Acts 27:13-15, “When the south wind blew softly, supposing that they had obtained their desire, putting out to sea, they sailed close by Crete. A tempestuous headwind arose, called Euroclydon. So when the ship was caught, and could not head into the wind, we let her drive.”

After being falsely accused and put on trial, Paul, as a Roman citizen, had no recourse but to appeal to Caesar. The trip to Rome departed from Caesarea Maritima at a time of year that was not conducive to sailing on the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas. At first, it seemed like they might miss the bad weather, but conditions worsened, forcing a change of plans. They sailed to the south of Cyprus and Crete, hoping the islands would block the worst of the winds. They had the opportunity to spend the winter in Crete before continuing the journey to Rome. Paul tried to warn them of the danger that awaited them, but the captain of the ship was more interested in delivering his cargo than in listening to the warning of a prisoner.

It didn’t take long before they realized they should have stayed in the harbor at Fair Havens. A hurricane began raging from which there was no escape. They finally realized they had no hope of survival and seemingly accepted their impending death. It was then that Paul, under the anointing of the Holy Ghost, told them that God promised him that none of them would die, but the storm would lead to a shipwreck. When they finally saw land, they may have initially convinced themselves that Paul was wrong about the ship being destroyed, but they soon found themselves in the stormy waters, swimming for safety on the island of Melita, now known as Malta.

It was a cold, rainy day when they all reached land, and to their surprise, the inhabitants of the island, though considered barbarians, treated them kindly. Helping build a fire, Paul gathered a bundle of sticks to throw on the fire. When he did, a snake bit him. Here’s a truth you can count on. Anytime God moves, snakes move. I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed the wording of Acts 28:3 or not, but every preacher I’ve ever heard preach on this verse gets it wrong. If you look at verse 3, you see that as Paul places the wood on the fire, a snake emerges from the heat. The snake did not come out of the fire; it came out of the heat. Snakes can’t live in the fire, but they can survive in the heat.

Let me tell you where the devil hangs out. He hangs out around God’s people who are trying to do something for the kingdom. He hangs out where there’s some heat, and to have heat, you must have a fire. The devil knows that when the fire of the Holy Ghost begins to burn, he will have trouble from that crowd, so he tries to stop it any way he can. The people who saw this snake bite Paul stood there expecting him to swell up and die, but he didn’t. Verse 5 says, “He shook off the snake; into the fire.”

Snakes can survive in the heat, but they die in the fire. We need the fire of the Holy Ghost burning within us to protect us from the attacks of the Snake.