In verse 18, all right, two immutable things. Now, Jesus Christ, obviously, in verse 18, says, we might have a strong consolation which have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope that is set before us. The Bible talks about Jesus Christ being that blessed hope, looking for that blessed hope. Now, hope is not a wish. The world, when you say, oh, I hope, you know, a five-year-old, I hope I'm gonna get this toy for Christmas. That's not the kind of hope that's biblical hope. Hope is not a wish, it is a belief by faith that it will come to pass. Verse 19 continues the thought, it says, So the hope that we have is really our anchor. I can honestly say in the 40 years that I've been saved, When the storms of life assail against you, when you are in the midst of that storm and you're just not sure what's going on, the anchor is Jesus Christ. The hope is Jesus Christ. Why an anchor? Well, it secures and stabilizes. It holds a ship and boat solidly in one place. That's why I believe the illustration is used as an anchor. Now I want you to turn to Acts chapter 27. With this in mind, with this anchor in mind, we're going to read this account here in Acts chapter 27. And Paul is actually under the guard, under a Roman guard. He's being taken to Rome. He has a centurion, a bunch of soldiers that are protecting him and taking him to Rome to be seen of Caesar. And they are ready to go into the ship. And if you take a look at verse 10, this is Paul saying, and said unto them, sirs, I perceive that this voyage will be with hurt and much damage. Now, Paul, of course, is in touch with God, and God has told him that if you get on this boat, there's gonna be some hurt and some damage. I want you to go over to verse 29 and see really the end result here. In verse 29 it says, and then fearing lest we should have fallen upon rocks, they, meaning the sailors, the centurions, anyone who's in charge here, they cast four anchors out of the stern and wished for the day. Now that shows you the unsaved and what they put their trust in. They put their trust in four anchors and a wish. Paul, we're gonna see in this chapter, put his trust in four anchors and the hope of the Lord Jesus Christ. As we go through the storms of life, when you look at some verses here, verse 10, I perceive that this voyage will be with hurt and much damage, not only of the lading and ship, but also of our lives. As we go through life, Life's voyage, there's always much hurt and damage. No matter what you go through, through life, there will be hurt and damage. Verse 11, nevertheless, the centurion believed the master and the owner of the ship more than those things which were spoken by Paul. It's typical unsaved. They're gonna listen to, quote, the experts. And whoever those experts are, you listen to the weathermen, you listen to the people, climate change and all that, just absolutely drives me crazy. Here's somebody who cannot predict the weather three days ahead, and he's going to tell you that billions and billions of years ago, or in 100 years, we're going to be underwater. You know, I'm sorry, those experts are foolish. They're educated beyond human usefulness, is what they are. Basically, is what it comes down to. Verse 13, it says, and when the south wind blew softly, supposing that they had obtained their purpose, loosing thence they sailed close by Crete. Again, the experts, the people, the unsaved, they supposed that they had obtained their purpose, but they didn't obtain God's purpose. They obtained their own purpose by their own knowledge, by their own choosing. Verse 15, and when the ship was caught, let's go to 14, but not long after there arose against it a tempestuous wind called Eurocliden. I mean, it must have been really bad when they gave it a name, amen? It's like we're giving names to hurricanes. And when the ship was caught and could not bear up into the wind, we let her drive. It was so bad, they just took their hands off the ship, sails up, and they just let her go wherever the ship wanted to go. that ship went. That's very, very dangerous. No control over life. Verse 17, which when they had taken up, they used helps undergirding the ship, and fearing lest they should fall into the quicksands, strayed sail, and so were driven. So they put the sails down, and that wind just took them away from that island. Now, verse 18, and we being exceedingly tossed with a tempest, the next day they lightened the ship. It's just going through this shows you the world's philosophy in trying to get through a storm. They lighten the ship. You know, when people get into some major issues in their life, one of the things they do, they try to lighten the ship. They try to change their lifestyle. They lose weight. They go to yoga class. They stop smoking. But it doesn't help, it doesn't give you the answer. The answer is Jesus Christ. The answer is the anchor of Jesus Christ, the hope that we have in Jesus Christ. It is amazing, when I got saved, I remember, Before that, a typical lost person did what I had to do to get through life. You know, I worked, I did all the things that you're supposed to do. But it always seemed there were certain things that seemed so hopeless, like you were just lost in the middle of a storm. You just didn't know what to do. I got saved. And the first major problem that came, I said, man, I want to ask the Lord to handle this. What a unique idea. You know what I mean? And sometimes even when we're saved after a while and a problem comes, we say, OK, the first thing I can do is this. The second thing, a third, fourth. And then, OK, I need to pray. And that's usually D or E down the list. But you know what? When that happens, when we are going through this kind of storm, the first thing we need to