Introduction
From 1787 to 1833, the Clapham Sect was a small group of Reformed, Evangelical Christians led by William Wilberforce.
This small group of Christians transformed British society by abolishing the slave trade in the British Empire.
In the 1780s, Britain shipped 50,000 slaves annually.
At that time, slavery was socially acceptable and economically vital for the country.
Driven by biblical convictions, the Clapham Sect combined rigorous evidence and powerful preaching to persuade people about the sin of slavery.
William Wilberforce (1759 - 1833) was a member of the British Parliament.
He introduced abolition bills 18 times to Parliament over 20 years.
Grassroots efforts included 1.5 million petition signatures, sugar boycotts (which led to a 50% drop in sugar demand), and Bible-based literacy through Sunday schools.
In 1807, the Slave Trade Act was passed. This act did not abolish slavery, but it did curtail the slave trade.
Finally, however, in 1883, the British Parliament completely abolished all forms of slavery in the British Empire.
William Wilberforce died just three days after learning that the Slavery Abolition Act had passed its final reading in the House of Commons.
God used a handful of Christians to serve others, and it made a dramatic difference in Western culture.
We have been following the Apostle Paul’s journey to Rome in our last few lessons.
Paul’s great desire was to preach the gospel in Rome, and God was answering his prayer.
However, Paul was getting to Rome as a prisoner of the Roman Empire.
Paul and 275 others had just survived a dramatic shipwreck on an island in the Mediterranean in the middle of winter.
This is where we pick up the story and learn about serving others in every circumstance.
Scripture
Let’s read Acts 28:1-16:
1 After we were brought safely through, we then learned that the island was called Malta. 2 The native people showed us unusual kindness, for they kindled a fire and welcomed us all, because it had begun to rain and was cold. 3 When Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and put them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and fastened on his hand. 4 When the native people saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, “No doubt this man is a murderer. Though he has escaped from the sea, Justice has not allowed him to live.” 5 He, however, shook off the creature into the fire and suffered no harm. 6 They were waiting for him to swell up or suddenly fall down dead. But when they had waited a long time and saw no misfortune come to him, they changed their minds and said that he was a god.
7 Now in the neighborhood of that place were lands belonging to the chief man of the island, named Publius, who received us and entertained us hospitably for three days. 8 It happened that the father of Publius lay sick with fever and dysentery. And Paul visited him and prayed, and putting his hands on him, healed him. 9 And when this had taken place, the rest of the people on the island who had diseases also came and were cured. 10 They also honored us greatly, and when we were about to sail, they put on board whatever we needed.
11 After three months we set sail in a ship that had wintered in the island, a ship of Alexandria, with the twin gods as a figurehead. 12 Putting in at Syracuse, we stayed there for three days. 13 And from there we made a circuit and arrived at Rhegium. And after one day a south wind sprang up, and on the second day we came to Puteoli. 14 There we found brothers and were invited to stay with them for seven days. And so we came to Rome. 15 And the brothers there, when they heard about us, came as far as the Forum of Appius and Three Taverns to meet us. On seeing them, Paul thanked God and took courage. 16 And when we came into Rome, Paul was allowed to stay by himself, with the soldier who guarded him.
Lesson
Acts 28:1-16 shows how God uses Christians to serve others in every circumstance.
Let’s use the following outline:
1. God Uses Christians to Answer People Who Are Superstitious (28:1-6)
2. God Uses Christians to Help People Who Are Sick (28:7-10)
3. God Uses Christians to Encourage People Who Are Saved (28:11-16)
I. God Uses Christians to Answer People Who Are Superstitious (28:1-6)
First, God uses Christians to answer people who are superstitious.
At the end of Acts 27, we learned that Paul and the other 275 travelers were on a ship that ran aground on a reef just outside a beach within a bay.
That bay has subsequently been named St. Paul’s Bay.
All 276 crew and passengers survived the shipwreck.
In Acts 28:1, we read, “After we were brought safely through, we then learned that the island was called Malta.”
Although some of the crew had likely been to Malta before, they did not recognize where they were shipwrecked on the island.
Malta is an island in the Mediterranean Sea located fifty-eight miles south of Sicily, and is seventeen miles long and nine miles wide.
Luke said in verse 2, “The native people showed us unusual kindness, for they kindled a fire and welcomed us all, because it had begun to rain and was cold.”
It was not uncommon for the victims of shipwrecks to be killed by the natives.
So, it was really gracious of the islanders to treat the victims of the shipwreck with such kindness.
