It’s kind of a sad night because we are finishing the book of Acts. This book that started way back in Acts 1 before Jesus had even ascended to heaven where he made this promise to his followers. He said,
I’m going to send my Holy Spirit and you are going to receive power. And you are going to be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and even to the very ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
And we have been all over the place. All over the Roman empire in the book of Acts. And there’s only one place we haven’t been. A city that was arguably not just the most important city of its day, a city that was not just the most important city in the history of Western civilization but a city that can be argued is the most important city in the history of the world. And that city is of course… Cleveland. No, I’m just kidding. Rome! Yes, Rome!
Tonight, they say that all roads lead to Rome and Paul’s road will finally lead to Rome, that place that he has been longing to go to. And this is after spending several years in prison. Remember, we follow Paul from the end of the third missionary journey back to Jerusalem where he was arrested by the jealous religious leaders there. They formed a mob and he was seized by the Romans. He was transferred up to Caesarea, the feet of the Roman governor. After two years there, it became clear Paul couldn’t get a fair trial so he exercised his right as a Roman citizen to appeal to Caesar where he could go, and he can be tried before Nero, Caesar himself. And so, let’s just pick up this scene in Acts 27. He’s down here in Caesarea. And it says,
When the time came, we set sail for Italy.
So Luke is with Paul. I don’t know how Luke got aboard the prison ship. Maybe as like the physician or something? So Luke gets to go with him and it says,
Paul and several other prisoners were placed in the custody of a Roman officer named Julius, a captain of the Imperial Regiment.
So a very high ranking officer is in charge of taking these prisoners back to Rome. Julius, a guy who is going to be featured somewhat prominently in Acts 27.
Aristarchus, a Macedonian from Thessalonica, was also with us.
He was one of the guys chosen by the Thessalonians to carry this sum of money back to Jerusalem and he somehow gets on the trip. Paul calls him his fellow prisoner when he is writing Colossians. And so, I don’t know if Aristarchus got arrested or if he just got to go with him, it’s not clear. But he also gets on the ship along with Luke and a bunch of other guys.
We left on a ship whose home port was Adramyttium on the northwest coast of the province of Asia.
This was a ship coming from up near the Philippi area. It was down in Jerusalem and was heading back apparently and,
it was scheduled to make several stops at ports along the coast of the province. The next day when we docked at Sidon, Julius was very kind to Paul and let him go ashore to visit with friends so they could provide for his needs.
He is kind of getting quite a bit of freedom. Remember he is not a convicted prisoner; he is just a guy with some charges against him. And he is a Roman citizen. But Julius is being super cool, and he gets to hang out a little bit with the believers at Sidon. And he,
Put out to sea from there, we encountered strong headwinds that made it difficult to keep the ship on course.
So, you notice, whenever Paul leaves from Israel to go west, he always walks. He always comes back by ship and that is because there were these winds that made sailing ease very favorable. You could make it from Rome all the way to Egypt in just 10 days. That same journey can take upwards of 60 days going from Egypt back to Rome because you had to hug the coast because it just wasn’t safe to just sail north across the Mediterranean.
So we sailed north of Cyprus between the island and the mainland. Keeping to the open sea, we passed along the coast of Cilicia and Pamphylia, landing at Myra, in the province of Lycia. There the commanding officer found an Egyptian ship from Alexandria that was bound for Italy, and he put us on board.
This would have been a grain ship, a massive ship coming from Egypt. Egypt literally was the breadbasket of the Roman empire. They produced hundreds of thousands of tons of grain every year and it says they got on one of these grain ships.
Darrell Box says, a ship called Isis was estimated to weigh anywhere from 1,200 to 2,900 gross registered tons. Lucian (The Ship 1–9, esp. 5) describes a ship… 180 by 45 by 43.5 feet.
Darrell Bock, Acts (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007), p.733).
Massive ship. This is the kind of ship Paul would have gotten on. Why did they build these ships so big?
