📖 Acts Intensive — Unit 10: Storms and Shipwreck on the Way to Rome (Acts 24–28)

I. Tertullus the Hired Mouth

Five days after Paul arrived at Caesarea, the high priest Ananias came down from Jerusalem with the elders and a hired Roman lawyer named Tertullus. Tertullus stood up before the governor Felix and opened with the kind of flattery that always tells you the case is weak. "Seeing that through you we enjoy great peace, and prosperity is being brought to this nation by your foresight, we accept it always and in all places, most noble Felix, with all thankfulness" (Acts 24:2–3, NKJV). The historical record on Felix is the opposite of every word in that sentence. Felix was a freedman whose chief qualifications for the governorship were that his brother had been Nero's tutor and that he himself had stolen another man's wife. The Roman historian Tacitus wrote of him that he exercised the power of a king with the spirit of a slave. Felix had ruled Judea with bribery, brutality, and assassinations. Tertullus's flattery was a courtroom lubricant, not a description of reality.

The actual indictment came in three sentences. Paul was a pestilent fellow. Paul was a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes. Paul had tried to profane the temple. Tertullus had no witnesses for the third charge — the only one that was actually a crime — and no evidence for any of the three.

Paul gave a measured, point-by-point response. He had been in Jerusalem only twelve days. He had not been found arguing with anyone in the temple. The men who had actually accused him were not even in the courtroom — the Asian Jews who had started the temple riot had not bothered to travel to Caesarea to testify. "They cannot prove the things of which they now accuse me" (Acts 24:13, NKJV). Then Paul added the only confession the gospel ever requires of one of its preachers. "This I confess to you, that according to the Way which they call a sect, so I worship the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the Law and in the Prophets. I have hope in God, which they themselves also accept, that there will be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust" (Acts 24:14–15, NKJV). The man on trial preached the resurrection from his own bench in the courtroom.

II. Felix's Conscience and Felix's Calendar

Felix dismissed the proceedings without ruling. Privately he wanted Paul kept around for two reasons. The first was political — he did not want to alienate either the Jewish leadership or the Roman bureaucracy. The second was financial — Luke notes bluntly that Felix "hoped that money would be given him by Paul" (Acts 24:26, NKJV). The governor of Judea was hoping the prisoner would offer a bribe.

But there was a third reason. Felix had a Jewish wife named Drusilla — the youngest daughter of the Herod Agrippa I who had been struck down by an angel for accepting the worship of men in Caesarea fifteen years earlier. Drusilla was sixteen years old and had been seduced away from her first marriage by Felix. Felix wanted to hear Paul preach. He sent for him often during the next two years. Luke gives us the headline of one of those interviews. "Now as he reasoned about righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come, Felix was afraid and answered, 'Go away for now; when I have a convenient time I will call for you'" (Acts 24:25, NKJV).

Read those three subjects again. Righteousness. Self-control. The judgment to come. Paul was a master of audience. Felix had stolen Drusilla and the Roman governorship; Drusilla had committed adultery to be there. Paul preached righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come. The arrows landed. Felix trembled. And Felix said the saddest sentence in Acts. When I have a convenient time, I will call for you. The convenient time never came. Felix kept Paul under house arrest for two years, kept hoping for a bribe, kept sending for Paul to talk again, never called for the convenient time. Felix was eventually recalled to Rome in disgrace for mishandling a riot in Caesarea. Paul outlived him in office. The man who had postponed his salvation for a convenient time died without it. Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation.

III. Festus and the Appeal to Caesar

Felix's successor was Porcius Festus. Three days after his arrival in Caesarea, Festus went up to Jerusalem to make courtesy calls. The Jewish leaders immediately re-pressed the case against Paul, asking the new governor to send Paul up to Jerusalem for trial. They were planning a fresh ambush along the road. Festus declined, but invited the accusers to come down to Caesarea.

The trial was a re-run. The accusations were the same. The evidence was still missing. Festus, looking for political points with the Jewish leadership, asked Paul whether he would be willing to go up to Jerusalem and stand trial there. Paul understood the question for what it was. He stood in the Roman courtroom and said the words that changed the geography of his life. "I appeal to Caesar" (Acts 25:11, NKJV).

