Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Wednesday, April 9th. Do you ever feel like you're just drifting through life? Today's lesson points you to a reliable compass for navigating a safe course. You know, a harbor is a very fascinating place because you'll see the crew up on the side of the ship painting and repairing and they're polishing and somebody's always working there unloading and loading cargo, all the beauty and all the majesty and all the power in those ships. But usually you'll see something else somewhere along the shore and that is an old derelict. All the beauty that was once a part of that ship is no longer there and now it's a derelict.
That is, it's sort of wasted away and of no use and no value and the very thing it was created for, it's no longer used. All the derelicts are not made of steel and of wood, but some of them are human. People who once were radiant, glowing believers living in the faith, but something happened in their life. And whatever happened, they ran aground and it's no longer the beauty and the joy and the contentment of the peace they once had, but somehow they feel as if they're useless creatures. And oftentimes because of their sin, they look like derelicts. They're not all with ragged clothes.
Some of them are in the finest clothes money can buy. But on the inside, they become derelicts. That is useless, wasting away, the beauty's all gone, the joy's all gone, the happiness is all gone and they're just sort of existing, but the purpose for which they're created, they're not any longer utilizing their life. There is a passage in First Timothy, if you'll turn there, chapter one, where Paul mentions a couple of men who made shipwreck of their lives.
And that's what I want to talk about in this message. And that is shipwrecked saints. First Timothy chapter one. Listen to what Paul wrote to Timothy beginning in verse eighteen. He says, This command I entrust to you, Timothy, my son, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you may fight the good fight, keeping faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith.
Among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have delivered over to Satan so that they may taught be taught not to blaspheme. He said of these two men. Notice the phrases he uses here. He says, who have rejected, rejected what? Rejected the faith they once believed and taught and have rejected the alarm bells of their conscience. Now, when he talks about this, when he says rejected, that word doesn't mean simply say, well, no, but it means that they thrust themselves away from it. It is a violent rejection of their alarming conscience.
This isn't something that they just sort of drifted out of. But these men, these men, seeing the opportunity, rejected, thrust themselves away from it, as he says here, deliberately within a fierce struggle with their conscience. When their conscience was alarming them of the danger of where they were headed, they deliberately and willfully chose to walk away from the truth. Now, I believe any man of God who opens this book week after week to any congregation or says that he believes it and for some reason that will either profit him or lift him to some position or give him some prestige in any form or fashion, but who deliberately, willfully in the struggle with his conscience walks away from what he or she knows is the truth of God is heading toward a condition which Paul describes as shipwreck of their life.
And I want you to notice what Paul said. He's not saying these people lost. He's saying they deliberately and willfully departed from the truth and have begun to teach error. And he says about them, he has delivered them over to Satan so that they may be taught not to blaspheme. So when Paul says here to Timothy, among these are Hymenaeus and Alexandra, whom I have delivered over to Satan so that they may be taught not to blaspheme. He's not talking about he's not talking about them being lost, but rather he says the ultimate goal is to reclaim these people.
Now, let's ask ourselves the question here. What does he mean by turning them over to Satan? And I believe this is what he means, that when he sees their deliberate, violent antagonism toward their conscience, which by now they have almost seared and they in their determination to deliberately and willfully disobey and rebel against God and teach others likewise. What Paul is saying is he's asking God to withdraw everything and allow Satan full sway in that person's life except for their salvation. He cannot take their soul. That means they are subject to pain, suffering, all kinds of loss and everything else. Now, let's think about something.
And I don't think we can be dogmatic at this point. But if God has given us and commissioned us to pray for the healing of those who are sick, to pray for God to heal those who are sick, what about those who are willingly, deliberately living in sin? Do we have the right to pray for God to so withdraw his protection that he would allow Satan to put sickness and loss and turmoil and grief and anything and everything Satan desires to do to that person to bring them to the end of themselves? I believe that's what Paul is talking about. Now, when Paul said he just turned them over to the devil, that doesn't mean that Satan can touch their spirit, their eternal spirit, but he can sure play havoc with their body and with their emotions and their mind up to a limitation which God has set upon it. So I'm saying all that to say this, that playing around in disobedience and rebellion toward God and especially what these men were doing, they were deliberately teaching error and confusing the church.
And so he said, among these are Hymenaeus and Alexandra, whom I have delivered. I have delivered over to Satan so that they may be taught not to blaspheme. That is, that they may be reclaimed as offenders. They may be chastised, whatever is necessary to bring them back to the realization of their first commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, if every time somebody really got out of fellowship and just living in willful deliberate, I mean just violent sin, and I mean they've closed the door on their conscience and they want to live like the devil, they don't want anybody in the church bothering them. If we all assemble on Sunday morning and said, OK, I want to tell you who we're going to pray about this morning. We're going to pray for God to really work them over this coming week. How would you feel if you're one of those persons and you heard people praying that God would work you over the coming week?