Suetonius, a historian, tells us of an event that happened to Emperor Claudius that led to the building of larger grain ships. It says,
“When there was a scarcity of grain because of long-continued droughts, [Claudius] was once stopped in the middle of the Forum by a mob and so pelted with abuse and at the same time with pieces of bread,
This is a very traumatic experience. I don’t know why they were throwing bread if they are in the middle of a drought. Eat the bread! Throw rocks or something!
that he was barely able to make his escape to the Palace by a back door;
He may have thought that his life was in danger because of the mob.
and after this experience he resorted to every possible means to bring grain to Rome, even in the winter season. To the merchants he held out the certainty of profit by assuming the expense of any loss that they might suffer from storms, and offered to those who would build merchant ships large bounties
Suetonius, Life of Claudius 18.2
So, they had government backed grain insurance. They could take chances and even if they lost their grain, they knew Caesar was going to pay them back for it. And so, you really subsidize the grain transport industry because it was so important. Well, Paul gets on one of these big ships headed for Rome.
We had several days of slow sailing, and after great difficulty we finally neared Cnidus. But the wind was against us, so we sailed across to Crete and along the sheltered coast of the island, past the cape of Salmone. We struggled along the coast with great difficulty and finally arrived at Fair Havens, near the town of Lasea.
That sounds like a good place, Fair Havens. Well, Luke says,
We lost a lot of time. The weather was becoming dangerous for sea travel because it was so late in the fall, and Paul spoke to the ship’s officers about it.
You really did not want to start a journey after mid-September and they were probably well into October by then. Super dangerous to be out on the sea at this time. Paul says,
“Men,” he said, “I believe there is trouble ahead if we go on—shipwreck, loss of cargo, and danger to our lives as well.”
It’s possible that Paul was the most experienced sailor on that ship. You look at just the sheer miles of travel that he has done in the book of Acts. Paul tells us that,
“I have been shipwrecked three times. One time I had to spend a day and a night floating on the open sea after one of these ships crashed.” (2 Corinthians 11)
Paul is going to these guys and he’s like, “Guys. I’m really worried here. The ship might go down. Have you been through that before? Have you seen the panic? I have been shipwrecked three times. I know this and I am not interested at age 60 to be going through it again.”
But the officer in charge of the prisoners listened more to the ship’s captain and the owner than to Paul.
The owners are on the ship. And they’re like, “Let’s go head and push a little further. We got grain! It’s insured!” Last time he is going to make that mistake of not listening to Paul.
And since Fair Havens was an exposed harbor—a poor place to spend the winter—most of the crew wanted to go on to Phoenix, farther up the coast of Crete, and spend the winter there.
And so Phoenix, it’s just a little bit further. What could go wrong?
Phoenix was a good harbor with only a southwest and northwest exposure.
And so they were just thinking, “Oh. We’ll just go.”
When a light wind began blowing from the south, the sailors thought they could make it. So they pulled up anchor and sailed close to the shore of Crete.
You can imagine they are pulling out of the harbor with smug looks on their faces. They are just going to make this little jump up the coast and look over at Paul like, “Oh, you think you know so much about sailing.” Well, bad things start to happen at this point.
But the weather changed abruptly, and a wind of typhoon strength (called a “northeaster”) burst across the island and blew us out to sea.
So instead of hugging the coast, this wind blows them out into the Mediterranean.
The sailors couldn’t turn the ship into the wind, so they gave up and let it run before the gale.
So we move west a little bit to get the whole scope. Here’s the whole scope of the Mediterranean. That is Sicily, southern Italy, in the far left corner here. So, they are headed out this way, right?
We sailed along the sheltered side of a small island named Cauda, where with great difficulty we hoisted aboard the dinghy being towed behind us.
You are probably wondering to yourself, what’s a dinghy? Well, I am glad you asked that question. A dinghy is like a lifeboat but a little bit bigger and you just tow it behind your boat instead of storing it on your boat. It is kind of like a RV that tows the car behind it so you can go drive into town or whatever. Well, they would pull this up during the storm. And Luke says this was getting so intense, he says we did it. So, Luke, the doctor is in there trying to help these sailors sail the boat. It says,
Then the sailors bound ropes around the hull of the ship to strengthen it.
There must be some kind of bracing they are doing with ropes to try to keep the ship from falling apart.
They were afraid of being driven across to the sandbars of Syrtis off the African coast,
I love the detail from Luke here and at every point along the way here, he’s exactly right.
so they lowered the sea anchor to slow the ship and were driven before the wind. The next day, as gale-force winds continued to batter the ship, the crew began throwing the cargo overboard. The following day they even took some of the ship’s gear and threw it overboard.
