“BEFORE YOU GIVE UP HOPE”

This sermon was preached at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Cherry Log, Georgia on Sunday, July 14, 2013 by Pastor Paul Mims.
“before you give up hope…” Acts 27:13-44

Years ago, when I was a Pastor in Atlanta, I got to know Dr. Bill Self, who was Pastor at the Wieuca Baptist Church. He and his family had an interesting experience here in the North Georgia Mountains.

Carolyn Self tells how she and her husband Bill and son Bryan took advantage of a school holiday and went to a secluded spot in the North Georgia Mountains. It started out as a beautiful weekend. Bill returned to Atlanta on Saturday night to preach in his church on Sunday. He would return on Sunday evening.

On Sunday afternoon, it began to rain. It poured—seven inches in five hours. A tornado hit a nearby town. Thunder and lightning crackled all around Carolyn and Bryan. They had no car. They were alone. They were stranded. It was frightening.

On Sunday evening, about midnight, Carolyn and Bryan saw Bill’s car lights starting up the mountain road toward them. They watched through the flashes of lightning. The road had become a river. Suddenly the front car lights went down and under water and then the tail lights went out.

Carolyn’s heart stopped beating. Had Bill drowned?

Finally, she saw the figure of a man moving around. She saw the beam of his flashlight moving through the storm. “My heart nearly burst with joy,” she said, to hear Bill’s voice calling to me.”

We all go through storms some of which we pass through quickly and others are of such long duration that we give up hope as happened in our text today.

We have traced the story of the early church through the life and experiences of the Apostle Paul. We have followed him through his pre-Christian life where he said, “I was convinced that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And that is just what I did in Jerusalem. On the authority of the chief priests I put many of the saints in prison and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. Many a time I went from one synagogue to another to have them punished, and I tried to force them to blaspheme. In my obsession against them, I even went to foreign cities to persecute them.” (Acts 26:9-11).

He was marvelously converted as he tells: “I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions. We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ Then I asked, ‘Who are you Lord?’ ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.’” (Acts 26:13-15)

We have followed him through three missionary journeys that caused him much suffering. “I have been in prison, flogged, and exposed to death again and again. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked…I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food…” (2 Corinthians 11:23-29).

Now we see him with full opposition from the Jews, arrested, having spent two years in prison in Caesarea in trials before the Roman and Jewish officials. Because he is also a Roman citizen he has the right to appeal to Caesar to hear his case. This takes him out of Jewish authority and makes him free from their threats. But he is sent under Roman guard to Rome. They board a ship on the Coast of Israel and set sail for Rome. And then the storm of hurricane force hits. Dr. Luke records, “We took such a violent battering from the storm that the next day they began to throw the cargo overboard with their own hands. When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and the storm continued raging, we finally gave up all hope of being saved.” (Acts 27:18-20).

What do you do when you come to this point in your life?

I. BEFORE YOU GIVE UP HOPE REALIZE THAT GOD KNOWS SOMETHING THAT YOU DON’T

God can see his total plan for your life and he will not let anything thwart what he has planned for you. From the human standpoint it may look hopeless, but from the divine view anything is possible. God had put it into Paul’s heart to see Rome and he re-affirmed it several times. – “I must see Rome.” (19:12). “You will bear witness also at Rome.” (23:11). “Unto Caesar you shall go.” (25:12). “You must stand before Caesar.” (27:24).

The way the situation looks to us is not always the way that it actually is. It is very real to us at the time and we think that things will never be any different, that we will never have balance and perspective again. We wonder if we can ever have the joy of life restored and get our lives moving again.

It was January 1967. We had just moved to First Baptist Church in Norfolk, Virginia. Something about that move pulled an emotional scab off of Janice’s soul. As a three-year old little girl she had seen her father murdered by her grandfather. She had suppressed grief into her sub-conscious and had not dealt with it until it came forth like a volcano. Her inner struggle went on for several of our early years in Norfolk. She kept a journal and wrote down her thoughts. One day she wrote the following:

“The storm has raged around me so very long. In the crash of mighty waves I’ve lost my song. Black shrouded night obscures every star while ominous shoals approach from afar. I’m broken, I’m beaten. Hope dies in my soul. Lord, do you not care that life is out of control? Where is the beauty of yesterday’s calm when all of life evoked a song? Where are you now – perhaps asleep in some place leaving me alone this tempest to face? Do storms last forever? Does sorrow erase the joy I have known through your marvelous grace? The Master approaches – His gaze meets my eyes, ‘Oh, why such small faith?’ His eyes seem to sigh. ‘Hush now! Be Quiet!’ He speaks to the storm. ‘My child is too weary, now let her alone!’
The proud waves have calmed, The wind cease their roar. The Master has spoken – the storm is no more.”

You can see that if she had not trusted the Lord for healing and restoration she could have become very embittered to Him and very hopeless about life. But she knew that God had a plan for her and her family and this as tragic as it was would not be allowed to change what God had ordained.

