Acts 27:1-20 And when it was determined that we should sail into Italy, they delivered Paul and certain other prisoners to one named Julius… The power of religion is best seen when it is exhibited in living reality. It is so as to its sanctifying energy. It is so, too, as to its efficacy in sustaining amid danger, and comforting in difficulty and sadness. It has always, therefore, been the plan of Providence to place good men, and sometimes the Church collectively, in such circumstances as to test, and thus to make manifest, the sustaining energy of religious principle in times of agitation and danger. I. A STORM IN THE MEDITERRANEAN. How powerless, or at least how feeble, man appears, and is, when contending with the mighty agencies of nature! The stoutest heart then quails. The most reckless are then often seen on their knees. Men almost instinctively call at such times on Him who "holds the winds in His fist and the waves in the hollow of His hand." It is difficult to realise such a scene of terror in calmer days. But there is a great emblematic lesson in this. The fact that such changes do arise in nature — that the blue sky may become beclouded, that the bright sun may be hidden, that the sea, now so glassy and so clear, may be lashed into tempest, and that the mariner who now seems to be lord of the deep, subduing winds and waves into subserviency to his ends, may another day be contending with that same element roused into fierceness and storm, and made to feel how weak he is in that terrible conflict — is emblematic of other changes, which may, and must, one day arise. Life is not ever the calm, even flow of days and months and years. The brightest scene may be overcast, and to some extent is almost sure to be. Life's autumn and life's winter must be thought of as well as its summer days. All may know times of stormy wind and tempest, and all will one day be in the grasp of death, and have to face the near prospect of those things which abide when the shadows shall have passed away! II. ST. PAUL AMIDST THE STORM. 1. We see the apostle's repose of soul in this hour of peril, and the grounds of it. It was in his relation with God that he found restfulness. Our "times" are in His hand. St. Paul knew, too, that he was now here in God's service. 2. We have here a striking example of Christian life and influence. Paul had resources of strength and comfort that those around him had not, and he becomes their comforter and adviser. III. THE BENEFICENT WORKING OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE FOR THE PRESERVATION OF PAUL AND ALL WHO WERE WITH HIM. The promise of God was fulfilled, the perils of the deep having only made Divine protection the more evident and the more deeply felt. (E. T. Prust.) Parallel Verses KJV: And when it was determined that we should sail into Italy, they delivered Paul and certain other prisoners unto one named Julius, a centurion of Augustus' band. |
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