You’d
think that if you were doing the right things for God, that everything would
turn out right.
Roberta
was a high school girl who lived about twenty miles from our church building.
We used to coast and pick up kids along the way. The last stop on the way was
Roberta’s house. Roberta was faithfully coming to church, getting interested
in what it meant to become a Christian. In fact, she was at the point that
she was ready to give her life to the Lord and be baptized. Her parents decided
they didn’t want her to come to church any more. What to do? We encouraged
her to be faithful to her parents, “to obey her parents in the Lord.”
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We
never knew from week-to-week whether she’d be allowed to come. . .most of the
time she wasn’t allowed. Again, what to do? “Be faithful. Hang in there.
Read your Bible. Pray. Study. Worship. Wait.”
You’d
think that if you were doing the right things for God, things would turn out
right.
Paul
appeals to Rome. Agrippa makes arrangements for Paul to leave Caesarea, taking
a ship through the Mediterranean to Rome. It’s the wrong season of the year
for sailing. Paul tries to warn them. This is not going to be easy. He has
a vision. This is not going to be successful. They’re going to lose everything.
They insist on traveling anyway. They get caught in a major storm in the middle
of the Mediterranean Sea. After dropping anchor and simply going with the flow
of the storm they next throw nearly everything overboard. Then Paul has a vision;
they’re all going to be OK. They will lose the ship and lose the cargo but
they’ll not lose any lives. And so, they have supper together after fourteen
days of not eating. They soon spot Malta, but they never make it. They shipwreck
on a sand bar and the ship breaks up at sea. The guards are going to kill all
the prisoners but the centurion, who’s become a respecter of Paul stops them.
They all manage to get on the beach where the locals help them build a fire
to dry themselves out. Paul is gathering wood when he gets bit by a poisonous
snake. Ultimately, as we know, he ends up in Rome, and the last thing we hear
is that he is under house arrest for two years in Rome.
He’s
now been in prison for four years because of a false accusation in the Jerusalem
temple. Accepting it all, based on this promise, “Paul, be patient, you’re
going to go to Rome and preach for me.” It’s a strange way to get to Rome.
Sometimes
the ways of God are a hard to understand although, apparently, the Romans understood.
At the end of Acts 28:23, Luke tells us Paul continued “from morning
till evening explain[ing] and declare[ing] to them the kingdom of God and try[ing]
to convince them about Jesus from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets. Some
were convinced by what he said, but others would not believe.”People understood.
Some accepted; some rejected, just as Isaiah the prophet said they would.