# Paul listened, believed, spread the Word

March 5, 2026

Good to have Ms. Meyer back. He’ll be playing for us on Sunday morning also. Turn your Bibles to Acts 23, Acts 23. We’re just going to rehearse a little bit at the beginning here, and then we’ll get to a new part. We’re going to skip over a couple chapters; we’ll kind of cover it briefly. But once you find chapter number 23, if we just kind of hold a finger there and look up this way, we’ll talk for a minute here, and then we’ll get to our text verse in just a minute. I’m waiting for you to get over there to Acts 23, and that’s what we’re starting out at tonight. Once you find it, would you say amen? Good. I think pretty much we’re all covered there now. Paul—remember Paul—we’ve showed this:

He was just burdened about the Jewish people. He said, “I could wish myself a curse.” But the Lord had showed him very specifically whose spirit-filled people. And the Bible says that, through the Spirit, that he ought to go to Jerusalem. It’s very clear in Scripture. We’ve showed that the last couple of Wednesdays as we were studying alone. But Paul just said, “I’m going to Jerusalem.” He went to Jerusalem.

Of course, it didn’t go well there. And he didn’t mind. He’s willing to lay down his life. That’s a good thing. But he very clearly wasn’t supposed to go. He goes, and this mob attacks him. And then at first, he stands before the Sanhedrin, like the Jewish court of law. That doesn’t go well. And the Roman soldiers have to come in there and kind of rescue him. And then they take him into the castle, typically right there beside the temple. They built it right there so they could keep an eye on the Jewish people. We’ve discussed pretty much all this.

Then they took him into that castle, and he’s there. He would have been beaten, but he was a Roman citizen. And he said, “You’re going to beat a Roman citizen, not stood in the court of law.” And they said, “Oh, no, we can’t do that.” And then that night is very interesting.

We won’t have you stand quite yet, but that verse number 23—that verse number 11—I thank God says, “All right, Paul, you didn’t do exactly what I wanted, but I’m still going to use you.” He’s such a merciful, good God. We’ve all stepped out of the will of God, but he’s just so gracious. And God says, “All right, I’ve got another plan for you.” Look in verse number 11 there, chapter 23: “And that night following, the Lord stood by him.”

Praise the Lord, he’ll never leave us nor forsake us, you know. He stood by him and said, “Be of good cheer.” We talked about it last week. When you step out of the will of God, you lose your joy. “Be of good cheer, Paul. For as I have testified in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome.” So God kind of resets this course: “All right, Paul, you’re going to go to Rome now.”

He goes and he has to stand before the governor there, Festus, or Felix, excuse me, and that didn’t really go well, and then Felix and then King Agrippa. And eventually he has to appeal to Caesar. So we’re picking it up tonight. We’re a little bit past; we’re not going to go through all those trials.

Paul does a wonderful job of telling people about Jesus, standing before the court of law and talking about his testimony when he got saved. Your testimony is very powerful for him. Just telling others about how you got saved. He said, “I don’t know how to get saved.” Tell him how you got saved, man. And Paul does that. But we’re going to pick up the story, really, where Paul gets on this ship to go over to Rome. Listen, Kimby, look at the map here real quick. We’re going to pray and get going here somewhere in just a minute. Y’all stick with me through this. We’re going to get this map. Here’s this voyage: Paul’s journey to Rome. He started over here in Caesarea, and he’s on this ship, a smaller type ship, we think, in the beginning. And he goes over here to Myra. And there he changes to a grain ship. We find out later on they tossed the grain out, the wheat out, so it was a great, probably a much larger ship. You know, nowadays we’ve got these huge cargo ships. It wouldn’t, of course, be as big as that, but he gets in this bigger ship. And right here, and then they’re trying to get over here to Rome, but he leaves here, and then here, and then down here to this island of Crete.

Somewhere along here, it’s getting to wintertime. And Paul says, “Look, fellas, it’s too late. We ought to just anchor down for the wintertime and take a couple months.” But they said it wasn’t commodious; it didn’t have all the luxuries.