The right of every Roman citizen to appeal a capital case to the emperor's own tribunal had been on the books since the founding of the republic. Once the words provoco ad Caesarem were spoken, no provincial governor had the authority to release the prisoner. Festus consulted his council. Festus turned back to Paul. "You have appealed to Caesar? To Caesar you shall go" (Acts 25:12, NKJV). Paul had taken his case out of the reach of the Jerusalem mob and out of the reach of any cooperative governor. The Lord had told him in the barracks at Jerusalem that he would bear witness in Rome. Paul had just bought his ticket.

IV. Almost Persuaded

While Paul was waiting for the next ship to Rome, King Herod Agrippa II — the great-grandson of Herod the Great, the last of the Herodian line to rule any part of Judea — came to Caesarea with his sister Bernice on a state visit. Festus, who was still puzzled about what to write Caesar concerning Paul (Roman procedure required a written charge to accompany a transferred prisoner), asked Agrippa to hear the case and help him compose the report. Agrippa, who had been raised on the Mosaic Scriptures and was the official Roman caretaker of the temple, was an ideal consultant.

The next day Paul was brought into the audience hall with great pomp. Agrippa and Bernice entered with their tribunes and the prominent men of the city. Paul stood up in chains and gave the longest single recorded speech of his life — a defense, a sermon, and a personal testimony all in one. He told Agrippa about his Pharisee upbringing, his persecuting career, the noonday light on the Damascus road, the words of the risen Christ, his commission to the Gentiles. He told Agrippa that the message he preached was nothing more than what Moses and the prophets had said would come to pass — that the Christ would suffer, that He would be the first to rise from the dead, and that He would proclaim light to the people and to the Gentiles.

Festus interrupted at this point. He could not stand it any longer. "Paul, you are beside yourself! Much learning is driving you mad!" (Acts 26:24, NKJV). Paul turned, addressed the governor with respect, and then turned back to Agrippa. "For the king, before whom I also speak freely, knows these things; for I am convinced that none of these things escapes his attention, since this thing was not done in a corner. King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you do believe" (Acts 26:26–27, NKJV). Paul had pinned the king. Agrippa knew the prophets. Agrippa knew the recent history of Jerusalem — including the crucifixion of Jesus thirty years earlier. The arrow flew straight.

Agrippa's reply is one of the most famous half-sentences in the New Testament. "You almost persuade me to become a Christian" (Acts 26:28, NKJV). Almost. Almost converted. Almost the most consequential decision of his life. Almost in the kingdom. There is no sadder word in the language of salvation than almost. Felix postponed. Agrippa almost. Both of them died lost.

Paul gave one of the most beautiful answers ever given by a chained man to a crowned man. "I would to God that not only you, but also all who hear me today, might become both almost and altogether such as I am, except for these chains" (Acts 26:29, NKJV). Read that line slowly. Paul wished the most regal court in Judea would become exactly what he had become — minus the chains. He did not envy Agrippa his crown. He pitied Agrippa his lostness. The chained Christian on the floor of the audience hall was the freest man in the room.

Agrippa told Festus privately that Paul could have been released if he had not appealed to Caesar. The Lord had built the appeal into the chain of command on purpose. Agrippa's polite paralysis was not going to stop the gospel from getting to Rome.

V. The Storm

I want to take a long pause before we follow Paul onto the boat, because Acts 27 is one of the longest single narratives in the New Testament, and Luke gave us every detail for a reason. The Lord wants us to know how He gets His servants through storms.

If you feel like you have had a bad day, listen to this. It is reputedly an actual letter, written by a bricklayer, requesting sick leave. When I got to the building site, I found that the hurricane had knocked off some bricks from around the top of the building. So I rigged up a beam with a pulley at the top and hoisted up a barrel full of bricks. When I had fixed the damaged area, there were a lot of bricks left over. I placed the extras in the barrel. I went to the bottom and began releasing the line. Unfortunately, the barrel of bricks was much heavier than I was. Before I knew what was happening, the barrel started coming down, jerking me up. Halfway up I met the barrel coming down fast. I received a hard blow to my shoulder. I continued to the top, banging my head against the beam. When the barrel hit the ground, it burst its bottom and the bricks spilled out. I was now heavier than the barrel. I started down again at high speed. Halfway down I met the barrel coming up fast. I received several injuries to my shins. When I hit the ground I landed on the pile of spilled bricks. At this point I must have lost my presence of mind. I let go of the line. The barrel came down fast, giving me another blow on my head and putting me in the hospital. Therefore, I respectfully request sick leave. Brothers, that is the kind of bad day I am about to describe to you in Acts 27. Buckle your seat belt.