The word for that gear can include the sails. That is how desperate they were getting. They’re like, “Well, we don’t need these anymore!”
The terrible storm raged for many days, blotting out the sun and the stars, until at last all hope was gone.
It would have been cold. They are being sprayed with cold water, soaked to the bone. They couldn’t see the sun. It was a constant storm. They really wouldn’t have had time to sleep or time to eat. It would have been an exhaustion. And it says everyone on this ship was losing hope. Everyone that is except for one guy. It said,
No one had eaten for a long time. Finally, Paul called the crew together and said, “Men, you should have listened to me in the first place and not left Crete.”
Now, he isn’t just saying I told you so. He’s trying to establish some credibility so they wouldn’t get themselves in any more trouble. But it is kind of like I told you so too.
You would have avoided all this damage and loss. But take courage! None of you will lose your lives, even though the ship will go down.
Remember the promise that God had made to Paul in 23:11? He said,
Just as you testified in Jerusalem, you will testify in Rome.
Paul’s on that ship, how could it go down? If he has a promise from God like that. But God adds further to that promise while Paul is on the ship. He says,
For last night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve stood beside me, and he said, ‘Don’t be afraid, Paul, for you will surely stand trial before Caesar!”
He reiterates that promise but he says,
What’s more, God in his goodness has granted safety to everyone sailing with you.’”
Even though they didn’t listen to you, Paul. I am going to rescue them all.
“So take courage! For I believe God. It will be just as he said.
That right there is spiritual leadership. That is the kind of leadership we need. When the storms are hitting. Everybody is running around, freaking out. Doubting all the promises of God. We need people who can say, “Don’t worry. Trust in the promises of God. I believe God and it will be just as he said.” That is spiritual maturity right there. Standing on the promises of God and not my feelings and not my circumstances.
But we must be shipwrecked on a certain island.
It is interesting here; NLT covers this up a little bit. I reinserted a couple words that are there. He says,
we must. It is necessary to be shipwrecked.
Not just on any old island but there is one certain island that God is aiming for here. This was not an aimless blowing through the Mediterranean, but God had a specific landing place. There were people there and as we read, he’s got a message for these people. Paul says,
We must be shipwrecked on a certain island. About midnight on the fourteenth night of the storm,
so this has been going on for 14 days. They are just blowing by when they were,
driven across the Sea of Adria,
which is the Adriatic sea back then they called this whole area the Adriatic sea they were going through. It says,
the sailors sensed land was near. They dropped a weighted line and found that the water was 120 feet deep [that is not that deep]. But a little later they measured again and found it was only 90 feet deep [it is getting lower]. At this rate they were afraid we would soon be driven against the rocks along the shore, so they threw out four anchors from the back of the ship and prayed for daylight. Then the sailors [they tried to sneak out] tried to abandon the ship; they lowered the dinghy as though they were going to put out anchors from the front of the ship. But Paul [maybe he has even seen this before] said to the commanding officer and the soldiers, “You will all die unless the sailors stay aboard.”
So, who do you think the Roman officer listens to this time?
So the soldiers cut the ropes to the dinghy and let it drift away.
So they abandon their dinghy even at this point in their journey and they see it drifting away. All hope is now on the ship. And then it says,
Just as day was dawning, Paul urged everyone to eat.
He is encouraging people.
You have been so worried that you haven’t touched food for two weeks.
It wasn’t because they didn’t have enough time to eat but they were too anxious to eat. You’ve ever felt that? I have. He says,
Please eat something now for your own good. For not a hair of your heads will perish.
God promised. That’s straight out of the mouth of Jesus as well. He said trust in God. Trust his promises. And,
then he took some bread, gave thanks to God before them all, and broke off a piece and ate it.
And so here we have Paul encouraging people. Focusing back on the promises of God. Getting other people focused on the promises of God. And giving thanks to God right in the middle of this awful storm. He’s walking by faith and not by sight.
Then everyone was encouraged and began to eat—
He is having this positive effect on everyone aboard on the ship. Luke says,
there were 276 of us on board,
his historical accuracy and his attention to detail.
After eating, the crew lightened the ship further by throwing the cargo of wheat overboard.
