Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript: Acts 28:1-6 – Serpents and Saints

Verses 1-6. Acts 28:1-6. Our topic is of serpents and saints. And when they were escaped, then they knew that the island was called Malta. And the barbarous people showed us no little kindness, for they kindled the fire and received us everyone because of the present rain and because of the cold. And when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire, there came a viper out of the heat and fastened on his hand.

And when the barbarians saw the venomous beast hang on his hand, they said among themselves, “No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he has escaped the sea, yet vengeance suffereth not to live.” And he shook off the beast into the fire and felt no harm. How be it, they looked when he should have swollen or fallen down, dead suddenly. But after they had looked a great while and saw no harm come to him.

They changed their minds and said that he was a god. Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for redeeming us out of our barbarous thoughts and ways. We confess that we and our own flesh and nature are people of unclean profession and lip. And we thank you, Lord God, for giving us the correct profession, lip, and life. We pray now, Lord God, you would delu the script to our understanding that our profession both in lip and in life might be fuller might redound more to your glory and to the edification of our brother.

We ask this in the great and mighty name of our Lord Jesus Christ and for the sake of his kingdom. Amen. You may be seated and the younger children may be dismissed.

Power at our house. This year the storm followed the death of Dr. Bahnsen. And the storm interestingly enough struck much of Northern California as well as came to Oregon from California. I think by way of analogy and by way of remembering the storm in my life at least the big picture is the darkness that most of the world lies in and we lost a great light on Tuesday.

You know God in his providence will raise up more lights but it’s right to mourn such a passing. Then later in the week I watched some of the Frank Sinatra birthday celebration and wow the man you certainly has giftings from God in terms of voice etc. You know for the country to honor a man such as Mr. Sinatra whose theme of course is he does it his own way. A Paul written by the way a song written by the way by Paul Anka.

You know these are not godly heroes. These are not the men that this nation should have been celebrating this week. The passing of Dr. Bahnsen is I think a very important event in church history and his writings were very important on many levels and instead you know the nation celebrates the 80th birthday of Frank Sinatra, you know, various people coming out in various amounts of attire, etc. Well, you know, it’s a great picture of where our country is at.

And this message here, I hope my outline isn’t too sloppy, but I tried to pick up some of the irony of the text as well as some of the interesting literary stuff that was developed in it. And I wasn’t exactly sure how to approach this text, what particular thrust to put on, but the text kind of does it for itself. And really the outline I’ve come up with any of you could with a cursory study of this text and you know I basically want to give us an overview of the text first look at the scripture itself and see what’s going on and I just have a separate little summation for each of the six verses and then we’re going to look at some lessons in the text.

You’ll see the observations on the text. First we have refuge in refuge. What that means is that here in verse one they find refuge at this island. When they get to the island they know it they find out it’s named Malta. Knights of Malta were from this particular island by the way as they withstood the advance of the Turks eventually martyred of course for their defense of the Christian faith against the Turks.

This is Malta here and Malta apparently best evidence has means place of refuge. So it’s you know right away at the beginning of this one of these last little appendix stories to the book of Acts we have a picture of refuge in refuge in Malta.

And then secondly we have a picture here of barbarians acting as saints and The irony of this text starts to come through in verse two. The barbarous people showed us no little kindness. They kindled the fire and received us everyone because of the present rain, because of the cold. The picture is that as they’re landing on this place, finally getting off the sea, now the storm comes to the land and all of a sudden the picture is this great rain and cold coming up. And the barbarous people give them no little kindness. And what that means is first of all, barbarians were not savage, you know, wild jungle people.

They were people that were not Greek or Roman or at least didn’t speak the Greek and Roman language. They didn’t speak Latin. These people could speak Latin, but their tongue was different. It was Punic. And so, barbarians was everybody else outside of the Greek and Roman world. So, it doesn’t mean they were bad people. Just means they had a different tongue. Language was the primary differentiator here. Man’s tongue is his profession of faith.

And so, different profession, a different culture based upon their language. Well, in any event, so these people are pictured for us as barbarians in that sense, and they show these men who have washed up on the shore no little kindness and what the word actually in the Greek means is uncommon brotherly love, uncommon philanthropy. So this is not common. This is an odd thing happening here because these barbarians are acting like saints.

Saints were supposed to exhibit hospitality one to the other and these barbarians are acting like saints even though of course they’re not. Now you know some people point out that well the barbarians could see right away that these were Roman soldiers and this was a Roman province for the last oh 250 years or so of this island had been conquered by Rome and was under their jurisdiction. So, of course, they’re going to treat Roman soldiers and their guests nicely.

