Join us now for the chapel hour, coming to you from the campus of Bob Jones University. Our speaker is Reverend Rob Campbell, pastor of Bethel Baptist Church in Sellersville, Pennsylvania. The title of his message is, Hold On, Fight On, and Preach On. The text is from Acts 27, verses 14 through 22. Acts 27 this morning. Acts 27. It's been my joy to be here for a couple of days. Thank you, Dr. Jones, for the invitation to come. Acts 27 and verse 14. Paul is on his final leg of the journey to Rome. It says in verse 14, but not long after. There arose against it a tempestuous wind called Eurycleidon. And when the ship was caught and could not bear up into the wind, we let her drive. And running under a certain island, which is called Clauda, we had much work to come by the boat, which when they had taken up, they used helps undergirding the ship and fearing lest they should fall into the quicksands, strake sail, and so were driven. And we being exceedingly tossed with a tempest, The next day they lightened the ship, and the third day we cast out with our own hands the tackling of the ship. 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. But after a long absence, Paul stood forth in the midst of them and said, Sirs, ye should have hearkened unto me and not have loosed from Crete and have gained this harm and loss. And now, I exhort you to be of good cheer. Be encouraged. For there shall be no loss of any man's life among you but of the ship." We took here about a year and a half ago a journey in our church following the Apostle Paul. It was the first time in this church that I pastor now that we spent in the book of Acts. And the first time I preached from Acts 1 to the final verse of the book of Acts. And I must admit, it made a profound impact on my life. Probably most impacting to me in going through this book is walking in the shoes and the sandals of the Apostle Paul and seeing chapter after chapter after chapter of a man who was knocked down, he got back up. Knocked down, he got back up. I mean, literally. Stoned. Left for dead. Goes to another city. Goes back through the same city that he was stoned in. Probably in that city, there was a young man, Timothy, that was looking in that crowd pile of bones and flesh that had been stoned and somewhere in that time made a decision that he was going to give his heart to the Lord and wanted to be used of God. But as we walk through this man's life and as we came to these final chapters, I was blown away again at a man who could have just said, I've done enough, I've sacrificed enough, I've done my time, and it's time to just kind of kick back and just take it easy just a little bit. And yet, we never see that in this man's life. He pressed on to the very end, to the very end of his life. As I saw that, I thought about my own frailties. I thought about in my own heart the times where I feel it's just too hard. Too many people's problems. There's too much pressure on my life. And then I go to study and for the next week's message and I see a guy who has been shipwrecked and all these kinds of things. I feel like the biggest wimp in the universe. In my own heart, feeling like I'm just caving in and I don't have enough strength. Have you ever been there? I would say that in a Crowd like this today, there's probably several of you that have had that thought as your feet hit the pavement and walked down these carpeted aisles and sat in your seat this morning, and you're thinking to yourself, I just don't think I can keep going on like this. I just don't know if I can endure to the end. You know, in your life, you're going to have a lot of endings. Some of you are pressing on to your Senior year. Graduation. I even walked by and heard somebody saying how many days it was until graduation. Praise the Lord. That's great. You're trying to endure until the end, but you get past that. And there's some other milestone. There's some other ending somewhere. There's some other bridge to traverse. Some of you are just trying to make it through your class. Some of you are trying to make it through some difficult relationship in your life. Maybe a parental relationship. You've struggled with that thing for years and years and years. I still remember sitting in a section back here and hearing a message at this pulpit from 2 Corinthians 3.18 from Dr. Wood on what you focus on is what you will become. And for me, it was a watershed time in my life. I felt like I was coming to my own strength with certain things in my life. I was focusing on the wrong thing. Maybe you've had that experience or maybe you're coming to that crisis in your life. I hope this message is an encouragement to you today to do what Paul did and what we see in these final two chapters of the book of Acts as we have a man here who admonishes us by the example of his life to hold on to fight on and to preach on. Here is a man who's going to come to the end of his life. He's going to be in a cold, dark prison and he's going to write to a young man, Timothy, and