How Do People Shipwreck Their Faith?
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:04.000 | A new week begins on this fine Monday morning. Thank you for joining us.
00:00:09.000 | And the week begins with a humbling question about shipwrecking the faith.
00:00:13.000 | What does it look like to make shipwreck of the faith?
00:00:17.000 | What are some personal examples of faith failing? Why does it happen?
00:00:21.000 | How do people shipwreck their faith?
00:00:25.000 | It's a sobering topic and a common question in the inbox represented well by this question
00:00:29.000 | from a listener named Andrew. Hello Pastor John, thank you for the Ask Pastor John podcast.
00:00:33.000 | The Apostle Paul talks about some who have made
00:00:37.000 | shipwreck of their faith in 1 Timothy 1.19.
00:00:41.000 | In the next verse Paul singles out Hymenaeus and Alexander,
00:00:45.000 | both of whom appear to have been professing Christians at some point earlier.
00:00:49.000 | According to 1 Timothy 1.20, what did they do
00:00:53.000 | and how do people shipwreck their faith today?
00:00:57.000 | Jesus and Paul and Peter
00:01:01.000 | and the writer to the Hebrews, all of them,
00:01:05.000 | describe people who make a seemingly
00:01:09.000 | good start in the Christian life and then
00:01:13.000 | reject what they once claimed
00:01:17.000 | to believe. Sometimes this first
00:01:21.000 | condition, first state, is called
00:01:25.000 | faith and then is shown to be unreal
00:01:29.000 | faith. Faith without works is dead. You could call it
00:01:33.000 | dead faith, James would say. Sometimes it's called
00:01:37.000 | knowing the way of righteousness and then
00:01:41.000 | forsaking it. But in the end, the New Testament
00:01:45.000 | teaches that it is possible to make a
00:01:49.000 | start in the Christian life, perhaps a very
00:01:53.000 | long start, and then throw it away
00:01:57.000 | and be lost. Not that God ever loses any of
00:02:01.000 | His children or any of His elect. He keeps them
00:02:05.000 | according to 1 Corinthians 1.9, 1 Thessalonians 5.24,
00:02:09.000 | Philippians 1.6, Romans 8.30.
00:02:13.000 | In fact, here's what Romans 8.30 says, "Those whom He predestined
00:02:17.000 | He also called, and those whom He called He also justified,
00:02:21.000 | and those whom He justified He also glorified."
00:02:25.000 | None of those that God predestines and calls
00:02:29.000 | and justifies will ever be lost.
00:02:33.000 | Those He calls, He keeps. That's what those verses
00:02:37.000 | teach. But Jesus said in the parable of the soils
00:02:41.000 | that the third soil
00:02:45.000 | represents those who make a beginning in the
00:02:49.000 | discipleship, and then they fall away.
00:02:53.000 | "As for what fell among thorns," He says,
00:02:57.000 | "they are those who hear, but
00:03:01.000 | as they go on their way, they are choked by the cares
00:03:05.000 | and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit
00:03:09.000 | does not mature." That's Luke 8.14.
00:03:13.000 | Notice what their downfall
00:03:17.000 | was. They seem to make a good beginning, but
00:03:21.000 | the cares and riches and pleasures of life
00:03:25.000 | are their downfall. I want to take note of that because I'm going to come back
00:03:29.000 | to that when I finish looking at all these five instances.
00:03:33.000 | What about Paul? So that's Jesus. What about Paul? According to
00:03:37.000 | Philemon 1.24, Demas
00:03:41.000 | was Paul's fellow worker, along with Luke.
00:03:45.000 | So Demas must have looked enough like a true
00:03:49.000 | Christian to actually pass muster for Paul.
00:03:53.000 | His standards are really high. Remember John Mark?
00:03:57.000 | He wouldn't even let John Mark go with him the second time, but he's got
00:04:01.000 | Demas as his partner. And later,
00:04:05.000 | in 2 Timothy 4.10, Paul writes, "Demas,
00:04:09.000 | in love with this present age, has
00:04:13.000 | deserted me and gone to Thessalonica."
00:04:17.000 | Notice again the reason for the
00:04:21.000 | failure, the shipwreck. Love for this
00:04:25.000 | age, this world. Third,
00:04:29.000 | the text that Andrew, in asking this question, is talking about is 1 Timothy
00:04:33.000 | 1.19. So here's 18 to 20.
