Expositions of Holy Scripture: the Acts Part 52

IV. Lastly, we have here an example of a soul close to the light, but pa.s.sing into the dark.

Agrippa listens to Paul; Bernice listens; Festus listens. And what comes of it? Only this, 'And when they were gone aside, they talked between themselves, saying, This man hath done nothing worthy of death or of bonds.' May I translate into a modern equivalent: And when they were gone aside, they talked between themselves, saying, 'This man preached a very impressive sermon,' or, 'This man preached a very wearisome sermon,' and there an end.

Agrippa and Bernice went their wicked way, and Festus went his, and none of them knew what a fateful moment they had pa.s.sed through. Ah, brethren! there are many such in our lives when we make decisions that influence our whole future, and no sign shows that the moment is any way different from millions of its undistinguished fellows. It is eminently so in regard to our relation to Jesus Christ and His Gospel.

These three had been in the light; they were never so near it again.

Probably they never heard the Gospel preached any more, and they went away, not knowing what they had done when they silenced Paul and left him. Now you will probably hear plenty of sermons in future. You may or you may not. But be sure of this, that if you go away from this one, unmelted and unbelieving, you have not done a trivial thing. You have added one more stone to the barrier that you yourself build to shut you out from holiness and happiness, from hope and heaven. It is not I that ask you the question, it is not Paul that asks it, Jesus Christ Himself says to you, as He said to the blind man, 'Dost thou believe on the Son of G.o.d?' or as He said to the weeping sister of Lazarus, 'Believest thou this?' O dear friends, do not answer like this arrogant bit of a king, but cry with tears, 'Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief!'

TEMPEST AND TRUST

And when the south wind blew softly, supposing that they had obtained their purpose, loosing thence, they sailed close by Crete. 14. But not long after there arose against it a tempestuous wind, called Euroclydon. 15. And when the ship was caught, and could not bear up into the wind, we let her drive. 16. And running under a certain island which is called Clauda, we had much work to come by the boat: 17. Which when they had taken up, they used helps, undergirding the ship; and, fearing lest they should fall into the quicksands, strake sail, and so were driven. 18. And we being exceedingly tossed with a tempest, the next day they lightened the ship; 19. And the third day we cast out with our own hands the tackling of the ship. 20. And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away. 21. 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. 22. And now I exhort you to be of good cheer: for there shall be no loss of any man's life among you, but of the ship. 23. For there stood by me this night the angel of G.o.d, whose I am, and whom I serve, 24. Saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought before Caesar: and, lo, G.o.d hath given thee all them that sail with thee. 25. Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe G.o.d, that it shall be even as it was told me. 26. Howbeit we must be cast upon a certain island.'--ACTS xxvii. 13-26.

Luke's minute account of the shipwreck implies that he was not a Jew.

His interest in the sea and familiarity with sailors' terms are quite unlike a persistent Jewish characteristic which still continues. We have a Jew's description of a storm at sea in the Book of Jonah, which is as evidently the work of a landsman as Luke's is of one who, though not a sailor, was well up in maritime matters. His narrative lays hold of the essential points, and is as accurate as it is vivid. This section has two parts: the account of the storm, and the grand example of calm trust and cheery encouragement given in Paul's words.

I. The consultation between the captain of the vessel and the centurion, at which Paul a.s.sisted, strikes us, with our modern notions of a captain's despotic power on his own deck, and single responsibility, as unnatural. But the centurion, as a military officer, was superior to the captain of an Alexandrian corn-ship, and Paul had already made his force of character so felt that it is not wonderful that he took part in the discussion. Naturally the centurion was guided by the professional rather than by the amateur member of the council, and the decision was come to to push on as far and fast as possible.

The ship was lying in a port which gave scanty protection against the winter weather, and it was clearly wise to reach a more secure harbour if possible. So when a gentle southerly breeze sprang up, which would enable them to make such a port, westward from their then position, they made the attempt. For a time it looked as if they would succeed, but they had a great headland jutting out in front which they must get round, and their ability to do this was doubtful. So they kept close in sh.o.r.e and weathered the point. But before they had made their harbour the wind suddenly chopped round, as is frequent of that coast, and the gentle southerly breeze turned into a fierce squall from the north-east or thereabouts, sweeping down from the Cretan mountains. That began their troubles. To make the port was impossible. The unwieldy vessel could not 'face the wind,' and so they had to run before it. It would carry them in a south-westerly direction, and towards a small island, under the lee of which they might hope for some shelter. Here they had a little breathing time, and could make things rather more ship-shape than they had been able to do when suddenly caught by the squall. Their boat had been towing behind them, and had to be hoisted on deck somehow.

