If you would open your Bibles to the book of Acts. We are in the last chapter. Acts chapter 28. You'll remember that Paul is suffering for righteousness sake. He's not suffering because he's done something wrong. He is suffering because there are people like he used to be who oppose the truth. He used to be one of those folks. Now he's experiencing persecution. And as a result, in order to obey the Lord, in order to not go back to Jerusalem and face a group of people who were determined to kill him, He has appealed, and he's on his way to Rome, and he's been through a horrible time at sea. I mean, a couple of weeks of darkness, 24 hours a day. Never saw the stars, didn't see the moon, didn't see the sun for two weeks. And I assure you, the sea was not calm. getting tossed around. Everything's being thrown overboard. It's been a terrible thing. And then they end up with a shipwreck. Ship breaks up. Some people swim to shore. Some people are floating in on boards and other debris from the shipwreck. They get to shore, and here's what happens in Chapter 28. Once safely ashore, We then learned that the island was called Malta. The local people showed us extraordinary kindness. They lit a fire and took us all in since it was raining and cold. As Paul gathered a bundle of brushwood and put it on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and fastened itself on his hand. When the local people saw the snake hanging from his hand, they said to one another, this man no doubt is a murderer. Even though he has escaped the sea, justice has not allowed him to live. But he shook the snake off into the fire and suffered no harm. They expected that he would begin to swell up or suddenly drop dead. After they waited a long time and saw nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and said he was a god. Now, in the area around that place was an estate belonging to the leading man of the island named Publius, who welcomed us and entertained us hospitably for three days. Publius' father was in bed suffering from fever and dysentery. Paul went to him and praying and laying his hands on him, he healed him. After this, the rest of those on the island who had diseases also came and were healed. So they heaped many honors on us. And when we sailed, they gave us what we needed. After three months, we set sail in an Alexandrian ship that had wintered at the island, with the twin gods as its figurehead. Putting in at Syracuse, we stayed three days. From there, after making a circuit along the coast, we reached Rejim. After one day, a south wind sprang up. And the second day, we came to Petuli. There we found brothers and sisters and were invited to stay a week with them. And so we came to Rome. Now the brothers and sisters from there had heard the news about us and had come to meet us as far as the forum of Appius and the three taverns. When Paul saw them, he thanked God and took courage. When we entered Rome, Paul was allowed to live by himself with the soldier who guarded him. After three days, he called together the leaders of the Jews. When they had gathered, he said to them, brothers, although I've done nothing against our people or the customs of our ancestors, I was delivered as a prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans. After they examined me, they wanted to release me since there was no reason for the death penalty in my case. But the Jews objected. Because the Jews objected, I was compelled to appeal to Caesar, even though I had no charge to bring against my people. For this reason, I've asked to see you and speak to you. In fact, it is for the hope of Israel that I'm wearing this chain." Then they said to him, we haven't received any letters about you from Judea. None of the brothers has come and reported or spoken anything evil about you, but we want to hear what your views are since we know that people everywhere are speaking against this sect. After arranging a day with him, many came to him at his lodging. From dawn to dusk, he expounded and testified about the kingdom of God. He tried to persuade them about Jesus from both the law of Moses and the prophets. Some were persuaded by what he said, but others did not believe. Disagreeing among themselves, they began to leave after Paul made one statement. The Holy Spirit was right in saying to your ancestors through the prophet Isaiah, when he said, go to these people and say, you will always be listening, but never understanding. And you will always be looking, but never perceiving. For the hearts of these people have grown callous. Their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears, understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them. Therefore, let it be known to you that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles. They will listen." Paul stayed two whole years in his own rented house. And he welcomed all who visited him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance. May God add his blessing to this reading from his holy and inspired word. First of all, I want to remind you that if you are obedient to the Lord, you're doing the wisest thing you can possibly do. There's never a better plan than to obey God. We said that yesterday as one of the key points. I want to reiterate it again today. It's absolutely true that you can never do anything wiser than obey God. Smartest thing you can do. However, don't think that because