They’re like well, final meal. They eat the wheat and throw the rest of it over.
When morning dawned, they didn’t recognize the coastline, but they saw a bay with a beach and wondered if they could get to shore by running the ship aground.
That might work! What if we just ram it into the beach? You think we would get to shore that way?
So they cut off the anchors and left them in the sea,
They pretty much have cut out everything from this ship at this point except for the people.
Then they lowered the rudders, raised the foresail, and headed toward shore. But [before they reached shore] they hit a shoal and ran the ship aground too soon.
You have the shore over here and the land would go up and back down again before it (the shore) would come back up again. They have hit a big sand bar out and it hit really hard. The ship stuck into it
while the stern was repeatedly smashed by the force of the waves and began to break apart.
The front of the ship was stuck but the back of the ship is getting battered by waves and that ship has about had it at this point. After 14 days of this, it is not holding together well.
The soldiers wanted to kill the prisoners to make sure they didn’t swim ashore and escape.
As a Roman soldier in prison duty, you could not lose your prisoners. If they gave you 50 prisoners, you had to show up with 50 prisoners. If 25 were dead and 25 were alive, they were fine with that but if you show up with 40, ten of those soldiers get killed. So, they were like, “Let’s just kill these guys. Let them collect ashore and we will load them up and take them to Rome.”
But the commanding officer wanted to spare Paul (he liked Paul), so he didn’t let them carry out their plan.
Is Julius a Christian now? I don’t know. You’d think Paul must have had some impact on this guy though. He said no, you are not killing these prisoners.
Then he ordered all who could swim to jump overboard first and make for land. The others held on to planks or debris from the broken ship.
Grab something that floats and kick for shore, guys. And so Luke says,
So everyone escaped safely to shore.
All 276 of them just like God promised.
I just want to say a couple words about this storm in Acts 27. This account by the way is possibly the most exciting ancient voyage account in existing ancient literature. We see Luke, port after port, point after point, term after term, using exactly the right terms as we see God carry them through. This storm was longer and more painful than probably anyone imagined. Storms can be that way. Suffering in our lives can be that way as well. It hits and you think, “Surely this can’t go on much longer,” and it keeps going. And it keeps going and it keeps going. And Paul had been through this before when it got so bad, he thought he was going to die. And yet God saw the storm coming. God foresaw all of this. God allowed it to happen. In fact, this storm. God had a purpose for the storm. Think about it.
For one, it was a storm of correction. Those soldiers did not listen to Paul. The sailors did not listen to Paul and they got themselves into this mess. Sometimes storms will happen in our lives, suffering will happen in our lives because we didn’t listen to God. Some people get angry at God but what you need to do is learn what you can from the suffering you are going through. Maybe there is something that God is trying to teach you through this. He wants to set you back on the right track. It says, “A Father disciplines those whom he loves.”
It could also be a storm of instruction. Think about how much God taught the sailors, the fellow prisoners, the soldiers through this storm as they witnessed between how much Paul and his guys suffered versus how everyone else on that ship was suffering. Also, it’s not just these guys but the people living on this island where God said he has something to show those guys too about what God is like. And so, sometimes God leads us into suffering because he wants to teach us something. He wants to teach us how to depend on him in the midst of suffering. He wants to deepen our faith. He wants to teach us how to walk by faith and not by sight.
And sometimes it’s a storm of direction where God sends this storm because he didn’t want them going that way, he wanted them going this way. Sometimes this sort of thing is the best way to head us in the right direction. And where he sent them was this island called Malta. But as you read this chapter, you can see how Paul can later write to the Philippians later that year. He says, “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation.” Yes, you see a contentment from him as he trusts in the promises of God here.
Once we were safe on shore, we learned that we were on the island of Malta.
It is funny this tiny little island would be pretty easy to miss at and blow all the way across the rest of the Mediterranean, maybe to Spain or North Africa somewhere. They couldn’t have made it that long and yet they hit the little speck of an island there. Malta is an island we know of today. A beautiful Mediterranean isle. He says,
The people of the island were very kind to us.
So they finally meet the locals and they were kind. That is great news.
It was cold and rainy, so they built a fire on the shore to welcome us.