A more important, and probably more difficult, task was to get strong hawsers under the keel and round the sides, so as to help to hold the timbers together. The third thing was the most important of all, and has been misunderstood by commentators who knew more about Greek lexicons than ships. The most likely explanation of 'lowering the gear'

(Rev. Ver.) is that it means 'leaving up just enough of sail to keep the ship's head to the wind, and bringing down everything else that could be got down' (Ramsay, _St. Paul_, p. 329).

Note that Luke says 'we' about hauling in the boat, and 'they' about the other tasks. He and the other pa.s.sengers could lend a hand in the former, but not in the latter, which required more skilled labour. The reason for bringing down all needless top-hamper, and leaving up a little sail, was to keep the vessel from driving on to the great quicksands off the African coast, to which they would certainly have been carried if the wind held.

As soon as they had drifted out from the lee of the friendly little island they were caught again in the storm. They were in danger of going down. As they drifted they had their 'starboard' broadside to the force of the wild sea, and it was a question how long the vessel's sides would last before they were stove in by the hammering of the waves, or how long she would be buoyant enough to ship seas without foundering. The only chance was to lighten her, so first the crew 'jettisoned' the cargo, and next day, as that did not give relief enough,'they,' or, according to some authorities, 'we'--that is pa.s.sengers and all--threw everything possible overboard.

That was the last attempt to save themselves, and after it there was nothing to do but to wait the apparently inevitable hour when they would all go down together. Idleness feeds despair, and despair nourishes idleness. Food was scarce, cooking it was impossible, appet.i.te there was none. The doomed men spent the long idle days--which were scarcely day, so thick was the air with mist and foam and tempest--crouching anywhere for shelter, wet, tired, hungry, and hopeless. So they drifted 'for many days,' almost losing count of the length of time they had been thus. It was a gloomy company, but there was one man there in whom the lamp of hope burned when it had gone out in all others. Sun and stars were hidden, but Paul saw a better light, and his sky was clear and calm.

II. A common danger makes short work of distinctions of rank. In such a time some hitherto unnoticed man of prompt decision, resource, and confidence, will take the command, whatever his position. Hope, as well as timidity and fear, is infectious, and one cheery voice will revive the drooping spirits of a mult.i.tude. Paul had already established his personal ascendency in that motley company of Roman soldiers, prisoners, sailors, and disciples. Now he stands forward with calm confidence, and infuses new hope into them all. What a miraculous change pa.s.ses on externals when faith looks at them! The circ.u.mstances were the same as they had been for many days. The wind was howling and the waves pounding as before, the sky was black with tempest, and no sign of help was in sight, but Paul spoke, and all was changed, and a ray of sunshine fell on the wild waters that beat on the doomed vessel.

Three points are conspicuous in his strong tonic words. First, there is the confident a.s.surance of safety. A less n.o.ble nature would have said more in vindication of the wisdom of his former advice. It is very pleasant to small minds to say, 'Did I not tell you so? You see how right I was.' But the Apostle did not care for petty triumphs of that sort. A smaller man might have sulked because his advice had not been taken, and have said to himself, 'They would not listen to me before, I will hold my tongue now.' But the Apostle only refers to his former counsel and its confirmation in order to induce acceptance of his present words.

It is easy to 'bid' men 'be of good cheer,' but futile unless some reason for good cheer is given. Paul gave good reason. No man's life was to be lost though the ship was to go. He had previously predicted that life, as well as ship and lading, would be lost if they put to sea. That opinion was the result of his own calculation of probabilities, as he lets us understand by saying that he 'perceived'

it (ver. 10). Now he speaks with authority, not from his perception, but from G.o.d's a.s.surance. The bold words might well seem folly to the despairing crew as they caught them amidst the roar of tempest and looked at their battered hulk. So Paul goes at once to tell the ground of his confidence--the a.s.surance of the angel of G.o.d.

What a contrast between the furious gale, the almost foundering ship, the despair in the hearts of the sleeping company, and the bright vision that came to Paul! Peter in prison, Paul in Caesarea and now in the storm, see the angel form calm and radiant. G.o.d's messengers are wont to come into the darkest of our hours and the wildest of our tempests.

