Right after Jesus had spoken to Paul, a plot by some of the Jewish leaders to murder Paul was revealed. So the Roman centurion who had Paul in custody decided to send him under very heavy guard to the Roman governor Felix in Caesarea. Although Felix knew that Paul was innocent, he kept Paul in prison as a favor to the Jewish leaders and in the hopes of getting a bribe.

After two years, Felix was replaced by another governor, Festus, who would have freed Paul had Paul not appealed his case to Caesar. (Acts 25, 26) So Paul was sent as a prisoner, along with some other prisoners, to Rome to appear before Caesar. (And I should mention that, as a result of all these things, Paul got to testify not only before the Jewish leaders, but also before two Roman governors and a king, King Agrippa, who had come to visit Festus. Jesus told his disciples that on his account they would be brought before kings and governors as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. None of these things happened by random chance. So, if something good happens to you, never say you had good luck. If something bad happens to you, never say you had bad luck. God is sovereign over all these things!)

Last week’s passage (Acts 27) was mostly about a shipwreck and the events that led up to it. The trip to Italy didn’t go very well practically from the beginning. The winds were contrary and they were making very slow progress. They finally made it to a port, Fair Havens, on the island of Crete. At that point Paul advised them that their voyage would be disastrous and would result in great loss to the ship, the cargo and to their lives, also. But the pilot and the owner of the ship both said that they should continue on. The centurion listened to them. They decided to sail to another harbor in Crete.

Shortly after they left, a storm came up and drove them along so that they had very little control over the ship. The storm lasted for many days and they finally gave up all hope of being saved. But Paul told them that an angel had stood beside him and told him that all their lives would be spared. Only the ship and its cargo would be lost. They were shipwrecked off the island of Malta after 14 days. All of them made it to shore, but the ship was lost as Paul had said. There were 276 on board. (I checked the maps. They had gone 600 miles.)

Now, before I go on, I want to toss in something else that probably isn’t too closely related to today’s passage, but depending on how you look at it is really related to everything in the Bible. And, at least from our point of view (if you’re not any more spiritual than I am, anyway) it’s the most important thing there is! (I know that Jesus is the most important thing, but this is something related to him.) Anyway, to continue, something I didn’t mention in reviewing last weeks passage was that, early in the voyage before things got very bad, they had stopped at Sidon. At Sidon, the centurion had allowed Paul to go to his friends so that they might provide for his needs.

Now, when Tom talked about the passage last week, he spent a lot of the time talking about the fact that, as believers, we need each other. We need relationships. We need to pick each other up. We need to correct and rebuke each other. We need to keep each other accountable. We need to encourage each other.

While Tom was talking, I thought about Psalm 133: “How good and pleasant it is for brothers to live together in unity!” Actually, I didn’t remember which Psalm it was, so I looked it up. But I only read the first couple of verses. Here’s the whole Psalm. It’s only three verses long. I hadn’t read the third verse. Here it is:

For there the Lord bestows his blessing, even life for evermore! That’s eternal life. I know very little about Hebrew. But I looked that verse up in several translations. It’s eternal life. Even the Greek translation of the Old Testament says it: “Life forevermore.” And this Psalm—this inspired Psalm—connects eternal life with living together with your brothers (and sisters, too, by the way) in unity!

Living in unity with your brothers and sisters is like soothing precious anointing oil on your head and on your face. It’s like the dew of Hermon falling on Mount Zion. (Mount Hermon is a snow-capped mountain range at the northern end of Palestine. It,s the source of the Jordan river and is believed to be the Mount of Transfiguration—the high mountain where God spoke in the presence of Peter, James and John—the place where God said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him.” (So, listen to Jesus.)

It’s like the dew of Hermon falling on Mount Zion. I looked up all the places where Zion occurs in the Bible. It’s used all over the place. I picked out one place from the Old Testament and one place from the New Testament and I’m going to read them. (I’m not going to say too much about them—just a few comments.) Here’s the one from the Old Testament. It’s Psalm 2. You can turn to it:

The nations conspire, the peoples plot and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Anointed One. His ‘Anointed One’ is his Messiah in the Old Testament and his Christ in the New Testament. This is about Jesus. The One enthroned in heaven says, “I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill.” It’s God who determines who will reign. Jesus will reign.

This Psalm could be a whole series of messages, but I’ll just skip down to verse 12: “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and you be destroyed in your way, for his wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.” You see how it is with Jesus? You have a choice. You can rebel against him and be destroyed. Or you can run to him and hide yourself in him—take refuge in him—and be saved. (If any of you haven’t run to Jesus to take refuge in him, don’t hesitate any longer. His wrath can flare up in a moment! Run to him! Do it!)