This is the Malta tourism bureau. Aye, welcome to Malta! Would you like a fire? Well Paul, exhausted, and yet looking not to his own interest but the interest of others is like, “I can help.” So he gets up and is helping these guys make the fire, he has an armful of sticks. He is walking around the fire and as he is laying them around the fire, Luke tells us.
As Paul gathered an armful of sticks and was laying them on the fire, a poisonous snake, driven out by the heat, bit him on the hand.
And so, here’s Paul. He’s like, ‘I just survived the shipwreck and now, there is a poisonous snake hanging from my hand.
The people of the island saw it hanging from his hand and said to each other, “A murderer, no doubt! Though he escaped the sea, justice will not permit him to live.
Paul’s like, “Yeah… Yeah… Yeah..” Well, it’s official. Paul is having a bad day. Have you ever had one of these days where you survive a 14-day storm followed by a shipwreck and you try to serve and then a poisonous snake latches onto you? Thus, proving to the locals that you are a murderer and the gods have gotten you. So, at what point do you just quit? At what point do you just say you have had enough of this of trying to do the right thing and I am just going to take a little break here from serving God? How much discomfort, what is your threshold? Some of you know me, I don’t have a real high tolerance for discomfort. I think this is illustrated by one of the last times I was on a boat. Let me tell you this story.
My wife’s cousin was getting married down in Mexico and her family paid to fly us down to this wedding and stay at this resort where they owned a bunch of timeshares. And so here I am, on this Pacific shore resort. Brother-in-law had this great idea to go on this really nice luxury cruise. There’s snorkeling. There’s a horseback ride up to a mountain waterfall. It’s going to be great. Well, I show up and I realize this is not a luxury cruise. It is a booze cruise which I should have guessed when it was $25 for lunch and all the tequila you could drink. By this time, it’s like day 3 in Mexico so my stomach is feeling kind of upset. And this thing was just terrible. They take us to the snorkeling, and they dump us into the water where I literally couldn’t see anything six inches from my goggles let alone the fish that were allegedly in the water. The horseback rides up the mountain to the waterfall. They put me on this horse that was so malnourished. I could count not just the ribs but a distinct outline of the pelvis. These horses knew that dinner at the bottom of the mountain. They wanted to get back as soon as possible. And so, on the way it kept turning sideways and I really think intentionally rammed my leg into that wire fence, gashing it open which I guess I appreciated since there was a cliff on the other side of the fence. And then we get to the top and the horses know that they got to get down in order to get dinner. It was like the Kentucky derby. They were galloping down the hill and I was terrified. They were dodging hikers. So here I am. I’m just sitting there on strike. I’m feeling so sorry for myself. Here I am on the Pacific coast for free on a boat and I am feeling sorry for myself. Everybody else was having a good time but it was my attitude that stunk, and all the rest of my wife’s family members were like, “Man, what is wrong with your husband? What a whiner!” And yet, I just quit. I’m not having a good attitude here. I’m going to feel sorry for myself in a place where I have less reason than usual to feel sorry for myself.
It raises the question. What’s your threshold to make you quit serving? What does it take for you to boycott gratitude? Because if anybody should have reached that point, it would be Paul here. Are you like, “I’ll serve, I’ll be grateful as long as I get enough sleep every night. As long as everyone likes me. I’ll serve God as long as it fits into my schedule and if my schedule doesn’t permit, I have to get back around to that later.”
What’s your threshold? What are you looking for? Will you serve God no matter what? There’s lots of ways to quit. There’s dramatic quitting where you just announce it and walk away altogether. But there’s also a way of quitting where you keep up some of the outward appearances but deep down in your heart, you realize I’m not going all out anymore. And I have given up really trying all that hard and I am just going to fit this around everything else.
There’s lots of ways to quit but there is really only one way to keep going. And that’s to do what Paul did here. This is not look at how great Paul is but that Paul trusted God. A guy who said I believe everything is going to turn out like God promised here. He clung to that promise no matter what and he encouraged others to do the same. That’s what we need. That’s what we need in this fellowship. That’s what you need in your life. That’s spiritual maturity, the ability to cling to the promises of God. To cling to your gratitude. To choose to serve God no matter what because of what he says is true. And because of the power that he promises to deliver.
So, what does Paul do here? He’s standing there, the snake hanging from his hand. He’s got that promise from God that you’re going to testify in Rome before Caesar. What does he do? He tells us.