Nonetheless, the text tells us that there was no uncommon kindness shown. And so, we have this kind of, you know, ironic statement here that these barbarians are showing uncommon love of the brothers.

The next thing that happens is Paul diligently works away to help build the fire. And in verse three, he gets bit by a snake. Verse three, when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks, what it means is he had twisted together some sticks that he found. They were building a big fire so it was cold. Big bonfire is being built for them all. All 276 were shown hospitality by the way for 3 months on this island. And in any event as Paul was helping to build the fire picture of diligence for us work in the context of a large group of people. And this diligence of his leads to him being snake bit. He’s bundling together these sticks and he lays them on the fire and there came a viper out of the heat and fastened on his hand.

The implication is that it the viper was coming out of this bundle of sticks that he had put together, not knowing the snake was in there. These viperous snakes at that time in Malta would of course live in wooded areas amongst the sticks. And during this particular time of year, late October, they’d be somewhat, you know, kind of almost in hibernation state. And as it got near to the heat, it would awaken itself.

This is the naturalistic explanation, which is probably true. And then the viper comes out of that bundle and that heat as he’s putting these wood on the fire and attaches itself onto Paul’s hand, bites him, and so Paul’s diligence leads to him being snake bit. Another ironic sort of situation going on here.

Well, the barbarians then act as theonomic. And I know this is a little bit, you know, not quite what you might want me to say here, but in a sense, you know, in a sense, they sort of act in a interesting way here. As they see Paul being bit, they say, “Well, hey, you know, this guy must be a murderer because he escaped the shipwreck and from the sea’s storm, but he did can’t escape the bite of the snake.”

Now, the barbarians here present a picture of men who acknowledge first of all a god, a god who has jurisdiction or providence in the affairs of men. And secondly, they acknowledge an exterior force to man that also acts in the in the context of vengeance, punishment to evildoers. And the third theonomic point they would assert is that they think that murder is a bad deal. And you may say, well, sure, every culture knows that. But our culture doesn’t know that. It knows certain murderers are bad deals. Increasingly, it knows no murderers are bad deals. And certainly most of people that have rule in this country, many of them at least think that murderers certainly don’t deserve to be killed.

So these barbarians were more theonomic than our country is. I mean, not theonomic. They weren’t Christians who weren’t regenerate. But I’m using there an ironic statement to get you to focus upon what they were doing in an interesting way. There are Christians who do the same thing. Of course, who judge by external events. We all have a tendency to fall into this. There are Old Testament texts that remind us of these sorts of things.

And for instance in Amos 5:18, “Woe to you that desire the day of the Lord. To what end is it for you? The day of the Lord is darkness and not light. And as if a man did flee from a lion and a bear and a bear met him, running away from a lion and a bear meets you and gobbles you up. Or when he goes into his house and leans his hand against the wall and a serpent bites him.”

See, Amos Five talks about people that reject God and his law and his ways and yet they claim to want the day of the Lord to come. But Amos says, “When the day of the Lord comes, it’s going to be darkness for you and not light.” For much of the church today, if Christ was to return imminently today, it would be to their darkness and to their judgment, not to their deliverance because of their rejection of Christ’s kingdom and his laws. And the point is here that when that judgment comes, you think you’re safe. You run into your house and lean up against the wall and a snake bites you.

Well, you know, some would gather this text that they saw a man, a prisoner coming off of a shipwreck looking not too good, not a not a not a lot of external appearance to indicate any kind of value to the man. We know that about Paul. And then he comes off this shipwreck and then he runs over here and his snake bites him. Some of us might jump to the same wrong conclusion as these barbarians judging with not righteous judgment with unrighteous judgment.

But you know the text from Amos might you guys think that Ecclesiastes also verses 10:7-9 talks the same way about how men that dig a pit fall into it and who so breaketh a hedge a serpent shall bite him. So some people may assume that this serpent biting Paul is kind of a theonomic act of God’s justice against a murderer and that’s what these barbarians acted like but at least as again as them demonstrating the uncommon kindness.

So they also demonstrate what is also not common in barbarian cultures those without the profession of Jesus Christ a belief in a sovereign a God who is providential in his judgments of people and judging those who commit murder. Of course, they make an indiscretion of the man’s life. They assume the actions by the external events that happen to him. And of course, we know that’s wrong and improper for us to do.

We must judge by one’s actions and not by the providence of God as he moves in their life. Well, in any event, so then this verse four, these barbarians act kind of like quasi theonomous although exercising unrighteous judgment. The next verse tells us that Paul shook off the beast into fire and there it doesn’t say into the fire. The definite article isn’t in this particular verse and the indication is that the way the Greek is written he shakes off the viper into fire into the essence of fire and he felt no harm.

