Acts 27:13-17
It’s been in the news for several days about the yacht carrying the tech mogul, his family, and friends that sank in the storm off the coast of Sicily recently. Sadly, several people lost their lives in the tragedy. One of the survivors was the captain of the ship. He was interviewed while still remaining in the hospital about what had happened. The thing that struck me was one statement that he made. He said, “We didn’t see it coming.” They were enjoying their time on the yacht, but then suddenly everything changed in an instant. You know, I believe that sums up a lot of people’s thoughts about the storms they face in life. They were sailing along, enjoying life, but suddenly in an instant everything changed, and they didn’t see it coming.
We aren’t strangers to the events of this chapter. As a matter of fact, I’ve studied it on a number of occasions, but it seems that each time I look at it, I find things I haven’t seen before. It’s kind of like the farmer in Kentucky that last year found a coin in his field and picked it up. It was an older coin from the 1800s. Then he saw another coin and it was a gold coin. He dug around more and found a total of over 700 gold and silver coins worth millions of dollars. It seems that every time we dig into the Word of the Lord, we unearth another treasure. I want to take that captain’s words for my own today and share with you some things about when you didn’t see it coming.
THE PROBLEM. (vs 13-14)
We all know the story of how Paul had appealed his case to Caesar and was being sent there to face trial. Transporting him to Rome had been a difficult task, to say the least. Traveling on different ships; stopping at various places and facing the coming winter season when sea travel would end. They sailed slowly southward looking for a good place to stop for the winter. When a gentle south breeze began to blow, they felt it was a good time to move on a little farther, but hadn’t gone far until the storm arose.
The text calls it “a tempestuous wind, called Euroclydon”. The Greek word for “tempestuous” is where we get our word typhoon or hurricane. The word “Euroclydon” is a word that is what we call here in the eastern part of the U.S. a nor’easter. We’ve seen the damage a storm such as this can bring. Paul and those with him are caught up in a storm that they didn’t see coming. They didn’t have Doppler radar; they didn’t have radio communication with the National Weather Service. It came out of nowhere and now they’re caught in it.
That’s how life often feels for us all. Life is moving along. We’re sailing with a warm breeze carrying us along. Things aren’t perfect of course, but they’re okay. Then suddenly a storm wind blows up on our lives rocking our ship and shaking our lives. That was the problem for Paul and those traveling with him.
THE PICTURE. (vs 15-16)
That word caught, in verse 15 carries the idea of being seized by force and carried away. They were in danger of being carried farther out to sea, away from land. They began to do everything in their power to help the situation. Even Luke says in this verse twice the word “we” indicates that they were all doing what they could to help.
The word “work” in verse 16 indicates that not just physical but mental labor was involved. The storms of life work on you entirely. They rack your emotions, they sap your strength, they discourage your heart, and they consume your mind. They were in a place where they were struggling just to get through the storm. We’ve all been there, haven’t we? We’ve been there personally, or we’ve been there with family, but we all understand the picture of the toll a storm can take on your life and family.
THE PLACE. (vs 17)
The idea of the text along with the last part of vs 16 indicates that there was a smaller boat tied to the ship that was pulled along behind. They would use the boat to row ashore when they anchored. They had to pull that smaller boat aboard the ship, which Luke says was “work”. Can you imagine doing that in a hurricane? Then Luke says that they used “helps”, undergirding the ship. What they did was called frapping. It was that they would take ropes or cables and wrap them around the hull of the ship to help hold the boards of the ship together. They would wrap it from bow to stern to strengthen the ship so that it could withstand the storm winds blowing against the ship. They were doing all they could from their perspective to hold things together.
They even lightened the ship and cast out the tackling of the ship, vs 18-19. They were tossing overboard cargo and equipment. Things that seemed so important when they started now seemed unimportant and they threw it over the side of the ship. Storms have a way of doing that. Causing you to focus on what is truly the most important things—life, health, family, or friends.
But here’s the part I want you to see—the word “helps” found in verse 17 is the Greek word ‘boetheia’. It speaks of aid or help as the word says. But what is interesting is that there are hundreds of times the word “help” is found in the Bible in various forms and meanings using different Greek words. Yet, this particular word is only found twice in the New Testament using that particular Greek word. One is here and the other is found in Hebrews 4:16 where it says, “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” That’s the only other time it’s found.
Let that sink in a moment. Just as these sailors were in the storm of their lives trying to get through it, they used “helps” by frapping the ship in their attempts to hold it together, to make it through the storm. In Hebrews it says in the verse just before verse 16, “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin”, verse 15. Then he says, “Let us therefore”…since we have such an high priest, we can come boldly to the throne of grace, to obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Just as those on the ship wrapped cables or ropes around the vessel to keep it together in the storm, we have the privilege to come with authority based on the Lord Jesus Christ, to the throne of grace, that we might find mercy and grace to help, to wrap around our lives, in time of need so that we don’t fall apart in the storms of life. Robert J. Morgan says, “We are undergirded by grace, held together in the storm by the cable of God’s care, which we access at the throne of grace.”
WHAT A SAVIOR WE HAVE! A verse we often hear used in a wedding ceremony is found in Ecclesiastes 4:12: “a three-fold cord is not quickly broken.” And that’s true when there’s the husband, the wife, and the Lord. But we also have a three-fold cord in the Lord for the storms of life: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, who gives grace, mercy, and peace in our time of need. The word “need” here doesn’t specify any particular kind of need, but it does imply poverty or emptiness; being without strength or what is needed. Those three cords will undergird your ship, your life, in the midst of the storms to keep you when you didn’t see it coming.
Do you need His undergirding strength and grace to help you in life’s storm today? You’ll find it when you come to His throne, all made possible in Jesus, to find grace and mercy and help in a time of need.