he's going to tell Timothy, I have fought a good fight. I have finished the course and I have kept the faith. I don't know about you, but when I read those words every time I come across those words in my Bible, I think to myself, God helped that to be true of my life. God, help me to hold on, help me to fight on, help me to preach on. And then I get up the next day and some little stupid thing just pulls my life over and I'm reminded of my own frailty. And I want to tell you right now. We have the example in the Apostle Paul and many others in Scripture, not of superhuman Christianity, but of people who relied upon the power of God to help them to hold on, to fight on, and to preach on. And we have the example that it is possible today. First of all, this morning, I want us to see from Acts 27, though there are many things in this chapter of 44 verses that we could pull out of this chapter, I want you to see that when God gives you a burden, you need to hold on. You say, what do you mean by that? We see that after Paul's ministry in Ephesus, which was a very successful ministry, Paul was preaching there in an extremely dark, pagan area. People coming to Christ, being discipled, taking all their wicked books, their occultic material, burning all that stuff. I mean, there was revival in Ephesus, and Ephesus was the apple of Paul's eye. He wanted to get to Ephesus. He wanted to get there, he wanted to preach the Gospel, and he got there, he preached the Gospel, and when he left Ephesus, As he's going back to Jerusalem, it says that the people there are pleading with him. Paul, don't go. Don't go to Jerusalem. You can't go on. Stay with us. As I studied that passage there, I found in my own heart, almost like I was pleading with Paul to do the same thing. Paul, just stay. Get you a little bungalow house and retire there in Ephesus. And yet it tells us in Acts 19 and verse 21. After these things were ended, Paul purposed in the Spirit. when he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia to go to Jerusalem saying, listen to these words, listen to the burden that God had given Paul. He says, after I have been there, that's Jerusalem, I must also see Rome. This guy had been through a lot already, and yet the burden was on his heart. I have got to get to Rome. The Gospel has got to get to Rome. Rome was the crossroads of the world. Paul's heart was captured with what could happen if somebody just started preaching the Gospel in Rome. Now, there were a few Christians in Rome already. But Paul's heart was captured. If he can get there and organize a church Could I ask you a question today? What is your heart captured with? Do you ever daydream what-if kinds of thoughts about what God could do with your life? You say, oh, that's silly. No, it's not silly at all. Because if the Spirit of God lives within you, the Spirit of God is going to minister to your soul, and He's going to give you thoughts about what God could do with you. Do you ever daydream in your heart about when you get to go home on a break, on Christmas break, about your friend from high school that's lost, and you're just daydreaming, and you find yourself daydreaming about how to get a meeting with them and share the gospel with them, or something that God has placed within your heart, and you think to yourself, I must see God do that. I want to say, students in this room that ever daydream about countries of the world that have never heard the Gospel, and your thought is, and you're just captured with this, and you're silly to say it out loud, but you've thought it in your heart. What would it be like to go to a place and to say the name Jesus for the very first time? And people say, Are you ever captured with thoughts like that? Any young man ever captured with the thought of standing before a group of teenagers as a youth pastor and being able to preach your heart out? And some guy coming down an aisle and saying, I believe God's dealing with me about preaching. My life was totally turned around by God through my youth pastor. Some of you young men are captured with that. Some of you young ladies captured. What would it be like to teach in Christian school? What would it be like to get a little Sunday school class and to influence little boys and girls and to put thoughts in their minds about what God can do? We need Christian dreamers. And Paul purposed in his heart, I must also see Rome. Yet there were a lot of complications. It says in Acts 23, Verse 11, now Paul is bound. Paul doesn't have freedom anymore to do what he wants to do. Notice this encouragement that God gives Paul. The night following, the Lord stood by him and said, be of good cheer, Paul. Do you notice what it says? The Lord stood by him. When God puts a burden on your heart and you say to yourself, I've got lots of problems. Maybe your problems are financial problems. You can't even pay for two semesters ago, let alone this semester. God's put a burden in your heart. It says the Lord stood by him and