So the owner of the ship and the master of the ship said, “Uh, we can’t stop here.” I mean, they—they don’t have indoor toilets here, if you will. And I’m kind of just being facetious there. I don’t know what all it was, but it’s not everything we want. We don’t want to stay here all winter long. And so Paul said, “We ought to stay. We ought to wait.”

So they leave here and they get down here, and boy, they start getting this crosswind, not a good wind, a bad wind. And they end up on this—there’s a little bitty island right here, Fair Havens. And you can’t really see it. And that’s where they had a lot of work to do on the ship.

They begin to work on the ship, try to make it. And then they think they’re going to get stuck among all kinds of sandbars. How many have you ever seen a sandbar, you know, that type of thing? And so they lightened the load of the ship. They threw out some tackling, whatnot. And then finally they just put the sails up and they just let it drift. For 14 days they’re caught in this storm. And the sailors and all of them—I mean, these are people that own ships. They sailed the Mediterranean Sea.

Has anybody here ever been on the Mediterranean Sea? Anybody? I thought maybe—well, good. Jim, Ms. Mangelo, they just went over there on a trip. And Brother Richard, military, where you were in there, I thought, Brother Busho, he had been over there, I believe, too.

The Mediterranean Sea—but anyway, they just kind of let themselves float, this wind in the middle of the storm. They didn’t know where they were. And these sailors, experienced sailors and ship owners, they said, “It’s all over. 14 days. We haven’t seen any land. We’re lost. We’re going to die.” That’s really where we’re going to pick up the story a little bit tonight.

So we’re going to skip over to chapter 27, if you would, chapter 27. And we’re going to go down to verse number 20, chapter 27 and verse number 20 here. It’s just our tradition: if you’re able to, we stand as we read our text verse tonight. We’ll call this our text verse. It’s a little bit different on Wednesdays; we have a little Bible study type thing. But I want you to notice this, chapter 27 of Acts. Look in verse number 20 and notice what it says: “And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared…”

By the way, back then, they used the stars to guide them. Well, you couldn’t see the stars. If you’re in a storm for two weeks, you said, “Well, if I could see which way the sun was, it would be hard to tell,” because, you know, they couldn’t see the sun for two weeks. “And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us…” Watch this: “…all hope that we should be saved was then taken away.” All hope. Now, these are experienced sailors, the owner of the ship there, the master of the ship—all hope was gone. It’s over. It’s over. No hope. No hope. That’s where they’re at.

Just a bit tonight, we’re going to talk about when your hope is gone—what to do when your hope is gone, just for a bit tonight. Pray with us that God will just use this story to bring some truths alive to you and me tonight. Would you pray with me as we ask the Lord for that? Father, Lord, I pray that you would send your Spirit, Father, bringing hope, Lord, to those of us that are kind of in a situation with no hope, or Lord, maybe one day when we’re in that situation. And Father, maybe even to keep us from being there. But would you speak to us tonight and guide us to your word, rightly divided, Father? And we’ll thank you, Lord, for what you do. And it’s in the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Thank you so much for standing. We’re going to read a little bit more here at the beginning. We’re going somewhere, though.

What to do when your hope is gone. Let’s keep reading. We’re in verse number 21 here, chapter 27, verse number 21. All hope was gone—remember that happened in verse 20—now verse number 21: “But after long abstinence, Paul stood forth in the midst of them and said, ‘Sirs, ye should have hearkened unto me and not have loosed from Crete and to have gained this harm and loss.’” That’s just like a preacher saying, “You should have listened to me,” isn’t it? That’s what he’s saying. “You should listen to me. 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. For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, whom I serve”—I think it was Jesus Christ—“saying, ‘Fear not, Paul; for thou must be brought before Caesar. And lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee. Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer; for I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told unto me.’”

Now, here’s the thing, here’s the thing: all hope is gone. And yet he had a word from the Lord. And that word from the Lord brought a whole lot of hope. So here’s the thing: when you get to the point where you’re out of hope, here’s a real good thing: just listen real closely. Listen for a word from the Lord.

