The Word Made Plain

Guest (Male): Welcome to the Word Made Plain with senior pastor Tony Clark of Calvary Chapel Newport News in Virginia. Currently, Pastor Tony is teaching a study in the book of Acts. Please open your Bible to Acts chapter 27, verses 39 through 44.

Tony Clark: I'm going in the opposite direction, far away from that thing you want me to do. I'm going to the city of Tarsus. There are some of you in the city of Tarsus right now. There's something God told you to do, but because the people that he's pointed out to you to share with or to talk with, you're in the other direction. Some of you are on your way to the city of Tarsus because you said the last person I want to see forgiven is that person.

My baby daddy, my baby mama, they are the last ones I want to see forgiven. Next time you see them, don't get into a fight. How about just sharing me with them? That's the last person I'm going to share anything with but some knuckle sandwiches. That's the last person I want to see. God wants to purge us of that kind of stuff. Those are the things he wants to purge and get rid of out of our heart.

Here's the most beautiful part about coming out of a storm, especially a storm of correction. It normally turns into a storm of direction. What do you mean? In Jonah chapter 2 and verse 10, it says God spoke to the fish Jonah was inside of and barfed him out onto the dry land. Guess where the land was? The land of Nineveh. God said you are getting there, Jonah, by hook or by crook. You're going to get there.

I love that. Some of the most beautiful words come once that great fish—it wasn't a whale. I know what your kids' cartoon book says. It was a great fish, which is what it says. Once that great fish vomited him onto the dry land, the land of Nineveh, then some of the most beautiful words to me ever penned in the Bible are Jonah chapter 3 and verse 1: and God spoke to Jonah a second time. This is where we get the phrase that God is a God of the second chance.

Even when we disobey him and blow it, he corrects us and gives us a second chance to do what he told us to do in the beginning. He told Jonah to go to Nineveh. He said, "No, not going." All of a sudden, the great fish barfed him onto the land of Nineveh. Here's the big part that we miss. Once he preached to the Ninevites, the entire city repented.

Jonah got mad. He said, "God, this is why I didn't want to come here. You are a forgiving and merciful God." He hated the Assyrians. He hated the Ninevites. He wanted to see them judged, not saved. God said you have no right to feel that. The book goes on to say how Jonah, after he preached—it was only an eight-word sermon. It was basically almost like saying turn or burn and then he was out.

He went up onto a hill with a smile on his face because he was ready to see God judge them. He sat up there. It got a little hot. All of a sudden, God was merciful. He had a plant grow up with a giant leaf, probably some elephant leaf, and covered up his head. He had a bald head. It covered up his bald head and he was like, "God, thank you for this shade so I can really watch you judge them in the shade here." He probably had his little lemonade there, ready to see God's wrath come upon them.

All of a sudden, he fell asleep and a worm came and ate the plant and put a bunch of holes in it. That sun was beating down on his head and he started to get mad. "God, what's up with this? Why you let this happen? This plant was keeping me cool. What's up with that?" God said, "Oh, you're merciful with the plant because the plant got eaten by the worms, and I have 600,000 Ninevites who don't know their left hand from their right hand," meaning that they were children. So it could have been one to two million total.

He said you won't have mercy on people but you're merciful upon this plant that I had covering your little bald head. You won't be merciful over some souls that I wanted to save. I can just see him looking stupid in the face when God told him that. So often we're merciful upon all kinds of crazy things, but we see somebody we don't like or some group of people we have a problem with and we won't be merciful upon souls.

We'll be merciful with some of the stupid things that I see posted on social media. There are souls that we claim we don't like and God wants to save. God wants to do a work. This entire city got saved. They were so radical that they put on sackcloth. In that time, to show that you were really sorry, you would put on sackcloth. It was this itchy, rough kind of skin, and then you'd throw dust on your head to show outwardly that you're inwardly sorrowful.

They put sackcloth on the animals. They were so radical. They said that mule has been stubborn as a mule, he needs some sackcloth. That donkey hasn't moved since last week, he needs some. They put sackcloth on the animals. The entire city got saved. How would you feel about that person or that group of people if God would be merciful upon them and save them? Would you feel like Jonah and say, "God, I don't want to see them saved. The last person I want to see saved is my ex, the way he treated me. I want to see him judged."

Then you're no different than Jonah. God wants to purge that kind of stuff out of our hearts: the people who've hurt us, the people who've done us wrong, the people who've tried to destroy us. This is why for me, I daily pray for those who've tried to destroy me or tried to destroy this church to get to me. I constantly pray for them. Now I'm at the point where I can pray, "Lord, forgive me for hurting your people, for them to feel that they have to try to destroy your church to get to me."

