You're listening to the teaching ministry of Harvest Fellowship Church in Boyertown, Pennsylvania. You can find out more about us on the web at www.harvestfellowshipchurch.org. We pray that through our teaching, we may present everyone mature in Christ. Father in heaven, we bow before you. Can we lift up your name, O Lord? We pray, O God, that we might be able to seek the peace and the truth and the wisdom that is found in your word. You have revealed yourself to us, O Lord, and we thank you for that. We pray that as we study what at first glance might just seem to be a nominal passage with not a whole lot going on, that we might really look deeply to see all of those undercurrents of the things that you are doing in Paul's life, but also to see that you are doing so many things in our lives as well. We do pray for the Gibson family, Lord. And I pray, Lord, especially for George, that each day you will give him grace, compassion, and just a determination to, I could even say, to finish well. Lord, help us to be a loving church body to this family and to anyone who is in need and so fulfill the law of Christ. So we pray for your help in our Bible study. In the name of Jesus, we pray this. Amen. All right. Review time. From Acts 27, verses 39 through 28, 6. After the ship became lodged immovably in the reef, what was the soldier's plan? Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Thumbs down, like kill. I was telling Bob, because Bob and I sat next to each other last week, that I imagined maybe these guys were just even thinking beyond the whole responsible for the prisoners, but also caring about, all I care about right now is preserving my own life. I'm going to try to swim to shore, and I can't be worried about a prisoner that I'm responsible for. But they decided, let's kill them all. How did Julius respond to their plan? Yeah, those other guys really lucked out. How many men from the ship made it safely to land? You got both my answers. I put all of them. 276. What island did they shipwreck on? Malta. Or you might see in some of the older translations, what other name? That's strike one. It's Melita, if you've seen that, like maybe in the King James, M-E-L-I-T-A, Melita. How did the barbarians of the island demonstrate unusual kindness to the shipwreck ease, which is a word I made up? What's that? Yeah, because it said it started to rain. They were already wet, so they made these fires. Now here's a very important question. I did a little research on this today. Are vipers poisonous or venomous? Gary says venomous. Is Gary teaching? The answer is that Gary was right. So from what I was studying earlier today, venom comes through the fangs that they e-venomate. And poisonous has more of the connotation of, say, with a poisonous frog, if you just touched it, you could get kind of like poison ivy. We touch it, and we can become poisoned by it. a venomous viper, or perceived at least to be a venomous viper. And after Paul was bitten by the viper, what did the people conclude? Yeah, he may have escaped Davy Jones' locker, but the gods got him now. He's going to die. Now what did Paul do when he saw this viper hanging from his hand? Just shook it off. Just shake it off. And after Paul didn't swell up like a balloon or suddenly fall over dead, what did the people now conclude about him? He was a god. Man, that arrow went completely to the other side, from murderer to god. And that's where we left off, with the people perceiving Paul to be a god. So we're going to read Acts 28. Verses 7-16 And hear now the word of the Lord. 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. 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. And when this had taken place, the rest of the people on the island who had diseases also came and were cured. They also honored us greatly. And when we were about to sail, they put on board whatever we needed. 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. Putting in at Syracuse, we stayed there for three days. And from there, we made a circuit and arrived at Regium. And after one day, a south wind sprang up. And on the second day, we came to Puteoli. There we found brothers and were invited to stay with them for seven days. And so we came to Rome. 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. And when we came into Rome, Paul was allowed to stay by himself with the guard who guarded him. And may the Lord write the eternal truths of his word to our hearts this Wednesday night. What questions do you have? Robert. Something that really bothers me is why there's no mention of conversions Really bothered by that. Okay. So my, that's one of my questions on here. Why doesn't Luke mention the gospel or preaching here on Malta? Okay. Yes, Matt. Yeah, that was my first question. What does chief man of the island mean? There we go. And who were these twin gods? What did they represent? Why does Luke make a point of mentioning that? Here's some other questions that I asked myself. Did Publius entertain or host the entire group of shipwrecked men, or was it a smaller subset? What exactly was this illness, this disease that afflicted Publius' father? Were the healings supernatural or medicinal? Remember, Luke is a doctor, physician. Did the entire shipwrecked crew get on this ship that's headed to Syracuse? And in your fashion, Bob, I do also, in my mind, often ask a lot of questions that I know can't really be drawn out of the text. But nevertheless, there's still questions that come up in my mind. What does it mean to make a circuit? How did Christians come to be at Puteoli? What did these Christians who met Paul at the Forum of Appius and Three Taverns represent? Why does Paul react to them in the way that he does, you could say expressively? What