“But the officer in charge of the prisoners listened more to the ship’s captain and the owner than to Paul.”
Acts 27:11 (NLT)
Paul was sailing toward Rome when bad weather forced the ship into Fair Havens. Paul warned the officers that moving forward would bring shipwreck, loss of cargo, injuries, and danger to their lives. It doesn’t say, “Thus saith the Lord,” or that the Holy Spirit told Paul to speak. But Paul was a man of God. He had been led, instructed, and empowered by the Holy Spirit, so I believe his admonishment to the captain was ordained by the Lord.
Verse 11 begins with a nasty word: but. Julius listened more to the captain and the ship’s owner than to Paul. These men were experts at sailing, and Phoenix looked like a better place to spend the winter, at least on paper. The consensus of men and their experience won out over the instruction from the man of God, and what Paul saw ahead was put aside.
I wonder how often we do the same thing. God’s Word tells us, “Don’t do this, but do that,” and many of those instructions come with promises. But then we choose to listen to the world and our experience. We look at what is around us and choose the consensus of men instead of the counsel of God’s Word. These men in Acts 27 would encounter the consequences of ignoring Paul’s admonishment, an insight from God that they threw away, ignored, and neglected.
We have the same choice each day. Will we listen to what the Holy Spirit instructs us to do when it is countercultural and flies in the face of what we see? In Luke 5, the disciples chose Jesus’ instruction over their experience and had the biggest catch of their lives. Experience and experts can lead us, but they are nowhere near as good at leading us as God’s Word and God’s Spirit. So, which one will you follow today?