Acts 28:1-16
Prayer: Father, we are here asking You to pour out Your Holy Spirit upon us and upon our town. We pray that Jesus Christ crucified and risen from the dead would be placarded before us today through Your Word so that we would not be able to look away, so that every stronghold of sin would be destroyed and Your Kingdom would come in our families and nation, as it is in Heaven. And we ask for this in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Introduction
If I told you a story about a persecuted people sailing a vast distance to a strange new world to establish a new way of life and forming a new nation in the process, what does that make you think of? It may apply to the founding of many nations, but for many of us, it sounds like the founding of America. At the time it looked weak and desperate, but we look back on it as actually momentous and glorious and heroic.
In the ancient world, Homer’s Odyssey traced Odysseus’ beleaguered voyage home after the Trojan War, and Virgil self-consciously channeled Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad in his Aeneid and the legendary founding of Rome (a new Troy) by the Trojan hero Aeneas. Perilous voyages, miraculous escapes, and surprising hospitality mark these national legends of pagan virtue and piety. It probably would not have been lost on a first century audience that Paul’s journey to Rome had some of the same echoes. This is the story of the ambassador of the High King of Heaven coming to Rome to establish New Jerusalem, the Kingdom of God.
The Text: “And when they were escaped, then they knew that the island was called Melita. And the barbarous people shewed us no little kindness…” (Acts 28:1-16)
Summary of the Text
As the ship breaks apart, 276 souls swim or float to the shore of the island of Malta, about 50-60 miles south of Sicily, where they were met by natives who received them kindly and kindled a fire in the midst of a cold, winter rain (Acts 28:1-2). When Paul joined in gathering sticks and feeding the fire, a poisonous viper came out of the heat and bit him, and while the natives assumed this was an omen of his guilt, Paul shook off the snake and was unharmed and the natives acclaimed him as a god (Acts 28:3-6). One of the chief men of the island, Publius, lodged Paul and his companions for three days, and while they were there, Paul healed his father and many others (Acts 28:7-10).
After three months on the island, a ship sailing under the sign of Castor and Pollux took them to Syracuse on Sicily, and from there, the ship worked its way up to Rhegium, past the legendary location of Scylla (a multi-headed monster in a cave) on one side and Charybdis (a deadly whirlpool) on the other, and on up the Italian coast to Puteoli, where they met with Christian brothers for a week (Acts 28:11-14). From there, they continued north, welcomed by more brothers about halfway, before finally arriving in Rome under house arrest (Acts 28:15-16).
True Dominion by the Spirit
The church has frequently misunderstood our mission of dominion and has frequently veered between fleshly power and spiritual irrelevance. When I asked Ben Shapiro why he didn’t accept Jesus as the Messiah, he said because the Messiah is clearly a political figure who is supposed to establish a new political order. Many Christians would say Shapiro was wrong: Jesus only came to establish a spiritual kingdom. But Paul would look Shapiro in the eyes and say: “What are you talking about? He is and He did.”
When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, it really was His triumphal entry, and when they crucified Him on that Roman cross, mocking Him and crowning Him with thorns, He really was enthroned in this world, in history. At that moment, He was the King of kings and Lord of lords. This was proven and proclaimed with power in His resurrection from the dead three days later. And so here, Paul, the servant of the King of kings, is being escorted to the capital city of an empire to announce the terms of their surrender.
This is no desperate attempt to survive. Paul rode a storm to Rome, all expenses paid; he is not really under house arrest: he’s being welcomed and lodged by the King. Rome belongs to Jesus Christ. And from the shipwreck to the snake bite to the ensign of the ship to the city of Rome, nothing can stop him. He may look like a weak prisoner, but he is being escorted by the authority and healing power of the High King.
As Herbert Schlossberg said, “The Bible can be interpreted as a string of God’s triumphs disguised as disasters.” Or as Chesterton put it, “Christendom has had a series of revolutions and in each one of them Christianity has died. Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a God who knew the way out of the grave.” This is true dominion in history by the power of the Spirit. Do you think this way? Do you believe like this? Do you talk like this? I talked to a man this week who spent time in prison for peacefully protesting abortion. He and 23 other prolifers were pardoned by Trump two or three days after the inauguration. A number of pardons were announced right away, and Cal explained that everyone had to wait because he was having a very fruitful Bible study with his cell mate and he couldn’t be released until they finished the gospel of John. Everything that happens is in service of the King.