II. BEFORE YOU GIVE UP HOPE UNDERSTAND THAT GOD MAY WANT TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT IT.

Here is what happened: Paul said, “Last night an angel of the God whose I am and whom I serve stood beside me and said, ‘Do not be afraid Paul. You must stand trial before Caesar; and God has graciously given you the lives of all who sail with you.’” (27:24).

It is easy to hear God’s voice when you are accustomed to it. It is a lot harder when you have not listened to him for a long time. But there are times when God is silent and we feel that He should be speaking to us. For every silence he has a necessary purpose. If we learn to trust Him he will speak to our hearts. Well, you say, “Pastor, how will God speak to me?”

He will always speak to you through His Word – the Holy Scriptures. As you read your Bible you will notice that a scripture will speak to you at the point of your need. Be careful not to take the scripture out of context but allow it to say what it says. Many times I have taken up the Holy Book and it does not matter if I am reading from the Old Testament or the New, God will speak to me through it. That is the very reason he has given us this revelation of Himself.

God may speak to you through another person. He may bring someone across your path that can give you a message from him that is just what you need. In this case the enlightenment will have a Divine mark upon it. You will know that it came from God through this person. It could be a friend, a work associate, a family member, a minister on the radio or television, a Sunday School teacher, a pastor in a worship service, or any other human relationship. It can even be a casual remark by someone you don’t even know. It may be something said to someone else, but you know that it was meant for you.

God may speak to you through an impression of the Holy Spirit on your mind. Every Monday, when I ask the Lord for the sermon for the coming Sunday after having done research the previous week, the answer for the title and major thoughts come clearly and quickly. And by late Monday afternoon, the sermon for the coming Sunday is written.

God may speak to you through a life event. This could be a joyous and blessed occurrence to validate a decision that you need to make. It also could be a negative event that would prevent you from making a mistake.

God may speak to you by an audible voice that you will clearly hear. The scriptures record some of these experiences.

“And there came a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son: hear him.” (Luke 9:35)

“He (Saul) fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:4)

“I (Peter) heard a voice telling me, ‘Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.'” (Acts 11:7)

To be sure this is not the norm today because every Christian has the Holy Spirit indwelling him or her as a receptor of what the Father would want to say. Just last week, I read of a pastor who heard an audible voice speak to him as he was praying.

When you pray, give God a chance to talk back to you. Spend more time listening in meditation than praying and you will surely know that he has spoken to you.

III. BEFORE YOU GIVE UP HOPE ACT ON THE REVELATION THAT GOD HAS GIVEN YOU.

The revelation that God gave Paul through the Angel that stood beside him on the ship in the midst of the storm was that he and all of the 276 passengers on board would be safe. They would lose the ship as it ran aground on a sandbar and was battered by the great waves, but everyone would survive. So Paul acted on what the Lord told him and everyone was saved. “The soldiers planned to kill the prisoners to prevent any of them from escaping. But the Centurion wanted to spare Paul’s life and kept them from carrying out their plan. He ordered those who could swim to jump overboard first and get to land. The rest were to get there on planks or on pieces of the ship. In this way everyone reached land safely.” (27:42-44).

So when God tells you to do something – do it! When you act on it – it will be easier to hear his voice the next time you need it. Nothing will happen until you act on what God has said to you. The water will not part before you until you have the courage to walk into it. As you act on you guidance from God you will see just how exciting life can be. It was the actions of the early church that allowed them to see the supernatural. Today, we are hungry to see God move among his people in Salvations, Healings, Restorations, and Provisions. It would be foolish to act on our own, and it would also be foolish not to act when God has spoken and directed us to a certain course of action.

Ken Pell says, “One of the great preachers in U.S. history is D. L. Moody. He pastored in Chicago and there is still a wonderful Bible College there that bears his name and values. Mr. Moody was a successful minister, but by his own admission, he lacked the power in his ministry. One day two women came up to him after a service. They said, “We have been praying for you.”

“Why don’t you pray for the people?” he asked.

“Because you need the power of the Spirit,” they said.

“I need the power! Why?” said Mr. Moody

In relating the incident years after he writes, “I thought I had power. I had the largest congregation in Chicago, and there were many conversions.”

Moody also said that in a sense, he was satisfied. He was in a comfort zone. But these two praying women rocked the boat. They told him that they were praying for an anointing by the Holy Spirit. Mr. Moody could not get this off his mind and he wrote, “There came a great hunger in my soul. I did not know what it was and I began to cry out to God as never before. I felt I did not want to live if I could not have this power for service.”

Rev. Moody began crying out for God to fill him. He withdrew, prayed, and sought it over a period of time. He writes the following: “Well, one day, in the city of New York — oh, what a day! — I cannot describe it, I seldom refer to it; it is almost too sacred an experience to name. Paul had an experience of which he never spoke for fourteen years. I can only say that God revealed Himself to me, and I had such an experience of His love that I had to ask Him to stay His hand. I went to preaching again. The sermons were not different; I did not present any new truths, and yet hundreds were converted. I would not now be placed back where I was before that blessed experience if you should give me all the world.”
If you are spiritually dry – the fresh rains of the Spirit can fall on you again. This is what I hunger for in my life and for you.

PRAISE BE TO HIS NAME!