Now, we’ve got God’s divine revelation of mankind right there. It says “word.” Amen. We got that. But can I show you something about His word? Look over, if you will, for just a minute. Look over in the book of Romans. You’ll know this verse. Romans chapter number 10. It’s a familiar passage. I’m going to turn these lights back on, but I want you to notice something about it. Romans 10, and look down in a very familiar passage. Look down in verse number 17. Romans 10 and verse number 17 of God’s word there. All right. Romans 10:17. When you find that, would you say, “Praise the Lord”?

Once this, I want you to notice real closely what it says there. It says, “So then faith cometh by the word of God.” Is that what it says? No. Now, that’s what we say a lot of times, and the root of it is—I don’t take anything away from the Word of God. He’s lifted His Word above all His name, but that’s not what the Word of God says.

Notice what it says there. There’s a reason why everything is in the Bible like God wanted it, just like that for a reason. And notice what he said. He says, “So then faith cometh by what? By hearing.” Now, hearing comes from the Word of God.

You know, there are some professors that teach at a university. They don’t believe in Jesus Christ. They’re not saved. There are lots of folks in hell who aren’t saved. And they know the Bible. They’ve read the Bible, but they’ve got no faith. The Bible doesn’t say right there, “So faith comes by the Word of God.” It says, “So faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” There’s a difference.

Look over—just keep that thought. Look over, and I’ll tell you a verse here lately that has brought a lot of faith in my life. And you’ve got these verses. Look over in Psalm 143. This has been one of my verses here recently in the last month or two, and I’ve had a hearing a little bit from this verse, and it’s brought me a lot of faith. And you’ve got these verses. By the way, you need a verse like this. It may be, you know, your life’s verse. I don’t know about you, but my life’s verse changes every couple years, you know, or every six months, whatever. And this has been a verse for me here. Look at Psalm 143. Look at verse number eight, verse number eight. This has been my verse here lately. He says, “Cause me to hear thy lovingkindness in the morning.”

I asked one of our teenage girls the other day—she was dropping—well, I won’t say too much because it’ll give her away—but I said, “Are you a morning person?” As the morning is about 7:30, 7:30 in the morning. I said, “Are you a morning person?” She said, “Not at all.” Typically, a teenage girl is not a morning person. And I liked that part. That’s kind of what caught my interest at first. “Cause me to hear thy lovingkindness in the morning.” Lord, I like to hear that every morning: Your lovingkindness. “Cause me to hear thy lovingkindness in the morning; for in thee do I trust.” A couple of Sundays ago, that Sunday that the Carters were with us, I woke up that morning. I memorized it. I worked to memorize that verse. And I woke up that morning. That last part of this has been helping me here lately, and it says, “Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk.” I want to know it, Lord. I want to know exactly the way you want me to walk. “Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk, for I lift up my soul unto thee.”

Now, that verse has given me a lot of faith here lately because I had a hearing from it. That’s what it means: “So then faith cometh by hearing.”

That’s when you’re in the Word and you’re listening to preaching or teaching or whatever, and you’re reading, and you say, “Lord, I need something for this,” and a verse pops out, and God says, “That verse right there is for you,” and you have a hearing from the Lord. And so then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. That’s what it means.

And Paul on that ship—276 people—all hope was gone, and yet he had a hearing from the Lord. Jesus Christ himself showed up and talked to him, and that brought a whole lot of hope and faith, friend. So I’m saying when you get to that point where all hope is gone, hey, say, “Lord, I need a hearing from your Word.” It’s the verse.

Now, God’s been speaking to you about this lately. By the way, when he gives you a hearing and God speaks to you, don’t just say, “Well, I’ll get that later, man.” Say, “Hey, I have a hearing. I’m going to memorize that verse. Write it down on a 3x5.” I’ve got 3x5 cards that are in my truck. And in the morning time, that’s my time to memorize those verses because most of those verses I’ve had a hearing from somewhere along the line, and I don’t want to blow it.