do is get on our knees and say, Lord, you are my hope. You are my anchor. You own the storm. He's the one that put the storm in your life. He can get rid of it. Remember when he was sleeping at the bottom of the boat? And I mean, these are fishermen that are used to storms. They're in that ship and they're saying, Jesus, don't you know what's going on here? We're going to perish. And he kind of wakes up and goes, stop it. And it stopped just like that. That's the God you have that controls the storm, that can put the storm in your life to help you realize that you need him. Now, look at verse 19. The third day we cast out with our own hands the tackling of the ship. You talk about getting rid of anything that weighs anything. Verse 20, when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away. Have you ever been in a place where you just wake up in the morning and you say, there ain't no hope. And I'm sure you've done that since you've been saved. And you know that Jesus Christ is your hope and is your anchor. But sometimes you get to that point where you say, man, it's just hopeless today. I'm here to tell you, if you're saved, Jesus Christ is your anchor and he is your hope. Never give up hope because Jesus Christ is always there for you. Now look at verse 20. I'm sorry, verse 21. But after, yeah, but after long abstinence, Paul stood forth in the midst of them and said, sirs, you should have hearkened unto me and not have loosed from Crete and to have gained this harm and loss. Don't you love it when somebody stands up and says, I told you so. in the middle of a storm, after they haven't eaten for two weeks or whatever it was, they've thrown everything out of the ship. I mean, there's nothing left in the ship. And Paul says, I told you so, because God told me. Verse 22, and now I exhort you to be of good cheer, for there shall be no loss of any man's life among you, but of the ship. Now, even though there is no loss of life, go over to the verse 10, and it said, this voyage will be with hurt and much damage, not only of the lading of a ship, but also of our lives. No one lost their lives, but there was hurt and there was damage. In the storms of life, when we listen to other people, when we listen to the experts, instead of listening to God, there is hurt and damage in our lives. What we need to do is trust in God to handle it. The only security they had were four anchors and a wish, as it says in verse 29. Now, I'm just guessing, but I wrote down the only security, the four anchors and the wish, that we have, even as lost people, is family, education, a job, and religion. And that's the four things that people usually trust. Well, I always have my family. Well, listen, I have my family. I love my family, but I have God first. Jesus Christ is my savior. He is my hope and he's my anchor now. Thank the Lord for my family But if your family is above God, and if you trust your family before God, there's something wrong Jesus Christ if he's your savior, he is your anchor and he's your hope now I Paul, in this account, really has control over only two things. First of all, he's under Roman guard. Now, that centurion trusted Paul, but at the same time, he was still under the guard of that centurion. Paul had control over two things. That is, his response to the situation, and his access to God. Nobody could stop him from accessing God, from praying and saying, God, you know the situation, you control it. You're the anchor, you do something about the situation. And the second thing is his response. Many times our response, our bitterness or our confusion really is what messes us up. But we still have a responsibility to that response to say, okay, Lord, now listen, I don't understand what's going on. I don't like what's going on, but I'm gonna trust you to handle the situation. So it's his access to God and his response to the situation. Sometimes life appears very serene, and out of nowhere, we're caught up in the middle of the storm. We had a friend who had a boat. It was about a 26-footer. It was a very nice ship, a very nice boat, rather. And every once in a while, he'd take us out on Lake Ontario. We'd go fishing, or we'd go out as a family and get some ice cream cones or something. And Lake Ontario is just like the typical, you know, lakes up there where the wind can, I mean, a storm can come up within 10 minutes, you got some white caps. So we were out on this with all our, with our families, I think we had like three families on the boat, had our kids and everything, and we're coming back and I'm looking at the clouds and I said, Jerry, look at those clouds. He goes, I know, we're still safe. So we come out of the river into the lake and we're hugging a shore pretty good, you know But I'm gonna tell you that wind came up pretty quick and by the time we got to the bay to dock that boat We were we were in the middle and those camp those white caps man They were coming up and I'm with him the rest of the families are downstairs by this time I think they're praying because they're getting a little scared and I'm next to him hold on and he's steering and and literally their boat when it went down I'm looking at the way the boat goes down that wave was like four or five feet above the boat, you know and And you don't realize how bad it is until you're in the middle of that thing. You can explain it, you can see pictures, but when you're in the middle of that thing, man, it's pretty bad. And so I said, okay, Lord, it is time to pray. And Jerry, the owner of the boat, had a heart problem. And I always told Jerry, I says, Jerry, you better show me how to start that thing and how to get it going. Because if you have a heart attack, if you think I'm putting my lips on yours, you're crazy. You