Be Steadfast! Stand Fast!

Serving – January 2023 – Grace & Truth Magazine

Be Steadfast!
Stand Fast!

The world we live in is rapidly changing. The sum total of man’s technological knowledge is increasing faster and faster, more than doubling within just two years. Worldwide alliances of nations have mutated. Currencies, financial institutions and businesses once deemed solid have crumbled. Ethics and moral values are in a constant process of flux. Even weather patterns are said to be changing. Nothing seems stable as we look around us. In the minds of many, catastrophe looms imminently ahead, and in this quandary there are tremendous pressures from every direction telling the Christian to change.

To what extent is change appropriate for a Christian? Where is it inappropriate? Certainly there is room for change in many technological areas of our lives. Very few of us can grow all our own foodstuffs as our forefathers did. We drive cars and fly in airplanes without compunctions of conscience, or guilt. Our clothes are increasingly made of synthetic fibers. We use machines and appliances that were science fiction a generation or two ago, and whose capabilities would have been considered incredible a century or two farther back. Just as the printing press made the Bible available to the common man 500 years ago, so today the computer, satellite TV, internet, cell phones and other space-age gadgetry are making God’s Word even more readily available throughout the length and breadth of the earth. We can surely thank God for these and many other things, and use them for our good and the advancement of His interests in this world.

It is in the moral and spiritual areas of life where we must be far more careful of change. Our God is the unchanging God. “I am the LORD, I do not change,” He told us through the prophet Malachi (Mal. 3:6 NKJV). James 1:17 speaks of “the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.” “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever,” Hebrews 13:8 adds. His desires, standards, and moral principles do not vary with the changing times. Nor should ours as Christians, despite all the pressures that confront us. What are some of these areas where we must be steadfast, immovable, and unchanging? There are important applications we can gain as we look at the last part of the apostle Paul’s history detailed for us in Acts 27 and 28.

“I believe God,” Paul said under circumstances rather parallel to ours, “that it will be just as it was told me” (Acts 27:25). The apostle was a prisoner on his way to Rome to face Emperor Nero, whom he later referred to as “the lion” (2 Tim. 4:17). By this time, Paul had for more than two years been suffering unjust bonds, or shackles, and imprisonment. As they journeyed by sea, Paul warned the centurion and the ship’s personnel against going on from the port of Fair Havens. They paid no attention to the word God’s messenger had shared, but pressed on. The gentle south wind quickly developed into a great hurricane, causing passengers and crew to give up all hope.

Still today, against all the warnings of God’s Word, the world’s leaders take their destiny and that of their fellowmen into their own hands with desperate results. Let us, like Paul, believe God. He is to be trusted absolutely. All things are in His hand and under His control. God is faithful. And let us believe His Word explicitly, “that it will be just as it was told me.” “Your word is truth,” the Lord Jesus stated in His prayer recorded in John 17:17. Under no circumstances dare we ever waver from this full confidence in God and in what He says in His Word.

Paul the prisoner stood in the midst of all aboard the ship as he boldly took his stand. He believed God, “God to whom I belong and whom I serve,” as he stated it (Acts 27:23). His confidence in God was unbounded and did not change with the changing weather or circumstances. May our confidence in Him also not decline as the days grow increasingly evil. There was no self-assertion, no independence with Paul here. He had been bought with a price, and until his last breath he would serve the God of his salvation. Let us not deviate from this today either.

To all his fellow shipmates he would now proclaim the good news of free salvation, insisting however that all must be saved in the same way. None could cut loose and try to make the shore by their own efforts in their own way while leaving the others behind (v.31). The gospel message given us in God’s holy Word admits of absolutely no flexibility to favor any special class of people today either.

In dire straits his fellow travelers might have no food or in their anxiety abstain from food. Paul, however, “took bread and gave thanks to God in the presence of them all; and … began to eat” (v.35). For us today, spiritual food, the Bread of Life (Jn. 6:35), continues to be an absolute necessity. Let us not be deterred from partaking of it freely, from enjoying it without being embarrassed, regardless of what others may say or do. And by all means, let us sincerely thank God for His goodness to us in all the circumstances of our lives, giving Him special thanks for the Word of God, which He has freely given us for our nourishment and strengthening. No changes are in order here.

Once ashore on the island of Malta, Paul continued to mix with those with whom the Lord gave him contact. Never would he allow godly separation to make of him a recluse or a hermit. He would accept the kindness shown by the natives of the island and do what he could to be of help, quietly and humbly gathering up sticks to add to the fire they had made rather than beginning to build one of his own (Acts 28:2-3). He neither shrank from their slanderous and abusive comments against him nor capitalized on their efforts to make him as a deity, calmly accepting God’s protecting care while shaking off the viper into the fire (vv.4-6) where it could do no further harm. Despite the world’s focus on the spectacular and its emphasis on advertising and public relations, let us not abandon a simple walk of helpfulness and godly testimony, one of letting our light shine noiselessly to the glory of God our Father. Like Paul, let us avail ourselves of every opportunity the Lord gives to do good to others. These are things we dare not change.

Tracing Paul’s onward journey we see how at Puteoli he found brethren and happily stayed with them while he could (vv.13-14). A bit later he thanked God for the brethren who came from Rome to meet him, and took courage from this contact (v.15). May we do likewise. As the end draws near and we approach our destination, may we value the fellowship of our brethren, use every opportunity the Lord affords us for contact together, thank God for them, and take courage from every kindness they show us.

Peter, too, in view of the end of all things being at hand, exhorted us to have fervent love for one another. This should be evidenced in ungrudging hospitality and in sharing one with another that which the Lord has entrusted to us, whether in word or in deed (1 Pet. 4:7-11). Such virtues are becoming increasingly rare in the self-centered, ever faster moving world in which we live.

As Paul’s story is brought to a close in Acts, we see that his testimony to the Lord Jesus continues on – adapted to his circumstances but without change. God’s grace enabled him to live in “his own rented house” (Acts 28:30). He neither expected anything of this world nor did he become an earth dweller tied to places and possessions in this world. His pilgrim and stranger character were not given up. He was no longer able to go out to all, but he received all who came to him, whether Jewish leaders (28:17), “those who are of Caesar’s household” (Phil. 4:22), the beloved brother Epaphroditus (2:25, 4:18), and a runaway Onesimus (Phile. 10-13). Let us not do less. His message was still that broad one of “preaching the kingdom of God and teaching the things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 28:31). Notice the quiet, unchanging emphasis on the lordship of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. Paul’s attitude was that of all confidence, or boldness, with no one forbidding him.

So, too, the Lord would have us keep on keeping on for Himself. If we are God’s and believe Him and serve Him, He would not have us shrink back from a quiet and courageous stand in testimony for Himself, whatever our circumstances may be. He would not have us change from enjoying Him and His Word and the love and fellowship of our brethren. His desire is for us to “stand fast … in the liberty by which Christ has made us free” (Gal. 5:1). He would have us to “be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord” (1 Cor. 15:58), bringing Him honor and praise while He leaves us here as His “ambassadors” (2 Cor. 5:20) in a world still at conflict with Him. Technology and means are flexible and may alter and vary, but in his goals and purposes, in all that is essential, the Christian should not change.

By Eugene P. Vedder, Jr.