1404 - Acts 23:11; Acts 27:9-26 "Don't doubt in darkness what God has shown you in bright light!"

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Each weekday, Dr. Crisp will be discussing biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Tune in daily to start your day right and deepen your understanding of how to better walk the way and enjoy the journey. Here's your host, Dr. Tony Crisp.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Welcome to On the Way. This is Tony Crisp, and this is Podcast 1404. Today we're going to pick up just where we left off, but today I want to do something different. I want to help you to understand a concept that it has taken me 50 years to really begin to understand. Now I knew it intellectually when I was younger. I heard men say this, not just like I'm going to say it, because through the seasoning of years I have learned to make things very simple and clear. And I want to do that always. The apostle Paul said to the Colossians, pray that I make the gospel clear. Pray that I can make things clear so that people can understand it. Because God is not impressed, and we shouldn't be impressed with people that are trying to use flowery words, but they mean nothing to the common man. I am a common man, and most of the people that listen to me are common people. And that doesn't mean that we're dumb, that doesn't mean that we're naive. It just simply means that we live life as God gives it to us. I want to encourage you to maybe write some of these thoughts down when you get an opportunity. When we left Paul the apostle yesterday, he had just witnessed a great work of God in allowing him to get the people off track that were trying to railroad him and trying to put him on the spot. And God reversed all of that, and there arose such a great dissension that the commander who had allowed Paul to go before the Sanhedrin, this great body of Jewish leadership, and had summons them together, he had no idea that the apostle Paul was going to cause such a commotion. But Paul recognized that half were Sadducees that we mentioned yesterday, and the other half Sadducees, and you can go back and listen to the podcast and understand what that means. I have a couple of other podcasts that you in the archives you can go back and listen to. But I just wanted to set the stage for you because the Apostle Paul had to be rescued from the Sanhedrin because the leaders were fighting with each other. And the commander went in and rescued him, and he took him back to the barracks, and it says, But the following night, this is Acts chapter twenty three and verse eleven, but the following night the Lord stood by him, by the Apostle Paul. And here is what the Lord said to him Be of good cheer, Paul, for as you have testified for me in Jerusalem, you must also bear witness in Rome. Now this was a clear statement from God Almighty. It was truly a word from God. And I want to state a principle to you, and many of you know this, but you maybe have not ever just relaxed and let God do what he needs to do in your life, and that is this. Many of you are looking for answers. Many of you are looking for guidance. Many of you that are listening to this podcast worldwide, you're wondering, God, what do you want me to do? And I would ask you, has God ever told you what he wanted you to do somewhere in the past? Has God ever taken a portion of the Bible and you didn't grab it, it grabbed you, and it spoke to you. God spoke to you through his written word. And he confirmed that in your spirit that this is for you. It was in context. It was not just some verse that was grabbed completely out of context, but it was related to the same kind of thing that you were going through, and God gave you an answer. But you keep on asking him when things didn't go as you thought it was, were you to turn back? Some of you, God has called to ministry, God has called you to preach, God has called you to a particular place. God is making clear what he wants you to do, and he did that in broad daylight. He did that with great light. But since that time things have not gone as you thought they would go, as you thought God was going to work, because you may have put God in a box and said, God, this is the way you're going to fulfill your word to me. Well, I want to give you a word of advice. You can't put God in a box. God makes the boxes. The moment you try to put him into a box, God will not allow that. He'll jump out of the box or destroy the box you're trying to put him into. Here's what God said to Paul Be of good cheer, brighten up, and then he called him by name, brighten up Paul. Lighten up your eyes, for as you have testified for me in Jerusalem and he had, so you must also you must also bear witness in Rome. Now what that meant was obviously Paul's going to Rome and God's going to escort him there to make sure he gets there. Now that might not mean much to you, but it did to Paul not only now but in the days that we will read about in chapters twenty-seven and twenty eight. And the reason is is because from that day forward, Paul didn't know how it was going to happen. He began to see God's will unfold in front of him, but he knew that he was going to go to Rome. Now he might have thought it was going to be going back on the same trail and visiting the churches again and so forth. But God had a different plan. And I would say to any one of us that have wrestled with knowing God's will, or we thought we knew it, but then darkness came, and then the mist and the fog came, circumstances came, people came into our lives, sin came into our lives, and we thought, oh my goodness, everything's short circuited. Here is the principle for today. Never doubt in darkness, mist and fog and the confusion of all of that. Never doubt what God has shown you in broad daylight, in bright light, in the sunshine. Never doubt that in days of darkness. Because you see, it's not in the bright light that we doubt God. It's in the days of loneliness and darkness and disappointment. It's in the days of brokenness when we feel like where is