Felt no harm. So here we have a viperous venomous snake Paul is bitten by it. They expect him to fall down dead, but he doesn’t. Well, what’s the obvious message? If you think there’s a God who’s at work in the life of men, and this man survives the bite of a snake, well, the rational explanation would seem to suggest that this man was delivered by the grace of God. But they don’t get that. They immediately instead of seeing this big picture written large letters, this man is delivered from the bite of the serpent and the bite of his enemies.

Instead of seeing that, the barbarians in the next verse don’t get it. And they look and he should have swollen up. You know, when these kind of snakes bite, your capillaries begin to break down. You lose pneuma you have massive hemorrhaging and wherever the bite occurs, you die sometimes instantaneously. You swell up immediately and fall down dead. And he didn’t do that. They looked for a great while. They were there a while quite a while and nothing happens to them.

And they say, “Well, you know, in that case, this guy must be God must be God must be divine.” So they jump from the wrong conclusion over here judging unrighteous judgment to the wrong conclusion over here. He must be God in that case. And it shows I think to us while these men can show kindness on occasion perhaps with a little bit of self-interest because of the Roman involvement. And we can encounter people who may show kindness.

Nobody apart from the grace of God’s spirit no unregenerate man no man fallen in his sin hands can make correct discernments and judgments and they’ll get it wrong on either side of the equation. They’ll get it wrong in making these kind of external unrighteous judgments and they’ll get make it wrong on the other hand saying well he must be God or divine in that case.

If Greg Bahnsen left us nothing else he left us and of course he did but he left us with a renewed sense of the implications of Van Til that unregenerate man is at war with God that God has judicially fixed enmity between the barbarians so to speak that without the correct profession of Christ and the Christian church and that there’s this great gulf fixed and they will get it wrong every time.

I have a quote here that Credenda posted on their web page this week as kind of in memoriam of Dr. Bahnsen. It’s a quote from Greg and here’s what it says.

The unbeliever’s enmity against the word of God is not simply or narrowly a religious matter. Sometimes I think we understand this enmity as though the unbeliever just does not like the religious idea of Jesus being the son of God and our savior. But far more the unbeliever’s enmity entails opposition to the very worldview which is the context and foundation of any particular biblical message. Now since only the Christian worldview makes language and rationality intelligible, unbelievers will be led if they are consistent to oppose language and rationality themselves in order to oppose the Christian worldview which alone sustains their intelligibility.

An impossibility. To put it somewhat by way of pun, the unbelievers war with the word, that is to say, their war with scripture and with Christ, will lead them to be at war with the word, little w, all human language and meaning. Because they reject the transcendent word of God, Jesus, who is the very truth of God, they are led in the imminent domain to reject the idea of the world, meaning, truth, and logic as well.

So there’s this great enmity of the unbeliever, not just against Christian ideas, but against the very idea of rationality and correct conclusions. And so when God paints these barbarians for us, he paints them as kind of odd-looking figures in the short little story who jump here and jump there. And that’s just the way fallen man is. Everyone should be able to rationally see the providence of God and delivering this man and showing kindness to him.

But nobody sees it in the context of the story that’s before us. And so it is with all men. All men are deceived.

So, we have an interesting story filled with some ironies and then some obvious restatements about taking refuge and refuge. And it’s a story that gives us certain lessons and we could, you know, take some time and develop certain moral lessons from this story if we so chose. We could, for instance, look at examples of courage in the context of this text.

We could see the courage demonstrated by the barbarians in showing kindness to these strangers, kindness to these strangers. Matthew Henry in his comment on this particular portion of scripture talks a lot about how the barbarians here show themselves to be better in the context of their practice in this matter than many Christians do. The barbarians show kindness here, which is really in accord with our commandment by God to show kindness and even to the stranger and particularly the scriptures tell us to the stranger.

You can look at some texts which are on your outline that demonstrate this. Leviticus 19:34. But the stranger that dwells with you shall be unto you as one born among you. Thou shalt love him as thyself. For you are strangers to the land of Egypt. I’m the Lord your God. By the way, interestingly, it goes on to say that you shall do no injustice in judgment or unrighteousness rather in judgment. And so it’s interesting while on one side the barbarians paint the picture of loving stranger, they immediately jump to unrighteous judgments.