When Christians have to go to the hospital, we are being sent by the King. When weather cancels our plans, the King has given us a different assignment. Why did God allow a viper to bite Paul? So that he would receive an appropriate welcome, so they would listen to his message.
Applications
Jesus said that some of His emissaries would “take up serpents” and not be harmed (Mk. 16:18), and so sometimes that has been the case, as happened here. But the Bible says the primary reason was as a sign confirming the Word of the gospel (Mk. 16:20), and the word of the gospel is for the healing of the mostly deadly snake bite: the poison of sin. The poison of sin is the curse that separates us from the King. The poison of sin is what makes us fear death and suffering. The King has cared for us, giving us life and health and so many good things, and we have all rebelled against the King. That is the poison of sin; it is the insanity of our selfishness, the madness of our pride, the self-destruction of hating the One who made us, rejecting His plan, His goodness, demanding our own way, demanding to be our own King, demanding our own glory, our own comfort, our own Kingdom. And no matter how hard you try, you can’t stop doing it. This is the poison of sin.
This poison and its healing was pictured in the Old Testament when many Israelites complained and were bitter against God, accusing Him and Moses of evil – so God sent by poisonous snakes to bite many them to picture the poison of their sin and rebellion and many were dying (Num. 21:6). And God told Moses to make a bronze serpent pierced on a pole, and all who looked at the bronze serpent were healed (Num. 21:9).
And Jesus said, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life” (Jn. 3:14-15). This is not merely a spiritual reality; this is the center of the renewal of human life, the healing of families and nations, the healing of the world. What is it that brings this healing? Seeing Christ lifted up on Calvary like a poisonous snake and impaled.
Do you think of it like that? Jesus said that when He was lifted up, He would be lifted up like a poisonous snake and pierced through. Why was Christ lifted up like a poisonous snake and killed? Because God made Him to be sin, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor. 5:21). God made Him to be sin. Why? So that our sin could be killed. This is what the gospel proclaims: your sin, your lies, your wrath, your lust, your envy, your impatience, your bitterness, your selfishness was laid upon Him and when the Romans drove the spikes into his hands and feet, your sin was pierced through, your sin was impaled. This is the healing of every family and every nation. If you look at the Cross and see Christ become your poisonous snake and all of your sin, then the poison cannot harm you and you can shake the snake off into the fire.
Sin is not only the poison that separates us from God; it also separates us from one another. This is why Scripture says that in the Cross, God was killing the enmity that exists between us (Eph. 2:16). This is why one of the marks of this healing in families and nations is hospitality and friendship (e.g. Acts 28:2, 7, 14-16). Jesus came eating and drinking, and by His death has reconciled us to Himself, and God has welcomed us to His table and fellowship. While it may not look like much, we sit at the Lord’s Supper as His nobility and royalty and friends (Rev. 1:6). Do you believe that? Therefore, we have fellowship with one another because we have fellowship with Him through His blood (1 Jn. 1:7). Here, Christ grants Paul a royal welcome by complete strangers on an island and the brothers along the way. We welcome one another because Christ welcomes us. We forgive one another because we have been forgiven much.
The New Testament clearly teaches that we are to view fellow Christians as “brothers.” This does not obliterate our duties to our natural family or nation, but while we are to do good to all men, we are to especially minister to those in the “household of faith” (Lk. 8:21, Gal. 6:10, Eph. 2:19). This is a sign of true conversion that you love the saints, who are your brothers (Col. 1:4, 1 Jn. 3:14). But this friendship and hospitality are not ends in themselves, they are for encouragement and refreshment along the way on the mission of the King. We are not here “for community.” We are a community because we are here for the mission. We are establishing New Jerusalem: we do this by announcing that the Messiah has come and by His death and resurrection has reconciled us to God and one another, and all things are being made new: All of Christ, for All of Life, for All of Moscow, for all the World.
Prayer: Our gracious God and Father, Your Word says that it is faith that overcomes the world, and so we ask for that potent faith: eyes to see what You see, hearts loyal to what You are doing, and so please give us great wisdom and fruitfulness to a thousand generations here in this place. And we ask for it by the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ…
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