¹⁴Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. ¹⁵See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. ¹⁶See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. ¹⁷Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. He could bring about no change of mind, though he sought the blessing with tears. (Hebrews 12:14-17)

How did we start out? “How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!” This Hebrews passage says, “Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.” (Make every effort in Greek is pursue. It’s the same word that’s translated persecute when that’s the context. That’s how strong it is! Pursue living at peace with everyone and pursue holiness! And while we are on Greek, see to it in verses 15 and 16 is oversee. “See to it that no one misses the grace of God...” “See to it that no one is sexually immoral...” That’s the job of the overseers. In the Bible overseer is another name for elder. It’s the same office. Tom always refers to me as ‘the elder’ but he is an overseer also. And I really don’t believe that the fact that there are elders or overseers—bishops in the King James, by the way—it’s the same word—absolves any of us of our responsibility toward one another.) In any case, here’s the bottom line: You will miss the grace of God if you don’t make every effort to live at peace with all men. How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity! Let’s look at Ephesians.

^4:29Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. ³⁰And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. ³¹Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. ³²Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. ^5:1Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children ²and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. (Ephesians 4:29-5:2)

³But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people. ⁴Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. ⁵For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person— such a man is an idolater— has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. ⁶Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God's wrath comes on those who are disobedient. (Ephesians 5:3-6)

Paul says that we can be deceived—“Let no one deceive you.” And the phrase there must not be... (“...there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality...”) is in the imperative in the Greek. It’s a command. There must not be! And it’s not just a command to each of us as individuals. It’s a command to us as the church. We are all responsible to each other. We are all responsible for each other

¹⁸You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; ¹⁹to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them, ²⁰because they could not bear what was commanded: “If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned.” ²¹The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, “I am trembling with fear.” (Hebrews 12:18-21)

But the last three verses (18-21) of the passage tell us how it is for us who have come to Jesus—how it is with Jesus: “But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God.” Remember that I started off on this tangent (maybe really not a tangent—or maybe God’s tangent) looking up Zion. Let me read it all:

²²But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, ²³to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, ²⁴to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. (Hebrews 12:22-24)

Thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly! Wow! Is that what’s in our hearts? How can we ever be gloomy? “We have come to God, the judge of all men,” it says. Jesus is the judge of all men. We have come to Jesus! (And you have come in Greek, by the way, doesn’t just mean that you came at one time, but that you came and are still there. You are still at Mount Zion; you are still in the city of the living God; you are still with Jesus. If you haven’t come to Jesus, I’m sure he’s waiting. So don’t hesitate!)

Verse 24 says that we have come to Jesus who is the mediator of a new covenant. We talk about it frequently when we have the Lord’s supper. There was an old covenant that God made between himself and the Israelites when he gave the law to Moses at Mount Sinai. It was sealed by the sprinkling of the blood of sacrificial animals. It said that the man who kept God’s decrees would live. The Israelites did not keep God’s decrees. They broke them. (If anyone here has never broken any of the Ten Commandments, raise your hand... Never mind.)

That’s the old covenant. The new covenant is not sealed by the blood of sacrificial animals. It’s sealed by the blood of Jesus who was and is the perfect Lamb of God who died for the sins of the world. It’s his blood that we are sprinkled by. We enter into the new covenant by taking refuge in him. Amen.

¹Once safely on shore, we found out that the island was called Malta. ²The islanders showed us unusual kindness. They built a fire and welcomed us all because it was raining and cold. ³Paul gathered a pile of brushwood and, as he put it on the fire, a viper, driven out by the heat, fastened itself on his hand. ⁴When the islanders saw the snake hanging from his hand, they said to each other, “This man must be a murderer; for though he escaped from the sea, Justice has not allowed him to live.” ⁵But Paul shook the snake off into the fire and suffered no ill effects. ⁶The people expected him to swell up or suddenly fall dead, but after waiting a long time and seeing nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and said he was a god.

⁷There was an estate nearby that belonged to Publius, the chief official of the island. He welcomed us to his home and for three days entertained us hospitably. ⁸His father was sick in bed, suffering from fever and dysentery. Paul went in to see him and, after prayer, placed his hands on him and healed him. ⁹When this had happened, the rest of the sick on the island came and were cured. ¹⁰They honored us in many ways and when we were ready to sail, they furnished us with the supplies we needed.

