Why Did Paul Want the Soldiers To Remain on Board A Sinking Ship?

This is our Understanding the Scriptures segment, we are in the Book of Acts chapter 27, and we’re going to pick up with verse 26, but a little background.Paul and those who are traveling with him are about to be shipwrecked.

Dave:

Among who are many prisoners of Rome, well, in fact, he’s a prisoner of Rome.

Tom:

And the Lord has shown him that they are going to be saved if they follow, if the soldiers and the other prisoners aboard follow Paul’s direction.

Dave:

Well, even before that he warned them, you don’t take my advice, I’m telling you if you launch out now there’s going to be a great disaster to this ship and to real problems then.So they didn’t take his advice and away they went, and now the Lord has told him precisely what’s going to happen.

Tom:

Well, I’m going to pick up with verse 25, it says:“Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer:for I believe God that it shall be even as it was told me.Howbeit we must be cast upon a certain island.But when the fourteenth night was come, as we were driven up and down in Adria, about midnight the shipmen deemed that they drew near to some country.And sounded, (that is, sent out soundings to see their depth) and found it twenty fathoms:and when they had gone a little farther, they sounded again, and found it fifteen fathoms.Then fearing lest we should have fallen upon rocks, they cast four anchors out of the stern, and wished for the day.”

Dave:

By the way, this is the how Samuel Clemens got his pen name.In those days and when was I in the Navy? During the Second World War, we still had these devices.And there was a ball on the end of a rope, and you throw it out and you had markings on this rope, and so you would call out “By the Mark” 20 fathoms, that would be too deep, “By the Mark” ‘twain, because that went ahead.Then you read the mark on the rope, or whatever it was.So, that’s what they are doing, and they are finding, Wait a minute, the bottom is coming up at us pretty fast, we’ve got to do something.Fifteen fathoms, so they threw out their anchor.

Tom:

Verse 29:“Then fearing lest we should have fallen upon some rocks, they cast four anchors out of the stern, and wished for the day.And as the shipmen were about to flee out of the ship, when they had let down the boat into the sea, under color as though they would have cast anchors out of the fore ship, Paul said to the centurion and to the soldiers, Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved.”

Dave:

I don’t quite understand why that was.

Tom:

But it was God’s instructions.

Dave:

Right.Well, because they apparently were going to be essential to what would be needed in this emergency coming up.These guys are going to get in a boat and get to shore and just abandon everyone.By the way, I’ve heard of a number of cases, one recently where the captain had his first mate, or whatever, abandon the ship and got ashore.Then he said, well, he thought he could direct things better from the shore—they had run aground.

Tom:

That’s a good line.

Dave:

Yeah, the captain must stay with the ship, that’s a well known case.But Paul says these men must stay with the ship as well.

Tom:

“Then the soldiers cut off the ropes of the boat, and let her fall off.”

Dave:

That’s interesting.They are beginning to believe Paul, because it’s happening exactly as he said it would happen.If we went back earlier, he says, The Lord’s whose I am, and whom I serve.We must all have that relationship with the Lord, Whose I am and whom I serve spoke to me.Well, now they are believing and I think they are going to come to know the God that Paul is introducing them to.

Tom:

“And while the day was coming on, Paul besought them all to take meat, saying, this day is the fourteenth day that ye have tarried and continued fasting, having taken nothing.Wherefore I pray you to take some meat: for this is for your health: for there shall not a hair fall from the head of any of you.”

Dave:

Well, that’s sound advice if you are in the dark, actually these men are terrified.They don’t know what’s going to happen, they are panicking.When you are panicking you can do stupid things, and Paul says, look, calm down, everybody, we’re going to be okay.God has told me this, now what you need is a little food inside of you, you’ve got to have some strength for what lies yet ahead.

Tom:

Now Dave, this is interesting, because God said these things were going to take place. God is in charge. He’s sovereign over these things, yet these men have to participate in very practical ways.Sometimes we forget that, there are things that we need to do, even though we know what God would have us do, how we could go about it, we have to participate in effect.Not always, but I would say, most of the time.

Dave:

Well, as I often say, Christianity, you don’t just sit on a pink miracle cloud and float up to glory singing hymns.There’s work to be done, and Paul puts it very well at the end of Colossians.He says, “whereunto I labor, striving according to His working that worketh in me mightily.”So, when I say, I can do nothing, and Paul said, I can of mine own self, Jesus said it, do nothing, the Father has to do it.But that doesn’t mean, oh, I just kind of let God lift me out of the bed in the morning, and point my nose in a certain direction, where he’s got someone for me to witness to.No, we go about our work, but there is work to be done, so it’s a cooperative effort.It’s not the best term, but we are His workmanship, separated unto good works that God has before ordained that we should walk in them.So, He has something He will empower us to do, this is what He wants us to do, but we need to know, we need to walk in obedience to Him, and then we need to be about our Father’s business, as Jesus at the age of 12, said to his mother, and rebuking them to His mother and Joseph.

Tom:

And Dave, I think of the term “waiting” and I know you are familiar with this, but yes, we wait upon the Lord, but then there is another waiting that may be involved, and that is just as somebody would wait a table.There’s an active part of it, and a more passive part of it, and there’s a tension between those things.It’s like the cloud that was over the Israelites, you don’t want to go ahead of it and you don’t want to fall behind it.But it’s all a very active thing.

Dave:

It’s not easy, this Christian walk, knowing what we are to do.We trust Him, He guides.

Tom:

Well, it’s like walking on water.Remember, Jesus did it, but Peter had to get out of the boat and he could do it for a while until he took his eyes off Jesus.So that’s to me the miraculous life.We take our eyes off Jesus, we’re going to sink, but there are things that we are called to do.

Dave:

You know, Tom that reminds me of a lot of hymns that don’t quite express it.You get a little false doctrine, even in some of the old ones.One of them is, Shall We Gather at the River, Whereby an angel’s feet have trod… and so forth, or we get the picture of passing over the river into heaven.No, that was the River Jordan.Canaan was not a picture of heaven; they were still enemies, battles to be fought.Canaan was a picture of the spirit filled life on this earth, not in heaven yet.But there are so many hymns—well it sounds wonderful, but it’s really Biblical.

Tom:

Verse 35:“And when he had thus spoken, he took bread, and gave thanks to God in presence of them all:and when he had broken it, he began to eat.Then were they all of good cheer, and they also took some meat.”

Dave:

In the next verse, they’ve got a lot of people here, “And we were in all in the ship two hundred threescore and sixteen souls.” Two hundred and seventy-six people, he’s got a big crowd that he is responsible for, and they are beginning to follow his advice.They’re beginning to feel better about this, because everything that Paul has said has come to pass.So now somehow, I think these people are going to come to believe in the God that Paul is following, and it’s taken a long time.But there could be disasters that have to be experienced in our lives before we begin to really trust God, and sometimes people come to Christ that way.

Tom:

Especially if they recognize what God has done for them and how He has seen them through so many things in their life.These people are going to have to, basically jump overboard, some of them are non-swimmers, that’s going to take some real faith.