God making sure that we understand this is a picture not to commend the barbarians to us as much as it is a picture to us to shame us in some ways as Matthew Henry says for our lack of showing brotherly love to others. And it would be good for us to look at this example and to teach from this example in scripture the requirement to show brotherly love and kindness not brotherly love but kindness to brothers of course but also to the stranger as these men were on the island of Malta.

Matthew Henry says here that the Samaritan is a better neighbor to the poor wounded man than the priest or Levite. Looking at the story of the good Samaritan, the man going from Jerusalem to Jericho. By the way, there too, people could say, “Well, he’s leaving Jerusalem. He’s going down to Jericho. The heck with him unrighteous judgment.” But the Samaritan shows his kindness and friendship to the wounded man.

Henry goes on to say, “And verily, we have not found greater humanity among Greeks or Romans or Christians than among these barbarous people. And it is written for our imitation that we may learn to be compassionate to those that are in darkness and misery and to relieve and succor them to the utmost of our ability as those that know we ourselves are also in the body. We should be ready to entertain strangers as Abraham who sat at the tent door to entertain strangers and invite passengers in. Hebrews 13:2 commends us to the entertaining of strangers.

Matthew Henry goes on to say, “But especially strangers in distress as these men were.” Scriptures tell us to honor all men. If providence hath so appointed the bounds of our habitation as to give us an opportunity of being frequently serviceable to persons at a loss, we should not place it among the inconveniences of our lot, but the advantage of it, because it is more blessed to give than to receive.

Who knows but these barbarous people had their lot cast in this island for just such a time as this. And so it is with us. When we have a difficulty, a neighbor presents himself the difficulty of stranger has a problem, we have an ability to extend grace and mercy at a self-sacrificial cost. We usually get annoyed by that kind of thing and we don’t want to do it. And yet we should be trying train training ourselves.

We should be training our children. We should be encouraging and exhorting them. And I should be encouraging exhorting you and myself that when an opportunity presents itself to show kindness to do a deed of obedience to these scriptures that command us to entertain strangers, command us to be hospitable, command us to love the strangers ourselves. We should desire those sorts of opportunities. I mean, it shouldn’t just be that we do it when it happens to come up and it’s our responsibility, but we should look for ways to minister to each other and to minister to people outside of our group even with difficulties, even strangers, those outside of the visible church of Christ.

We should be looking for ways to do that, not just do it if it comes along our path. This storm last week provided lots of people with lots of opportunities to extend compassion and kindness. Did you look at it that way? Did you think, “Oh, God in its providence has brought this storm and now I may have opportunity to do a good work in the name of Jesus Christ and bring him honor and glory this day and on into this week by helping somebody.” Matthew Henry goes on to talk about how, you know, it’s important to help feed the hungry, but the script also say don’t just tell somebody be warmed and send them on their way if they’re naked.

No, he says that when the extremities of bad weather we find ourselves fenced against the rigors of the season by the accommodations of a warm house, bed, clothes, and a good fire, we should think how many lie exposed to the present rain and to the cold and pity them and pray for them and help them if we can. And that’s exactly the state we found ourselves in this last week. We could have demonstrated Christian compassion.

So we can look at this example of the barbarians and say well this is the sort of thing that we do. Matthew Henry also points out that Paul was a prisoner. They probably knew that they could see this. The evidence was that the prisoners were marked in some way. And so these barbarians could have said, “Oh prisoners, we don’t want to help them.” But no, they did help the prisoner and so it should be with us.

Again, to quote Matthew Henry, he says, “Let those be ashamed that say, do not do good to those in prison. Let these barbarians shame us for they knew not who these men were, but simply because they were in misfortune, they were kind. Thus much they perceived that they were human beings, and therefore they considered them to have a claim upon their humanity.” You see, it’s easy to think somebody’s in prison.

There’s an external stigma of difficulty upon them, and let’s not help them. But the scriptures say, “No, that’s a bad attitude. Christ told us to visit those in prison.” And so, we can look at this text and see the courage of the barbarians and the moral example they set for us to show compassion and kindness and to train ourselves in that way.

We could look at the text and look at the diligence of Paul and teach our children the need to be diligent. Matthew Henry says, “You saw nothing below him except sin.” Apostle Paul, he was a great man. You know, it’s interesting in the providence of God. He focuses the attention of these people that live on Malta. 276 people come in and you got Roman soldiers and a centurion. You got the merchant men and the head of the merchant ship. You then you got the prisoners, you know, and the one who they get focused on in the immediate aftermath of the landing is Paul, the servant of God, the man who has come to them on a mission from God, you see, who’s an ambassador for Christ.