Paul shook off the snake into the fire and was unharmed.
Paul, so tough. Gets bitten by a poisonous snake and the snake dies. Sounds like Chuck Norris here! I do want to point this out before we move on too. Notice what the people living on this island said when they saw this, when Paul got bit by that snake. It says,
Though he escaped the sea, justice will not permit him to live.
These people knew there was such a thing as right and wrong. They also knew there was such a thing as justice that one day people would have to pay for the wrongs that they have done. What they didn’t know was that Paul actually was a murderer, that he had killed and yet he stood under the grace of God. And that’s why he has sent Paul to this island to tell them about. That yes there is such a thing as right and wrong. And yes, there is such a thing as justice and even a judgment day but there is more to the story than that. That God sent his son, Jesus Christ. And he died for your sins. Justice carried out on him because he took the punishment that you deserved. God is perfectly just and the justifier of everyone that puts their faith in Christ.
Well the people are watching.
The people waited for him to swell up or suddenly drop dead. But when they had waited a long time and saw that he wasn’t harmed, they changed their minds and decided he was a god.
Not the first time Paul’s been mistaken for a god in this book. Well,
near the shore where we landed was an estate belonging to Publius, the chief official of the island.
And in case you were wondering, Luke also gets his official title right as well. We have an inscription. We have an inscription of another guy named Pudens who it says was the chief official of Malta. The exact same terminology that Luke uses here. And so, he’s getting the names of these officials right, the titles and everything right in every single city along the way. Malta included. Never doubt Luke. Never doubt scripture. Publius,
He welcomed us and treated us kindly for three days. As it happened, Publius’s father was ill with fever and dysentery.
Oh no! Publius’s father has dysentery! Fortunately,
Paul went in and prayed for him, and laying his hands on him, he healed him.
Woo! That was a close one.
Then all the other sick people on the island came and were healed.
So, word spreads. Publius’s dad was healed of dysentery. Everybody else starts showing up and says that these guys have power. There’s something special about these guys. And even though Luke doesn’t tell us, I’m certain they told these people about Jesus also. Like every other time a miracle happens in Acts, they are like, “Don’t look at me like I did this. The only reason I can do this is because of the power of Jesus Christ.” You know, I’m sure they said something like this, “Look you guys. You know there’s right and wrong. You know there’s justice. I’m here to tell you what you worship in ignorance I now declare to you. That there is the Lord God. He is creator of heaven and Earth. He sent his son and you need to put your trust in him. You need to put your faith in Christ, and you can be forgiven. He wants to heal not just your body, but he wants to resurrect your body someday! Forgive all your sins.”
As a result we were showered with honors, and when the time came to sail, people supplied us with everything we would need for the trip. It was three months after the shipwreck that we set sail on another ship that had wintered at the island (so they weren’t the only ones there)—an Alexandrian ship with the twin gods as its figurehead.
Castor and Pollux, the twins. They would put them sometimes in the front of ships. So they are down here in Malta and Luke says,
Our first stop was Syracuse, where we stayed three days. From there we sailed across to Rhegium. A day later a south wind began blowing, so the following day we sailed up the coast to Puteoli.
They’re in Italy now!
There we found some believers, who invited us to spend a week with them.
And Paul is like, shout out to the boys in Puteoli for keeping us for the week. He’s still technically heading to Rome as a prisoner, but he is like, “Hey Julius, I’m going to go hang out with these guys for a week.” And Julius is like, “Alright, see ya.”
And so we came to Rome. The brothers and sisters in Rome had heard we were coming.
And I think it was just one of those things where they couldn’t wait to see Paul. He’d never been there but I wonder if some of his friends like Aquila and Priscila were there. He had buddies there in Rome.
They came to meet us at the Forum on the Appian Way.
So, they kind of meet in the middle. The Appian Way. Maybe the most popular road in all of ancient Rome. These guys walked 23 miles to meet up with Paul. Just imagine the joy he must have felt after a long journey. After wanting to go to Rome for so long and not going the way he expected, you can almost see the tears on their faces as they have this reunion meeting for the first time.
Others joined us at The Three Taverns [which was ten miles away]. When Paul saw them, he was encouraged and thanked God.
