Acts 27:20-26 And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us… I. HE BEGINS BY AGGRAVATING THE DISTRESS (ver. 21). You have brought all this distress upon yourselves. How would this reproof aggravate for the moment the agony of that dark hour! It would call up conscience. When a man is made to feel that his suffering is not merely a calamity, but a crime, it comes on him with new intensity and weight. Thus God ever deals with men. The first thing that He does to help a world in misery is to convince it that its misery is self-produced. "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself." And He goes on to convince it of sin, righteousness, and judgment. II. HE PROCEEDS TO MITIGATE THE DISTRESS (ver. 22). After the wound comes the salve. After sinners have experienced the workings of genuine repentance, there comes the message of Divine comfort. After the tempest the still small voice. III. HE DOES BOTH THROUGH HIS SERVANTS (vers. 23, 24). Three things are here to be noticed. 1. The essential character of God's servants. What is indispensable in the character of a true servant? (1) A practical consciousness of God's absolute claim to our being. "Whose I am." I am not the proprietor, but the trustee of myself. (2) A constant working out of God's will in our being. "Whom I serve." 2. Their high privilege. Communication from the heavenly Father. "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him." 3. Their social value. "God hath given thee all them that sail with thee," Paul was the temporal saviour of all on board. The world is preserved for the sake of the good. Every righteous man is a bulwark to his city and his country. (D. Thomas, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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. |
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