Series: Postcards from Paul (Week 1 of 2)
Dr. Woodrow Kroll
May 28, 2010

Woodrow Kroll: Sometimes what looks like a safe harbor in life's storm can turn out to be very treacherous.

Tami Weissert: Find out why it's so important to heed God in every situation.

Woodrow Kroll: Join us for today's study. Hi, I'm Woodrow Kroll.

Tami Weissert: I'm Tami Weissert.

Woodrow Kroll: And this is Back to the Bible.

Tami Weissert: Welcome, everyone! Today, we're going to get a postcard from Paul. And Wood, you've called this Paul's Mediterranean cruise although Paul hasn't yet sailed to Rome. Can you just give us a little background to the story?

Woodrow Kroll: Yes, that's true. In Acts 21, Paul is determined to go to Jerusalem even though he knew it would be dangerous and it was. He was beaten, he was arrested. He would have been killed in a plot that was hatched by some of the Jews, but his rights as a Roman citizen saved him--at least for the moment.

So he was sent to Caesarea for trial. He was left in jail two more years and then he was tried two more times; once by Festus and again by King Agrippa.

Tami Weissert: OK, since Paul pleaded for his rights as a Roman citizen, the government really protected him and that was a good thing because the priests planned to kill him.

Woodrow Kroll: Yes, had he stayed in Jerusalem any longer, I'm sure his life would have been cut short. But the Romans moved him to Caesarea for trial and there he was kept in prison for two years. Then a change came--a new governor, Festus. He had Paul put on trial again. And at this point, Paul appealed to Caesar and Festus re-----

Tami Weissert: Wait, wait, wait! Can I say this?--because I love this line! "To Caesar you have appealed. To Caesar you shall go!"

Woodrow Kroll: Very good. He was also tried by King Agrippa but we're not going to go there today.

Tami Weissert: So at this point in our study, Paul heads to Rome for a trial in front of Caesar.

Woodrow Kroll: Yes, it's Paul's day to set sail, finally. And the postcard he sends today might have said, "Hey, I had fun at the last trial. Looking forward to the next one. Can't wait to see Rome!"

Tami Weissert: He has to get there first and as we'll see, that will prove to be very interesting. So let's pick up our study in Acts 27. It was recorded at the Sandy Cove Conference Center in Maryland.

Woodrow Kroll: Today, we receive another postcard from the apostle Paul and his Mediterranean cruise. And today, we're looking at Acts 27 because in Acts 27 he actually sets sail. This is going to be great for Paul because now he has the ability to take a cruise and go to Rome where he's always wanted to go.

Look at verse one, "And when it was decided that we should sail to Italy, they delivered Paul and some other prisoners to one named Julius, a centurion of the Augustan Regiment."

Now, let me stop there. I'm always amazed at the little details the Bible includes here. For example, it says that there are lots of prisoners, lots of people on this cruise ship with the apostle Paul.

Well that's true, if you go on a cruise today. But the cruise master is a centurion by the name of Julius. And he is a centurion, a man over 100 soldiers of the Augustan Regiment, which is a very elite Roman regiment. So we have soldiers on this cruise, under the leadership of Julius. We also have others.

In verse 2 it says, "So entering a ship at Adramyttium, we put to sea, meaning to sail along the coast of Asia. Aristarchus, a Macedonian of Thessalonica, was with us."

So now we have soldiers. We have at least one Christian going with Paul, Aristarchus, who was a Macedonian, was going with us. And who is the us? The us is the person who writes this account. Acts was written by Luke.

So the physician is also on this cruise--Paul, the physician, Aristarchus, Julius, 100 soldiers. I don't know what you had in mind for the boat that Paul would sail and be ship wrecked in; but this is not a little dingy, friends. This is a good-sized boat. In fact, if you turn over one page, to chapter 27, verse 37, it says, "In all we were two hundred and seventy-six persons on the ship." Two hundred seventy-six!

Now on these large mega-cruises that we have today, that's not very many. But that is quite an assortment of people. Put all these oddball people together, throw them into one situation, and you have a great story. This, friends, is a great story and it's in a part of the Bible we almost never, ever read, because somehow we think the Book of Acts ends with Paul's third missionary journey. And now we're looking at Paul taking his Mediterranean cruise with this kind of oddball cast of characters.

Look at verse 3, "And the next day we landed at Sidon. And Julius treated Paul kindly and gave him liberty to go to his friends and receive care." Just imagine that. Julius not only did not keep Paul on the ship, he said, "You may go visit your friends." That's how much this man trusted the apostle Paul. Now maybe he had a few soldiers tail him, in order to make sure he came back, I don't know. But nonetheless, he showed some definite kindness to the apostle here.