He focuses their attention on him, not on the centurion, not on the soldiers, not on the merchant, not on the owner of the ship, etc. He focuses them on Paul. Paul’s the big guy here, but Paul and Paul knows all this, of course. He knows that the world revolves around Christ’s emissaries and he is the head of this band of emissaries. But he doesn’t let that give him pride. He still goes and gathers sticks.

And our children should be taught. They’re sons of the king, daughters of the king. They should have that kind of correct pride in their position and bearing and standing with Christ. But it should never be somehow seen as something that they have earned a right in themselves or that exempts them from diligence and work. It should make them more diligent. And Paul’s the example here, the one who goes out and gathers these sticks.

And we can look at that as a moral lesson. We can look at the bravery of Paul. We can tell our kids, hey, you know, when Paul got bit by that snake, what would you have done? Ah, you know, cried out. But Paul, the text says, he shook off the snake. And I it doesn’t tell us a lot about how he handled, but Matthew Henry again comments on Paul’s calmness. Apparently, in the context of the text, there’s no indication he cried out or screamed, went running around or anything.

He just shook the thing off. So, we can look at Paul as an example of moral courage as well. His heart was fixed trusting in the Lord. He has an anchor. He’s anchored to the Lord Jesus Christ. And if we anchor ourselves to the Lord Jesus Christ, when the exigencies of life come at us and the storms blow and the power goes down or your house crashes, whatever it is, we’re not stoic, but we’re not pagan. We’re not frightened.

We don’t run around like chickens with our heads cut off. Our children should be taught to have their hope fixed, trusting in the Lord. And the other a sobriety that comes in the context of difficulties. There’s a need for action. He’s got to shake the snake off his hand. He doesn’t panic. Pan, you know, supposedly was the one who would cause panic to come into the hearts of people. This demon Pan would strike panic in people’s hearts.

And our children should be immune from that as they learn to center themselves in the personal work of Christ and recognize that a sovereign God directs the affairs of life, whether it’s a snake or whatever it is. We can look at Paul’s courage. We could even have a little bit of fun and talk about the courage of the snake. You know, the snake, he’s not the devil, you know. I mean, the snake is a picture of Satan sometimes, but the snake isn’t the devil.

This is one of God’s creatures. And this is a creature that God commanded to bite Paul. And if the snake could think, which I know he can’t, but if he could, he’d realize, well, I’m, you know, not going to come out of this encounter in a good way. This is God’s messenger here is the one going. It’s the advent of Christ to these people. I got to fight this guy. I’m going to my death. I’m going to the fire.

You bit him anyway. While the snake can’t think. We can. And sometimes we can see that the course of obedience for us requires courage to the point of death and we have to face things. We’ve got to do what’s right. Even though we may be shaken off into fire and into our own death, we have to have courage as we face that difficulty.

And so we can look at all those moral lessons. But the big deal here of course are not these moral lessons. The big deal in this text is that the Christian is delivered from the bite of the serpent. And I want to I want us to think about that a little bit here. I want us to think that we don’t want to miss the main point of this text. And I believe the main point of the text is that we’re delivered from the bite of the serpent. We’re delivered. Deliverance is what’s being written here in real big huge letters.

You know, this text to carries with it imported meaning from the all the scriptures the early opening chapters of man’s sin and then God promising the deliverer who would come and crush the head of the serpent you see and the seed of the serpent and here we have one of those visible beastlike im pictures of the offspring of Satan the snake isn’t that but it’s a picture of that and the scriptures want us to think that way and they want us to think that hey you know Jesus wins the snake can has no effect upon the Christian were delivered.

And I think if we look at again at the interesting ways this text are written, we can see a couple of things. First of all, Paul is delivered from bands of dry sticks. It’s interesting as I said that he doesn’t just b the word for bundling the sticks up. The only other couple of places it’s used in the New Testament are places where men are bundled up together in convocation. In Acts 19:40, we’re in danger to be called in question for this day’s uproar.

There being no cause whatsoever we may give on account of this concourse, this banding together of men to try to do something which is to persecute Paul and his people. Acts 23:12, when it was day, certain of the Jews banded together, twisted themselves together like Paul twisted these sticks together, bound themselves under a curse unless they could they wouldn’t eat unless they’re going to till they killed Paul.

So the other places this word is used in Acts is a picture of dry by dry sticks. Dry sticks. No life in them. No ability for spiritual generation. Unics is a picture of that. A dry stick, so to speak. No power of physical generation. These men are spiritual unics, the opponents to the to the Lord Jesus Christ and his people. They’re dry sticks who are banded together by the presence of God’s missionary, the Apostle Paul.