¹¹After three months we put out to sea in a ship that had wintered in the island. It was an Alexandrian ship with the figurehead of the twin gods Castor and Pollux. ¹²We put in at Syracuse and stayed there three days. ¹³From there we set sail and arrived at Rhegium. The next day the south wind came up, and on the following day we reached Puteoli. ¹⁴There we found some brothers who invited us to spend a week with them. And so we came to Rome. ¹⁵The brothers there had heard that we were coming, and they traveled as far as the Forum of Appius and the Three Taverns to meet us. At the sight of these men Paul thanked God and was encouraged. ¹⁶When we got to Rome, Paul was allowed to live by himself, with a soldier to guard him.

¹⁷Three days later he called together the leaders of the Jews. When they had assembled, Paul said to them: “My brothers, although I have done nothing against our people or against the customs of our ancestors, I was arrested in Jerusalem and handed over to the Romans. ¹⁸They examined me and wanted to release me, because I was not guilty of any crime deserving death. ¹⁹But when the Jews objected, I was compelled to appeal to Caesar— not that I had any charge to bring against my own people. ²⁰For this reason I have asked to see you and talk with you. It is because of the hope of Israel that I am bound with this chain.”

²¹They replied, “We have not received any letters from Judea concerning you, and none of the brothers who have come from there has reported or said anything bad about you. ²²But we want to hear what your views are, for we know that people everywhere are talking against this sect.”

²³They arranged to meet Paul on a certain day, and came in even larger numbers to the place where he was staying. From morning till evening he explained and declared to them the kingdom of God and tried to convince them about Jesus from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets. ²⁴Some were convinced by what he said, but others would not believe. ²⁵They disagreed among themselves and began to leave after Paul had made this final statement: “The Holy Spirit spoke the truth to your forefathers when he said through Isaiah the prophet:

After the shipwreck, they all made it to shore safely. Only the ship and its cargo were destroyed. (Probably the owner of the ship didn’t think that was a small matter, but after more than 14 days of thinking you are as good as dead, it probably seemed less significant.)

Verse 2 says that the islanders showed Paul and his companions unusual kindness. Sometime non-believers seem to have more compassion than believers. More than once Paul was rescued by pagans. I think it was the work of the Holy Spirit to make sure Paul and his companions were taken care of. But, believers or not, and whether God sent them or not, we have to be careful not to think of them as being like the ravens that God sent to feed Elijah during the drought—only God’s instruments, not people. They are people that God created in his own image. I think that a lot of times we pray for God to guide people to give us favorable treatment without considering the needs of those people. (I pray for God to guide the people who are treating Mooma much more frequently than I pray for God’s grace to those same people.) It makes it seem as though we are just ‘using’ people.

Well, Paul was trying to help out with the fire that the islanders had built and was bitten by a poisonous snake. The people of the island apparently had some sort of sense of right and wrong and also a sense of justice—that the order of the universe (or whatever—maybe the gods) was such that justice would prevail. They thought that Paul must have been a murderer and that justice was being done when he was bitten by the snake. And while we are on the subject of being bitten by the snake, I want to take another small detour.

At the end of Mark’s gospel, it says that Jesus told the disciples, “And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.” (Mark 16:17, 18) The footnote says that the earliest and most reliable manuscripts don’t have these verses, so we are not really sure that Jesus said this. But, in any case, Paul was bitten by the snake and nothing bad happened to him.

However, as most of you know, because of the passage in Mark and because of what happened to Paul, there are “snake handling cults” where they deliberately handle poisonous snakes during worship services. (Every once in a while you read about someone dying. I guess they assume that the person had insufficient faith or maybe that it was God’s time for him to die, anyway. I don’t know.)

Well, I don’t think any of us would go in for snake handling. We would certainly say that God’s commandment was for us not to test him. When Satan told Jesus to jump off the top of the temple to prove he was the Son of God—“If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone,’” Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” I don’t think any of us would have jumped off the top of the temple. But do we ‘put God to the test’ in other ways. I think that we sometimes use faith as an excuse for slothfulness. We let God take care of something we should be doing ourselves—certainly not without prayer, we have no power without God, but still something we should be doing ourselves. There are probably other situations where we test God, too.

I don’t know how many Publius welcomed into his home—at least Paul and Luke the human author of Acts—maybe some others—the ship owner, the centurion—probably not whole 276 that had been aboard the ship. While they were there, Paul prayed for and healed Publius’s father. Then many others came to him and were healed. That’s all Luke tells us. I hardly can imagine that Paul didn’t preach the gospel.

And when they thought that Paul was a god, it says nothing about his trying to dissuade them as he had done in Lystra. But I have to believe that he did make sure they knew that there was a God in heaven who was in control of all his creation. Why Luke didn’t tell us about it, I don’t know. But I can’t believe that Paul didn’t preach the gospel. Does anyone know?

Praise the Lord that we have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God, that we have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, that we have come to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. Praise the Lord that we have come to Jesus.