And then the route of passage that they are going to sail, the course that they are going to take is laid out for us in the next several verses. They are going to sail under the shelter of Cyprus, that island in the eastern part of the Mediterranean.

In verse 5, it says they come to the city of Myra, which is a city on the south coast of Asia Minor, Turkey today, on the western side. And there, verse 6, "There the centurion found an Alexandrian ship sailing to Italy, and he put us on board."

So already Paul has a change of venue. He's on one cruise ship and now when they get to this city, they put him on another cruise ship. He's changing his cruise company because apparently the food wasn't as good as he thought, on the first ship.

Or, at least they found a ship that was going where they wanted to take Paul, so they put him on another ship. But there is danger ahead, friends. And when you get into the thick of this twenty-seventh chapter, you see the danger that Paul has to warn them about.

Beginning at verse 9, "Now when much time had been spent, and sailing was now dangerous because the Fast was already over, Paul advised them saying, 'Men, I perceive that this voyage will end with disaster and much loss, not only of the cargo and ship, but also of lives.'" Now I want to stop there again.

They are now wintering in a place called Fair Havens--you see that in verse 8. They have passed with some difficulty over the island, underneath the island of Cyprus; and they're on the island of Crete now and they're at a place called Fair Havens.

Now Fair Havens apparently wasn't a very nice place to spend the winter. And they have clearly come to a point in the year when they cannot sail on the Mediterranean. Did you notice in verse 9, it says, "Because the Fast was already over?" That is the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur. That is in the fall of the year, October-November.

So it's getting into the winter season and the Mediterranean is not navigable during the winter. They know they cannot sail to Rome now. They have to wait it out on the island of Crete.

But there is a port on the island of Crete, just a little bit farther west that is wonderful to winter in and Fair Havens is not a very good port at all to winter in. So all they want to do is go a little bit farther from the center of the island of Crete to the west shore of the island of Crete. It's not a very big journey. And it's usually, friends, when we take those small journeys that we find ourselves in the most difficulty.

Tami Weissert: This is Back to the Bible with Bible teacher, Woodrow Kroll. I'm Tami Weissert.

Wood, it's funny how Fair Havens wasn't a fair haven at all. Kind of a good reminder for us that opportunities will come into our lives that may look good on the surface but they might actually take us off course so we really need to be careful.

Woodrow Kroll: And I think the lesson here is that, when God has a plan for our lives, even stormy waters are better than good times if the good times keep us from the will of God.

Tami Weissert: You gave us a great description of being thrown together with an oddball cast of characters there. Yet we see that Paul just won the confidence of most people on the ship. His upbeat, winsome attitude--it never seems to cease.

Woodrow Kroll: I really think Paul believed in the sovereignty and the gracious care of God. He didn't know what the future held for him but he certainly trusted God with his future and everything was in the hands of a caring God and Paul's life may have been fragile but he wasn't concerned.

Tami Weissert: A good example for us. Interesting to note--Luke was on this cruise. How is it that he was allowed to go with Paul?

Woodrow Kroll: Roman citizenship always bought you a lot, even travel companions, and especially a personal physician. But I think more than that, God wanted Luke along that he could be an eyewitness to everything that happened. He could accurately record the history of the early church in Acts.

Tami Weissert: Hi, this is Tami. How do you like the fun title Dr. Kroll has for this series, Postcards from Paul? I hope you're enjoying it. This is a two-week series. That's 10 studies for you to catch right here on this radio station.

But if life sort of interrupts your schedule like it has a habit of doing and you don't catch all of them or you really want to sit down and listen again, then give us a call to order all 10 studies on CD. Then you can choose the time and the place to listen--at home, on the road, or maybe while you're waiting for an appointment. And you can listen as often as you want.

So give it a try. Just call 1-800-759-2425 and ask for our current CD series called Postcards from Paul.

It's winter on the Mediterranean Sea and the ship Paul is a passenger on is sailing into troubled waters. Stay tuned to find out what happens next as our study continues here on Back to the Bible.

Woodrow Kroll: So Paul says, "Look, I have to warn you, friends. If you don't stay here in Fair Havens, there is going to be a disaster on this ship; and you're not only going to lose the ship and all the cargo, there are going to be people out there swimming for their lives."