God in all of this? How could God be in the middle of this? Well, most of what we get into we bring upon ourselves by choices we've made. But sometimes it's choices that people have made for us. God knows that. The apostle Paul knew that. But what happened was, as you very well know, through elaborate means he was taken to Caesarea and he was there for a long period of time. It didn't seem like he was going to Rome the first two years that he was there, but the reason he was going to go to Rome is because God said so, and God had ordained that he go, and he ordained the means whereby he would go, and he was going to get a free ride. It was just going to be a bumpy ride. Because it ended up that after Paul had given great testimony and witness to the grace of God in his own life, to the leadership of Rome in Judea, to King Agrippa, to Felix, to Festus, to others, he was in the palace in the praetorium in Caesarea. He had people that could come and visit him and he did. But then when he gave testimony, they tried to push him back to Jerusalem and he said, I appeal to Caesar. Well, when you as a Roman citizen appealed to Caesar, then the leadership, whoever the governors or the procurators or the proconsuls or whoever it is, they sent you to Caesar. And that's exactly what happened. The leadership said you appeal to Caesar, to Caesar you'll go, and they arranged a transport for him to go. And you can read about that in chapter 27. Paul had told them, hey, don't go this route. This is the wrong time of year to be sailing on the Mediterranean and trying to go to Rome from the islands of Crete and Malta and all of that. It's the wrong time to go. You see, what most people don't realize is that the Mediterranean is not tidal. It is a true sea. It's surrounded by land. You have the opening and the exit and a narrow strait called the Straits of Gibraltar, which join almost connect the European continent and the African continent. There's just a narrow strip that you can see from one side to the other where the Atlantic Ocean feeds into the Mediterranean, and counterclockwise there is a swirl always going on. It's non-tidal, it just goes round and round counterclockwise around North Africa, coming up through the land of Israel and Lebanon, and then what is Turkey today, and then you have the Bosphorus coming down from the Black Sea into the Aegean Sea and it spills in. And at the peninsula of Greece, the Peloponnesia, then it turns right, joins the Adriatic. It's a crash of seas, but all of it goes back out at the Straits of Gibraltar. It's an incredible thing, but it's like a cyclone going counterclockwise all year round. The winds began to come up at a certain time, and you can't sail on the Mediterranean. That's why there's not a lot of cruises that are going on certain times of the year, just like everywhere else in the great oceans. And so this is what was happening. Paul said, This is not the right time to go, but they went anyway, and a tempest came up, and in verse 21 of chapter 27, here is what Paul said after a great time of disaster and of loss of the people's confidence that were on the ship during the storm. Verse 21 of chapter 27 says, But after a long abstinence from food, then Paul stood up in the midst of them that is on the ship, as they were sailing to Rome, against Paul's great warnings, he said, Men you should have listened to me and not have sailed from Crete and incurred this disaster and loss. And now I urge you to take heart. This is verse twenty two of twenty seven. And now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only the ship. For there stood by me this night an angel of God to whom I belong, and whom I serve, saying, Do not be afraid, Paul, because you must be brought before Caesar, and indeed God has granted you all those who sail with you. Therefore take heart, men, for I believe God that it will be just as he told me. However, we must run aground on a certain island. Now isn't this amazing? This is the second time God said, You're going to Rome. You're going to get through this. I knew about this storm. I knew about them not heeding your warnings. I knew all of this was coming to pass, and I've got a plan. Because you see, you're going to give testimony of what I've done in your life in Rome. Little did Paul know that he was going to get freed after he went to Rome, but while he was there, he was going to have a great opportunity to get to know the Roman believers in the capital city of the empire at that time. And it was going to be a great ministry. God was going to allow him to have a ministry there they would have had of no other kind, and eventually he would give testimony before Caesar himself. Isn't it amazing? God tells us what he's going to do. We just sometimes doubt him when we go through hard times. And so I want to say to you, child of God, whatever you're going through, if God's already given you light, you don't have to doubt that light. And if he gave you that, then trust what he says. His word is like a lamp under our feet and a light under our path. Those lamps that he's talking about are handheld lamps. They only give enough light like a candle for one step. You take that step, you get to see the next step and where to take it, the next step, the next step. God didn't say my word is like a flashlight or a Coleman lantern or a mag light. No, he said it's like a lamp, an old lamp that just has enough to see one step at a time. Let's walk with God one step at a time. Don't doubt in darkness, mist, fog, and confusion what God has told you in bright light. For on the way, this is Tony Crisp.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Thanks for listening to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Tune in every weekday for information on biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Fridays are for your questions. Email your questions to questions at TonyCrisp.org, then just listen for your question to be answered on Friday's podcast. That's Questions at TonyC R I S P dot org. Thanks for listening and have a blessed day on the way.