was Rome like in Paul's day? And where can we find more occurrences? We heard about this a lot last week. Where can we find more occurrences of God's providence in this passage? And so, we come to these verses. I called it, you know this is funny to me, I called it, in my mind, Rome at Last. And I found afterwards, at least two other commentaries use that same title. But I didn't steal it, I came up with it in my own mind first. Rome at Last. Now last week, I made the mistake of asking you if you'd ever read a fairly common short story by Rudyard Kipling. This week, I'm just going to read to you a very short poem. It's only four lines long. I'll ask, perhaps shuddering, have you heard of John Greenleaf Whittier? Kids, I hope, at least. I've heard kids recite poems by him before. John Greenleaf Whittier, here's part of one of his poems where he says, here in the maddening maze of things, when tossed by storm and flood, to one fixed ground my spirit clings. I know that God is good. And I think that fits very well, not just tonight's you know, verses, but this overall passage of everything that Paul has endured from almost being killed by his countrymen back in Jerusalem through the years of trials and bribery and all sorts of things that he could say, I know that God is good. And we're going to see a bit of an expression of that near the end of the passage tonight. So let's go to verse seven, which first we're going to look at some hospitality and healing. 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. And so it's not too far from where they were. They were by these fires. Paul doesn't die. And pretty close to there, in the vicinity, the neighboring parts, were these lands, this property, these fields even, that were owned, Luke says, belonging to the chief man of the island. And his name was Publius. Now this expression here, where he calls him the chief man, means that we could also describe him as the leading or even the first man here. We could even call him Chief Publius. But the commentators are actually a little bit divided over what his actual role was. Some think that he was the highest Roman official on the island, the sense of being the leading local magistrate, so a conferred Roman power. But others think that he just happened to be the most wealthy leading citizen on the island of Malta. And I'll let you decide what you think would be more natural. Either way, he's an important guy. And he receives these men. He welcomes them. He hosts them as guests. And this continues, as you find a lot in the Bible, this idea of ancient hospitality. It's kind of a concept that we're not as familiar with. Can you think of some examples of very expressive hospitality in the Bible? Now we might run out and say, you can't park here. And here he is, and he's telling his wife, kill the goat. We're going to prepare these guys a meal. And that was not an unusual thing. That was a common thing, ancient hospitality. And so he receives them, but what I was wondering in my mind was, did he have all 300 guys, or was it a smaller subset? Maybe the receiving was of Julius, knowing that he was a Roman leader, a centurion, and then the people who were attached to him, the prisoners and soldiers, maybe it was just them, maybe it was the whole group, I don't know. In my mind, I'm leaning toward it being a smaller group, and especially knowing that perhaps that Publius thinks that Paul is a god, that may have had some impact on him as well. But nevertheless, he provides them lodging in a friendly way. He's likely feeding them for three days. And I just paused to think to myself, what kindness from God. Here's another display of providence. You think Paul's exhausted at this point? I think so. And the last thing he would need is to get onto the island and run for his life from natives with fiery arrows trying to kill him. Instead, he experiences the opposite. Last week we saw it was the unusual kindness, now it's this hospitable-ness. And just like Abraham, who, as John Gill says, received strangers, when he received strangers, Abraham actually, Gill says, entertained angels without knowing it. So Publius, he says, entertained an apostle of Christ among these strangers, and the benefits of that he enjoyed. And we see how he enjoyed some of those benefits 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. And so Publius lays sick, which means he's bedridden. He's not even able to stand. It gives us a sense of his sickness. And the one thing that I thought was kind of funny is we translate it with. And with is such a generic word, but it really means that he was seized with this, attacked, distressed, tormented by this. Carries a little bit more than just, oh, he was with this. And the word there, fever, plural, interestingly enough, which could either mean from Luke's perspective that it was a recurring bout that just keeps coming on him over and over, or he used the word in a plural usage there to show the extremity or the vehemence of this burning heat, you could say, upon his body or flesh. So he's got this fever, this dysentery, acute diarrhea, probably with severe abdominal pain would be one of the simplest ways to describe it. And what a lot of historians think today, that they've discovered over time, is that he had something that today is called the Malta fever. Malta fever, which comes from this microorganism in goat's milk. And it was a terrible condition that could last for months to years and possibly lead to death. If you've ever seen or played the old Oregon Trail game, what did dysentery lead to? Death. Congratulations. You have received dysentery. You die. And it just so happened. that he's here with dysentery and Paul's here. What a coincidence. And so Paul goes to see him