Christians have bad days too. The health-and-wealth preachers have built large empires on the lie that if you are really following the Lord, the storms will not come. I have read the Bible too many times to believe it. Daniel's faith got him out of the lions' den, but Daniel's faith also got him into the lions' den. Being saved is not the same thing as being safe. The Lord does not promise His servants storm-free voyages; He promises them storm-tested arrivals. Acts 27 is an exhibit on file in the public record.

Paul, with Luke and Aristarchus, was put aboard a coastal grain freighter at Caesarea under the custody of a Roman centurion named Julius. They sailed up the Phoenician coast to Sidon, then west under the lee of Cyprus, then across to the south coast of Asia Minor at Myra, where Julius transferred them to a larger Alexandrian grain freighter bound for Italy. By the time they reached Crete, the season was late — past the autumnal equinox, into the dangerous months when Roman maritime law forbade open-sea sailing. They put in at Fair Havens on the south coast of Crete. Paul, who had survived three previous shipwrecks during his missionary journeys, advised Julius to winter there. "Men, I perceive that this voyage will end with disaster and much loss, not only of the cargo and ship, but also our lives" (Acts 27:10, NKJV). The centurion listened to the captain and the ship's owner instead. The harbor at Fair Havens was uncomfortable and exposed. They wanted to make Phoenix, forty miles west on the same coast, where the harbor was better. A gentle south wind blew. They cast off.

Within hours the wind shifted. A typhonic northeaster — Luke calls it Euroclydon — slammed down off the mountains of Crete and drove the freighter out into the open Mediterranean. They could not turn into the wind. They could only run before it. They ran westward through the open sea, fourteen days and nights, with no sun, no stars, no chance to take a navigational reading. They threw the cargo overboard. They threw the ship's tackle overboard. The strongest sailors gave up. "All hope that we would be saved was finally given up" (Acts 27:20, NKJV).

VI. Three Strings, Three Sermons in the Storm

Paul stood up among them on the fourteenth night and gave the speech this lecture has been driving toward. "And now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. For there stood by me this night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve, saying, 'Do not be afraid, Paul; 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 it was told me. However, we must run aground on a certain island" (Acts 27:22–26, NKJV). I want to lift three sermons out of those five verses, because they are the way every Christian survives a storm.

First, know in whom to believe. Paul did not say I believe everything will work out. Paul did not say I believe the wind will die down. Paul said, I believe God. Faith always has an object. The faith that survives the fourteenth night of a storm is faith in a Person, not faith in a hopeful outcome. Years ago a friend of mine, the senior pastor of First Presbyterian in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was at coffee hour after church and saw a man wearing a bulldog pin. Not knowing the man worked for Mack Truck — the bulldog is the Mack symbol — my friend asked, What does that bulldog stand for? The man got a twinkle in his eye and said, It stands for the tenacity with which I hold onto Jesus Christ. My friend smiled and said, Wonderful symbol, terrible theology. It should stand for the tenacity with which Jesus Christ holds onto you. The reason all 276 men on Paul's freighter survived was not that they had a strong grip on God. It was that God had a strong grip on them. The sailors did not believe. The captain did not believe. The owner did not believe. Paul believed God. And the angel of the God Paul served had drawn a circle around the freighter that included every soul on board.