Now are you going to trust Paul, who is not a mariner, or are you going to trust the owner of the company who has the ship. Well, let's find out. Verse 11, "Nevertheless, the centurion was more persuaded by the helmsman and the owner of the ship than by the things spoken by Paul."

So the owner of the ship says, "Thank you, Paul, I appreciate that advice, however, I need to get my cargo and my men, my crew, to a city they can stay in for the winter. I appreciate your advice. I'm not going to take it."

And the whole scenario in this chapter, friends, is the scenario of danger ahead and they had warning after warning after warning from the apostle Paul that this danger was coming and they did not pay attention to it.

In fact, Paul's postcard from the Mediterranean cruise, as you know, is going to wash up on shore and not be mailed from one of these cities because they are going to have a horrible shipwreck. And Paul knows this is coming. And he tries to warn them, but they just simply don't pay attention to what he says.

Look at verse 11 and 12, "Nevertheless the centurion was more persuaded by the helmsman and the owner of the ship than the things spoken by Paul. And because the harbor was not suitable to winter in, the majority advised to set sail from there also, if by any means they could reach Phoenix, a harbor of Crete opening toward the southwest and the northwest, and winter there."

Now, I don't know what the distance is between Fair Havens and Phoenix. It's not very far. It's on the south side of the island, so any north winds would not have any difficulty for them.

And it just seemed a most logical thing to get out of Fair Havens, even though it has a lovely name--get out of Fair Havens and get to Phoenix, because in Phoenix they have a harbor that looks to the north and a harbor that looks to the south. You could sail either direction from Phoenix. It made good sense for the company to get everybody to Phoenix.

But you know what? The great difficulty that led to the shipwreck of the apostle Paul started in the very area where they moved from Fair Havens to Phoenix. It wasn't a great distance. It wasn't out in the middle of the sea. It was along the shore. It was on a protected shore with the island north of them.

Everything was going for them except the grace of God in their behalf. And instead of paying attention to the man of God, they paid attention to the man who keeps the books. And the guy who owns the ship says, "We gotta make our money. We gotta go!"

How often things of this world have driven men to their destruction because they did not pay attention to the things of God.

You know the story of the Titanic. I've twice visited the shipyards in Belfast in Northern Ireland where the Titanic was made. I suppose if the story had turned out differently, they would put over the shipyards there, Home of the Titanic. I've never seen that over the shipyards there.

And yet as the Titanic was making that maiden voyage, across the North Sea, they received report after report of the ice flows there. They ignored every one of the reports.

Finally, when a ship that was in the area had actually seen the icebergs and had called to the Titanic to try to warn them that there were icebergs dead ahead of them, the Titanic crew was talking to Cape Race to set up the time when the chauffeurs would come and pick up the people when they got to the new world. And because they did not pay any attention to the warnings that they received, there was a great disaster.

Same thing happened December 7, l941, didn't it? Two U.S. soldiers, manning the radar station, saw all these blips on the radar screen. They told their commanding officer and their superior officers said, "Don't worry about it."

Now, can I bring this down to something that's contemporary today? When we are so driven by the profit margin, so driven by what people want, so driven by what Hollywood says ought to be the case, so driven by the loudest voice we hear rather than the softest voice of God, we're always heading for disaster.

Keep your hand there in Acts and turn just a couple of pages to Romans 1. Romans 1 speaks in verse 22 about those who professed to be wise but actually were fools. And it says this in verse 23, Romans 1:23, "They changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like the corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore, God gave them up to uncleanness."

Don't forget the phrase, "God gave them up." That means he simply delivered them over to what they wanted. God gave them up to uncleanness, to the lusts of their hearts to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie and worshiped and serve the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason, God gave them up [there it is again] (verse 24). Now verse 26, "God gave them up to vile passions, for even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due and even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting."

We are there today. We have spurned the warnings of God again and again and again and I don't know about you but, apparently those who think the Bible does not condemn homosexuality are not reading the same Bible I'm reading. And yet every time a voice is raised for God, it is drowned out by those who say, "We've got to get to Phoenix. We've got to get to the safe harbor. We have to get to where people are and we don't want to hear your message."

I want to suggest to you today, my friends, that the only way you can get a postcard from the apostle Paul, that's not going to wash up on the shore, is if you stay at Fair Havens and don't try to make that short journey to the world because that short journey always spells disaster.

And you and I know exactly what God's Word says and I think we have a pretty good understanding of what exactly God's Word means. This does not mean we do not love homosexuals, does not mean we do not love adulterers, does not mean we do not love the people that are identified in this passage.