Paul's designation of the heavenly messenger as 'an angel of the G.o.d whose I am, whom also I serve,' recalls Jonah's confession of faith, but far surpa.s.ses it, in the sense of belonging to G.o.d, and in the ardour of submission and of active obedience, expressed in it. What Paul said to the Corinthians (1 Cor. vi. 19) he realised for himself: 'Ye are not your own; for ye were bought with a price.' To recognise that we are G.o.d's, joyfully to yield ourselves to Him, and with all the forces of our natures to serve Him, is to bring His angel to our sides in every hour of tempest and peril, and to receive a.s.surance that nothing shall by any means harm us. To yield ourselves to be G.o.d's is to make G.o.d ours. It was because Paul owned that he belonged to G.o.d, and served Him, that the angel came to him, and he explains the vision to his hearers by his relation to G.o.d. Anything was possible rather than that his G.o.d should leave him unhelped at such an hour of need.

The angel's message must have included particulars unnoticed in Luke's summary; as, for instance, the wreck on 'a certain island.' But the two salient points in it are the certainty of Paul's own preservation, that the divine purpose of his appearing before Caesar might be fulfilled, and the escape of all the ship's company. As to the former, we may learn how Paul's life, like every man's, is shaped according to a divine plan, and how we are 'immortal till our work is done,' and till G.o.d has done His work in and on and by us. As to the latter point, we may gather from the word 'has _given_' the certainty that Paul had been praying for the lives of all that sailed with him, and may learn, not only that the prayers of G.o.d's servants are a real element in determining G.o.d's dealings with men, but that a true servant of G.o.d's will ever reach out his desires and widen his prayers to embrace those with whom he is brought into contact, be they heathens, persecutors, rough and careless, or fellow-believers. If Christian people more faithfully discharged the duty of intercession, they would more frequently receive in answer the lives of 'all them that sail with'

them over the stormy ocean of life.

The third point in the Apostle's encouraging speech is the example of his own faith, which is likewise an exhortation to the hearers to exercise the same. If G.o.d speaks by His angel with such firm promises, man's plain wisdom is to grasp the divine a.s.surance with a firm hand.

We must build rock upon rock. 'I believe G.o.d,' that surely is a credence demanded by common sense and warranted by the sanest reason.

If we do so believe, and take His word as the infallible authority revealing present duty and future blessings, then, however lowering the sky, and wild the water, and battered the vessel, and empty of earthly succour the gloomy horizon, and heavy our hearts, we shall 'be of good cheer,' and in due time the event will warrant our faith in G.o.d and His promise, even though all around us seems to make our faith folly and our hope a mockery.

A SHORT CONFESSION OF FAITH

'...There stood by me this night the angel of G.o.d, whose I am, and whom I serve.'--ACTS xxvii. 23.

I turn especially to those last words, 'Whose I am and whom I serve.'

A great calamity, borne by a crowd of men in common, has a wonderful power of dethroning officials and bringing the strong man to the front.

So it is extremely natural, though it has been thought to be very unhistorical, that in this story of Paul's shipwreck he should become guide, counsellor, inspirer, and a tower of strength; and that centurions and captains and all the rest of those who held official positions should shrink into the background. The natural force of his character, the calmness and serenity that came from his faith--these things made him the leader of the bewildered crowd. One can scarcely help contrasting this shipwreck--the only one in the New Testament--with that in the Old Testament. Contrast Jonah with Paul, the guilty stupor of the one, down 'in the sides of the ship' cowering before the storm, with the calm behaviour and collected courage of the other.

The vision of which the Apostle speaks does not concern us here, but in the words which I have read there are several noteworthy points. They bring vividly before us the essence of true religion, the bold confession which it prompts, and the calmness and security which it ensures. Let us then look at them from these points of view.

I. We note the clear setting forth of the essence of true religion.

Remember that Paul is speaking to heathens; that his present purpose is not to preach the Gospel, but to make his own position clear. So he says 'the G.o.d'--never mind who _He_ is at present--'the G.o.d to whom I belong '--that covers all the inward life--'and whom I serve'--that covers all the outward.