and we don't know if Paul takes the initiative, we don't know if Publius asks him to, but nevertheless he takes the time to go in and he visits with Publius' father and he petitions God on his behalf. Now this prayer that he prays here, and surely it was a prayer that was allowed for other people to hear. What does that reveal to people? It reveals to them that he's not a god. because he's crying out independence upon somebody else, he's crying out to the God who can heal, so he is professing through this prayer that I'm just an agent of God's healing power, and that distinguishes him from the one who commissioned him. If you go back to Luke 4 you see Jesus dealing with somebody who had a really bad fever, who was that? Yes, Peter's mother-in-law. I think at times that this might have been the most miraculous of his miracles, that he had compassion on a mother-in-law and healed her, and that Peter was glad about it. But notice what he does in that passage is he rebukes the fever, because he is the one who heals. And so here, Paul Paul petitions Jesus. Jesus is the one who, when his name is invoked, he's the one who heals this bedridden father. Not Paul. So Paul is the agent, but Paul does not do the healing himself. It is through the power of God that this man is healed. But he also, besides praying for him, he puts his hands on him. Who else put their hands on people when they healed them? What's that? Sure. And Jesus. You always have a 50% chance of getting answers, right? If you just say Jesus. Yeah. And so if you read today's reading, Mark 8. In Mark 8, he took the blind man by the hand, led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, He asked him, do you see anything? And he looked up and said, I see people, but they look like trees walking. Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again and proceeded to give him eagle eye vision. And that was in Mark 8, 23 through 26. Who else had their eyesight restored? Yeah, Paul did. And who laid their hands on Paul? Ananias. In chapter... Close, nine. And so he's healed. His prayer has been to the one true God. It's a clear demonstration to the people that he himself is not a God. And so Publius' father is healed in the power of Jesus, a miraculous healing, a full recovery of health. And it's a manifestation to these people that Paul is a righteous man. We're going to get to that at the end of James. The prayers of a righteous man avail much. And it's further justification then to these people that Paul is surely not the type of man that they initially thought him to be. And so in verse nine, news gets out pretty fast. And when this had taken place, the rest of the people on the island who had diseases also came and were cured. Man, as soon as they heard about this, that kind of news will spread like wildfire. Everyone came running. or had to be carried perhaps, who knows. So everybody else who's afflicted by diseases, debilitating sicknesses and illnesses, they came or they were brought to see Paul and they also receive divine healing. Now we also saw that in Jesus, in that same chapter in Luke 4 where he heals Simon's mother-in-law, then many other people come along to also be healed. But here, I just thought in my mind, just reading about this, maybe we could call this the first medical missions trip. Although usually with the medical missions trips are aligned a little bit differently. But I think it's fair for us to at least ask the question, was every one of these healings a divine type of miracle? Or were there any types of situations where Dr. Luke was able to provide some helpful medical intervention? Either way, who is shown to be the superior? These gods that these Maltese people worship, or Paul's God, the one true God? He's the one who's shown to be the superior, and these healings then, they declare something. Just as we've seen in other places, they declare that God's kingdom has arrived here, even in Malta. Everywhere we go that we see these healings we see an announcement of God's Kingdom coming in power even to obscure places like little islands that Paul wasn't even supposed to be at. And there could be a sense here, as there was in Luke 4, Luke doesn't bring it out outright, but a lot of the sicknesses that people had in Luke 4 were a result of demonic oppression. And so he rebukes the demons there. It says in Luke 4, 41, demons also came out of many crying, you are the son of God. But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak because they knew that he was the Christ. And I wondered in my mind, Perhaps that was also symptomatic here, and it's sort of as if Paul's planting that flag saying, the gospel of Jesus Christ has arrived in Malta. And it wasn't my plan, but here we are. But then, Robert, I asked myself, why doesn't Luke mention the gospel here? Like, where's the preaching? Where's the proclamation by Paul? And when we think of Jesus' ministry, what did those miracles that He did, what did they represent? They represented, or they were signs that confirmed His authority and also His Messiahship. Now, if you go back earlier in Luke 4, we see Jesus, He's reading from the scroll. He opens the scroll and He reads from Isaiah 61. And what does he read? He reads about proclaiming the year of the Lord's favor and saying that he is the fulfillment of the year of the Lord's favor. And that included things like liberty for captives and also recovered sight for the blind. And so we find here that Paul, he's this personally commissioned emissary of Jesus, and he's continuing in the footsteps of the king. He's able to do miraculous works in Jesus's name, and they visually demonstrate something to these people. It's the coming of the promised Messiah and the expanding, conquering nature of his