Acts 28

Acts 28:3

A Bundle Of Sticks A bundle of sticks.—Acts 28:3.You can all tell what this is—a bundle of sticks such as we gather to make a fire when we go for a picnic. But I wonder how many of you can say where a bundle of sticks is mentioned in the Bible? If you don’t know, I should like you to look it up when you go home. I am going to tell you the story of it, and that will help you to guess where to search.St. Paul was being taken as a prisoner to Rome when a terrible storm arose and the ship was cast ashore upon the island of Malta. The passengers and crew were all saved, but the vessel was broken to pieces.

Fortunately the people of the island were friendly, and when they saw the shipwrecked men shivering in their wet clothes they did a very sensible thing—they kindled a fire. But of course a fire kindled needs to be fed or it will soon go out; so Paul, the practical, set about gathering a bundle of sticks.If I did not want to speak to you about the sticks themselves, we might have quite a long talk about Paul’s common sense.

He did not sit down to bemoan his misfortune. He set about at once to look for a remedy. Here were two hundred and seventy-six soaking people, and the main thing was to get them dry as soon as possible, so he must find the means to keep up the fire. And I have no doubt many of the others when they saw him working followed his good example. Paul had no stupid notions about things being beneath his dignity. He was not ashamed to turn his hand to anything. Whatever he did— whether it was preaching a sermon, or making tents, or gathering sticks—he did it with all his might.Now, there are many different kinds of bundles of sticks. There are the neat bundles that we get from the grocer for lighting our fires, and there are the rather untidy looking bundles that we gather at picnics.

There are the sticks the gardener uses to tie up his plants, and there are the bundles of brushwood with which he shields the tender seedlings from the cold spring winds.You have sometimes heard your friends say of somebody, “Oh, she’s just a stick!” And when they say that, they don’t mean anything very complimentary. They mean that the person of whom they are speaking is stiff, and unbending, and uninteresting. Now I always think when I hear people talking in that way that they are being rather hard on the poor sticks. There is a great deal of good in sticks, so much that I should like you all to be sticks.Let us think of some of the things that sticks do.First of all, they light fires and help to keep them alight You know how cheery it is on a cold winter’s night to gather round a big blazing fire with a glowing log in the middle of it. Well, I think people who are kind and cheerful are just like that blazing log; they send a sort of glow about our hearts. Wouldn’t you like to be this kind of stick?But there is another thing sticks do—they give support.

And I should like you to be this kind of stick too. I am thinking this time of the sticks the gardener uses to tie up his plants.

If it were not for them many of the frail plants would get broken and dashed to pieces by the wind. How can we be a support? By helping to bear the burden of others. Would you like to hear the story of how one man bore another’s burden?In the year 1780, fifty English officers were taken prisoner and confined at Seringapatam by Tippoo Sahib, Sultan of Mysore. They were treated with such cruelty that many of them died. The Sultan sent to Seringapatam fifty sets of fetters—one for each man; but among the men was a young officer—Captain Baird—who was so badly wounded that it would almost certainly have killed him to wear the chains. What was to be done? The Sultan had sent fifty sets and fifty sets must be put on.

Another officer named Captain Lucas came to the rescue and offered to bear his friend’s load as well as his own. And for many weary months, in the stifling heat of that Indian prison, he wore two sets of fetters, until at length the prisoners were liberated.Perhaps we haven’t the opportunity to do a grand deed like Captain Lucas, but when we are kind to those who are weaker than ourselves, when we dry the tears of those who are sad, when we take care of the little ones for mother, run her messages, and are bright and obedient, we, too, are doing something to lighten the burden of another.Once when a great ship was being launched she stuck on the ways. A small boy who was standing near laid his shoulder against the side of the huge vessel saying, “I can push a pound.” That was all that was required. Swiftly the ship began to move, and soon she was floating safely on the water.You may not be able to lift a big burden, but you can all push a pound, and there is no saying what you may accomplish by so doing.I want to speak about one more purpose for which sticks are used—protection. We are told that the sticks Paul gathered were brushwood, and those are just the sort of sticks the gardener uses for protecting his young plants. Sometimes he lays them on the ground in the winter to keep the cold away from the roots.