said, be of good cheer, Paul. For as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome." You say, how do you know if I'm called to do something? How do you know if this is not just something that I'm burdened about? How do you know if it's really from the Lord? God will confirm it. And God confirmed to Paul, you're going to get to Rome. Acts 25 and verse 12, from the lips of an unsaved man, a Roman governor, Festus, said in Acts 25, 12, when he had conferred with the council, he answered Paul, hast thou appealed unto Caesar? Unto Caesar shalt thou go. So God confirmed to Paul he's going to get to Rome. Paul had the burden. An unsaved man says you're going to get to Rome. And then in this shipwreck, In Acts 27, verses 22 to 24, let me read them again. I exhort you, be of good cheer, for there shall be no loss of any man's life among you. Paul has the settledness, God's going to take me to Rome, for there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, whom I serve, saying, fear not, Paul, Thou must be brought before Caesar and lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee. I want to tell you right now, you may be going through some heavy and deep waters, but in the middle of a shipwreck, God has the strength and the power to breathe the breath of life into your heart through the Word of God, through your devotional time in the third bunk in your dorm room and tell you, fear not. Some of you are going through some deep waters with medical issues and parents and all kinds of things that have come into the family and cancer and cancer and cancer. I've watched people in our church struggling through cancer and heavy, dark times in their life. And I've watched people hooked up to machines on a bed. Though I heard no voice, it is clear that God is speaking to their heart and telling them in the midst of the shipwreck, fear not, I've got a purpose for you. Then finally, in Acts 28 and verse 14, We got the conclusion, and it says, so we went toward Rome. See, why do you go through all that? Here's why I went through all that. I just want to show you in just a piece that God wants to burden your heart with something big. God wants to give you a God-sized burden. I know you know this, but let me just reiterate it in context here. Abraham was to be the father of many nations. So God can't have kids. Moses is to lead a massive group of people away from the most powerful and the most culturally upscale country in the entire world, Egypt. Moses is going to do it. Elijah is to confront the most wicked king and queen of the Old Testament with a promise that was beyond human control, that there shall not be dew nor rain these years but according to my word. Nehemiah rebuilds walls with incredible opposition. Gideon defeats Midianites with 300 men. Noah builds an ark, and there's never been any rain at all! These aren't just stories! These aren't just flannel graphs! These things were given so that when God gives you a burden, you'd break open your Bible, you'd look at these examples, and you'd say, oh God, I need the faith! to do what Gideon did because I look out and the Midianites are like grasshoppers. I got so many problems. And yet it was David who with the five stones in the sling said, is there not a cause? There is a cause. We need every young people in this room in the cause. Everyone. We cannot have one defect. God's going to anchor you in those stormy waters. The anchor of His providence and His presence. Paul says in verses 23-25 in Acts 27, there stood by me the angel, this night the angel of God. He's going to anchor you with His ownership of you. Paul said, whose I am. He's going to anchor you with service for God. Whose I serve. He's going to anchor you with faith in God. Paul said, I believe in God. Your anchor. is very strong. Here a couple of years ago, I got in the mail one of these videos, these DVDs from ETA, English Teachers for Asia. Some of you have seen that stuff. I was so impacted by that thing. I knew some of those things were going on and I saw the video and I thought to myself, man, I mean, I was jealous. I looked at the video and I thought to myself, Bethel Baptist Church needs to be involved in this. I mean, we we got to get on the ball, man. So I showed that thing on a Sunday morning in our church. God gave us a burden. We didn't communicate it to the congregation, just as a small group of people. God gave us a burden that by our next missions conference or the next spring, that we would have somebody from Bethel Baptist Church surrender to go to China. And I didn't put a stipulation on that it had to be the rest of their life or anything like that, but that just somebody would get under the burden of being used of God to do that. And so we started praying, didn't share it, didn't arm twist the congregation. The next mission is conference. I can't even remember who was speaking at that particular conference right now, but at the invitation of the conference, there was a couple that came forward on this side over