And they come together in concourse to hurt Paul. You see, now I know I’m analogizing the text. But understand that this is certainly true not based not on this text but based on other texts and this text is a picture for us of men being banded together as sticks and striking out at God’s people. So persecutors think about the fact that Paul has been in the concourse of interesting groups of people now throughout the last uh couple of weeks here on this boat.

There were bands of soldiers. There were bands of merchant men. The soldiers wanted to kill all the prisoners including Paul. The bands of merchant men wanted to abandon the ship and leave everybody to be shipwrecked and killed. And the only other band of people on the ship were men who were sentenced to death. Probably most of them murderers. So Paul is in the context of three groups of people all motivated by self-interest and no desire to help him.

But God delivers him from all those bands of dry sticks. So the scriptures tell us that in the context of people that concourse together, that band themselves together against the work of Christ and against us. He wants our hearts to be set at calm that he can and usually does deliver us physically and always will deliver us spiritually from their attacks.

Secondly, Paul is delivered from the wild beast. The text tells us it uses the term viper or venomous serpent here, but it also uses the word in the subsequent verse wild beast or beast. So, it identifies the serpent as a beast. And the word beast is used throughout scripture in various ways. In the scriptures we read that the Lord Jesus in Mark 1:13 in his temptation in the wilderness was amongst the wild beasts and the implication is they heard him not in the context of his cohabiting with them in the wilderness.

Beasts the animals of the earth are mixed up with being hurting men because of the fall. It’s my belief. The scriptures tell us that as the gospel of Christ go forward, reconciliation is played out in the world. Reconciliation of men with God, reconciliation of men with men, and reconciliation of the creation with man as well. You know that the as time moves on, the world doesn’t war against man.

God brings it into position of cooperation with man. Interestingly, James says when he talks about the tongue and the need to tame the tongue. He says that every beast has been tamed by men. Now, you know, he’s probably talking about the fact that, you know, people would tame beasts and they could tame big beasts, lions, whatever it is. But I think we could say, and I know by way of analogy, that metaphorically Jesus Christ has tamed every wild beast for us.

He is the king of kings and he’s the one who brings reconciliation to the world. The scriptures tell us prophetically that we’ll get to the place where the lion will die, lie down at the lamb. The beasts will no longer be at war with each other. And I think that means more than just the nations represented by those symbols. I think it’s the outworking of this taming of wild beasts by the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul is delivered from a wild beast here. A picture of the conflict between men and beasts that exists prior to the coming of Jesus Christ and that Jesus Christ coming an advent that we celebrate this time of year begins to roll back as far as the curse is found. A picture of the curse is the enmity between man and the creation. The vegetation fighting against us in our e effort to produce food and the beast fighting against us as we attempt to tame the earth.

But all these things are reversed by the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, the scriptures tell us, of course, that wild beasts also are pictures of men, not just of the beasts that have been tamed by God. They’re pictures of men. In 1 Corinthians 15:32, Paul says that he struggled that he fought with beasts at Ephesus. God delivered him from what he refers to as beasts as Ephesus. So beasts are Ephesians.

Paul says in Titus 1 that one of the cretins prophets says correctly that the cretins are always wild beasts. Okay, evil beasts that Paul delivers is delivered by God from the beasts of Ephesus, the beast of the cretins. The scriptures tell us that uh the beasts represent nations outside of God’s covenant people. Remember when Peter has the thing layered led down the thing with the things to eat in it.

They’re wild beasts in there, unclean beasts. And God says he’s going to bring those wild beasts into the kingdom. That’s the whole point. The Ephesians, the cretins, and as Paul looks forward, the Romans, those wild beasts are going to be brought into the kingdom of God. And God’s people will be delivered from those people. Not always physically, but ultimately spiritually, of course, and ultimately even physically, the nations will own King Jesus.

And the wild beasts will be tamed by the preaching of the gospel. And I believe that Paul probably felt some assurance as he did every time he was delivered that as he went to Rome where great danger he knew would lay to him that he would be delivered long enough to get his message and his gospel across. And that’s what we’ll see at the end of the text. Acts 28 ends with him in his own home for years there preaching the gospel.

And so we should see the same thing as we send missionaries out and as we go out amongst the wild beasts in our culture. God gives us the assurance that we’re delivered from wild beasts and from serpents. So, we’re delivered. We’re delivered as Paul is delivered from bands of wicked men. We’re delivered from wild beasts that are simply outside the kingdom of God. And then, of course, all this is pictured ultimately in the context of us being delivered from Satan’s attacks.