know? So it's the kind of relationship we had. Anyways, my hope was not in that. My hope was in God, if you know what I mean. But sometimes we are really, that's a picture of life. Sometimes we're in those storms and they come up this quick. We don't even realize how fast they come up. So Paul had four anchors and very quickly, if you look at verse 23, It says here, for there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve. Now, Paul is giving his testimony. He's telling them, listen, we're going through the storm. We have just thrown out all the tackling. There is nothing left. There is no hope left for you, because you've done everything that you know. And I'm telling you right now, I have put my faith my strength everything I have into God and God told me that verse 24 saying fear not Paul thou must be brought before Caesar and lo God has given thee all them that sail with thee so Paul had the anchor of God's presence Paul was not alone in that storm God was there we know that he knows that but Have you ever experienced that? Have you ever been in the middle of your storm, but know that God is there, that there is not an absolute thing that you can do about your situation, but that you know that God is in control? Now, that's a hard thing. You might do that once or twice or three times in your life, and that's all you need to keep it going for the next 10 years. But I'll tell you what, you go through that once and you'll never forget it. The anchor of God's presence. Someone once said to realize the worth of the anchor, we need to feel the storm. We need to feel the storm. Now, the anchor may let go or break, or the ship be lost, but you know what? The illustration of that, Christ is sure and steadfast. You can't lose your salvation. I mean, look at the verses, Hebrews 13, 5. I will never leave, I'm sorry, that's not wrong, Matthew. I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. He's always there. He is your anchor. The anchor takes hold. Sometimes it can't be seen, but it's holding. There's an illustration that I heard from a preacher. I think his name, the first name was Tony, I know that. He said that when he was a kid, he grew up in a city. It was pretty bad. And he was going to first grade and his mother paid a teenager a nickel to walk him home because it was so dangerous. And when he was in second grade, he said, I rebelled. He said, I told my mother, you can save 20 cents, give me a nickel and I'll be careful. And she did that. And for the rest of his time, he never had any issues. When he was an adult, he used to brag. He said, you know, my mother paid somebody, blah, blah, blah. And I told her. And he said, I never had an issue. And his mother came up after he used that illustration. He said, I want you to know, Tony, that I walked you to school and walked you home from school behind you, and you never saw me. That's exactly the way Jesus Christ is. See, in the storm, we think we're all alone. All we see is white caps. All we see is the trouble around us. But the Lord Jesus Christ is right there, and he's just looking, saying, okay, have you been on your knees? Have you asked me to fix it? Have you asked me to be there? The anchor of God's presence. Look at verse 24. Again saying fear not Paul thou must be brought before Caesar and lo God has given thee all them that say with thee wherefore sirs be of good cheer for I believe God that there shall be even as it was told me Paul had the anchor of God's promise When when God says he's gonna do something he will do it When God says I will bless them that will bless Abraham and I will curse them that will curse Abraham. You know what? I believe that Israel belongs to God, and God gave it to Abraham. God gave that land to Israel. He hasn't changed his mind yet. The church has not taken over the promises of Israel. The church is separate from Israel in the sense of being two entities. There's a lot of churches, a lot of preachers preaching that the church has taken Israel's promises. That's not true. Doctrinally. It is not true. God loves Israel. He's going to deal with Israel where they're wrong. God's going to deal with them. I don't have to worry about that. The anchor of God's promises promises make a strong anchor. When a storm comes, you know what you look the storm in the eye and say, I believe God he's going to handle it. That's the kind of hope we need to have. Look at verse 25. Again, wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer, for I believe God that it shall be even as it was told me. Paul had the anchor of God's plan. Now, when we're in the middle of that storm, we don't think it's part of God's plan. What we think of, oh man, God forgot all about me. He had this storm going, I'm in the middle of it, now what do I do? God had the plan all along that you go through the storm so you can trust him. I know it's a hard thing to go through when you're going through that storm. Psalm 119, hold thou me up and I shall be safe and I will have respect unto thy statues continually. Proverbs 18, the name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous runneth into it and is safe. The sea anchor is used sometimes for slowing ships down. And many times when we get into trouble, Jesus, our anchor, tries to slow us down, and we're not paying attention to that. What we need to do is remember that Jesus Christ is that anchor that holds us steady. Look at verse 44, the end of the chapter here, Acts 27, verse 44. It says, and the rest, some on boards, some on broken pieces of ships. And so it came to pass that they escaped all safe to land. If we remember the trying times and how God anchored us, it'll help us the next time we are in a storm, we will remember exactly what God did the time before. That's why