Of course, he was also encouraged and thanking God in the midst of the storm. But this is maybe a little different here when he gets this close fellowship with these believers there.
When we arrived in Rome, Paul was permitted to have his own private lodging, though he was guarded by a soldier.
Instead of being down in the dank, nasty dungeon, apparently the Philippians sent a gift that allowed them to rent some quarters up in Rome. Now he was chained to a guard, yet he was able to have visitors. As much as he wanted to, and he was able to write as much as he wanted to which became important.
Three days after Paul’s arrival, he called together the local Jewish leaders.
He continues to go first to the Jew then to the Gentile. He called the Jews together. Isn’t this what got him in trouble the first time? He says to them,
Brothers, I was arrested in Jerusalem and handed over to the Roman government, even though I had done nothing against our people or the customs of our ancestors.
He’s trying to squash any rumors that they might have heard.
The Romans tried me and wanted to release me, because they found no cause for the death sentence. But when the Jewish leaders protested the decision, I felt it necessary to appeal to Caesar, even though I had no desire to press charges against my own people.
I’m not trying to make Jerusalem look bad here.
“I asked you to come here today so we could get acquainted and so I could explain to you that I am bound with this chain because I believe that the hope of Israel—the Messiah—has already come.” That’s why I am in chains. They replied, “We have had no letters from Judea or reports against you from anyone who has come here. But we want to hear what you believe,
(wait… you want me to teach? And tell you what I believe? Paul is thinking this),
for the only thing we know about this movement is that it is denounced everywhere.” So a time was set, and on that day a large number of people came to Paul’s lodging. He explained and testified about the Kingdom of God and tried to persuade them about Jesus from the Scriptures.”
We have seen this before.
Using the law of Moses and the books of the prophets, he spoke to them from morning until evening. Some were persuaded by the things he said, but others did not believe.
We have seen that before too.
And after they had argued back and forth among themselves, they left with this final word from Paul.
The final word that Paul said to the Jewish people in Rome that didn’t accept Christ. He said,
The Holy Spirit was right when he said to your ancestors through Isaiah the prophet, ‘Go and say to this people: When you hear what I say, you will not understand. When you see what I do, you will not comprehend.
Why can’t they hear? Why can’t they see?
For the hearts of these people are hardened, and their ears cannot hear, and they have closed their eyes so their eyes cannot see, and their ears cannot hear, and their hearts cannot understand,”
He says you have hardened your heart to this, you are going to get more blind and more deaf.
“And they cannot turn to me and let me heal them.”
And that’s really what God wants. That’s God’s will for your life. Not to go out and do all these works to prove that you’re worthy. Paul was a murderer. No, it’s to open your heart to him. To open your eyes. To open your ears to turn to him and let him heal you. That’s what he wants. That’s what he is offering. That’s the good news. It offends our pride, but it is so worth it because this is what God is extending to you. This offer right here. You could receive Christ tonight if you open your heart and your ears and your eyes. You could let the healing begin. And so, Paul says,
So I want you to know that this salvation from God has also been offered to the Gentiles, and they will accept it. For the next two years, Paul lived in Rome at his own expense. He welcomed all who visited him, boldly proclaiming the Kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ. And no one tried to stop him.
The end of the book of Acts.
Seems a little anticlimactic if you ask me. I remember the first time I read Acts all the way through I really thought Paul was going to get crucified at the end, like Jesus did. It kind of felt like the gospels but for Paul. But no. It ends with Paul in prison. That’s where Luke ends his investigation. That’s where he ends his writing. Did he intend to write a third volume? I don’t know. We don’t have it though.
It leaves us wondering, what happened after that? What happened after Acts 28? Well, the best we can guess, Paul spent two years in prison and that’s what Luke said here. The implication is that after two years, he wasn’t in prison anymore. I think Luke would have told us if he knew Paul had died.
Paul spent two years in prison. He wrote four letters that we have in our NT. Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. It also would have been the time where the rest of Luke-Acts would have come together. He would have been working with Luke on this project under Paul’s apostolic authority and that would be from 60-62 AD but every indication we got says that he testified before Nero. Isn’t that what God promised him would happen in Acts 27:24?