here, my right side, as I came up and conducting the invitation. Couple in their 50s, sharp couple in their 50s. She was crying. As far as I know, the speaker that night did not mention China at all. But this couple's hearts were burdened. They had the stage of life. Their kids were out of the house. They wanted to do more for God and they wanted to get to the field of China. So last summer, they went on a trip to China and spent some weeks in China. One of our school teachers in China came back with more than they bargained for. There were some girls there that were in those classes that were looking for host families in the States to do a co-op program and so forth. So we got three students from there that came back, stayed with three different families in our church. Last Sunday night, It was like electricity in our church because there was a burden that was given to pray that Bethel Baptist Church could be just involved. We're just a little tiny thing off the main highway, just back in the woods that somehow we can impact the cause of Christ and get some attachment to the country of China. Last Sunday night, Those three girls that came over, the two of them have accepted Christ, and I stood in the baptismal waters with one of those girls and baptized that Chinese girl. I asked her before we went out, I said, in China, had you ever seen a baptismal service? She said, no. Folks, when God gives you a burden, hold on, because it will have eternal consequences. And what better way to spend your life than impacting eternity? When God gives you a burden, hold on. In Oswald Sanders' book, Spiritual Leadership, he says this, when God wants to drill a man and thrill a man and skill a man, when God wants to mold a man to play the noblest part, when He yearns with all His heart to create so great and bold a man that all the world should be amazed, watch His methods, watch His ways, how ruthlessly He perfects, whom He royally elects, How He hammers him and hurts him and with mighty blows converts him into trials, shapes of clay, which only God understands while His tortured heart is crying and He lifts His beseeching hands. How He bends but never breaks while His good, He, God, undertakes. How He uses whom He chooses and with every purpose fuses Him, by every act induces Him to try His splendor out. God knows what he's about. You know what? God wants you to try him out. God wants you to try him out. Somebody sent me a text message the other day. William Carey slogan attempt great things for God, expect great things from God. We can't lose that. We can't lose that. It's not viable, but it's certainly great truth. Secondly, this morning, when God forms in you a purpose, fight on. When God gives you a burden, you need to hold on. When God forms in you a purpose, you need to fight on. You know what's amazing to me about the Apostle Paul is he doesn't just lay down and say, you know what? I'm going to get my head chopped off. I'm going to die. I'm just going to I'm tired of fighting. He didn't do that. And he didn't recommend those who had followed him do that either, because he says to Timothy in 1 Timothy 6, 12, fight the good fight of faith. Lay hold on eternal life where unto thou art also called and has professed a good profession before many witnesses. Can I say this with with genuine love in my heart, you say, well, yeah, that's what every chapel speaker says, genuine love in their heart, genuinely love in my heart. But one of the things I get concerned about today in seeing young people, and I'm no exception, not like I've arrived, I've got to fight for this in my own life, is a passive spirit towards eternal things. They're not against them. They're for them. But the fighting spirit that's willing to say, I'm going to fight for that. I want to do what's right. Hey, preacher, you can't be contentious now. No, in fundamentalism, we're just fighting each other. Listen, we just gotta put that aside, and we gotta go back to the Bible, and we've gotta say, you know what, there are some things that are worth fighting for, and when God forms in you a purpose, then you gotta fight! At Paul's conversion, the Lord said unto him in Acts 9, Go thy way, for he is a chosen vessel, said to Ananias, who was going to meet Paul. Go thy way, he is a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. Can I tell you right now, God's got a purpose for every saved person in this room. God's not just saying to you, you're a Christian, now go out and find out what you need to do and live the best way you can, and I've given you my word as a guide. Absolutely, He's given us His word as a guide. But folks, I want to tell you, you can step out of the will of God or you can be in the will of God. God has a chosen purpose for you. The Bible says in Psalm 139, He puts your ankle bones together. He says He puts your DNA together. He put it all into place, and He cautions one. The reason that we're here today, and we don't just explode into the atoms of the universe, is that God preserves