that is true, when you are doing the will of God, everything will be easy for you. A lot of people think, well, you know, if the wisest thing I can do is to obey God, then I guess what they're saying is, The rain will only come at night while I'm asleep, and during the day it'll be sunny and bright, and the birds will be singing, and it's just going to be lovely. There will be beautiful, luscious, ripe fruit in all seasons on every tree along my path, and I just can have whatever I want whenever I want it because I'm doing the will of God. That's not the way it works. And the Bible makes it very clear in the Old and the New Testament that that is not the way it works. So if that was what you were imagining, that if I do the will of God it's going to be easy and pleasant all the time, you have completely ignored the scriptures. Okay. That is not what God promises. In fact, he promises that in this world, you're going to have tribulation. He says, but don't be afraid. Be of good courage. I've already overcome the world. Okay. Now as another case in point, Paul has had this horrible experience at sea. They finally make it safely to shore. The people there welcome them and build a fire. And Paul decides to pitch in and help. I ask you, is that the good thing to do? I mean, he's going to be helpful. He's not just sitting back and letting other people do it and say, well, I just, man, you wouldn't believe the last two weeks I've had. Okay, I mean, I am so tired. Thank you guys for building the fire, I really appreciate it. But I'm just, you know, forgive me if I just wanna chill, you know? You know what the term chillax means? That's me, I'm right here. I'm just gonna enjoy your labor. No, Paul, the prisoner, goes out and gathers up brushwood to put on the fire. Good thing to do? Righteous thing to do? Humble, godly behavior? Of course. That's Paul, hard worker. He gathers up the firewood and when he gets over by the fire, apparently it was not just a little handful, it was enough wood that there was a serpent hiding in the brushwood. Okay, he had gotten a pile of wood. And when he went over to the fire and dumped it on there, out of the brushwood as he's pouring it on is a snake that doesn't want to go in the fire. And it latches hold of Paul's hand. Now this calls to my mind as one who's had a fair amount of experience with snake, not a snake handler, but it brings a certain number of stories to me. One is when we were clearing the land to build Laurel Ridge. The reason that Laurel Ridge is called Laurel Ridge includes the fact that it was built on a knoll in the center of a gazillion mountain laurels, okay? Beautiful native tree related to the rhododendron that was all over that land. And so in order to get to the spot where they've started clearing and working, I'm going through a thicket like this. And as I'm going along, right at eye level up in one of the mountain laurels is a snake about this long, apparently up there hunting for birds. Okay. And I mean, it's right like this. And I'm like, totally startled me. But I can understand where there could be very easily a snake in the wood that Paul gathered. The other snake story this reminds me of, actually, there's another one besides that, but I'll stop with one more. We had just taken some students from the ranch to Florida for a Bible memory trip. We went to the home of our dear friends, the Cullens, who were going to host us in their lovely, spacious home. And as we're walking up to the door, Mrs. Cullen, who has had several heart surgeries, is coming to greet us at the door and about a three and a half, four foot snake is lying on the welcome mat outside. And it occurs to me, she's about to open the door, see the snake, have a heart attack, and our time in Florida will be off to a bad start with the death of our hostess. So I'm signaling to her, don't open the door. Don't open the door. And she's trying to make sense of this. Why would these people who've driven all the way to Florida arrive at my house and tell me, don't open the door. So she doesn't understand, and I'm saying, there's a snake, there's a snake, don't open the door. So finally she gets the message, she leaves the door closed, her husband comes around through the garage, which I suggested, and says, uh-oh, what should we do? And I said, how many of you saw the movie Up? Okay, based on him. He was the old man. So anyway, he was like, well, what are we going to do? What should we do? And so I said, I'll get the snake. I said, I'll get the snake. I've looked at it. I don't believe it's poisonous. Have you got a pair of work gloves I can wear? And so he said, sure. And he gave me a pair of nice, heavy leather work gloves. And I went up and went to pick up that sucker. And you know, I mean, you get them right back here, if possible. Didn't work. And the snake came around and bit my hand right here on this meaty part, bit my hand through the gloves. And it hurt. But I couldn't drop it. because I had to get it away from the house and away from the kids. So I'm walking around the house with a snake attached to my hand. Not fun at all. I went out to the back of their property and I threw it into the woods. You didn't kill it? No, I just wanted to get rid of it, OK? Now, Paul has been doing the right thing And he gets snake bit. And the snake is hanging off his hand. What do you do in a situation like that? Well, I love the description, he