Praise The Lord And Pass Me A Copperhead
Text: Acts 28:1-10
Introduction
1. 24 year old Danny Simpson was sentenced to 6 years in jail for robbing a bank. Danny got 6 years in the clink for stealing $6,000. But the gun he used in the robbery ended up in a museum. The .45 caliber Colt semi-automatic turned out to be an antique made in 1918 by the Ross Rifle Company. His pistol was worth up to $100,000 on the collectors market. If Danny Simpson had known what he had in his hands, he would not have ended up in jail.
Many Christians live like this. They spend their lives searching for God’s power and presence, not realizing it’s already in their hands.
2. As Christians we all too often forget that when God makes a promise he keeps it.
A. He promised to send us his Holy Spirit...and he did!
B. Acts 1:8 (NLT)
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
3. This morning we are going to look at a few of God's promises...
A. Promise of deliverance
B. Promise of protection
C. Promise of miracles
4. Let's stand as we read Acts 28:1-10.
Proposition: We need to stand on the promises of God.
Transition: The first promise I want us to look at the morning is the...
I. Promise Of Deliverance (1-2).
A. Safe On Shore
1. So far Paul and his companions have been through
A. Two weeks in a horrific storm.
B. The sailors tried to abandon ship
C. The soldiers wanted to kill them
D. A ship wreck
2. The one thing they had to keep them going is that God had promised Paul that he and everyone on the ship would make it to Rome.
3. As always God keeps his promise. In vv. 1-2 we read, "Once we were safe on shore, we learned that we were on the island of Malta. 2 The people of the island were very kind to us. It was cold and rainy, so they built a fire on the shore to welcome us."
A. The Lord had assured Paul that he must go to Rome. He had also promised to give him the lives of all the 275 others who were on board.
B. He did as He had promised. After arriving safely on land they found out the island was called Malta (Phoenician or Canaanite for "refuge").
C. It was south of Sicily and its people were descended from Phoenician colonists who settled there about 1000 B.C., and who probably spoke a dialect closely related to Hebrew.
D. The islanders received them graciously.
E. Throughout this passage Luke uses the Greek term barbaroi to refer to the "islanders."
F. Barbaroi is translated variously, including "natives" (NASB), "rough islanders" (NEB), and "barbarous people" (KJV).
G. But Luke does not mean that they were degraded or uncivilized.
H. To the Greeks any foreigner who could not speak Greek was a barbarian. Later they gave the Romans a certain level of inclusion by redefining "barbarian" as one who could not speak Greek or Latin.
I. It is easy to see that the citizens of Malta were good, friendly people even if they could not speak Greek.
J. Their kindness went beyond the ordinary. They lit a fire and welcomed all 276 of these strangers who had escaped the shipwreck.
K. Because of the rain and the cold, the fire was an act of great kindness and must have been a welcome sight to all from the ship (Horton, Acts: A Logion Press Commentary, 401-402).
4. The point that we need to see here is that God made a promise to Paul, and God was true to his word.
B. Rescue
1. Illustration: The September 11, 2002 issues of TIME magazine has a touching article about 31-year old Genelle Guzman. Genelle was the last of just four people caught in the debris of the Twin Towers to be found alive. After the planes hit the World Trade Center, Genelle was descending a stair case from the 64th floor of the North Tower. Steel beams weakened to their breaking point. Solid concrete was pulverized. But somehow her body found an air pocket. Her right leg was pinned under heavy concrete pillars. Her head was caught between stacks of wreckage. But somehow she was still alive. For twenty-seven hours Guzman lay trapped and seriously injured. In recent months before the attacks Genelle had started attending the church called Brooklyn Tabernacle, and wanted to get her life turned around. So while she was stuck in the rubble, she started to pray. She’d trail off into sleep – wake up and pray some more. Shortly after noon on Wednesday the 12th, she heard voices. So she screamed as loud as she could, "I’m here! HEY, I’M RIGHT HERE!" A rescue worker responded, "Do you see the light?" She did not. She took a piece of concrete and banged it against a broken stairway overhead—probably the same structure that had saved her life. The searchers find the noise. Genelle wedged her hand through a crack in the wall, and felt someone grab it. She heard a voice say, "I’ve got you," and Genelle Guzman said, "OH GOD, THANK YOU." It took 20 long minutes, and then she was saved. In many ways, Genelle Guzman represents the plight of all people. We are buried under an enormous mess of spiritual black marks – ways we have wronged our perfect God. The Bible calls these things sin. We have no hope of freeing ourselves. We are truly stuck. In need of rescue.
