Rev. David Holwick C 1 Timothy - Clean Up the Church, #3
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
January 17, 2010
1 Timothy 1:18-20
SHIPWRECKED FAITH
I. Avoidable disasters.
A. New Jersey's version.
On September 5, 1934, the luxury cruise ship "Morro Castle"
left Havana for the United States.
Two days later, she encountered the beginnings of a nor'easter.
That night, the captain died of an apparent heart attack.
Shortly before 3:00 a.m., a fire was detected in the First Class
area.
Within 30 minutes the ship was engulfed in flames.
Soon the main electrical lines were destroyed and the ship
was plunged into darkness.
The steering ability failed.
Only half of the lifeboats were launched and they held mostly
crew members instead of passengers.
Not much was done in the way of rescue until the boat reached
Cape May, New Jersey.
Bodies began washing ashore from Point Pleasant Beach to Spring
Lake.
The governor of New Jersey flew a small plane along the shore
and helped boats locate survivors.
In the end, 135 passengers and crew died.
The burned-out hulk of the Morro Castle came to a stop in the
shallow waters off Asbury Park.
It was so close to the boardwalk that you could wade out and
touch the wreck with your hands.
It sat there for six months and became a huge tourist attraction,
complete with postcards and stamped penny souvenirs.
One good thing came out of the shipwreck.
Fire codes on ships were now strenuously enforced.
For the coastline between Cape Cod and Cape Hatteras, the Jersey
Shore has the worst record for shipwrecks.
One author estimates that if all the shipwrecks off Jersey were
laid end to end, they would form a continuous line the length
of our state.
#36180
B. Shipwrecks aren't all on water.
1) Some of the worst shipwrecks don't appear in the history
books.
a) They happen on land.
2) These are shipwrecks of faith.
a) People start strong for the Lord and then, for some
reason, fall away.
b) They lose something much more precious than their lives.
3) How can we protect ourselves against such disasters?
II. Paul's charge to Timothy.
A. It is a serious matter.
1) "Instruction" in verse 18 is translated "command" in v. 5.
B. Remember your foundation.
1) The prophecies made about him may have happened at his
ordination as a pastor, his commissioning as a missionary,
or some other event in his early Christian life.
2) They must have focused how God would use him to defend the
Christian faith.
a) Paul calls this "fighting the good fight." 1:18
1> He uses the expression three times in the Pastoral
Epistles.
b) The faith was under attack and it needed leaders to
step in and defend it.
C. Hold on to the faith and keep a good conscience.
1) Faith and conscience also appear in verse 5.
a) Conscience is widely misunderstood as a little demon and
a little angel sitting on your shoulders.
Ray Stedman sheds some light on what conscience really is:
"I find a great deal of misunderstanding, even among
Christians, on what the conscience is.
Many feel that the conscience is given to us to teach
us the difference between right and wrong.
But nothing could be further from the truth.
"No, the conscience is given to us, rather, to resist
any deviation from the truth, from the right and the
wrong that we know.
“If you think it is given to us to indicate what is wrong
or what is right, you will begin to rely upon your
feelings to determine right and wrong.
That is where many go astray -- many young Christians,
especially.
They think their conscience is their feelings; and if
they feel something is right then they do it."
1> Conscience deals with the moral issues we face
in life.
2> It is not a neutral thing, frozen from the time
we are born.
A> You can train your conscience to be good.
B> You can also weaken it so it rationalizes
evil behavior.
C> In 4:2, Paul describes a seared conscience.
b) Faith deals with spiritual issues.
1> Like conscience, it can be trained to grow.
2> It can also be warped and abused.
2) If you are flawed in either of these, you are bound for
a shipwreck.
a) You must believe right, think right, and live right.
III. Assess your own faith and conscience.
A. Are your beliefs drifting?
1) Americans love a pick-and-choose faith.
a) It doesn't even matter if our beliefs contradict.
2) You should be able to back up what you believe with the
Bible.
a) Are you even aware of what the Bible teaches?
b) Many are ignorant and seem determined to stay that way.
B. Are your actions drifting?
1) Many who claim to believe in Jesus, live in a way that they
know dishonors him.
2) It's not that other Christians would judge them -- they
could judge themselves.
a) But you learn not to, because it makes you feel guilty.
b) Sexuality is a big area for seared consciences.
3) If you are feeling guilty about something, what are you
going to do about it?
IV. Two casualties of the faith wars.
A. Examples of Hymenaeus and Alexander.
1) Hymenaeus is mentioned again as a heretical teacher in
2 Timothy 2:17.
2) Two Alexanders in Ephesus are possible.
a) One was a Jew. Acts 19:34
b) A second was Alexander the metalworker, who did a lot
of harm to Paul. 2 Tim 4:14
1> That passage says Alexander was teaching that
the resurrection of all believers had already
happened.
2> Many think this is the one Paul has in mind.
B. Handed over to Satan. 1 Cor 5:5
1) Similar language is used in 1 Corinthians 5:5.
a) In 1 Cor. 5, Paul is dealing with a moral issue.
b) In 1 Tim. 1, he is dealing with a doctrinal issue.