We do! We don't condone their sin, and we don't love their sin. But God died for them just like He died for us. But we can never take the love of God to them and at the same time allow them to think that there is not a warning from God, if they do not abandon their lifestyle.

So let me encourage you today. Paul was the only voice that spoke up at Fair Havens and said, "Don't go!!"

Everybody else said, "We gotta go! It's the way the world is going. It's what everybody wants."

And generally, when everybody wants something that God does not want them to have, they get it, in more ways than one. And the whole shipwreck incident in this passage came as a result of leaving one little village to try to sail a safe passage along the southern shore of a large island to a second little village and disobey the will of God at the same time.

And even though Paul warned them, they decided they knew better than God and they took their chances and they lost.

Tami Weissert: It sounds like a shipwreck is imminent. This is Tami Weissert along with Bible teacher, Woodrow Kroll, here on Back to the Bible.

OK, Wood, lots of thoughts on today's teaching. First, if we're in a situation like Paul where we are diligently trying to give godly advice and it's just not falling on receptive ears, what do we do?

Woodrow Kroll: Tami, our responsibility isn't to get people to listen; our responsibility is to get people to hear. So they make their own decisions. We provide the information necessary for them to make a decision for God and a decision for good. Even if our godly advice is falling on unreceptive ears, we still have the responsibility to speak for God.

Tami Weissert: So is there a point when enough is enough or a point where we can just wash our hands of the situation?

Woodrow Kroll: I don't know that we want to wash our hands of the situation. There is a point at which we recognize though that we are not making progress and maybe we need to step back, take another approach, give a little time. But ultimately, this is a decision that an individual has to make for God.

Tami Weissert: Let's turn the tables a little. Sometimes we can get so blinded to reality that we head right down a wrong path, I mean just running right down it. How do we guard against that?

Woodrow Kroll: When we talk about the Holy Spirit being our guide, that's not just idle talk. We have to trust God's Spirit. We have to trust His every move in our lives. And I think when He impresses something on us, when He impresses us with what is biblical truth (by that I mean we know for sure it comes from the Holy Spirit because it is backed up by the Bible), that's when we move forward.

It's not reality that causes us to forge forward; it's the reality of the Holy Spirit. So if we're going down the wrong path, the Holy Spirit's not going to allow us to go down that path. He won't go down it with us. That's when we guard against doing the wrong thing.

Tami Weissert: Well, as we continue today, I'd like to remind everyone to call for their free copy of Meet with God.

Woodrow Kroll: Hey, Tami, did you see the May issue?

Tami Weissert: You know, I did. It's pretty creative. It's all about Postcards from Paul.

Woodrow Kroll: Yes, and it includes several illustrations of postcards that Paul might have written. One of them reads, "In prison with Silas, but we're singing. Acoustics are great. All the best, Paul"

Tami Weissert: I saw that one. I loved it. May is just an outstanding issue and June is another good one. It's called, God Loves You Even When.

Woodrow Kroll: And we want to let everyone know that meet with God is a wonderful tool for your personal Bible study. But you know what? It also works very well in group settings.

Tami Weissert: Yes, and it even includes a special section called "Fun Zone" that helps us share the study with our whole family.

Woodrow Kroll: Sounds like there's something for everyone. So, Meet with God. Did we leave anything out?

Tami Weissert: I think we just need to repeat the fact that Meet with God is free.

Woodrow Kroll: Ah, yes. Free, at no cost, no shipping fees. See, Meet with God is a gift to all of you, our listeners, from Back to the Bible. So please call and get your free issue of Meet with God.

Tami Weissert: Thanks for that, Wood. I couldn't have said it better. So call us at 1-800-759-2425 for your free issue of Meet with God.

Well, kind of a fun and unique way to present your teaching this week, Wood, with the whole postcard idea. So where will Paul's postcards come from next week?

Woodrow Kroll: Initially, they're going to come from several islands--from Crete and from Malta and then the little town of Puteoli which is the seaport where he docked on his way to Rome. But you know what? Every one of these postcards is going to give us hope and is going to spur us on in our walk with God.

Well, the weekend is here and I know you are going to want to be in your place this weekend serving the Lord in your local church. But join us on Monday because we're going to see what happens when God sends a hurricane in the path of Paul's ship. If you've ever been in troubled waters, I think you can identify with what Paul is going through, this coming Monday. Join us, won't you?

Thanks for being here today. God bless you. I'm Woodrow Kroll. Have a good and godly day.

Scripture used in today's program was based on the New King James Version of the Bible.