Now Nero went crazy right around the early 60s. This would be right when Paul was in prison. That’s when Seneca died, he lost some of his constraints and he really went off the deep end. But Paul testified before Nero. I don’t know what kind of mental state Nero was in at the time but apparently, he was released! He indicates in Philemon I am going to be released. He says in Philippians that I’m certain I am going to be released.
And he would have done some further writing and some further travels from about 62 to 66 AD. Maybe during this time, he visited Spain like he told the Romans that he wanted to do. There are indications through biblical writings that he might have done that. Seems pretty certain that he visited Crete from the letter he writes to Titus where he says I have left you here at Crete to do this and that and the other thing.
There was some church planting going on the island of Crete, an island he would have sailed right by on this final journey. It looks like he went back to Ephesus again too according to 1 Timothy 1:3 when he says when I departed, I left you there at Ephesus and here are the instructions I gave you. It’s like he did get to see the Ephesian church again.
There was also persecution. In addition to writing Titus and 1 Timothy, it looks like persecution really ramped up during this time. The fire that burned down Rome was in 64 AD and historians tell us, secular historians, say that Nero blamed it on the Christians. A great persecution broke out against the Christians. Paul and his people may have needed to be a little more undercover.
And after traveling around, you see that Paul was finally captured again by Nero around the same time that Peter was captured according to Eusebius’s church history. And he was thrown into a dungeon in Rome, no longer under cushy house arrest but a dank, dark dungeon. Deserted by most of his friends.
He says all have deserted me. Luke is here. Paul wrote to Timothy one last time, in the book of 2 Timothy that we have as well, his final words. He expresses deep love for Timothy. He says, “Please come and visit me. And please bring Mark too…The time for my departure is near. I have fought the good fight, Timothy. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Now, there is in store for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge will award to me on that day.” (2 Timothy 4)
He says I can’t wait. I get to go see Jesus face to face. I get the reward for all the labor I have poured out for him in this life. And he says it is not just for me (he is not the only one) but every single believer who has longed for his appearance. Every single Christian that has served Christ will be rewarded for what they have done in this life. That includes you.
And then, we don’t know if Timothy made it in time. We don’t know if Mark made it there before Paul was executed. He was killed in 66 or 67 AD. Tradition says the same day that Peter was crucified upside down, Paul was beheaded. He would have had a more noble death as a Roman citizen.
I like how John Pollock describes this scene at the end of his book, The Apostle. He talks about the procession down the Appian Way to the executioner's block.
Crowds… would recognize an execution squad by the lictors with their fasces of rods and ax, and the executioner carrying a sword, which in Nero’s reign had replaced the ax; by the escort, and by the manacled criminal, walking stiffly and bandy-legged, ragged and filthy from his prison: but not ashamed or degraded. He was going to a feast, to a triumph, to the crowning day to which he had pressed forward. He who had talked often of God’s promise of eternal life in Jesus could not fear; he believed as he had spoken: “All God’s promises find their ‘yes’ in Him.” No executioner was going to lose him the conscious presence of Jesus; he was not changing his company, only the place where he enjoyed it. Better still, he would see Jesus. Those glimpses—on the Damascus Road, in Jerusalem, at Corinth, on that sinking ship; now he was going to see Him face-to-face, to know even as he had been known.
Pollock, John. The Apostle: The Life of Paul (pp. 297). David C. Cook. Kindle Edition.
What a good day that was going to be for Paul. What a good day it was. Do you have this kind of confidence in the face of death? To know you will see Jesus and to know that you will leave this world behind and go to Him in whom you have placed all your hope? Do you want a guarantee of eternal life? Jesus Christ is the only one that can guarantee that because he is the only one that has defeated death.
And so, what happened after that? Well, the book of Acts is done. The acts of the apostles, that was done before the end of the first century. And yet, when we think back to that promise that God made in Acts chapter one where he promised his Holy Spirit would come and he would get power and he would call his followers to be his witnesses all over the world. Well that call still applies today. The acts of the Holy Spirit continue on right here to our present day. And he is calling to you. He is calling on you to be my witness. He is calling on you to receive his power. He is calling on you to live your whole life for him so that you can die and go and be with him. You can die with honor. You can die and look forward to your reward. That’s the life that God is calling you to and that’s really the message of Acts. It’s a story of all the things that Jesus began to do through the Holy Spirit and he continues to work today.