00:04:37.000 | Wage the good warfare, Timothy. Holding faith
00:04:41.000 | in a good conscience. By rejecting
00:04:45.000 | this, and that "this" refers most immediately to
00:04:49.000 | the good conscience. By rejecting this, some have
00:04:53.000 | made shipwreck of their faith, among whom are
00:04:57.000 | Hymenaeus and Alexander. Notice again, what's
00:05:01.000 | the root cause of the shipwreck? Rejecting
00:05:05.000 | a good conscience. Number four, what about Peter?
00:05:09.000 | What does Peter say? Here's 2 Peter 2.20.
00:05:13.000 | "If after they have escaped the
00:05:17.000 | defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord
00:05:21.000 | and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again
00:05:25.000 | entangled in them and overcome,
00:05:29.000 | the last state has become worse for them than the
00:05:33.000 | first." What's the problem? Why did they make shipwreck?
00:05:37.000 | Entangled again in the defilement
00:05:41.000 | of the world. And finally, number five,
00:05:45.000 | given these five illustrations, from the book of Hebrews,
00:05:49.000 | here's Hebrews 3.12-14. "Take care,
00:05:53.000 | brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil,
00:05:57.000 | unbelieving heart leading you to
00:06:01.000 | the devil." Now he's talking to brothers. Did you get that?
00:06:05.000 | Evil, unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the living God.
00:06:09.000 | "Exhort one another every day as long as it is called
00:06:13.000 | today that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness
00:06:17.000 | of sin, for we have come to share in Christ
00:06:21.000 | if we hold fast our original confidence
00:06:25.000 | firm to the end." What's the danger? Deceitfulness
00:06:29.000 | of sin. So, I think
00:06:33.000 | what Paul means by making shipwreck of faith
00:06:37.000 | is this kind of defection
00:06:41.000 | from professing faith. A person makes
00:06:45.000 | a beginning in the Christian life. Perhaps he himself and
00:06:49.000 | those around him think it's a real beginning.
00:06:53.000 | And then he abandons the whole thing.
00:06:57.000 | The ship of faith shatters
00:07:01.000 | on the rocks. And
00:07:05.000 | what's really striking in all five of these
00:07:09.000 | descriptions of shipwreck is
00:07:13.000 | that the rocks on which the faith shatters
00:07:17.000 | are not intellectual problems with
00:07:21.000 | Christianity. They're not problems with reason. They're not
00:07:25.000 | problems with historicity. In every single
00:07:29.000 | case, it's a problem with the heart's preference
00:07:33.000 | for sin. Number one, shipwreck
00:07:37.000 | of the third soil in Jesus' parable is owing to
00:07:41.000 | riches and pleasures of life. Two, the shipwreck
00:07:45.000 | of Demas is owing to a love for this present age.
00:07:49.000 | Three, the shipwreck of Hymenaeus and Alexander
00:07:53.000 | is owing to rejecting a good conscience. Four,
00:07:57.000 | the shipwreck of those who escape defilements in 2 Peter
00:08:01.000 | is that they become entangled with the defilements of the world.
00:08:05.000 | Five, the warning against shipwreck in Hebrews 3
00:08:09.000 | is a warning against the deceitfulness of sin.
00:08:13.000 | From this, I conclude that even though there
00:08:17.000 | may be real intellectual struggles,
00:08:21.000 | say, with the historical truthfulness of the Bible or
00:08:25.000 | with the justice of the ways of God, nevertheless,
00:08:29.000 | most shipwreck of faith
00:08:33.000 | is not at root intellectual, but
00:08:37.000 | rather because I want what I
00:08:41.000 | want, and Christianity is in the
00:08:45.000 | way. So let's pray
00:08:49.000 | for those who have turned away,
00:08:53.000 | not only that they would see the way of truth
00:08:57.000 | as true, but that they would delight
00:09:01.000 | in the way of holiness.
00:09:05.000 | Yes, may they delight in the way of holiness. Thank you, Pastor John. And there's
00:09:09.000 | another angle to this discussion, because those who make a shipwreck of their
00:09:13.000 | faith, those who love the world and abandon Christ for it,
00:09:17.000 | those people introduce tremendous pain into families,
00:09:21.000 | into friendships, into local church communities, and
00:09:25.000 | pain into the lives of the ministries of those people that they leave
00:09:29.000 | behind. We get a sense of how deep these wounds go from the
00:09:33.000 | life and ministry of the Apostle Paul. Next time, we're going to look at his
00:09:37.000 | testimony and the relational pain he faced in the ministry
00:09:41.000 | as a result of those making shipwreck of the faith.
00:09:45.000 | That's next time. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. We'll see you back here
00:09:49.000 | on Wednesday.
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