2. Whatever difficult situation you find yourself in God will deliver you.
A. Psalm 91:2-3 (NLT)
This I declare about the LORD: He alone is my refuge, my place of safety; he is my God, and I trust him. 3 For he will rescue you from every trap and protect you from deadly disease.
B. No pile of rubble is so bad that God can't rescue you.
C. No financial hole that God can't get you out of.
D. No family situation that God can't straighten out.
E. No physical or emotional problem that God can't heal.
F. For my God will rescue you from every trap and protect you from every deadly disease!
Transition: The second promise that we need to look at is the...
II. Promise Of Protection (3-6).
A. A Poisonous Snake
1. Well as we have seen in the life of Paul as recorded in the Book of Acts, trouble has a way of finding him.
2. Luke tells us, "As Paul gathered an armful of sticks and was laying them on the fire, a poisonous snake, driven out by the heat, bit him on the hand. 4 The people of the island saw it hanging from his hand and said to each other, “A murderer, no doubt! Though he escaped the sea, justice will not permit him to live.”
A. Paul was not satisfied just to warm himself. He appreciated the kindness of these pagans and responded by helping gather more brushwood for the fire.
B. The heat brought out a "viper" (or a female adder) that had been picked up with the wood, and it "bit him on the hand."
C. Many writers take notice of the fact that there are no vipers on Malta today. But it is a small island and the people eventually got rid of them after Paul's day(Horton, 402).
D. The Maltese people quickly tried to make sense of these events by using their pagan presuppositions.
E. Steeped in Greek legends and stories of gods relentlessly bringing wrongdoers to justice, they concluded that Paul must have been guilty of murder.
F. Though Paul had somehow escaped divine retribution in the shipwreck, Nemesis, the Greek goddess of retribution, must have orchestrated this additional means of punishing him. (Barton, Life Application New Testament Commentary, 568).
3. However, "Paul shook off the snake into the fire and was unharmed. 6 The people waited for him to swell up or suddenly drop dead. But when they had waited a long time and saw that he wasn’t harmed, they changed their minds and decided he was a god."
A. Paul simply "shook the snake off into the fire" and suffered no harm; Jesus' promise was fulfilled.
B. Mark 16:18 (NLT)
They will be able to handle snakes with safety, and if they drink anything poisonous, it won’t hurt them. They will be able to place their hands on the sick, and they will be healed.”
C. The local people had seen others bitten by the same kind of vipers, so they expected Paul to swell up or drop dead (Horton, 402).
D. To the amazement of the Maltese observers, Paul not only did not drop dead, he did not even exhibit any swelling or discomfort.
E. God had promised safe passage to him, and nothing could prohibit his reaching Rome.
F. When these superstitious pagans saw that Paul was unhurt by the poisonous snake, they did a complete about-face in their assessment of him.
G. They had assumed that Paul was a murderer; now they decided he was a god.
H. It is reasonable to assume that Paul deflected any idolatrous comments in the same manner as he had done previously (Barton, 568).
I. So in Paul's mind it was "Praise the Lord and pass me a copperhead!"
B. No Fear
1. Illustration: Someone tells about a woman who for many years couldn’t sleep at night because she worried that her home would be burglarized. One night her husband heard a noise in the house, so he went downstairs to investigate. When he got there, he found a burglar. The husband said to the burglar, "Come upstairs and meet my wife. She has been waiting 10 years to meet you." A real burglar can steal from you once; worry can steal from you night after night, for many years. Worry not only steals our sleep, but worry also steals our health and our abilities to cope with life productively.
2. The real issue here is not dealing with snakes; it's dealing with fear.
A. Isaiah 41:10 (NLT)
Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.