Since there were 276 passengers and crew from the shipwreck, there must have been quite a lot of islanders helping them.
However, Luke did not tell us how many Maltese islanders were helping the shipwreck victims.
Please notice that Paul helped the islanders stoke a fire.
Luke said in verse 3a, “When Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and put them on the fire.”
Paul had just been God’s instrument of salvation for all of the 276 people, and here he was helping to make a fire.
You would think that his fellow passengers and crew would be so thankful for God’s vision to Paul that saved them that they would be saying, “Sit down, Paul! Let us serve you.”
But no.
Paul was still serving other people.
While Paul was helping make a fire, “a viper came out because of the heat and fastened on his hand” (v. 3b).
Skeptics say that Luke was inaccurate in this statement because Malta has no poisonous snakes today.
That is true, but that does not mean there were no poisonous snakes twenty centuries ago.
Moreover, Sir William Ramsay notes that “a trained medical man in ancient times [such as Luke] was usually a good authority about serpents, to which great respect was paid in ancient medicine and custom” (William Ramsay, Luke the Physician [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996], 63–64).
Finally, the answer to the skeptics comes from the text itself. The islanders expected Paul to die, thereby showing that the snake was poisonous.
We read in verses 4-6:
4 When the native people saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, “No doubt this man is a murderer. Though he has escaped from the sea, Justice has not allowed him to live.” 5 He, however, shook off the creature into the fire and suffered no harm. 6 They were waiting for him to swell up or suddenly fall down dead. But when they had waited a long time and saw no misfortune come to him, they changed their minds and said that he was a god.
The islanders thought that Paul was a murderer because there was such a large force of Roman soldiers responsible for Paul.
They believed that the goddess named Justice would not allow Paul to live.
However, after Paul survived, they changed their minds and declared him a god.
Like the islanders, people sometimes think that bad things happen to us because we have done something wrong.
Sometimes that may be true.
But not always.
That is why when bad things happen to us, we should always stop and ask, “God, what lesson must I learn from this?”
The point is that suffering, hardships, and difficulties enter our lives for various reasons.
James Montgomery Boice says, “The Bible gives a number of explanations why believers suffer. It speaks of common suffering, corrective suffering, constructive suffering, Christ-glorifying suffering, and cosmic suffering” (James Montgomery Boice, Acts: An Expositional Commentary [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1997], 419).
Let me look at each one briefly.
First, there is common suffering. This is the suffering that is common to all people, simply because we live in a fallen world.
Perhaps Job said it best when he said, “For affliction does not come from the dust, nor does trouble sprout from the ground, but man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward” (Job 5:6-7).
Your body ages, and things start to go wrong.
You get illnesses and diseases.
You may suffer just because we live in a fallen world.
Second, there is corrective suffering. Sometimes God brings suffering into our lives because he wants to get us back onto the right track.
We must ask what wrongs we have done that God is bringing suffering into our lives to get us off the wrong path and back onto the right path.
The writer to the Hebrews put it like this in Hebrews 12:5–6, “And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? ‘My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.’ ”
Third, there is constructive suffering. Sometimes God allows suffering to come into our lives to make us more like Jesus.
God develops our character through what we suffer.
Romans 5:3b–4a puts it like this, “Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character.”
Fourth, there is Christ-glorifying suffering. Sometimes God allows suffering to bring glory to Jesus.
The man born blind in John 9 is an example of this kind of suffering.
Jesus healed him of his blindness.
When the disciples asked whether the man was born blind because of his own sin or his parents’ sin, Jesus said in John 9:3, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.”
And finally, there is cosmic suffering. Sometimes there is suffering simply to demonstrate to the entire unseen world that God is worthy of worship.
As Boice states, “Job is the greatest story in the Bible about suffering. In Job’s case, God was demonstrating before Satan and all the fallen and unfallen angels that a man will worship and serve God for who God is and not merely because God takes care of him and prospers him” (James Montgomery Boice, Acts: An Expositional Commentary [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1997], 420).
So, Christian, when you encounter people who are superstitious about why bad things happen, you can answer them with the various reasons people suffer.
The point is that not all suffering is the direct cause of one’s own sin.
II. God Uses Christians to Help People Who Are Sick (28:7-10)
Second, God uses Christians to help people who are sick.
In verse 7, we read, “Now in the neighborhood of that place were lands belonging to the chief man of the island, named Publius, who received us and entertained us hospitably for three days.”