he puts us through it. That's exactly why he puts us through it. If I'm in a storm or wreck under the control of the world, I want to be anchored to the power of the one that controls the storm. I mean, you look at what's going on, not just in Washington, but all around this world. It is, I mean, it's like you are in the middle of Lake Ontario with the whitecaps in front of you. Every time you open up a newspaper, every time you turn on a news channel, it is depressing. I don't know about you, but it's depressing. You've got to put your hope in that anchor. You've got to put your hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. When we were on a cruise ship years ago, somebody paid our way to go on a cruise. And it was a wonderful thing. We were at dinner, and it was actually a very small ship. I think they had like 2,000 people on it, which is pretty big to me, but there are larger ones than that. We were having dinner. We were just about done with dinner, and all of a sudden, the boat just started shaking. And I mean, it was shaking so bad. It was loud, but the whole boat was just shaking. We were sitting at our dinner table and the plates were just, I mean, they were just about jumping off the table. And of course, we didn't know what was going on. There really were no windows where we were. But I think what was scary They had two levels. We were on the second level, like a balcony. You could actually overlook this other dining area. But it had to be at least a 40-foot ceiling. It had nothing but mirrors and chandeliers. And all I had to do was look up, and all you could see is, blah, blah, blah. And that's exactly, I'm talking to my wife, and I'm like, are you OK? That's how bad it was. And this went on for at least 10 minutes. It seemed like an eternity. And we found out later that what happened was he was, I think, blowing into the dock. And I don't know if they miscalculated or something. So he had to slow down. So he put it in reverse. And that thing was trying to kick in and trying to stop the boat. Well, I thought, OK, we're all going to die. That's it. And after I sent up an EMI prayer, Lord, help. It just shows you, though, that when you are anchored in Jesus Christ, even though when you're going against this dock and somebody slams their brakes on, God will still take care of it. How many times have you been on a road and there's a little issue, you have to pull off for some reason, and then five minutes later you pull out and you're heading down the highway and there's an accident right there? And how do you know maybe you would have been in that accident? Listen, God takes care of things we don't even know about. It's like the illustration, you know, with a mom walking behind him in the second grade thinking, hey, I'm pretty tough. I can handle things. And your mama's in the back. It's Jesus Christ taking care of things. Our hope is in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the anchor. He is a stay and a security and a storm. How's your anchor holding today? You know what's interesting about this? In Acts 27, if you look to the beginning, of the chapter, Luke is with Paul. Luke is actually writing Acts, and in the first 10 verses, he must say, we and us, at least 10 times. In verse two, we launched, being with us, we sailed onto Cyprus. Why do I say that? Luke looked at Paul and his testimony through that whole storm. Now, Luke was, I'm sure, safe for a while. Luke was writing the book of Hebrews. He was a doctor. But he watched Paul to see how Paul was going to react to this storm, to the problems that they were in. And all he saw was Paul saying, For there stood by me this night and the angel of God, whose I am and whom I serve, saying, Fear not, Paul, thou must be brought before Caesar, and lo, God hath given them all that sail with thee." He was anchored in Christ and he was a testimony to Luke. And Luke wrote it down so that we may know that Jesus Christ is our anchor and our hope. Is he your anchor tonight? Is he your hope? I said this morning, When I got saved, I was in the church that, I mean, they preached all the time. Listen, it could be tonight that Jesus Christ has come back. We could be raptured tonight. We used to have rapture practice just for ha-has. You know, the preacher would stand up and say, okay, come on. Not that you have to do that, but it was a reminder that we believe that Jesus Christ, we're gonna hear that trump and bam, we're gonna be up there with him. If you are anchored in Christ, that is your hope. That is your hope. Just as it says in Thessalonians, and Titus read, looking for the blessed hope and the glorious appearing of our great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. That's where I place my hope. How about you tonight? Amen, let's pray. Now Father, our hope is in you. And Father, as we go through the storms of life, We trust, Lord, that you will handle them. But sometimes as we're going through, Lord, boy, it's a scary thing. But we thank you, Lord, that you are our anchor, that you are our hope. Father, tonight we just want to be thankful. We want to give you all the praise and the glory. of just the things you do in our lives that we don't even know about, putting your hands upon our life and fixing things, Lord, that we don't even know that need fixing. So thank you for that, Lord. Father, I love you and I appreciate, Lord, the word of God that you've given us, that you preserve for us, where we can trust and trust the promises that you've given us in this book, Lord. Thank You for that. Now, Lord, help us as we go forth this week. Help us to be servants. Help us to be witnesses. Help us to do what You'd have us to do in our lives, Lord. And we'll thank You for it now. In Jesus' precious name, amen.