I'll tell you, you'd be rushing back to church the next Sunday, wanting to get right with God. Well, now, some people interpret this passage, and it is probably true for a while at least, that Paul excommunicated these people from fellowship in that church. Now, I'm not saying that we ought to excommunicate people who live in sin because that puts us in a position of being judges. And I think we must be judges up to a point. But we don't want to just heap everybody together and say, well, if you don't match my standard, we're going to pray for you.
Now, we can't do that. But I think when it is willful, violent, deliberate disobedience to God, I mean violating one principle after the other, which is a clear principle of scripture. We have the right to pray that in the grace of God, God sends such chastisement and such bitter, such bitter chastisement of them. They will be rushing back to God, asking for His forgiveness and accepting it and finding themselves once again back in the fellowship of the Lord. Now, you see, what we just sort of say, well, you know, that's the way they act.
That's the way they are. But when God sees one of His children, it's one thing to stumble and fall in a repentant spirit. It is something else to deliberately, willfully calculate the disobedience, design it, set your plan and forthrightly walk away from God for a season of time.
One thing those folks forget is this. And that is from the first day you take the first step, you begin to lose and you lose all the way until you come back in the fellowship with Him. And the one thing you lose ultimately and eternally is time. You can never reclaim the time. God forgives our sin as believers, but we can never reclaim the time. We can make the most of what we have left. We may double our duty and double our efforts, but the seconds and the minutes and the hours and the days and the weeks and the years are gone forever.
Now, what I want to discuss at this particular point is not those who so deliberately, willfully, violently against their conscience walk away from God for a season. But I want to talk about the ways people make shipwreck of their lives the same way ships sink. What causes ships to sink? So let me just give you a few suggestions because I believe this is the way most people, the majority of people make shipwreck of their life and they become derelicts along the way.
Maybe not as intense as some of those others, but they make shipwreck of their spiritual life. Number one, they run aground. You see, if the captain of the ship does not keep his eye on the compass, what is going to happen? He's either going to hit an iceberg if he's in the right part of the world or the coral or just run aground in the nighttime or in the storm, not knowing where he's going because, you see, no wise captain of a ship would ever steer a ship on the basis of his feelings. He would never do that.
And I've been up on the bridge of a number of big liners and very carefully and cautiously they watch that whole radar system. Because they can never go by feelings. Do you know why some believers run aground? It's not that they don't believe the Bible.
That's not it at all. It's they begin to neglect the Scriptures. They begin to neglect the chart. They begin to neglect the compass.
They begin to neglect the radar system that God gave them to guide them through the storms of life, to guide them through the dangerous waters that all of us walk through at times in our life. It is the Word of God. It is the renewing of the mind. It is soaking our mind and heart with the Scriptures. It is knowing the will of the Father in those giving moments that helps us to be able to pilot our way through those narrow straits, those rocky areas around the coral and around the icebergs, around those things that cannot be seen on the surface. And you and I, every day of our life, God is willing to guide us through and around and over what we cannot see. And so He has made us to be dependent upon Him. He's the captain of our soul.
He's the captain of our ship. And the Word of God is His chart to show us how to live. Why is it that some people find themselves running aground, losing their way in the Christian life, leaving the church, backsliding on God?
That's the Word. Backsliding on God. They cease to read the Scriptures. They cease to give. They lose fellowship with their Christian friends. Now they look for other friends. They lose their joy, their peace, their happiness, their contentment. And they look at themselves and wonder, what in the world has happened? They're like that boat laying on the side up on the rocks because they took their eyes off the compass. They cease to watch the chart, thinking that they could make it through life, neglecting Almighty God and their dependence upon Him. Some ships sink and run aground because they do not keep their eye on the chart, on the compass, on the guide.
But there's a second reason here, and that is out of pure neglect. One of the interesting things I've noticed, all the ships I've ever been on, that whenever it's in port, all the crewmen are working on them and they're shining up the brass. They're hanging on the scaffolding beside with these long poles and they just keep painting. I asked the captain on one occasion, I said, well, how often do you all paint? He says, we never stop. We're always shining, always repairing, always painting because he said, you know, no leak ever heals itself. Anything that happens, we must be immediately there to correct it, whatever it is.
We have to be in a continuous state of repair and polishing and painting to keep this ship in the order in which it's demanded. Now, what about us as believers? What about all of us who are Christians? Is there ever a time when you and I can neglect our relationship to Christ? And is that not the reason that some people run aground and their ship begins to sink and they wonder what in the world's happened in their spiritual life?