These attacks that we’re talking about here are attacks upon Paul from the serpent, which is a picture of the serpent, the great serpent, Satan, and his offspring. Jesus talked about the Pharisees and Sadducees as a generation of vipers. Offspring of snakes and they’re the ones who are going to attack Paul. And they did attack Paul, but Paul is delivered from Satan’s attacks through the emissaries of these banded sticks and these wild beasts of other nations.

The scriptures tell us that Paul is delivered from the generations of vipers. And as it is with us, the offspring of the serpent, that group that is an antithetical enmity against the people of God that Dr. Bahnsen told us so much about, we are delivered for that. Those people and essentially their progenitor, the great serpent, Satan. And so as this text brings us an awareness of our deliverance made usually physically and always spiritually from the attack of Satan, we are reminded of the great peace we have at this time of the year.

The Lord Jesus came that we might not die eternally. And so we have great comfort as Dr. Bahnsen left his body in the flesh. He preached the Sunday before that be absent from the body to be present with the Lord. And Greg Bahnsen, who was such a light and friend to this church, is present with the Lord.

Ultimately, the scorpion’s tail that struck at Dr. Bahnsen had no sting to it in the context of death and the attacks of the adversary, the devil, because ultimately Dr. Bahnsen now resides in heaven with our savior. And so, the scorpion sting is what we’re delivered from. And with Christmas means nothing else. It means the advent of the one who has brought us deliverance and salvation and health from Jesus Christ. Christ.

And so Paul is delivered from Satan’s attacks. The scriptures tell us that we are also even more than this. The scriptures tell us indeed that Psalm 91:13, you shall tread upon the lion and out of the young lion of the dragon shalt thou trample underfoot. Indeed, Romans 16:20, the God of peace shall bruise Satan unto your feet shortly. We’re not just not hurt by the serpent. We shake it off into fire. Okay? He’s judged by us. by our actions. Paul says when you go to a nation, a person who’s a wild beast perhaps, and they reject your message, you leave and you shake the dust off your feet. They’re dust and they’re the serpent and you’re shaking them off your feet.

You are in control, not you personally, the Lord Jesus Christ as he goes with you. Christians rule the earth. And by Christians judicial actions making clear the judgments of God upon people that reject the gospel, those people and Satan himself so to speak, is cast into fire and destruction. And ultimately, of course, that is the residing place of the devil and all who follow him, the eternal fire.

But in time and space, the emissaries of Jesus Christ, as they preach the gospel of his advent, also declare his judgments and shake the unbelieving bands of dry sticks who attack the gospel of Christ, shake the wild beasts that will not be tamed in terms of submission to the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, and shake essentially those emissaries of Satan who seek with a scorpion’s tail to hurt Christians.

We shake those men into judgment. God says that’s the authority we have. And more than that, he says that’s what’s going to happen. Romans 16. He’s shortly going to do that. He’s going to bruise Satan under your feet. Now, you’ll notice that I’ve avoided a couple of words in this section. The word is sinless murderer. We don’t see life as a big, you know, arm wrestling match between God and Satan and God wins.

See, that’s not what’s going on. If Satan is the picture pictured in the in the serpent’s attack, the scorpion’s tail and its sting that God removes the sting of death from is ultimately the righteous judgments go of God against murderers. We read in Revelation chapter 9 that there came out of the smoke a locust upon the earth and none of them was given power by God. Obviously, as the scorpions of the earth have power.

And it was thus commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree, but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. The serpent that comes out, the scorpions with the sting ultimately are not Satan’s emissaries. Ultimately, God sends forth his judgments upon men who are unbaptized, don’t have the seal of God on their forehead.

called the Lord Jesus Christ’s own. It’s God’s righteous judgments against murderers that’s inhab snakes abite man ultimately. Okay, it’s a picture of God’s righteous judgment. Men who hate God hate the image of God in their brother and they strike out at him and God brings righteous judgments against such men. The scriptures tell us over and over again that those who are wicked suffer the judgments of God.

Now when it says that the men from Malta when they saw nothing a miss in Paul then they said he was God. What it means the intent there of course is that there was nothing physically happening to him. But that word a miss is another funny word in this text. Every other place it’s used in scripture it talks about uh moral difficulties or moral sin. moral problems. For instance, Luke 23:41, the robbers are saying, “We indeed justly wear on the cross justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds, but this man hath done nothing amiss.”

Same word amiss there. See, Jesus is morally perfect. Acts 25:5, “Let them therefore say he which among you are able, go down with me and accuse this man, if there be any wickedness in him, anything amiss in him.” You see, ultimately the one who is delivered, who’s not really receiving just recompense for his sins, are the ones who are completely innocent morally.