Publius was the Roman governor of Malta.
He welcomed the entire 276 passengers and crew and extended them gracious hospitality for three days.
A large number of the 276 passengers were, in fact, Romans, and so Publius was likely encouraging and supporting his fellow citizens.
Nevertheless, he was gracious to all of them.
Luke said in verse 8, “It happened that the father of Publius lay sick with fever and dysentery. And Paul visited him and prayed, and putting his hands on him, healed him.”
Publius’ father had “fever and dysentery.”
Commentator Richard Longenecker writes:
The malady the father of Publius was suffering from may have been Malta fever, which was long common in Malta, Gibraltar, and other Mediterranean locales. In 1887 its cause, the microorganism Micrococcus melitensis, was discovered and traced to the milk of Maltese goats. A vaccine for its treatment has been developed. Cases of Malta fever are long-lasting—an average of four months, but in some cases lasting two or three years (Richard N. Longenecker, “The Acts of the Apostles,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: John and Acts, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein, vol. 9 [Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1981], 565).
We don’t know how long Publius’ father had been sick.
What we do know is that Paul prayed for him, put his hands on him, and healed him.
As a result, Luke notes in verse 9, “And when this had taken place, the rest of the people on the island who had diseases also came and were cured.”
Although Luke did not mention it, Paul most certainly preached the gospel regularly in the three months that they spent on the island.
John MacArthur notes in his commentary, “According to tradition, the church on Malta dates from this time, with Publius as its first pastor” (John F. MacArthur Jr., Acts, vol. 2, MacArthur New Testament Commentary [Chicago: Moody Press, 1994], 363).
Verse 10 implies that a church was established on Malta, as we read of the islanders: “They also honored us greatly, and when we were about to sail, they put on board whatever we needed.”
I want to take a few minutes to talk about miracles.
Clearly, Publius was healed. Many of the islanders who had diseases were also healed.
We use the term “miracle” for some things that are not miracles.
For example, the birth of a baby is not a miracle.
Getting a job you did not expect is not a miracle.
A person becoming a Christian is not a miracle.
Unexplained healings are not miracles.
Many things defy explanation, but that does not make them miracles.
Miracles are not events that merely defy a natural or rational explanation.
My senior colleague and pastor, Gordon Keddie, put it well when he wrote:
The point is that the essence of biblical miracles is not their defiance of explanation per se, but their revelatory and redemptive significance. The best definition of a miracle (i.e., what are called in the Bible “signs, wonders and mighty acts”) I know is this: “A miracle is an extraordinary, visible, redemptive event ordained by God to reveal his redemptive purposes to men and to arouse their awe and wonder” (Gordon J. Keddie, You Are My Witnesses: The Message of the Acts of the Apostles, Welwyn Commentary Series (Darlington, England: Evangelical Press, 2000), 330.
Paul’s healings of Publius and the sick islanders were extraordinary, visible, and redemptive events ordained by God.
They revealed God’s redemptive purposes to them and showed them that Jesus is the Savior of sinners.
God enabled Paul to heal the people so that he could point them to the truth about Jesus and his saving work.
III. God Uses Christians to Encourage People Who Are Saved (28:11-16)
And third, God uses Christians to encourage people who are saved.
Luke said in verse 11, “After three months we set sail in a ship that had wintered in the island, a ship of Alexandria, with the twin gods as a figurehead.”
Luke then described their voyage to Italy.
Somehow, Christian brothers in Rome heard that Paul was on the mainland of Italy, and they went to meet him.
Luke said, “On seeing them, Paul thanked God and took courage” (v. 15b).
Paul was encouraged by fellow believers.
In verse 16, Luke wrote, “And when we came into Rome, Paul was allowed to stay by himself, with the soldier who guarded him.”
Some scholars believe that Paul arrived in Rome in the spring of 61 AD.
He was under house arrest for two years.
It is possible that Paul wrote the letters to the Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon during this time.
Paul could and did receive members of the Christian church in Rome at his home during this time.
Undoubtedly, he was an encouragement to them, and they were an encouragement to him.
In 63 AD, Paul was released from house arrest.
He may have traveled to Spain.
Later, however, in about 66 AD, Paul was arrested again and finally beheaded around 67 AD.
Conclusion
Paul was a “gospel” man.
He took every opportunity to share the gospel with others.
In our text today, God used Paul to serve others in every circumstance he faced.
Let me encourage you, my dear Christian brother and sister, to serve others in every circumstance in which you may find yourself. Amen.