B. Fear can paralyze us and hold us captive.
C. It can cause us to anxiety, worry, stress and despair.
D. It can cause us to not realize the plan that God has for us.
E. Instead of letting us hold us captive we must step out in faith and trust God.
F. God has promised to always be with us.
G. God has promised to never leave us or forsake us.
H. God has promised to protect us from whatever the world or the devil throws at us.
I. It's time to stop fearing and start believing.
J. It's time to stop fearing and start trusting.
K. It's time to stop letting fear take a hold of you, and time for you to conquer your fears by the power that is in Jesus name!
Transition: The third promise is the...
III. Promise Of Miracles (7-10).
A. He Healed Him
1. Although Paul being unharmed after being bitten by a venomous snake was certainly a miracle, it was not the only miracle that happened while Paul was on Malta.
2. In v. 7 Luke tells us, "Near the shore where we landed was an estate belonging to Publius, the chief official of the island. He welcomed us and treated us kindly for three days."
A. Nearby was "an estate" (lands, properties) belonging to the "chief official" (governor) of the island, whose name was Publius.
B. He welcomed them with kindness and for three days entertained the whole group with friendly thoughtfulness (Horton, 402-403).
3. Then Luke tells us, "As it happened, Publius’s father was ill with fever and dysentery. Paul went in and prayed for him, and laying his hands on him, he healed him. Then all the other sick people on the island came and were healed."
A. Then Paul learned that the father of Publius lay sick, suffering from "fever" (Gk. puretois, lit. "fevers," that is, a recurring fever) and dysentery (as Luke the physician easily identified).
B. Malta fever and dysentery is now known to be caused by microbes in goats’ milk. This illness seems to have been common on the island. A person could be ill for a few months to two or three years.
C. Paul came in, prayed for him, laid hands on him, and God healed him. The healing was so complete and so wonderful that the news of it soon spread throughout the island.
D. This provided a great door of ministry and "the rest of the sick on the island" came one after another and all were healed (Horton, 403).
4. Then Luke tells us, "As a result we were showered with honors, and when the time came to sail, people supplied us with everything we would need for the trip."
A. We can be sure Paul kept ministering to them during the three winter months (v. 11) that followed.
B. As a result, the people honored Paul and his friends "in many ways" (probably including gifts of money to help them stay alive during the winter months).
C. When Paul and the others set sail in the spring, the people placed on board the things they needed for the journey.
D. Apparently they provided not only for Paul but also for all the rest of the shipwrecked, all having arrived with nothing but the wet clothes they were wearing (Horton, 403).
B. Miracles
1. Illustration: Oral Roberts used to use a chorus that some detested, ‘Expect a miracle every day, Expect a miracle when you pray, If you expect it God will find a way, To perform a miracle for you each day.’ - Expectations may be high and in the right place but there are still times of waiting for His answer! Even when things seemingly go wrong, as His children we can still trust-delight-commit our ways to Him. He is our firm foundation!
2. Our God is still in the miracle working business!
A. Mark 16:17 (NLT)
These miraculous signs will accompany those who believe: They will cast out demons in my name, and they will speak in new languages.
B. There are people in this world that close their ears when they hear people talk about miracles. They can't wrap their minds around it, and therefore, it doesn't exist.
C. There are even those in the church world that do not believe that God still performs miracles. They are happy to hear a preacher talk about love, grace and mercy, but the moment he preaches about miracles they shut their ears.
D. Well I don't know about you, but my Bible says that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.
E. My Bible tells me that in the last days God will cause things to happen that cannot be explained by human logic, science or medicine.
F. My Bible tells me that if we lay hands on someone, anoint them with oil, and pray for them they will be healed.
G. I don't know about you but I've seen miracles of physical healing, miracles of relationships being healed, financial miracles, and one the greatest miracle, second only to the resurrection, that of peoples lives being changed by the power of the Holy Spirit.
H. Jesus is still in the miracle working business!
Transition: If you need a miracle, God's office is still open 24/7!
Conclusion
1. As Christians we all too often forget that when God makes a promise he keeps it.
A. He promised to send us his Holy Spirit...and he did!
B. Acts 1:8 (NLT)
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
2. This morning we are going to look at a few of God's promises...
A. Promise of deliverance
B. Promise of protection
C. Promise of miracles
3. Remember you will never break one of God's promises by leaning on them!
