When pressed to the limit of his endurance, aboard a ship full of people who expect to die, Paul the prisoner receives supernatural comfort from the Lord. What is his report? An angel appeared to him giving him comfort and saying that he will have to make it to Rome. Everyone aboard the ship is to survive.
Who of us would receive such a message from God today? Maybe more to the point, who would receive such a message from God and actually tell people about it? Has the Lord stopped speaking to his people now that the Bible is apparently complete? Does the Lord still work in miraculous ways among us? Though most believers would say the Lord works in miraculous ways to this day, some say he no longer speaks in visions or by using angels as messengers. The Bible isn't completely conclusive in this. But what we do know is that the Scripture claims to be inspired and to speak to all sorts of needs of God's people. When we think it would be nice to have an angel come to speak with us, we are well advised to see what the Lord has already said to us in the Scripture. We can trust that if the Lord wants to tell us something else he will let us know somehow, whether in advance or in retrospect when we realize that God's hand was on us in our difficult situation.
Our Lord is able to protect his people. He has promised eternal protection. Very often he provides us with temporal blessings as well. We can know that as we love and trust the Lord he will care for all our needs. Will he always keep us alive so we can go to Rome? Not necessarily. He hasn't promised that in Scripture. But he has promised that he will care for all that we need.
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