, my authority from God to command you not to go out in this particular venture.” And now he doesn’t give them a suggestion. Again, he uses that same word that he used before with them to admonish them, exhort them, to put them under the authority of God that this is now the proper course.

Be of good cheer. Count it all joy when you encounter various difficulties. Change your mindset about what lays upon you. Now recognize God has used this thing in your life to bring you in a position of hoping in him and that is a cheerful, joyful hope. We’ve talked about our family camp. Remember we’ve talked about commanded joy, the portion of the tithe that’s to be used for the convocations of God’s people in his presence in the old covenant and applied to our family camp today.

Commanded joy—an unusual concept for us. We live in the context of an age that just says you just blow where your feelings go, wind blows and you blow here and you blow there and whatever. Well, here the wind blows in a very specific direction. It says regardless of how you feel about this, Paul says, “I exhort you now. I put you under the authority of God to be of good cheer relative to this matter.”

Now, the source of that’s going to be given to him next. It’s the word of God again. But you understand, folks, that God exhorts us. He commands us, as it were. He gives us specific instruction which we should, we disobey at great risk to ourselves. He commands us in the context of despair and difficulties to be of good cheer, to have cheerfulness. Well, this word is used later on in the epistles when Paul says if somebody’s cheerful, let him sing psalms.

So Paul’s telling them have such a mindset about the difficulties and God’s presence in those difficulties that you sing psalms here in the context of no stars, no sun, water all around, probably water coming into the ship, you’re lost, you’re blown off course, singing psalms of praise to God. That’s what he tells them here. He doesn’t mean be an idiot. But what he’s telling them is that God has sovereignly created this situation that you might bow to that sovereignty and rest in those same hands as they took you troubled through those waters and stripped off your false hope.

He now gives you true hope in him and his hands will see you safely to shore. And so he tells us as well in the context of our trials and difficulties, commands us to be of good cheer relative to those very difficulties.

Be of good cheer. Now, there are several reasons listed for us in scripture why we can be of good cheer. Now, these particular men, they’re told to be of good cheer because we’re not going to lose our life. That’s the first thing he tells them. Be of good cheer because nobody’s going to die.

And you know, most of the times when we have difficulties, we can be of good cheer. We can be joyful for that very reason ourselves. No matter what the finances look like, no matter what the problems with our children, our wives, our friends, no matter what difficulties the geopolitical machinations of our country bring upon us, usually these things are not going to result in our death. We put them in proper perspective.

We’re going to live. We’re going to have days to repent of our sin to change course and things won’t always be like this. Lincoln said this too shall pass and most of these things the difficulties we go through shall pass and we’ll come out of them alive. And so most of us can take this same kind of cheer and coming out of these things alive.

But we as Christians know that beyond that—not just simply the preservation of our life is a cause to be of good cheer but whatever difficulties come upon us—but as James tells us, count it all joy when you encounter various difficulties. Be cheerful, sing psalms. Why? Because God is at work through these very difficulties, changing who you are, making a new man out of you, making a man of Jesus Christ, a woman, a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He’s moving in your character to develop patience and hope and perseverance and the fruit of the spirit. The fruit of the spirit doesn’t come about simply by going away in your prayer closet, praying for weeks on end, and coming out and being a new man. God puts you in the context of a world, and that world has difficulty, trials, and tribulations. And those are the very secondary means that God uses normatively to bring you to position of maturation and further ministry to him.

And so we can count it all cheer. We’ve talked about despair the last few weeks. We talked about it again this morning. But recognize Christian that we can be of good cheer in the context of those things. God’s not going to kill us. And in fact, God is using those very things to establish us and to improve our character and to improve the manifestation of the godly character of God through us.

Most of all, of course, the reason for our good cheer is that through all these things, God brings us closer to a knowledge of him. These men had no knowledge of God. They built up all kinds of sinful perceptions of why they were in the difficulties there were, how their world worked. And God strips those things off that they might come face to face, so to speak, with him through his messenger and might have an increased knowledge and understanding of God himself.

And so it is with us. Our difficulties, our despairs, our trials and tribulations can be rejoiced in because they bring us closer to the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and of his sufferings and so we can have great joy.

Paul tells him that the basis for this joy is God’s sure word. He says, “Be of good cheer. I command you. I exhort you. So there’ll 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 whose I am and whom I serve, saying, Fear not, Paul, thou must be brought before Caesar, and lo, God hath given thee all of them that sail with thee.”

Paul’s voice comes in conviction. Paul’s voice comes to those who are in despair, but it comes not just in conviction. It comes to deliver hope and cheer and encouragement. And he does that by relating to them the sure word of God. The voice of Paul to these men and the voice of God to you in the context of your difficulties. And if you’re going to be the voice of God to our culture, and to people that you know, that voice must be founded on the word of God.