shook it off. Okay, into the fire. If I'd had a fire, I might have done that. Of course, they sometimes come out of the fire, but anyway. Paul shook it off into the fire, and the people seeing what happened to him, said, Oh, you know, justice has got up with this guy must be a murderer. I mean, obviously, you can look at the situation. If something really bad happens to a person, it's undoubtedly because they've done something wrong. Okay, now we've recently had some teaching on that, haven't we? Are we ever in a position to look and say, something bad happened to this person, it must be because they did something wrong. Is that legit? Is that biblically permissible? Absolutely not. We would be inclined to do it, but the scripture tells us don't do that. Remember Job. The reason all that bad stuff happened to Job was not because he'd done something wrong, but because he hadn't. I really don't understand the way this works. Right, that's one of the points. There's going to be a whole bunch of stuff that happens to you that you didn't cause. And yet most of us from the time we're little kids begin making sense out of our universe by trying to figure out how to control things. It starts with crying and hoping that somebody will come. And if they do, we very quickly get it, the way to get attention is to cry. Right? That's our first control mechanism. And we use crying, whining, fussing, screaming, don't have a vocabulary yet, just different sounds to demand attention and to try and communicate what we want. I remember as a child being just astounded that my father didn't understand I wanted him to put me down. I couldn't talk yet. But I remember. We were headed to the car. We were leaving the beach, and I wanted to walk. I was learning, I thought. I was making progress. Have you seen little kids? And the rest of the family didn't want to wait on that, see? It was like, no, it's time to go now. We're going to go to the car. So dad picks me up and we're going to the car. And I'm really upset. And I'm thinking, how can he not understand? It had not occurred to me yet that even when people understand what you want, it doesn't mean you get what you want. Because you're actually not in control of this universe. It's not just a matter of learning to find the right words. I've told you before about a person who wanted to work here at the ranch. And I had to say no, because in conversation with this person, whenever she was told no, her response was, but you don't understand. And she would try and explain it again. And I'd say, OK, so what you're saying is this, da-da-da-da-da. She'd say, yes. And I'd say, yeah, we can't do that. But you don't understand. And she'd try again. Let me just tell you right now, in case you haven't gotten the message. You're not in charge. You understand? You're not in charge. You don't control the weather. You don't control the stars. You can't expand time or shrink it. You can't make things happen sooner or defer them and make them wait. Life is going to happen to you over and over and over, day after day, year after year, and you're not in charge. There are some things you are in charge of. Let's see if I can make a list for you. This is what you're in charge of. You. And only to a limited extent. Okay, you are responsible for how you respond to the situations happening in your life. You're responsible for that. You're not responsible for your emotions, you are responsible for whether you make decisions based on your emotions, or whether you make decisions based on what you know is true. So, bad thing happens to Paul. The people say he must be a wicked man, and now fate is causing him to die. And they stand there, how'd you like to be Paul? Everybody's like, just wait, he's gonna fall down dead. He's gonna fall. I mean, that's what's happening here. Imagine if everybody was looking at you. I've had that feeling at times. They're just waiting for me to die. But I mean, they're all looking at him, just waiting for him to croak. And after a while, when they realize he's not going to, they change their opinion of him. Instead of thinking this is a wicked man who's about to die, they decide he's a god. Now what this should tell you is that public opinion can be very fickle and wrong all the time. If people think you're fantastic, don't believe it. And if people think you're worthless, don't believe that either. Don't base your understanding of who you are on what the public says, what the people around you say. You can't go on the basis of that. You know what you need to base it on? What does God say? What does God say? God tells me that I'm guilty of sin. All of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. God tells me that I deserve death and hell. The wages of sin is death. But God tells me that he loves me while we were yet sinners. Christ died for us. The amazing thing is God doesn't spare me the bad news about my mess, but God doesn't stop there. He loves me in spite of me, and he promises to transform me as I yield my life to him. That's really good news. So Paul spends some time on Malta. And while he's there, God uses him to heal a whole bunch of people. Isn't that cool? Why doesn't that happen all the time everywhere Paul goes? Because God is sovereign. They were in a place that needed the gospel, and God decided to give them some encouragement in their faith by healing everybody who was sick on the island. I