kingdom. But one other thing that we should consider here is that Luke is very likely just giving us a very condensed account of what's going on. And one thing that I thought about, too, is that Luke has already established the fact that wherever Paul goes, He preaches the gospel. He shares the gospel. He seeks to bring the lost to Christ. And so it's such a habitual process. It's such a habitual thing in Paul's life that Luke doesn't even have to mention it. I don't think we need to wonder, did Paul preach the gospel there? I think we can just know he did. I mean, we know that he does later with the whole praetorium guard, so why would he not with these people? Knowing that he's there for three months, I think it's just understood. Luke doesn't need to waste any time telling us we know that he preached the gospel. And it made me think, you know, about myself. And maybe it could cause you to think about your own self. Is it so predictable in situations that you would share the gospel that people would expect it? Or could it be the opposite where you were so excited that you shared the gospel because it was so out of the norm for you that you had to tell everybody about it because it was an uncharacteristic thing for you. I think there's such a great consistency in Paul. He doesn't really care. He'll preach the gospel to kings and he'll preach it to the beggars on the street and everybody in between. It's a true laying down of his life. And so we need to seek for those opportunities as well. And sometimes, you know, you're not going to be able to get all the way to the gospel at times. I had a man approach me asking me for money outside of a tractor supply company on Monday. And I wasn't able to get to the gospel with him. But I was able to at least engage him for a little bit, and we need to be able to engage people instead of just going past people. So in some ways, the hospitality and the welcoming of people and not seeing them as a nuisance or someone to avoid, those two things kind of come together with our evangelism. But in verse 10, we see the result then of these refreshed spirits of Paul and his accompanying travelers. It says, they also honored us greatly. And when we were about to sail, they put on board whatever we needed. So these people honored the ones who were helping them. So whether that was just Paul, Luke, and who are the other travelers, the other Christian travelers? I'm trying to remember, was it Aristarchus? Was there any others, or was that the three who were mentioned? I think those are the three who were mentioned. But nevertheless, they show this reverence, this high degree of reverence for them. And they have learned that Paul is not a god, but rather he's the messenger of the one true God. He has the good news of life in Christ. It says that they honored us. This word here that Luke uses, it's typically applied to paying for professional services. If you've heard of the word like an honorarium before, that's kind of the sense of the word. But really, it's just expressions of gifts and presents, large and valuable things that these men actually need. They don't have anything. How much stuff did they bring with them onto the island? Pretty much nothing. And so it says that they honored them. I think we're seeing more providence showing up here. Is Paul going to need resources in Rome? If he wants to live outside the prison, he's going to get permission to do that. The government's not paying for that. And so he's going to need resources. And so they received them. And when they're about to sail, they're about to leave. And the Maltese people, they say, hey, we're going to make sure, we're so appreciative to you, Paul, that we're going to make sure that you have no need left unmet. We're going to gladly supply it. And so Paul's now leaving the island. In a sense, we could say he's blessed all the participants of the island. And we can say that the good news, the presence of Jesus has reached this small barbarian island. And just by way of contrast, think of this kindness that Paul receives here, and then think of at the very end of this chapter, the conclusion of the book, the response that he gets from his Jewish, not the Jewish Christians, but just the Jews who come to interact with him. It's a much different response. So we get to verse 11, shipwrecked no more, shipwrecked no more. 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. And so three months later, the group is finally ready to leave. This is essentially the length of winter, which maybe they realized, hey, if we just stayed at that place that we could have stayed at, we'd still have our ship, we'd still have the wheat, and we wouldn't have almost died 175 times. Nevertheless, they set sail in a ship. It's interesting that Luke says, we set sail. Was this all 276 men? Was it just the Roman prisoners? I'm not sure. He doesn't tell us. But they do set sail, and this probably would have been an early February departure. The captain of this other ship seems to be eager to go. Winter isn't quite over yet, but it's not unheard of for them to leave at this point, even though it is still risky. And so they get on this large seafaring commercial ship, probably very similar to the one that they had been on. But this one had planned a little bit better, and it actually made it to Malta in one piece, and it safely harbored there for the winter. And so they get on, and it was another Alexandrian grain ship, but Luke distinguishes this one. He tells us that it had these twin gods as a figurehead. So it was conspicuously distinguished by what's called the Dioscuri, which is a word for the twin sons of Zeus and Leta. You may see a little note in your Bible. What names does it have for these twin