Here’s the thing: It’s amazing. God will speak to me. He’ll give me a message or something, you know, and I think, “I’ll remember that.” You know, God clearly spoke to me. I don’t write it down. And about the next day, I’m supposed to be studying for Sunday, and I’m saying, “Lord, be merciful. I’m so sorry. I didn’t write it down,” and I can’t remember. “Would you tell me again what that was?” Anybody ever been there? Come on. And I’m saying when it gives you a hearing, you get something from the Word of God, grab a hold of it because you can get a lot of faith out of that.

And when you just kind of blow it by, “Well, that was good,” but you never grab a hold of that, you’re wasting a lot of faith you can get out of that. And by the way, God’s a wise investor. Whenever God gives you a hearing from His Word and you grab a hold of that, you get a lot of faith out of that for yourself and others. God says, “That’s a pretty good investment. I might give another hearing down there.”

Man, Paul, he had a hearing from the Lord. All hope—I mean, these guys, they knew it. They were doing it. By the way, it’s interesting, even the secular world says the nautical things going on in this chapter—this ship and the voyage and where they were—it all lines up. It was a very interesting chapter, because it all just lines up. Of course, the Bible’s always true. You know, every once in a while, they kind of catch up and they’re saying, “That’s pretty amazing how it talks about that day and time and they’re sailing back then.”

But all hope was gone, but Paul had a hearing from the Lord. Hey, what was the last verse, the last hearing you’ve had? What’s the last one? Did you memorize it? I haven’t. I’m guilty for sure. But I better mean—are you latching a hold of when God speaks to you? I mean, that’s the time to grab a hold of it.

Here’s been another good one for me here lately. I like this one. It’s Psalms. Psalms is full of good, good verses. Look over in Psalm 128. Look in Psalm. This has been such a good one for me here lately. It’s brought a lot of faith to me. And I don’t always—I’ve missed it about a million times, but I try to grab a hold of it when I get a hearing because when my hope’s gone, this will give faith and hope. Psalm 128, these are great, great verses. Some of my favorites—these are some of my favorites here lately, you know. I might have a favorite one next month. Another favorite one next month, too, you know. But that’s the way it should be. But these are some of my favorites. These probably are my favorite ones right now. But Psalm 128, look in verse number one, verse number two: “Blessed is everyone.” Doesn’t matter who he is: educated or not educated, talented or not, short like I am or tall, you know, whatever it is. Blessed is everyone that feareth the Lord, that walketh in his ways. Now, I like these three things: “For thou shalt eat the labor of thine hands.” I think that has to do with finances. “But thou shalt eat the labor of thine hands.” I like that. “Happy shalt thou be.” Anybody out there like to be happy? Me too. “Thou shalt eat the labor of thine hands; happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee.” God says, “I got you.”

Now look, friends, that right there is giving me a lot of hope here lately, and that’s what he’s saying: “So then faith cometh by hearing.” You hear from the Lord. Paul heard from the Lord Jesus Christ that night, and He stood by him and He spoke to him, and that brought him so much hope. And when you have a hearing from the Word of God—God’s speaking to you—grab all of that because that’s where you get your faith from. And, man, you said, “That’s it right there.”

Now, before we move on to the next thing, notice what he said. Back over here in Acts—not verse number 21, but after—back over here, Acts 27. Look at verse number 21. That’s kind of where we’re starting at. We’ll go back to that. Acts 27:21. All hope was gone, verse number 20. And then everything changes when Paul had a hearing from the Lord.

But I want you to notice this, verse number 21 right there, Acts 27:21. He says, “But after…” What are the next two words?

You know, this waiting on the Lord, that absence—I always thought, and really in my mind, applied this long absence as he just got away from everybody, everything, got along with the Lord. The more I study it, and pretty much all the scholars really think he’s talking about fasting there, abstaining from food, whether it be abstaining from food or just getting away, staying from everything, getting away from the Lord, either way. But, you know, it was “long abstinence.” You know, sometimes when you’re just being tested, what do they say? The teacher is silent, and you’re in the test, and you say, “Lord, I need a hearing.” It may not happen just like that. It may take a little while. It wasn’t Paul just got a—“Lord, I need to hear from you.” It actually is two weeks if you study it out. Sometimes it takes some time. “Lord, I need a hearing from you.” And sometimes you may have to just hang in there in the prayer closet: “Lord, I need to hear from you.”