I can pray God's blessings upon them now because the anger and hatred and hard feelings are out of my heart. That's why the Bible says pray for those who despitefully use you. Pray and curse not. This is how you know you're growing as a believer, growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord, when you can pray for your enemies. If you still see that person and want to squint and your head turns, you're not over it. Keep praying. You're not there yet.

When you can pray blessings upon them, that's when you know you're getting somewhere with God. God will send us into a storm to purge us of that. He had to do that with Jonah, his own prophet, because of the bigotry and hatred he had in his heart for Assyria. I brought all of this up to say storms of correction so often turn into storms of direction. We think that the storm has blown us off course because when it was day, like verse 39 says, we don't recognize the land.

I'm sure that is what Paul was thinking. "God, you said that you would bring me to Rome, but I am in the midst of this storm." Then God had to speak to him and said in verse 26, "You are going to Rome, however, you must run aground on a certain island." This is the island they are about to crash into. It was an island Paul was unfamiliar with.

The second part of verse 39 says they observed a bay with a beach onto which they planned to run the ship if possible. This beach is called, for obvious reasons, St. Paul's Bay. It is called that today, which happens to be on the northeast shore of the island of Malta. Look at verses 40 and 41. It says and they let go the anchors and left them in the sea, meanwhile loosening the rudder ropes, and they hoisted the mainsail to the wind and made for shore. But striking a place where two seas met, they ran the ship aground and the prow stuck fast and remained immovable, but the stern was being broken up by the violence of the waves.

As they were heading towards this beach, earlier they had let down four anchors in verse 29 to try to slow the ship down because it was moving rapidly into this beach. Now they just untied the anchors from the ship and let them fall into the water right along with the rudders. They hoisted the mainsail to the land and drifted to shore according to verse 40. However, the front of the ship struck a reef and became stuck, and the ship was being beaten by the breaks of where two seas met and it was being torn apart to where they had to abandon ship.

This is the part of the storm that I want to bring to your attention because it was really helpful for me when the Lord showed me these things. I know it's going to be helpful for you as well. I was wondering why is it that this storm, especially storms of correction which moved into a storm of direction, ended so violently? It was tearing the ship apart.

First of all, the reason why storms of correction so often move into storms of direction is because of Romans 8:28, which says all things are working together for good to them who love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. Even though God is correcting us, he will bring some good out of it, which is to direct us into the center of his will.

Secondly, the reason why storms of correction end so violently is so that we will remember it and think twice about disobeying God again. We don't want to ever go through that kind of storm. As one of my youngest granddaughters says, "Ever, ever again." We don't want to ever, ever again go through that. This is why they end so violently.

I'm reminded once again as I'm reading through the Old Testament, I'm reminded of Jacob. There is an incident in Genesis 32, verses 22 to 32. You remember the story when Jacob wrestled with God? He wrestled with God and he was wrestling with the Lord and he thought, "I ain't going to let you go till you bless me." There have been all kinds of incorrectly used sermons talking about how you've just got to wrestle with God. That's a losing battle.

As he's wrestling with God, being stubborn, God touched his hip and knocked it out of socket. He's walking like Fred Sanford. For those of you 30 and under, just Google Fred Sanford. He's walking like that. Why? In Hebrews chapter 11, it says that Jacob worshiped leaning on a staff, meaning that he now had to walk with a limp.

That limp—you've got to understand. Jacob, whose name means "Jake the Snake", deceiver, supplanter. He was that kind of person. He'd deceive you if it was going to be to his advantage. His name was changed to Israel, which some translations say means "governed by God." Whenever Jacob was going back to his deceiving ways, the Bible calls him Jacob. When he was being governed by God, walking according to the Lord, he was called Israel.

Every time he limped on that hip, it was to remind him, "Jacob, don't go back to your Jacob deceiving ways." Every limp was a reminder. Don't walk in those ways again. There are many of you just like myself, you walk with a limp because you've been through some storms. You've been through some corrective storms. The reason why we have that limp is God is saying don't you ever try to go back to your Jacob ways, because whenever you do, you're going to limp.

This is why storms, especially storms of correction, end so violently. I mean, we're talking about a huge ship that carried 276 people was being beaten up and torn apart by these two oceans meeting together. It's to remind us don't go back to your old ways. I bring that up because I believe that there are some here today thinking about going back to an old flame, to an old situation that you know got you in a lot of trouble.