sons? Yeah, Castor and Pollux. Sounds like a law firm. Castor and Pollux. And so this ship, and so whether or not it was like an actual carved image that was at the front of the ship, or perhaps it was just an insignia on the ship, or maybe it was just the name of the ship, either way, that's what this ship was known by, by these so-called heavenly twins. This is what the sailors would call the savior gods or the helpers of seafarers. And they considered it, pagan sailors, considered it a sign of good fortune to see their constellation, which was Gemini, which is Latin for twins, in a storm. So if they would see this constellation, they would take heart and feel like things were going well. Horace, who was a Roman writer, he wrote this little tiny, I don't know if you'd call it a poem. He says, then through the wild Aegean roar, the breezes and the brethren twain shall waft by little boat ashore. And the brethren twain there is referring to these two gods, so-called gods. And so we see just such an interesting, you know, just overlay of the spiritual type of climate here. Paul's now going to travel, and it's as if he's under the shadow of these twin sons of Zeus. But he knows that that's not a reality. The reality is that he's traveling under the power of Yahweh, under God. God, not the gods of the nations, is the one who's drawing Paul to Rome and will bring him safe passage to Rome. But it does remind the reader. So Luke is reminding the reader that even though this is God's plan, Paul is immersed in a pagan culture. Paul doesn't say, I'll wait for the ship that has a flag of Jesus on it. He gets on the boat that has all these pagan elements, but God is using them to accomplish his purpose. And not just in Paul's life, but for all the lives of the other people who are on that ship as well. Putting in at Syracuse, we stayed there for three days. And from there, we made a circuit and arrived at Regium. And after one day, a south wind sprang up. And on the second day, we came to Puteoli. So the first stop that's mentioned by Luke is Syracuse, 80 to 90 miles from Malta, somewhere in that vicinity. That's how far they have to go. It's closer for them than it would be for us to drive to Syracuse, New York. Has anybody been to Syracuse? Yeah, a few of you? It's right next to Rome, New York, isn't it? I don't know. You have Ithaca, you have Rome, you have Syracuse. Oh, wow. I've been to Syracuse once. I've only ever been to one NCAA basketball game. And I went to a Syracuse game with some friends back in the 90s, I think. But here, they're not going to Syracuse, New York. They're going to Syracuse on the map of your Bible, if you've got maps in the back. This is a port city on the east coast of Sicily. And this was an ancient Greek colony originally that had been conquered by the Romans all the way back in 212 BC. And Syracuse was the center of government for the Roman province of Sicily, and that included Malta. So if the Maltese people had extreme problems, they had to go over to Sicily. And so they stay in Syracuse for three days. Luke doesn't tell us why. Maybe it was because of bad weather. We don't know. But from there, they make a circuit and arrive at Regium, which is 70 miles away from Syracuse. Now this mention of Circuit here, there's a lot of debate over that. But it seems like not that they were trying to do anything electrical related, but that they could not sail in a straight line to Régime like they would have liked to. So Circuit either means that they kind of hugged the coast, or that they had to zigzag in some way just to make it. Now Régime, which today is called Regio di Calabria, is a trade city at the toe of Italy, the so-called toe of Italy, opposite the Sicilian city Messina. They're there for just a short period of time when the south wind springs up. Now, I wondered, did that cause these men to, their heart to skip a beat a little? Because the last time they got a southerly wind, they thought, this is going to be great. Oh, now we're going to die. But nevertheless, this south wind that springs up, a favorable south wind, but this time there's no bad results. The God who controls the wind speeds Paul along on his journey. Not these two so-called gods, but the God of the Bible is the one who speeds them along. And they make it to Puteoli in just two days. And I say in just two days because they go 182 miles in two days, which is pretty fast. And Puteoli is this highly cosmopolitan port city on the Gulf of Naples. It's eight miles northwest of Naples. It was the chief port of Rome. This was the regular harbor to where all these Alexandrian grain ships would come in and where they would unload their cargo. And Puteoli probably had about 100,000 people. So this was a pretty happening place. But that really then is the end of ship travel. And Luke doesn't make that abundantly clear. But from this point on, it's going to be land travel. And so we come to verse 14, the last few verses. We could call it the final stage on the Appian Way. There we found brothers and were invited to stay with them for seven days. And so we came to Rome. And so they get to this place, Puteoli, and they discover, so to speak, other Christians. What a wonderful thing. You ever been somewhere, maybe it was a vacation or just somewhere, and you just happened to run into other Christ followers? It's a great feeling, isn't it? And so they find these Christians, we could say a blessed discovery. And we might think, like, how did they get there? If you go all the way back to Pentecost, Remember all the different people who were there on the day of Pentecost? One of the interesting phrases that's in there, it says that visitors from Rome were there. Now this isn't Rome, but remember, I think we've talked