us and sustains us. That God has a precious plan for your life, and in order to stay in the will of God, you've got to fight for it. God's going to strengthen you in seasons of preparation. Some of you are in some seasons like that right now. It seems long. It seems lonely. It seems dreary. It seems like it's all sand and a bunch of cactus. I want to remind you, Moses was 40 years in the desert. Nehemiah was the king's cupbearer. First Kings 17. All of a sudden, Elijah's on the scene. Where was he at before that? I have no idea. But I have a suspicion God was preparing him for that stage of his life. Esther is totally unknown. She is a nobody. And then she comes in and God uses her and Mordecai to save the Jewish race. David is caring for sheep. Sheep. And he becomes one of the most powerful kings, if not the most powerful king of the Old Testament, and his psalms still speak to our hearts. Centuries later, because God prepared the man. God put Paul in Arabia for three years. I want to tell you, that purpose that God is forming in you will be challenged many, many times. If we had time today and we went back through the book of Acts, we could look at how many times that purpose was challenged in Paul's life, even from well-meaning Christian people in Acts 15. The Jerusalem Council. Paul is going to Gentiles. Other people say, I have a problem with that. So many times, over and over, that purpose will be challenged. So Paul pleads with Timothy in 1 Timothy 6. Oh Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust. Fight the good fight of faith. Ephesians 2.10 says, for we are his workmanship. Poema. We're his poem. God's writing a beautiful poem with your life. Say, preacher, my poem's got black brush strokes through it. You know what? God can take black brush strokes and make a beautiful mural if you'll allow Him to write the poem of your life. You pick up the pen, you start writing the poem, you are going to write something that is going to fail. What is God's purpose for you? I sat down a few months ago and just wrote out a ministry purpose to shepherd people towards God-sized tasks and inspire another generation to give everything to God. What is your purpose in this life? Finally, when God convinces you of the message, preach on. When God convinces you of the message, preach on. Look at Acts 28, verses 30 and 31. It says, "...and Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, received all that came in unto him, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ." I love these words to end the book of Acts. "...with all confidence, no man forbidding him." Paul was taken to the Mamertine prison there in Rome. in the shadow of St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican and Sistine Chapel and all those things. I haven't been there. I've just read and heard about all those things. Millions and millions and millions of people go by. All those things. And here's this little prison. I've seen pictures of this little prison. It's a cold and dark and unfriendly prison where Paul spent the final moments of his life and wrote these words to young Timothy. The book of 2 Timothy is filled with passion, because with all confidence, Paul is encouraging another generation to radically give everything to God. He says, Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable. Preach the Word. Be instant in season, out of season. I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith. Notwithstanding, the Lord stood with me and strengthened me that by me the preaching might be fully known and that all the Gentiles might hear. He's saying that from a little prison cell. He had confidence that a single life just given over to God, broken open, would expand far beyond what he could ever ask or think. And I want to tell you today, God can do the same exact thing with your life. Some of you say, you know, this isn't working out, man. being at Bob Jones, not working out, got a bunch of demerits. I just, I just can't. You know what? I just can't handle it. I want to tell you something right now. You can handle it. Don't you dare let your heart get you off track. You got some pressures from home. You've got financial difficulties. You've got grade difficulty. Whatever you've got. God can help you to overcome all of those things. So I want to leave you today with these words. Hold on. When God gives you a burden, hold on when he convinces you of a purpose for your life. Fight on. And preach on. Because God is greater and he can do with you above and beyond what you could ask or think. You've been listening to the chapel hour coming to you from the campus of Bob Jones University. Our speaker was Reverend Rob Campbell, pastor of Bethel Baptist Church in Sellersville, Pennsylvania. For a cassette or contact disc copy of today's message, send a check for $6 to Campus Store, Bob Jones University, Greenville, South Carolina 29614. Be sure to mention the name of the speaker and today's date. The Chapel Hour has been sponsored by Bob Jones University.