An old side chick, some old flame, and you've been thinking about it lately. Let me gently tell you, don't do it. Because each time, this is the thing about storms, each time we go through one, if we go back, the storm becomes more and more intense. It becomes like in these verses, a Euroclydon. It becomes something.

God will take us through a storm and maybe it's just a tropical storm. It's still a storm, but it's a tropical storm. But if you like me have been in the military and you've been over to the Far East, like when I was over in Japan, they had typhoons. It'll make a tropical storm here look like just a little sprinkling outside.

Each time we go back to some old thing and God has to send us back into a storm of correction, it's going to be more intense. It's going to be intensified. I'm here to tell you, don't do it. Lose that chick's number. That guy who made you feel good because he complimented you on some outfit and your husband never says a word, he just grunts. You went and got your hair done and you got a new outfit and you walk all day and he didn't say a word.

But the guy at the job said, "Oh, you look so nice today. I can tell you've been," and now you're feeling good about it. Let me tell you, don't let that go in your ears. Don't let it go in your ears. It's nothing but trouble. There's a storm brewing if you do. I'm telling you, don't do it. God is speaking to somebody. Don't do it.

Don't do it because that storm will be more intense. I've been there, folks. I've been there when it was just raining. Then the next time it was a tropical storm. Then it was an East Coast hurricane. Then I had two what I would call typhoons, 10 years apart. Me and God knew what was going on. Don't do it. Don't do it. Somebody needs to hear that, maybe online. Don't do it. It's just trouble.

Look at verses 40 to 42. And the soldiers' plan was to kill the prisoners lest any of them should swim away and escape. But the centurion, wanting to save Paul, kept them from their purpose and commanded that those who could swim jump overboard first and get to land, and the rest some on boards and some on parts of the ship. And so it was that they all escaped safely to land.

Under Roman law, a soldier was responsible for the safekeeping and the safe delivery of any prisoners in their care. The Roman law required for them to pay with their lives if any prisoner escaped, according to Acts 12:19 and 16:27. Those are two examples where Roman soldiers had to pay with their lives because a prisoner was gone.

This is why some of them were concerned that in the chaos of the situation, some might escape and swim away. This is also why they wanted to kill the prisoners in verse 42. But the centurion, the Roman soldier over a hundred men who was in charge, kept them from doing this because of his respect for Paul. So he gave the command in verse 43 that those who could swim jump overboard and get to land, and the rest some came on broken pieces of boards from the ship, others came floating in other parts of the broken ship.

They all—referring to the 276 people on board—escaped safely to land, just like Paul said would take place in verses 22 and 24. In the minds of the Romans and the Greeks at this time, surviving such a disaster at sea was a sign of your innocence. So here they are shipwrecked on an island and we will see how the storm of correction turns into a storm of direction, directing Paul right into the center of God's will as we get into chapter 28 next week.

In this message, joy comes in the morning. We saw how weeping may endure for a night as we're in the midst of our storm. I've shed many tears in the midst of my storm, but joy comes in the morning as the storm clouds go away and the day dawns. We saw how the storm may be over, but we may not recognize where we are because storms have a way of blowing people, jobs, and things out of our lives.

But just like we saw with Jonah, God will have us right where we need to be in the center of his will. Finally, we saw how storms can end violently because God wants us to remember them and never want to go through such a storm again. However, we all know each of us here how hard-headed we are. However, just remember each time we disobey God in the storms we're in, they become more and more intense.

Keep in mind God isn't trying to punish us but to purge us from people and things that cause us to be disobedient to him. Let's pray. Father, we do thank you. We thank you for your love for us. We thank you that you're not trying to punish us but to purge us. Lord, there are some of your people here that's now realizing why that job is gone, why that person is no longer in their life, because you purged those things out. Whatever it is, Lord, that has us in disobedience to you, you will purge out because you love us so much.

Lord, forgive us for when we are hard-headed. Forgive us for when we want to go back to the old things, old flames, old stuff. Lord, forgive us for when we fall short. Let us remember it's through your mercies that we're not consumed. Your mercies are renewed every morning. Great is your faithfulness to us. Thank you, Lord.

If there's any here who has not repented of your sin and accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, or you need to renew your walk with Jesus Christ, just say this short prayer after me. Just say: Lord Jesus, forgive me. I believe you died on a cross and was buried and rose again. Come into my heart or come back, Lord. Help me to live for you by the power of your Holy Spirit from this moment forward. In Jesus' name, amen.

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