about this before, because it's come up before in chapter 18, but there was a period of time before this where Claudius told all the Jews, you've got to leave Rome, you're banished. And that would have included Jewish believers as well. And perhaps some of them came here to Puteoli. But of course, there's other ways that the gospel could have spread there as well. But nevertheless, they find these believers and it says that we were invited. That's a really polite way of saying it because it really carries the context of they implored us. They entreated us. You must stay with us. And it says for a week. I don't think that they asked, can you stay with us for a week? I think they said, can you stay with us? And it seems that Julius probably had business to attend that was going to take a week. And he gives permission again to Paul to be able to do this. But nevertheless, they are there for seven days. And since they're there for seven days, what does that mean? That was seven days. Yeah. It gives at least one opportunity for them to have a gathered Lord's Day worship together. Extra special. So we could say this was a wonderful delay for Paul, for Luke, Aristarchus. And so they're able to spend some time. And that's all that Luke says about the time they spend together. And now they begin this 130 mile trip on land. on one of the great Roman roads into Rome itself. And so we came to Rome. And so we came to Rome. They begin their final approach to the capital city of the Roman Empire, and even though they're not in Rome yet, But it's almost like Luke is so excited to tell you, the reader, we're here. We finally made it. We're in Italian jurisdiction. And a lot of commentators see this phrase as the climax of the entire book. Paul's making it to Rome. Everything has been set in stage and now he gets there. And think of what we've already studied, Acts 19.21, now after these events Paul resolved in the spirit to pass through Macedonia and Achaia and go to Jerusalem saying, after I've been there I must also see Rome. In Acts 23, 11, the following night, the Lord stood by him and said, take courage, for as you have testified to the facts about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome. And it was just in the last chapter. Remember, he tells the men on the boat, this very night there stood before me an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I worship. And he said, do not be afraid, Paul, you must stand before Caesar. And so here they are. This is not the way that Paul thought it would go. You know, when Paul wrote Romans 15, verses 22 through 29, when he says, I hope to come to you. And he's really hoping to come to them. How? With his hands bound in chains? No, he wants to come as a traveling evangelist to spend time with them, to sup with them, to disciple them, to worship with them. But now he instead comes as a prisoner of Caesar awaiting trial. But nevertheless, It's still a tremendous testimony of God's promise to Paul fulfilled and just another clear demonstration of his providence all along the way. Paul's been lost at sea, shipwrecked, snake bitten against all odds. He's made it here to Rome. What about Rome? What was Rome like at this time? It was the political, the economic, the military center of the entire Roman Empire. Population was around one million, pretty large. The wealthiest and most powerful city in the world in the first century. From a geographic perspective, it's about 15 miles inland from what's called the Tyrrhenian Sea, and it's situated along the banks of the Tiber River. There was 14 regions that it was divided into. The city's perimeter was just over 13 miles. And this was the seat of the Roman government for the entire empire. This was where the emperor's residence was located. It also housed the famous Senate building and the Mamertine prison. But interestingly enough, and I didn't know this before, the Colosseum was not yet built. So the Colosseum gets built in AD 80. That's when it's finished. So Paul would have come in and not seen the Colosseum. So that was kind of interesting. And Rome also had a high percentage of slaves and poor people, with perhaps as many as 200,000 people, that'd be one-fifth of the population, relying on the Roman government's welfare system that provided free grain to the unemployed masses in the city. And to that, the writer of Ecclesiastes tells us, I told you so. There's nothing new under the sun. You know, welfare in our day is not a new thing. So 20% of their population was subsisting off of the government. Now, four years after Paul arrives here, which would have been AD 64, 10 of those 14 districts of Rome burn to the ground. And what happens after that? Nero blames the Christians and that begins a horrific time of persecution for the church. Yes. Verse 15, And the brothers there, when they heard about us, came as far as the form of Appius and three taverns to meet us. On seeing them, Paul thanked God and took courage. Now how they heard of Paul's arrival, I'm not sure. Maybe it was back at the previous city. Maybe somebody ran ahead. We're not exactly sure how, but they come. They're excited. So they travel out to him. They're coming out to him to meet him. This is in the sense of being the official welcome of a dignitary. which would then lead to an escort. So they come out to him to escort him back into the city. This is the exact same sense that you see what Paul talks about in 1 Thessalonians 4, that we which are alive shall rise together to meet him in the air. It's the same sense here of meeting the important person. They perceive Paul to be important and so they send delegation of believers, which seems to break into two groups. Some go the farthest way, all the way to the Forum of Appius, and