Paul doesn’t try to encourage him saying, “I’m a great guy. I’m having a good time. Don’t worry about it. I’m okay.” He doesn’t do that. He was okay. And Paul’s demeanor is important. But what he ties their hope and confidence to is God’s word given to him through an angel of the Lord. He ties their hope and confidence to God’s word. And if we’re going to bring hope to a situation, if we bring hope based upon anything other than the sure word of God, we’re putting men right back in the difficulty that they began with—a rejection of the word of God for the sake of being guided by their experience, their logic, their understanding.

I was listening to the Coast to Coast AM show last night. I don’t—I listen to that 5, 10, 15 minutes every Saturday night. There’s a radio in my bathroom and I just go in there sometimes and listen to that and you know, it’s an odd show. It’s an odd show. A lot of weird science sort of stuff. And as is typical, I mean, I could, you know, every couple of weeks I’ll hear this statement. I heard it again last night: “Well, we have the knowledge now to cure and clear up every problem in our culture and society. We can make a perfect world now because we have this knowledge.”

You know, we have this ability to have hope. Not because we’ve learned to rely upon God, but because our science and technology has increased. Our understanding of the cosmic implications of healing crystals has increased or we know that pyramids can do things. So man builds up knowledge. He tries to give himself hope in the context of despair by basing it upon his own abilities, reasonings, experience, technology, whatever it is. And that is not what Paul does.

Paul brings men to a hope based upon the sureness of God’s word. And if we want to speak a message of hope to a culture that is despairing, to an institutional church across America that’s despairing, to our own lives in the context of despair or to our friends when they’re despairing, it must be hope based upon the sure word of God. And that sure word of God, by the way, not only does it not support other things for the basis of hope, it promises their destruction.

That word of hope promises the destruction of the other things we hold on to give us false hope. Why do I say that? Because he says there should be no loss of men’s life among you, but of the ship. The ship will go down. The ship will be broken up. The ship will be taken away. What’s the ship? Well, the ship is what they put their trust in. Their knowledge of seafaring things. The ship represents man’s attempt to have hope, progress, go here and there apart from the word of God.

The ship, while a good thing in and of itself to these men, represents an idol and, as Schaeffer talks about it, as an idol for destruction. They placed their confidence as they went out from Fair Haven in the ship’s ability to weather the storm that they saw coming. Instead of placing their confidence in that silly little fella who they knew had something going with God, instead of placing their confidence in the message of God through his messenger, they placed it in their own abilities.

We have a culture today that instead of Jesus Christ, expects salvation from a PC—a personal computer. Personal computers will save the day. And I’m telling you that what God does in cultures and histories to false gods, to idols, is he destroys them. I don’t know how it’s going to work out in PCs. I know partly the way it’s already working out. The internet will provide our deliverance. So, you go on to the internet, and apparently—I haven’t experienced it myself—but apparently the number one topic on the internet is pornography, vile things.

I’ve also heard from various national commentators that the dialogue and exchange that the internet promises to mankind as a means of salvation is vitriol and acidic and very unchristian and uncivil by way of much of the communication that occurs on the internet. The very thing men turn to achieve their salvation, God will destroy as it becomes idolatrous. PCs are great. Internet is great. Christians should use them. But when Christians look to them for their hope and encouragement, when the world looks to them, looks to that ship, God says the ship’s going to go down.

Look at education. Education was the great hope for Western man. Education was supposed to be the great way that men would be civilized and create heaven on earth. And look at the state of education. You can look from the multiversities now—no longer having a sure word from God and blowing here and there—down to the elementary schools. Outcome-based education—what should the outcomes be? Who knows? We don’t have any idea. Education is in a state of disarray. It’s breaking down. We should be thankful for that because education was another one of those idols of destruction.

God says that in his word to these men that they’ll be saved because of their connection to the church of Jesus Christ, their covenantal connection to Paul, but they’ll be saved at the loss of the idol that they had created out of their ship. That is an idol for destruction. Paul’s voice brings a voice of hope. It is a voice of hope based upon his word. And that word promises the destruction of every idol that raises itself up against them.

Note also that Paul’s reliance upon the word of God is related to God’s ownership of mankind. Verse 23: “There stood by me this night the angel of God whose I am and whom I serve, saying, ‘Fear not, Paul, of these men. God will—thou must be brought before Caesar. God have given thee all them that are with thee.’”

Paul is encouraged by the spirit of God because he is God’s man. God owns him. “I am his. God,” Paul says. “And I serve him. I worship him.” The word service here is the word for menial service. It can be used also of worship, frequently tied to it. But the basic root term is service in the sense of being a slave or a servant. And Paul says that the basis for his encouragement is that God has him doing service. And in that service, he’s going to go to Caesar.

And God doesn’t want Paul brought to Caesar being saved by himself out of this shipwreck. He wants when Paul goes to the Roman authorities for the story to have preceded Paul that 276 men were rescued by this guy. They got in trouble because he didn’t listen to his advice and that he in his encouragement of them he provided them the means of escape.

Paul is being buttressed in his ministry by God’s providential acts. This deliverance isn’t for the sake of Paul’s personal peace and affluence. And these men are told at the get-go and Paul encourages them that this isn’t because God loves you and wants you to have a pleasant life for yourself.