Sometimes he makes a kind of hedge of them to shield the tender green shoots from the cold spring winds. They stand between the weak things and the things that would hurt them.

This was what the knights used to do long ago—they rode forth to defend the weak and helpless; this is what our British soldiers and sailors are still ready to do; and this is what our best British boys and girls are ready to do too. It’s a fine thing to be strong, but it’s a finer thing to use our strength well. Let us see to it that no small child is bullied in our presence, and that no helpless animal is ill-treated.There is just one thing more I want you to notice. When Paul was gathering sticks he picked up a viper among them. The creature had made itself look so like a stick that he had not noticed it. It was numb with the cold, but the heat of the fire restored it, and springing out it fastened on Paul’s hand.Now what I want to say is—don’t be a viper, and pretend to be a stick.

Not only was the viper no use for keeping the fire alight, but it tried to do all the harm it could. There are some things in us that, if we don’t take care, will turn us into vipers although we may appear to be good useful sticks.

There are the beginnings of envy, and malice, and selfishness, and discontent. The best way is to get rid of them when they are small, and to ask Jesus to put in their place love, and kindness, and unselfishness, and thoughtfulness for others.

Acts 28:11

The Twin Brothers After three months we set sail in a ship of Alexandria, which had wintered in the island, whose sign was The Twin Brothers.—Acts 28:11.Ships in ancient times had, as a rule, two figures attached to them. In the front of the ship was the figure-head, after which the ship was named. In the stern was the image of the god who was supposed to guard the vessel. The ship in which St. Paul sailed had two in the stern, the images of the gods Castor and Pollux.Do you know the Greek legend about Castor and Pollux? They were twin brothers, the sons of Zeus, the king of the gods.

But although they were brothers, there was a great difference between them, for Pollux was immortal but Castor was not.The two brothers were very much attached to each other, and they shared many adventures together; but at last Castor was killed in battle. Then Pollux sorrowed so much for his brother that he wished he might die too, but he could not, because he was immortal.

He went to Zeus and begged him to make him a mortal man, that he might die and go to Hades to join his beloved brother. But Zeus could not do that. However, on account of his great love for Castor, and because he could not be happy away from him, Pollux got permission to spend every second day with Castor. So he spent one day among the gods, and the next day in Hades where the dead were.Another story says that as a reward for their great love for each other the brothers were fixed as stars in the sky. Those stars are called the Gemini, or the Heavenly Twins. Both in Greece and in Italy it was believed that Castor and Pollux, always together, came riding on white horses to help soldiers on the battlefield, and to gain the victory for those who called on them.

They were also supposed to protect sailors in storms. That is why it was common to find their images in boats.This beautiful story of brotherly love and loyalty reminds us of a true story.

We are mortals like Castor, but we have a great immortal Brother. And He loved us so much that He could not be happy without us, but came down from Heaven to seek us, His little mortal brothers. More than that, He showed us the way back with Him, that we might live with Him in heaven forever.The brother knew well the castle old, Every closet, each outlook fair, Every turret and bartizan bold, Every chamber, garnished or bare. The brother was out in the heavenly air; Little ones lost the starry way, Wandered down the dungeon stair. The brother missed them, and on the clay Of the dungeon-floor he found them all. Up they jumped when they heard him call! He led the little ones into the day— Out and up to the sunshine gay, Up to the fathers own door-sill— In at the father’s own room door, There to be merry and work and play, There to come and go at their will, Good boys and girls to be lost no more! (G. MacDonald, Poetical Works, i. 308.)