2) Both passages describe a drastic method.
a) "Handing over to Satan" seems to mean they will
experience what life is like without Christ and his
protection.
b) Catholics call this excommunication; Baptists call it
disfellowshipping.
3) Both passages have a positive goal.
a) In 1 Cor. 5, the goal is for the sinful nature to be
destroyed, but the spirit saved.
1> It probably alludes to physical distress like
illness that will lead to their repentance.
b) Here in 1 Timothy, the goal is for them to stop
blaspheming.
c) In both cases, Paul wants them to be spiritually healed.
C. It is not just ancient history.
Robert Wilkin had a friend who told him about a former
professor he had had in college.
The man was an agnostic who was teaching philosophy.
However, he had an obvious knowledge of the Bible.
After class one day Robert's friend went to witness to the
professor.
To start the conversation along spiritual lines he told the
man that he was going to seminary the following year.
"Oh, is that right?" the professor said.
"Where are you going?"
The young man told him Dallas Theological Seminary.
The professor smiled and said, "I'm a graduate of Dallas."
Many today underestimate the persuasiveness of the arguments
of liberal graduate schools which conservative seminary
student into an agnostic.
The minds of Christians can be turned.
Believers can be duped.
#36182
V. Lost salvation, or wrecked salvation?
A. Some believe shipwrecked means lost.
1) Many passages in the Bible warn about losing salvation.
a) Jesus talks about fake followers who are cast into
outer darkness.
b) The Book of Hebrews says those who lose their salvation
can never get it back.
2) But most of these passages are not talking about genuine
believers who fall away, but phony Christians who never
belonged to begin with.
B. Others say shipwrecked means wrecked but still there.
1) Paul's passage in 1 Corinthians 3:11-15.
a) The person ends up saved, but with little to show for it.
2) Note that Paul hopes the two shipwrecked men will come back
to the true faith.
C. "Once Saved, Always Saved" should not be abused.
1) It doesn't mean you can say you have accepted Jesus as your
Savior, and then do anything you want.
2) A genuine Christian life is marked by repentance and
obedience.
3) There may be times when they drift, but real Christians
always come back.
a) Assuming you are actually truly saved....
VI. It is a terrible thing to drift.
On October 28, 2005, a twenty-five foot shark-fishing boat left
the small port of San Blas on the Pacific side of Mexico.
Five men were onboard, with a few days of food, 50 quarts of water
and two outboard motors.
One of the fishermen, Salvador Ordez, brought a Bible.
On the third day at sea both motors died and they began one of
the most grueling stories of survival on the high seas.
Drifting with the current, they gathered rainwater in buckets and
jugs.
After 13 days they caught a sea turtle.
In November they ate only one other time.
Later, with wire they salvaged from the engines, they were able
to catch some fish, which they ate raw.
By February, three of the five men were left.
The two who died seemed to have given up hope.
But the others got stronger.
After a particularly savage storm that almost swamped the boat,
Salvador reassured himself that God was managing the situation.
"God lives with us at every moment," he later said.
"We don't see Him but He is with us.
I was on the high seas, deep in the ocean, and I knew that I was
lost in the sea.
But I also knew that there's a God.
I never doubted for a moment that He wanted me to live."
Salvador read the Bible, knelt, and prayed -- privately, at first.
Eventually the others followed his example.
And they agreed that, if rescued, they should permanently abstain
from alcohol.
None of the three men had ever been a regular churchgoer.
On the morning of August 9th, after drifting for 9 months, the
fishermen heard the sound of a Taiwanese fishing trawler.
They were five thousand miles from Mexico and had been stranded
at sea longer than anyone else in history.
It took some time to convince the authorities that they were in
fact from Mexico.
Back home, only one of them kept the vow to abstain from alcohol.
An American reporter caught up with Lucia was drunk most of the
time.
Did he still read his Bible regularly?
"I have a ton of Bibles in my house and I haven't lifted a
single one."
What about praying?
He shook his head, no.
"Why not?" the reporter asked.
"Because, honestly, I'm on land again."
#34278
Where are you at spiritually?
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
#34278 "The Castaways," by Mark Singer, edited by David Holwick; The New
Yorker Magazine; article: The Castaways, February 19, 2007,
p. 136-151.
#36180 "The Wreck Of The Morro Castle," by Rev. David Holwick,
January 17, 2010. Facts gathered from various websites including
Wikipedia.org and <http://www.jerseyboardwalk.com/morro.htm>.
The line about the worst shipwrecks being on land comes from
someone else's sermon that I can no longer locate.
#36181 "What Conscience Really Is," by Rev. Ray Stedman, Kerux Sermon #5359,
“Wage The Good Warfare,” 1981.
#36182 "They Both Went To Dallas Seminary," by Robert N. Wilkin, Journal of
The Grace Evangelical Society, Vol. 3:2, Autumn 1990; Part 5: “New
Testament Repentance: Repentance In The Epistles And Revelation.”
These and 35,000 others are part of the Kerux database that can be
downloaded, absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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