some stop at the three taverns. But this Forum of Appius was a market town on the Appian Way, so it's 90 miles from Puteoli and about 43 miles from Rome. This was not a place that seemed to be a nice place. Going back to Horace, who I quoted before, he complained about this place. He complained about the boatmen and the stingy tavern keepers, as well as the poor drinking water which made him ill. the nets, and the frogs. And there was other stuff I read, too, about being a dangerous place. So some of the Christians, they come to meet him there, and they escort him then to three taverns, or also called the three shops, which is another station on the Appian Way, which is about 10 miles closer, 33 miles from Rome. This was a place where travelers could eat, rest, and spend the night. But what happens when Paul sees these believers? What happens? He just sees these people, these people that are a visual manifestation that the gospel has gone all throughout the Mediterranean. It's made its way all the way to the capital city of the Roman Empire. Practically speaking, we could say to the ends of the earth. And Paul just cries out with thanks to God. It's really hard to imagine at times just how much emotion perhaps Paul had bottled up in him. You think of all the things that Paul endured. Paul's forced to be the leader of the ship when everybody else is afraid and ready to die. But he gives thanks to God. Now what did he give thanks to God for? Was it for finally making it to Rome? Was it for the answered prayer of the fulfillment of finally seeing these Roman Christians face to face? Was it because he sees that they are reciprocating love to him that he had expressed to them in his letter? or maybe another reason or maybe a lot of those reasons combined. But nevertheless, Paul is overwhelmed and their presence gives him an emotional lift. You know, we kind of experience that every week in a very small way. When we see each other, there is that emotional lift, a good, holy emotional lift that comes through seeing other people who are followers of Christ and are determined to also worship him. And so Paul is lifted, he's encouraged by them in the Lord, and that gives him such a great resolve of courage as he's now again preparing for his encounter with Nero. And it's a good moment for us to see and to remember that Paul's a human. You know, Paul's not a robot. Paul doesn't endure all these things and never shed a tear or feel fear or worry or anything like that. Paul is a human man with needs. And God looks out for his needs and God looks out for our needs as well. But he takes courage here. Courage is, we could define it uniquely like this, it's the opposite of an undisciplined impulse for bold action which devolves into recklessness or rashness. So it's the opposite of that. Or we could say it's the good sense of that. Not the type of person who just charges off into something where they don't care about the feelings, thoughts, or concerns of others, and are actually a very arrogant, shameless person. That's not what courage is. But who else, you know, go back to the Old Testament, who was told specifically to be of good courage? Who's that? Yes, Joshua. Joshua in Joshua 1.6. And I was kind of thinking about this verse earlier today. And I want to ask you, do you take courage from the joy that you experience with other believers? So you know that example I just gave. So whether it's a Sunday or whether it's a night like tonight, Wednesday night, you're around other believers. You feel this sense of courage, of boldness. But what happens with that? Does that translate into when you go somewhere tomorrow, does that turn into courage, real gospel courage in the unbelievers that you encounter? Or does it just dissipate and fade away and ultimately amount to nothing? And we're going to see from Paul that it amounts to something. So it's a good thing. It's a good thing to be around others. It's a good thing to be filled with courage, biblical spiritual courage, but then to do something with that courage to act upon it. Final verse, which I've called another triumphal entry of sorts. And when we came into Rome, Paul was allowed to stay by himself with the soldier who guarded him. This is the final time that we see Luke use the expression, we, in this book. And as one commentator wrote, what irony. Paul, the imperial prisoner, makes a triumphal procession to the capital of the empire. Because remember, Paul's not coming in alone. He's got all these Christians, and they're escorting him in, just like those people who threw down the palm branches for Jesus and threw their coats down. These Christians here are escorting in a prisoner. And you've got all these other prisoners there too, but this one prisoner, what is so special about him? What are they excited about? So he comes in, in this triumphal procession of sorts. We could see this as this definitive moment, you could say, of the advance of the Gospel and fulfillment of all the way back to chapter 1, verse 8, you will be my witnesses. This is, in a sense, the uttermost parts of the earth, at least the known earth at this time, that the Gospel will be proclaimed in all nations. What do you think these other people thought? What do you think these other prisoners thought as they experience all this? They don't have a choice in the matter, but they see this. What did they think about Paul when all was said and done? What did the soldiers think? What did Julius think? What did the people in Rome think? So they get there and now they really are into Rome proper. And we see that Paul's permitted. And we don't know if Julius is the one who makes the permission or if it's whoever Julius passes all the prisoners off to. But Paul is the one