You know, the barbarians were half right when they said that Paul, having survived the shipwreck attack by a serpent, is a murderer. He was. Paul said that he voted with the synagogue to put innocent, godly men and women to death. He said he held the coat for those that stoned Stephen. Paul confessed himself to be a murderer, a murderer of the worst kind, a murderer of the righteous because they were righteous. Paul did deserve death. And Paul, apart from the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, was amiss morally, but he was delivered. This murderer was delivered because he’s sinless.

Well, he’s not sinless in his practical experience, but he has the sinlessness and the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ imputed to his account. And that’s why this sinless murderer is delivered from the attacks of the dry sticks who are ungodly men, from the attacks of the wild beastlike nations that he would go to, from the attacks of Satan, and from the righteous judgments of God. The reason for that entire set of deliverances that we rejoice in as Christians is an acknowledgment of our own sin that we’re murderers, but we’re murderers to whom God has made atonement for our sins by casting the judgments, his righteous judgments against one who had nothing amiss, the Lord Jesus Christ, and by giving us his perfection, his moral rectitude, his righteousness.

This text is a big picture of deliverance. That’s the big deal here that we’re delivered. Praise God. But if you take pleasure in that, Then pray to God that it’s the pleasure you have of knowing that you are a murderer who has been forgiven your sins. And don’t think that’s on the basis of your goodness somehow that the serpent’s bite doesn’t hurt you. We’re going to have communion of course again today downstairs.

We have up here next week. And you know it’s a picture of the unity we’re supposed to have. And I know you all pretty well. Those of you I’ve known a long time, I’ve seen sin. I’ve probably seen all of you sin at one point or another. You’ve seen me sin. A lot of our sins aren’t obvious to one another. However, I know the sins that people that I’ve known well here all commit. We all have committed acts of murder one to the other with our tongue, with our actions, with our inactions, failing to extend grace to someone in the context of our midst.

We all sin against each other. We all murder each other in our hearts and all too often with our words and with our deeds. But praise God that the righteous judgments do to us. us have been taken for us by the Lord Jesus Christ. He came to earth to live a perfect life of rectitude for us and gives us that perfect life and to pay the price for our sins and to deliver us murderers from the righteous judgments of God.

Now with that kind of understanding, we’re called to go forth as Paul as advent of the Lord Jesus, not fearing, knowing the serpent’s night won’t affect us, knowing that even death, the final whap, of the serpent, the final wap of the scorpion’s tail against us. Even death has had its sting removed by the work of the savior and putting death to death for us. And so we can rejoice. A lot of sadness this last week with the passing of Dr. Bahnsen. But what joy we should have and our love for him is put in relationship to our understanding that he has been delivered from that final tap of the scorpion’s tail against him.

And that’s a picture of our final deliverance as well. He was strong and courageous and bold to go amongst wild beasts even in the context of the church. And many people were drawn together as dry sticks banded together against his work. And they will be against your work if you’re faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ. You do what’s right in this day and age and you will not be sung the praises like St. Frank Sinatra’s praises were sung. Even in the context of the institutional church, you will be persecuted. There’s no two ways about it. The serpent will attach itself to your hand. But God says that you stay fixed in the Lord Jesus Christ and that serpent cannot stay attached and cannot kill the work that you’ve been called to do by God.

You’ll be victorious in the Lord Jesus Christ because you’re a sinless murderer who’s been delivered from the righteous judgments of God. Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for this great message of hope for us, Lord God, and this great message of consolation to us as we mourn the death of Dr. Bahnsen. And help us, Lord God, each be led for the work you’ve called us to do individually and corporately as a church to go forth as bold as lions, Lord God, knowing that you shall shortly trample Satan and crush him under our feet.

In Jesus name we pray these things. Amen.

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Questions or comments? Okay. Any questions or comments about the sermon or anything else? Greg, great. Luther’s uh note on justification prior to our death. The our thoughts of it reminded me of Jay Gresian man when he was dying the day of his death. He sent a note to John Murray said, “I thank God for the act of obedience of Jesus Christ. Christ.”

Hmm. And it’s a sort of a theological term, but I mean that’s it seems at least my mind what he was thinking was it wasn’t enough that God sent the his wrath upon his son in our place. Without his perfect righteousness, we would still be damned. Yeah. Because we have nothing of ourselves. And that has always struck me as, you know, the real reality of a theological term like that is so important of you know the obedience of Jesus Christ to all the commandments. I uh