Years ago, on a long uphill stretch of an interstate in Colorado, I overtook a freight train going the same direction at a slower speed. Two locomotives at the back were straining at full power, pushing the train uphill. I am a flatlander; I had never seen anything like it. As I drove on, I gradually came alongside the front of the nearly mile-long string of cars. There I found five more locomotives pulling the train. Seven engines in all. Where I come from, three is a lot. That train was a sermon for me that day. I was under serious strain in my own ministry. I was wondering whether I could keep pushing the load. The Lord said, in effect, You are not pushing alone. There are five more engines pulling at the front that you cannot see from where you are sitting. When you are climbing up out of the storm with all the engines you have, look up the mountain. The Lord has more pulling at the front than you have pushing at the back.

Second, know when to wait. Most of us pray and run. We say Amen and bolt for the door before the Lord can answer. There are three classical answers to prayer — yes, no, and wait awhile — and the third is the hardest. Paul had received the angel's message on the fourteenth night. The shipwreck did not happen until the next morning; through the dark hours they dropped four anchors and prayed for day to come (Acts 27:29, NKJV). Paul did not jump overboard the moment the message came. He stayed on the freighter and ate breakfast with the sailors and waited. Job said, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him" (Job 13:15, NKJV). That is a waiting man's faith.

I had a friend, an old seminary janitor, who used to wait on the sidelines of the gym while the seminarians played basketball. He was always reading his Bible. One day I went up to him and asked what he was reading. He did not say The Bible. He said, The book of Revelation. I was surprised. You understand the book of Revelation? He said, Oh, I understand it. Well, what does it mean? He said quietly, It means Jesus is gonna win. Brothers, that is the whole sermon. The waiting Christian is the Christian who has read the last page of the book and knows the score before the storm starts. Wait. Jesus is gonna win.

Third, know when to walk away. Paul's third sermon on the freighter was the opposite of the second. As they neared the rocks of Malta, the sailors decided to lower the lifeboat and abandon the bigger ship. Paul told the centurion, "Unless these men stay in the ship, you cannot be saved" (Acts 27:31, NKJV). The soldiers cut the ropes. The lifeboat fell into the sea, empty. The crew stayed on the freighter until daylight. Then, when they finally saw the bay and the breakers on the rocks, they ran the freighter aground in the sand, broke up under the surf, and the crew went over the side. Some swam. Some grabbed pieces of broken planks and rode the waves in. "And so it was that they all escaped safely to land" (Acts 27:44, NKJV). All two hundred and seventy-six souls. Not one was lost.

There is a time to stay on the ship, and there is a time to jump off, and only the man who knows the Captain knows which time is which. The crew wanted to leave too soon and would have died. The Lord, through Paul, told them when. He still does. Some of you reading this are trying to bail out of a marriage, a ministry, a church, or a calling that the Lord has not yet released you from. Stay on the ship. Some of you reading this are clinging to a sorrow, a grievance, a past failure, a dead relationship that the Lord released you from a long time ago. There is a time to mount up and ride away from death, as old Gus said in Lonesome Dove on the bank of the Nueces River, after the boy had been killed by the water moccasins. The Lord enables both stayings and leavings. Cast your burden on Him. He will sustain you, and He will tell you when to swim.

Robert Louis Stevenson grew up in Scotland the son of an engineer who built lighthouses on the storm-battered coasts of England and Scotland. One day his father took young Robert with him on an inspection trip out to Bell Rock off the Scottish coast. A gale blew up. It lasted twenty-five hours. The little ship rolled in the seas and Robert was terrified. His father went up on deck to find the captain. The captain had bound himself with a rope to the foremast to keep from being washed overboard. The senior Stevenson came back below to the cabin where his son was huddled. Robert asked, Will the ship break up, Father? Will we drown? His father answered, in calm assurance, No, son. We will outride the storm. I looked into the pilot's face, and he smiled. Friend, when the storms of life come on you, get close enough to Jesus — the Captain of our salvation (Hebrews 2:10) — to look into His face. He will smile. He has overcome the world.

VII. Malta, the Viper, and Publius's Father

The freighter beached on a small bay on the north shore of an island the locals called Melita — modern Malta. The natives, Luke says, showed no ordinary kindness. They built a fire and welcomed the soaked, freezing survivors. Paul was gathering wood for the fire — the apostle of the Gentiles never above hauling sticks — when a viper, dormant in the cold, fastened itself to his hand as he laid the wood on the flames. The Maltese watched. They knew Paul was a prisoner. They concluded that Justice — the Greek goddess Dike — had let him survive the sea only to die on the shore. He shook the snake into the fire and felt no harm. The Maltese watched him for a long time. When he did not swell up and die, they changed their minds and decided he was a god. The man Lystra had wanted to crown as Hermes was now being called a god by Maltese fishermen. Paul, of course, did not accept the worship of either crowd.