'Whose I am.' That expresses the universal truth that men belong to G.o.d by virtue of their being the creatures of His hand. As the 100th Psalm says, according to one, and that a probably correct reading, 'It is He that hath made us, and _we are His_.' But the Apostle is going a good deal deeper than any such thoughts, which he, no doubt, shared in common with the heathen men around him, when he declares that, in a special fashion, G.o.d had claimed him for His, and he had yielded to the claim. 'I am Thine,' is the deepest thought of this man's mind and the deepest feeling of his heart. And that is G.o.dliness in its purest form, the consciousness of belonging to G.o.d. We must interpret this saying by others of the Apostle's, such as, 'Ye are not your own, ye are bought with a price. Therefore, glorify G.o.d in your bodies and spirits which are His.' He traces G.o.d's possession of him, not to that fact of creation (which establishes a certain outward relationship, but nothing more), nor even to the continuous facts of benefits showered upon his head, but to the one transcendent act of the divine Love, which gave itself to us, and so acquired us for itself. For we must recognise as the deepest of all thoughts about the relations of spiritual beings, that, as in regard to ourselves in our earthly affections, so in regard to our relations with G.o.d, there is only one way by which a spirit can own a spirit, whether it be a man on the one side and a woman on the other, or whether it be G.o.d on the one side and a man on the other, and that one way is by the sweetness of complete and reciprocal love. He who gives himself to G.o.d gets G.o.d for himself. So when Paul said, 'Whose I am,' he was thinking that he would never have belonged either to G.o.d or to himself unless, first of all, G.o.d, in His own Son, had given Himself to Paul. The divine ownership of us is only realised when we are consciously His, because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Brethren, G.o.d does not count that a man belongs to Him simply because He made him, if the man does not feel his dependence, his obligation, and has not surrendered himself. He in the heavens loves you and me too well to care for a formal and external ownership. He desires hearts, and only they who have yielded themselves unto G.o.d, moved thereto by the mercies of G.o.d, and especially by the encyclopaediacal mercy which includes all the rest in its sweep, only they belong to Him, in the estimate of the heavens.

And if you and I are His, then that involves that we have deposed from his throne the rebel Self, the ancient Anarch that disturbs and ruins us. They who belong to G.o.d cease to live to themselves. There are two centres for human life, and I believe there are only two--the one is G.o.d, the other is my wretched self. And if we are swept, as it were, out of the little orbit that we move in, when the latter is our centre, and are drawn by the weight and ma.s.s of the great central sun to become its satellites, then we move in a n.o.bler orbit and receive fuller and more blessed light and warmth. They who have themselves for their centres are like comets, with a wide elliptical course, which carries them away out into the cold abysses of darkness. They who have G.o.d for their sun are like planets. The old fable is true of these 'sons of the morning'--they make music as they roll and they flash back His light.

And then do not let us forget that this yielding of one's self to Him, swayed by His love, and this surrendering of will and purpose and affection and all that makes up our complex being, lead directly to the true possession of Him and the true possession of ourselves.

I have said that the only way by which spirit possesses spirit is by love, and that it must needs be on both sides. So we get G.o.d for ourselves when we give ourselves to G.o.d. There is a wonderful alternation of giving and receiving between the loving G.o.d and his beloved lovers; first the impartation of the divine to the human, then the surrender of the human to the divine, and then the larger gift of G.o.d to man, just as in some series of mirrors the light is flashed back from the one to the other, in bewildering manifoldness and shimmering of rays from either polished surface. G.o.d is ours when we are G.o.d's.

'And this is the covenant that I will make with them after these days, saith the Lord. I will be their G.o.d, and they shall be My people.'

And, in like manner, we never own ourselves until we have given ourselves to G.o.d. Each of us is like some feudatory prince, dependent upon an overlord. His subjects in his little territory rebel, and he has no power to subdue the insurgents, but he can send a message to the capital, and get the army of the king, who is his sovereign and theirs, to come down and bring them back to order, and establish his tottering throne. So if you desire to own yourself or to know the sweetness that you may get out of your own nature and the exercise of your powers, if you desire to be able to govern the realm within, put yourself into G.o.d's hands and say, 'I am Thine; hold Thou me up, and I shall be safe.'

I need not say more than just a word about the other side of Paul's confession of faith, 'Whom I serve.' He employs the word which means the service of a worshipper, or even of a priest, and not that which means the service of a slave. His purpose was to represent how, as his whole inward nature bowed in submission to, and was under the influence of, G.o.d to whom he belonged, so his whole outward life was a life of devotion. He was serving Him there in the ship, amidst the storm and the squalor and the terror. His calmness was service; his confidence was service; the cheery words that he was speaking to these people were service. And on his whole life he believed that this was stamped, that he was devoted to G.o.d. So _there_ is the true idea of a Christian life, that in all its aspects, att.i.tudes, and acts it is to be a manifestation, in visible form, of inward devotion to, and ownership by, G.o.d. All our work may be worship, and we may 'pray without ceasing,' though no supplications come from our lips, if our hearts are in touch with Him and through our daily life we serve and honour Him.

G.o.d's priests never are far away from their altar, and never are without, somewhat to offer, as long as they have the activities of daily duty and the difficulties of daily conflict to bring to Him and spread before Him.

II. So let me turn for a moment to some of the other aspects of these words to which I have already referred, I find in them, next, the bold confession which true religion requires.

Shipboard is a place where people find out one another very quickly.