“After long abstinence, the Lord stood by.” Paul, I’ve already told you, you’re going over there to Rome. Just like you testified to me in Jerusalem, you’re going to go to Rome, and you’re going to do it. I’m taking care of everybody else on the ship, too. You’re going to lose the ship with those people—all those souls, 276. It’s going to be all right. But it was after long. Sometimes you’ve got to hang in there with the Lord.

He’s not on our timetable. Can I say this? Someone—we were talking about the will of God here recently—and they said, “Maybe you ought to set a timeline.” I said, “Boy, I remember when we were out of the ministry years ago before we came here, during those four years when I got out of the ministry, I think it was God’s will for me to get out of the ministry. And then we were praying about where to go, what to do, whatnot. And I remember I would draw, ‘All right, Lord, if you don’t do something by this timetable, we’re going to go start a church,’ you know.” And I kind of drew a line in the sand every single time. God would step across that line and say, “What are you going to do now, buddy?” I said, “Well, I’m just going to keep trying to follow the best I can.” Can I say, be careful sometimes with just drawing lines with God and putting God on a timetable? I put God on a timetable about a million times, and He’s never followed it one time.

After long—after. And just hang in there. His Word’s true. He’ll give you a hearing. His Spirit’s working. He knows He’s hearing. Just hang in there. God, in the right time, you’ll have that hearing. What do you do when you’ve lost all hope? Listen for the Word of God. Just very briefly here: Number one, listen for the word. Number two, believe His word.

Listen for His word, believe His word. You’re going to hear God speak. But you realize there were 275 people that went against what Paul said. I mean, they said, “All hope is gone. Paul, you’re crazy.” And either you’re going to listen to what everybody else is saying, or you’re going to listen to this word. You’re going to have fear inside of you. And either you’re going to listen to His Word or the fear inside of you.

This is interesting. Look over, if you will, in Second Samuel—First Samuel, excuse me. It looked like Second Samuel; let me put my glasses on. Now it’s First Samuel. Funny how that works the older you get. First Samuel. It’s talking about David over here. And David at this point in his life, he was running from Saul. He had already been anointed king, but remember, David was a shepherd boy. And God had already set his course: “You’re going to be on the throne one day,” and you’re anointed as that and whatnot. And yet Saul was trying to kill him. Remember that? He had already killed Goliath. And, you know, Saul has slain his thousands, David his ten thousands. The jealousy of Saul. And on, Saul had already backslid and turned away from the evil spirit, for the Lord was upon him and all. David came to play. All those things are going on, you know. And Saul’s trying to kill David.

For a brief time—we won’t have time to dig into it—but for a brief time, David went over to the Philistines’ country. And actually, during that time when we started the life of David a year or two ago on Wednesday—maybe five years ago, who knows me—but we went through all this. There was a time in David’s life he was living in the Philistine country. And remember, he’d go down and he would just slaughter villages—men, ladies, children—that way he could lie to Achish and say, “Oh yeah, we went this way.” And they didn’t. And I think it was just kind of a sad time. I think David backslid during that time. And that’s where eventually he encouraged himself in the Lord. I think that’s when David got right with the Lord, and he got God’s blessing back on him, and pretty soon as king in Judah and then eventually Israel and all that. Well, can I show you this? This is right where David says, “Well, phooey, I’m going to go over to the enemy’s country.” That’s where he just kind of went through a valley, just a backslidden time. This is really where it came from. Look at this right here: 1 Samuel 27, and look at verse number one. First Samuel 27 and verse number one. The Bible says, “And David said in his heart…”

That’s an important phrase. That phrase is found 10 times in the Bible. The first one is that God said in His heart. There are times over there where the fool hath said in his heart, “There is no God.” It’s what you’re saying in your heart. What do you listen to? The fear in your heart? Do you listen to the Word of God?