They just begin to be negligent. And one of the interesting things I've noticed about people is this. Oftentimes when people have very little, they are so faithful to God. I mean, they never miss church.
They're right there on time. I mean, they're involved and somehow the more of God's blessing comes their way, it somehow seems the less they feel the dependence or the need of fellowship with believers. And so after a while, they just begin to neglect the fellowship of God's people. They begin to neglect reading the Word of God and somehow they never chose to.
It's just a matter of neglect. They get busy doing other things. Suppose the captain said, well, I'll tell you what. For the next six months, every time we hit a port, you all just head for the bars and have yourself a big time.
That ship wouldn't sail six months if that were his attitude. And you and I know that we have to be very alert every day and that we cannot at any point in our life begin to neglect our spiritual life. You see, that's why Paul said we ought to renew our minds. When?
Daily. That's why he said to Joshua, be strong and of a good courage. Fear not, neither be thou dismayed. He says, don't turn to the left or to the right, but meditating upon the Word day and night.
Why? In order to keep Joshua heading in the right direction and doing the work and the will of the Father. Neglecting, neglecting our spiritual life. Neglecting the witness of our faith. Neglecting the study of God's Word. Neglecting spiritual fellowship with God's people who love Him.
The neglect of anything is costly. And one of the reasons some people find themselves in a backslidden condition. They never chose to do it. They never said, I'm going to backslide. They just got busy doing something else and someone got their attention over here.
Why don't let's do this and why don't we do that? And they begin to fall into little habits. And those habits demand their time and those demanded times draw from time they spent with God. And after a while, somehow they find themselves in a condition. They never planned it that way.
It just resulted out of neglect in their life. Let me ask you this. As you look at your own spiritual life, are you neglecting any aspect of your spiritual life? Are you saying, well, I don't need to pray or I don't particularly need to read the Bible.
I'll make it somehow. And you see, I'm not saying you can't make it through one day without praying. But why do you think He said that we're to meditate day and night? Because God knows that when Satan cannot get you one way, if he can just get you busy doing something to neglect your warm, intimate, personal relationship with Him, that sooner or later you're going to run aground.
It's just part of the lifestyle. There's a third. And that is some ships sink by collision. It's interesting to me that here are two large vessels.
I mean, you know, sometimes as long as the football field. Out in the middle of the ocean they collide. You think, how in the world could anybody run into anybody else out here in the middle of all of this when there's so much ocean out here?
Well, somebody's neglected something. But they have shipwrecked because of collision. Now, that can be in small runabouts, motorboats, sailboats, whatever it might be. If somebody's not watching, they can have a collision and the ships sink. My friend, if there is a cause for God's people to have shipwrecked in their life, it is collision.
I have seen this over and over and over again. What happens is the whole church sinks when the body of believers begins to have a head-on collision on disagreements on simple things, sometimes things of great importance. But you see, when two ships going at a good speed collide, more than likely they're going to tear the holds apart and they're going to sink. And that is exactly where some of God's people are who are in a backslidden condition, a head-on collision in their home, husbands and wives in the business, and bitterness and resentment begin to develop and they begin to withdraw from the church, withdraw from the things of God. And you see, you can't live in bitterness and resentment and hostility and anger toward anybody else in the world and have a right relationship to God, either going to get that mess straightened out or you're going to begin the stages of backsliding. And before long, you're going to be one of those derelicts over on the side, half sunk, part of your life protruding, the rest of it all sunk, nothing beautiful about your life anymore, for bitterness and resentment and hostility and anger and sin.
What does it do? It steals the radiance of Christ from your countenance. It steals away your joy.
It takes away the happiness and the peace. There is confusion. There is hostility. There's a civil war. There's turmoil. There's something that gnaws away on the inside all along.
Why? Because you had a collision with another of God's saints. Listen, there isn't anything in the world worth colliding over and sinking your life over. My friend, if you have a collision, get out the paint, get out the blowtorch, do whatever is necessary, get your ship under repair quickly before you sink out of bitterness because it will sink you sooner or later.
And that's where some of God's people are. They've had head-on collisions, sometimes in the church, sometimes out of the church, sometimes young people with their parents, head-on collision of their philosophies about life. And instead of sitting down and settling them, they separate, they depart, and the parents are bitter and the kids are bitter, and they live in bitterness and resentment and speak to each other only on occasion.
I'm going to tell you, my friend, there's no way in the world for there to be happiness and peace and joy and contentment and success at anything in life when you're full of bitterness and resentment. Head-on collisions will sink a ship. Head-on collisions will make shipwreck out of a believer's life. Thank you for listening to Shipwrecked Saints. For more inspirational messages like this one, visit our online 24-7 station. And if you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of InTouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