prisoner out of all of these prisoners who's not confined to prison, who's not placed with other prisoners. He's allowed to abide by himself, to rent an apartment. But it says, with the soldier who guarded him. So he still is going to be guarded. He's not going to be guarded by a centurion anymore, just a regular Roman soldier. And again, Providence. Every four hours, these soldiers had to switch out. Let's put the chain on the next guy, the next guy, the next guys. That's how many a day? Six a day? Six soldiers a day? And over time? And what do you think Paul said? Do you know the gospel of Jesus Christ? Maybe I don't know how he led in. And we know that he did that because he says in Philippians 1 that the entire praetorium guard came to know something. And he didn't tell him a sob story. I'm here. I've been unlawfully imprisoned. He didn't tell him any of that. He told them, my imprisonment is for Christ. It's for Christ. They knew that. Now, we don't know that, you know, which one of those soldiers may have believed, but they knew it. Paul was a prison evangelist as well. I just want to leave you with a final thought here. perhaps relates more to us. Because we're not traveling to Rome. God hasn't given us any kind of explicit promise. He hasn't appeared to us in dreams or visions and told us that we will reach Rome to testify Him. But what are some of those things that He has promised us? He has promised, Hebrews 13, 5, that He will never leave us. nor forsake us. He has promised that we will never be snatched out of the Father's hand in John 10, 28. He has promised that his peace will always be with us in John 14, 27. He's promised in the Great Commission that he will be with us even to the end of the age. He promised in John 14 as well that He will dwell with us through His given indwelling Spirit who will abide with us forever. He's promised in Matthew 11 that He will give us eternal rest for our souls. He's promised in John 14 that He is preparing a place for us and will take us to it. And he's promised in Matthew 6 that he will provide for our needs, which gives us even greater ability to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And almost at the very end of your Bibles, in Revelation 22, 12, he promises that he's coming soon to reward each person according to what they have done. So I ask you. Are you trusting in the certainty of God's promises to you? Those promises for you, if you are a follower of Christ, are you trusting that God is faithful to do these promises, to fulfill these promises, and are you also trusting and believing that he's able to, that he has the power to do exactly as he has said. So when we read a story like this, we can marvel at all the things that God has done for Paul. But we're adopted sons and daughters of God as well. And it's the same God that we serve. When Paul says, the God that I serve, when he's on this boat that's falling apart, we can take heart because that's the same God that we serve. And he's given to us all of these promises. And so let's take heart. Let's take courage. And then let's act on that courage, just as Paul did. Next week, we're going to finish, Lord willing, finish Acts, which Bob will put us at 100%. And then what I'd like to do is we're going to do, like we did at the end of Matthew, you're going to receive a fun test. There's 28 chapters in Matthew. There's 28 chapters in Acts. What was that? You don't want to remember anything? You just want to wipe the brain and move on to Deuteronomy? I feel a little bit of bitterness from the last test. I can give you a retake if you want to study for it. It's a good way to, besides just sort of having a little fun with that though, it's a good way to just look back on the book as a whole. We can get so immersed at times in phrases, in verses, and it's good to just take that step back and look at the whole look of the book, the whole view. And that's a good thing to do. It's a good thing, especially as you've been in a study. I don't know when did we start this study. Was it like August of 23 or something like that? It's been a while. I don't think it was quite as long as Matthew, but I believe it has been. You're right. The first thing was August 30. Wow. See, you got question one right. When did this study start? But Lord willing, so next week we're going to conclude the book, and then the following week we'll do a review, and then it's going to be off to Deuteronomy. So I hope you're excited about that as well. If you have any questions, come up afterwards. Thank you for being here tonight. Be sure to encourage one another with your presence tonight, but let's pray. Father in heaven, we bow before you. And Lord, what a wonderful thing it is to identify, I think, with the humanity of Paul. What a wonderful comfort at times it can be to our hearts to read Romans 7 and hear Paul's struggle with sin and to know that he was not some sort of super Christian who didn't struggle with sin at all. And to see the ways, Lord, that you strengthened him, even through the hospitality of barbarians on a small island. through the gift giving, through meeting Christians in places where he may have least expected, and then to just see a throng of Christians ready to welcome him into Rome. Lord, you are that same encouraging God to our hearts. We pray, Lord, that we will find encouragement in you, that we will use that as a means of further advancing your kingdom, just as we see in the example of Paul. I pray tonight, O Lord, for those who may need that encouragement, perhaps even more than some of the others who may really need that courage that comes from the Holy Spirit of God. I pray that you will give that to them tonight. And I ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.