And David said in his heart, “I shall surely perish one day by the hand of Saul.” No, you’re not, David. You know better than that. You’ve been anointed king. And David said in his heart, “I shall not perish one day by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape into the land of the Philistines. And Saul shall despair of me to seek me any more in any coast of Israel; so shall I escape out of his hand.” God was taking care of David. There were some close calls, but really it wasn’t a close call because God had His hand of protection on David.

But he started saying in his heart, “He’s going to get me. I’ve just a step between me and death. He’s going to get me. I’m going to die.” And you start listening to those fears inside of you, old flesh, you start dwelling on and contemplating. You say in my heart, in my heart, “I can’t win over this sin. So-and-so is going to—they keep talking about everybody’s going to believe them.” And you just keep saying all that. And after a while, you really don’t hear the Word of God that much. You hear that fear in your heart.

So I’m saying when you don’t have any hope, listen for the Word of God, believe the Word of God. “Thy word have I hid in my heart.” Don’t be doing like David at that point there. He said in his heart, “It’s all going to get me.” Don’t say that in your heart. Believe His word. You’re going to have fear, but believe His word.

Last thing, we’re done. We’ve got to hurry along here. Go back over here to Acts, would you please? Acts 27. Acts 27. And this is a wonderful thing about it. Saul—I mean, Saul—I got stuck on Saul now. Paul, Paul, he had had a hearing from the Lord. The Lord met with him after a long abstinence. He said, “Hey, everything’s going to be all right. You’re going to testify before me in Rome.” And so he listened, and he had a word, and he believed it. And now watch this—what God did with this thing here. Look in verse number 33, please. Chapter 27, verse number 33: “And while the day was coming on”—we’ve skipped over a little bit—“Paul besought them all to take meat, saying, ‘This day is the fourteenth day that ye have tarried and continued fasting, having taken nothing. Wherefore I pray you to take some meat; for this is for your health, for there should not an hair fall from the head of any of you.’” When he had thus spoken, he took bread and gave thanks to God in the presence of them all. When he had broken it, he began to eat. Then were they all of good cheer, and they also took some meat. And we were in all in the ship two hundred threescore and sixteen souls.

I’m saying that all 275 of those people—Paul got a hearing from the Lord, and he believed it, and then he spread it. And it brought hope to 275 people. God gave them all those people on the ship. Hey, who around you would it be good for them to hear some of the hearings that God’s given to you? And it’s given you faith, it’s given you hope. And you know this old world? It’s a sad, depressed, discouraged old world out there. And they need Christians that say, “Hey, God showed me something. God spoke to me. Let me give you some hope.” Boy, it spread over that whole ship. God gave him every one of those people from the Lord of God. He heard from God, listened for it, heard from God, he believed it, and he spread it. He spread it.

Would you bow your heads and close your eyes? Let’s just spend some time with the Lord for a bit here. “Lord, who can I share your word with? Who can I share your word with, Lord?” Maybe you need to say, “Lord, I need a hearing. It’s been a while since I’ve had one. I’m reading it, but I want to have a hearing.” Maybe you just want to say, “Lord, give me a hearing from your Word.” Maybe you want to say, “Hey, I need to believe it. I’m listening to all my fears and everybody else, all the voices. I need to believe in the Word of God.” Would you stand tonight? We have a word of prayer. Do you spend some time? You become an old-fashioned altar. Do that. Have the Lord lead you. Let’s be obedient to Him tonight.

Father, thank you for your Word. It is wonderful. Lord, I’d be just crushed many times over waiting for your Word. Thank you for it. Thank you for the hope and the faith that brings. Lord, give us many, many hearings from your Word. Help us to believe it, Father. Help us to spread it. And we’ll thank you for it. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.

Original File: 2026-03-05 - Pastor Paul Chisgar ＂Paul listened, believed, & spread the Word＂ - Wednesday PM 3⧸4⧸2026