Character cannot well be hid there. And such circ.u.mstances as Paul had been in for the last fortnight, tossing up and down in _Adria_, with Death looking over the bulwarks of the crazy ship every moment, were certain to have brought out the inmost secrets of character. Paul durst not have said to these people 'the G.o.d whose I am and whom I serve' if he had not known that he had been living day by day a consistent and G.o.dly life amongst them.

And so, I note, first of all, that this confession of individual and personal relationship to G.o.d is inc.u.mbent on every Christian. We do not need to be always brandishing it before people's faces. There is very little fear of the average Christian of this day blundering on that side. But we need, still less, to be always hiding it away. One hears a great deal from certain quarters about a religion that does not need to be vocal but shows what it is, without the necessity for words. Blessed be G.o.d! there is such a religion, but you will generally find that the people who have most of it are the people who are least tongue-tied when opportunity arises; and that if they have been witnessing for G.o.d in their quiet discharge of duty, with their hands instead of their lips, they are quite as ready to witness with their lips when it is fitting that they should do so. And surely, surely, if a man belongs to G.o.d, and if his whole life is to be the manifestation of the ownership that he recognises, that which specially reveals him--viz., his own articulate speech--cannot be left out of his methods of manifestation.

I am afraid that there are a great many professing Christian people nowadays who never, all their lives, have said to any one, 'The G.o.d whose I am and whom I serve.' And I beseech you, dear brethren, suffer this word of exhortation. To say so is a far more effectual, or at least more powerful, means of appeal than any direct invitation to share in the blessings. You may easily offend a man by saying to him, 'Won't you be a Christian too?' But it is hard to offend if you simply say that you are a Christian. The statement of personal experience is more powerful by far than all argumentation or eloquence or pleading appeals. We do more when we say, 'That which we have tasted and felt and handled of the Word of Life, declare we unto you,' than by any other means.

Only remember that the avowal must be backed up by a life, as Paul's was backed up on board that vessel. For unless it is so, the profession does far more harm than good. There are always keen critics round us, especially if we say that we are Christians. There were keen critics on board that ship. Do you think that these Roman soldiers, and the other prisoners, would not have smiled contemptuously at Paul, if this had been the first time that they had any reason to suppose that he was at all different from them? They would have said, 'The G.o.d whose _you_ are and whom _you_ serve? Why, you are just the same sort of man as if you worshipped Jupiter like the rest of us!' And that is what the world has a right to say to Christian people. The clearer our profession, the holier must be our lives.

III. Last of all, I find in these words the calmness and security which true religion secures.

The story, as I have already glanced at it in my introductory remarks, brings out very wonderfully and very beautifully Paul's prompt.i.tude, his calmness in danger, his absolute certainty of safety, and his unselfish thoughtfulness about his companions in peril. And all these things were the direct results of his entire surrender to G.o.d, and of the consistency of his daily life. It needed the angel in the vision to a.s.sure him that his life would be spared. But whether the angel had ever come or not, and though death had been close at his hand, the serenity and the peaceful a.s.surance of safety which come out so beautifully in the story would have been there all the same. The man who can say 'I belong to G.o.d' does not need to trouble himself about dangers. He will have to exercise his common sense, as the Apostle shows us; he will have to use all the means that are in his power for the accomplishment of ends that he knows to be right and legitimate.

But having done all that, he can say, 'I belong to Him,' it is His business to look after His own property. He is not going to hold His possessions with such a slack hand as that they shall slip between His fingers, and be lost in the mire. 'Thou wilt not lose the souls that are Thine in the grave, neither wilt Thou suffer the man whom Thou lovest to see corruption.' G.o.d keeps His treasures, and the surer we are that He is able to keep them unto that day, the calmer we may be in all our trouble.

And the safety that followed was also the direct result of the relationship of mutual possession and love established between G.o.d and the Apostle. We do not know to which of the two groups of the shipwrecked Paul belonged; whether he could swim or whether he had to hold on to some bit of floating wreckage or other, and so got 'safe to land.' But whichever way it was, it was neither his swimming nor the spar to which, perhaps, he clung, that landed him safe on sh.o.r.e. It was the G.o.d to whom he belonged. Faith is the true lifebelt that keeps us from being drowned in any stormy sea. And if you and I feel that we are His, and live accordingly, we shall be calm amid all change, serene when others are troubled, ready to be helpers of others even when we ourselves are in distress. And when the crash comes, and the ship goes to pieces: 'so it will come to pa.s.s that, some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship, they all come safe to land,' and when the Owner counts His subjects and possessions on the quiet sh.o.r.e, as the morning breaks, there will not be one who has been lost in the surges, or whose name will be unanswered to when the muster-roll of the crew is called.