The chief man of the island was a Roman official named Publius. His father was sick with dysentery and a recurrent fever. Paul prayed over him, laid hands on him, and the man was healed. Word ran around the island. The rest of the diseased Maltese came, and Paul healed them. The three winter months of detention on Malta were three months of revival on Malta. The Lord lost nothing by the shipwreck. He gained an island.

VIII. The Last Mile to Rome

Three months later, in early spring, an Alexandrian grain freighter named the Twin Brothers — for Castor and Pollux, the patron deities of Roman sailors — wintered at Malta. Julius transferred his prisoners aboard. They sailed north to Syracuse on the east coast of Sicily and stayed there three days, then to Rhegium on the toe of Italy, then up the west coast of Italy to Puteoli on the bay of Naples. From Puteoli they walked the Appian Way north toward Rome.

Luke saves a single small detail for the road from Puteoli, and it is one of the most touching sentences in Acts. "And from there, when the brethren heard about us, they came to meet us as far as Appii Forum and Three Inns. When Paul saw them, he thanked God and took courage" (Acts 28:15, NKJV). The Roman believers — a church Paul had never visited, but had written his great letter to several years earlier — heard he was on the road. They walked out of Rome to greet him. The Forum of Appius was forty-three miles south of the city. Three Inns was thirty-three miles south. Paul saw them on the road and his strength returned. Brothers, never underestimate what a small welcoming party at a roadside inn can do for a tired servant of the Lord. The man who had fought with beasts at Ephesus (1 Corinthians 15:32) and survived the floor of the Mediterranean drew strength from a handful of believers walking out to meet him on the Appian Way.

At Rome, Paul was permitted to live by himself in rented quarters with a single Roman soldier chained to his wrist. Luke calls this his own hired house. For two years he received any who came to him. He preached the kingdom of God. He taught the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. He wrote letters from this house — Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon — that have shaped every Christian century since. The chains never moved off his wrist, but the gospel walked into every household of Caesar's praetorian guard, four-hour shift by four-hour shift, soldier by soldier. Philippians later mentions the saints of Caesar's household sending greetings. The chain that the Lord had told Paul about in the Antonia barracks two years earlier had carried the gospel into Caesar's own palace.

Luke ends his book with one of the most deliberately open-ended sentences in literature. "Then Paul dwelt two whole years in his own rented house, and received all who came to him, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching the things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence, no one forbidding him" (Acts 28:30–31, NKJV). No conclusion. No martyrdom. No ending. Luke does not tell us how Paul's case turned out. He does not tell us whether Paul stood before Nero. He does not tell us anything about the next twenty years of the church. He simply leaves the door open. Preaching… teaching… no one forbidding him. The book of Acts does not so much end as stop, mid-stride, on its participles: preaching… teaching. The story of Acts is still being written. Acts 29 is the chapter you and I are living right now.

IX. Three Lessons Home

First, almost is not enough. Felix said when I have a convenient time. Agrippa said almost. Both heard Paul preach. Both went away unconverted. The convenient time never arrives, and almost is exactly the same destination as not at all. Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation.

Second, storms are part of the itinerary. The Lord told Paul in Jerusalem that he would bear witness in Rome. That promise included the typhoon, the fourteen days of darkness, the shipwreck, the viper, and three months on Malta. Storms are not detours from God's will; they are often the route by which He fulfills it. Trust Him in the storm. Wait until He shows the way. Walk away when He releases you. He has overcome the world.

Third, Acts has no final chapter, because the final chapter is yours. Luke ends mid-story. The Lord finished the canon, but He did not finish the mission. The kingdom is still being preached, the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ are still being taught, and no one — no Felix, no Agrippa, no chain, no fourteen-day storm — can stop the gospel from reaching the next person who will hear it. May the Lord write the next chapter through you.

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