Acts 28:20

Chains Because of the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain.— Acts 28:20.Have you ever tried what it feels like to be fastened to another person by a rope or a chain? Some of you have run three-legged races, and that was great fun because you were doing it for sport, and because you never tried it for more than a few minutes at a time. But if you were fastened day and night to another person for two years—never able to move farther than the length of the chain unless they allowed you to do so—don’t you think you would grow rather tired of it?Well, that was St. Paul’s position for two years in Rome. He lived in his own “hired” house and might have his friends come in to see him, but his house was really a prison. He was not permitted to leave it, and he was always guarded by a soldier whose wrist was fastened to his wrist by a chain.

Every few hours the soldier on duty was changed. Some of them might be kind and allow Paul to walk about his house, but others would be inconsiderate and make him stay in one room.Now, although we have not to wear iron chains like Paul, we are all more or less bound by invisible chains that keep us from going where we should like to go and from doing what we should like to do.

Some of them are good chains and some of them are bad.The first chain I want to speak about is home.Sometimes we are inclined to fret about the rules and limitations of home. Sometimes we get cross and annoyed because we are not allowed to do what we want, or what other boys and girls do. But be sure mother has some good reason for forbidding you to do that thing, and some day you will thank her for it.And there is another sense in which home is a chain. Some day you will grow up and go out into the world. And then you will find that the memory of a good home is like a chain holding you back from what is mean, or bad, or unworthy.The second chain is the chain of circumstances. Sometimes we dream of the splendid things we should do if we were rich or powerful.

What beautiful presents we should give to the people we loved! What lovely surprise gifts we should send to those who had few of this world’s goods!

What a number of wrongs we should right.Now I think St. Paul was bound in that Roman house by the chain of circumstances just as much as by fetters of iron. He was a man who had been accustomed to go where he liked; he had travelled a great deal from place to place both by land and by sea; he had a passion for missionary work; yet there he was—tied to one house for two long years.What did Paul do with his chain? He made the best of it, and he made such splendid use of it that he perhaps did more good in those two years at Rome than he did in any other two years of his life.First of all there were the soldiers who were chained to him. He taught them about Jesus. Now soldiers, you know, are moved from place to place, and many of these soldiers carried the news of the gospel to far- distant parts of the Roman Empire.Then there were his own special friends, who visited him—Luke, and Timothy, and John Mark.

He comforted and helped them.And there were the Jews and Gentiles in the city who came to see him, and to whom he preached about Jesus of Nazareth.Besides all that, Paul wrote in Rome some very beautiful letters to the Christians in other places. It was from there that he sent the Epistles to the Ephesians, the Philippians, the Colossians, and to Philemon.So you see the chain of our circumstances is really a blessing in disguise if we make the right use of it.

We are in the very best place we could be, and the place where for the present we can do the most good.But there is another chain by which we are more or less bound, the chain of had habits. When we are small those chains are just like tiny silken ropes, but as we grow older, they increase in strength until they become terrible steel fetters. Now, unlike the chains of home and circumstances, these are chains we ought to try to get rid of, and the sooner we begin the better, so that we may break them before they grow strong.And how are we going to break them? Well, of course, we must try with all our strength to do so, but that is not enough. If we are going to trust to our own strength we may never be able to break them at all.Have you ever heard the legend of the knight and the wonderful stone? This knight was captured by the Saracens in the Holy Land and flung into a dungeon to die.

A nightingale used to come and perch on the window of his prison and cheer him by her song. The knight fed her with some of his. own scanty fare, and one evening he said to her, “Ah, sweet bird!

If only you could help me to escape!” The nightingale flew away and was gone for three days. The knight thought she had been killed by some hawk, but on the evening of the third day she returned bearing in her beak a stone. The knight took the stone, and, by accident, touched his fetters with it. They fell off him. Then he went to the dungeon door and touched that also. The door flew open, and the knight left his prison and managed to escape to England.We need to touch our bad habits with the magic stone of the love and the power of Jesus, and they will fall off us.