wish God would do that all the time. This recent sickness that's been going around has been miserable. I know God is able to heal. God, why don't you do that? Well, maybe because I needed rest more than I needed a miracle. Maybe it's a miracle when I rest. Who knows? Why isn't my friend who's battling brain cancer right now already been healed? I mean, I told the Lord, let me be sick, heal her. So I'm sick and she's still suffering. I don't understand it. I don't have to understand it. God's in charge. It's not a matter of my learning. What do I have to say? What do I have to do in order to control the universe? I'm never going to be God. Thank God I'm never going to be God. I would do a horrible job running the universe. All of us would be in deep, deep trouble if I was in charge. You understand? Not because I'd be mean to you, but because I'd forget. Oh, you have to breathe? I'm sorry. How long have you been dead? You know, I mean, I just, I'd be a terrible God, but God is a great God. He's perfect. He does all things well. So Paul, when he gets to Rome and there's, I'm skipping over stuff, but I want to hit the points that God put on my heart. When Paul gets to Rome, he calls together the Jews in the area and he makes his case. from dawn to dusk, all day long, he's trying to present it. And some of the folks believe. I mean, you know, he's able to go through the scriptures and show them. But large numbers of people hearing the Apostle Paul filled with the Holy Spirit, presenting the scriptures very, very clearly, they're just like, uh-uh, mm-mm, mm-mm, mm-mm, no, mm-mm, no. Because God had already said, you'll be always listening but never understanding, always looking but never perceiving. For the hearts of these people have grown callous. How does something grow callous? Through repeated use and friction and pressure that is resisted. God's word had been speaking to these people for generations. And when Messiah came, instead of saying, this is the one we were promised, as some did, most said, no. Because you see, if he is Lord, then I can't be. If he's the boss, then I have to submit my will to him. And let me tell you something, folks, the only way that happens, the only way you can see or enter into the kingdom is to be born again. That's a work that God has to do. The Holy Spirit is the one who regenerates us. So God says, the hearts of these people have grown callous. Their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes. They don't want to see. I had a friend who texted me last evening and he said he was starting to watch a special about the life of Richard Pryor. And it was too painful to watch, he said. I had to turn the channel. What did he do? He didn't like the message. It was a painful message. It was emotionally upsetting. He's a compassionate person. And seeing the life of this guy who started out his life in a brothel Seeing that was too painful for him. And so he looked away. Well, here's the thing. There are for many, for many, many people, it is way too painful to be confronted with our need for a savior. I don't want to admit that I've messed up. I don't want to admit that I've done wrong. I don't want to admit that my loved ones who don't believe that, that grandpa who died is not in heaven. That truth is too painful for me, so shut up. Leave me alone. And Paul says, you've shut your eyes. Your heart's grown callous. You hear the gospel here in chapel day after day after day after day. Has your heart become responsive to the Word of God or callous toward the Word of God? Have you decided, you know, I'm gonna just endure this? They've shut their eyes. Otherwise, they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears, understand with their heart, and turn, repent, and I would heal them. Therefore let it be known to you that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles and they will listen. Does that mean God doesn't love Jews? Not at all. But it means that just as God prophesied hundreds of years before Jesus was born there would be a rejection of Messiah and as a result the gospel would go all over the world and people from every tribe and tongue and people and nation would come to faith. And that's good news for us. The Jews are not excluded. All who put their trust in Jesus will be saved. Paul stayed two whole years in his own rented house and welcomed all who visited him. Did you hear that phrase? And welcomed all who visited him. Proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance. What's he preaching? The kingdom of God. You know what our message should be about? The kingdom of God and the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord is the ruler of the kingdom. I say again, you and I are not in control. Now you can be a rebel against the one who is Lord, you can go around with your eyes shut bumping into things because you don't want to see the truth, or you can bow before him and gladly own him as your Lord and devote yourself to doing his will. I pray that you will choose the latter. Let's pray. Father, you know everything about each of us. And apart from you, we have no hope at all. But we thank you that in Christ Jesus, we have a hope that does not disappoint. We pray that you would help us this day to live in obedience to you, to do your will And we'll be careful to give you all the praise for we ask it in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen.