A SHIPWRECKED FAITH

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Timothy, my son, I am giving you this command in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by recalling them you may fight the battle well, holding on to faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and so have suffered shipwreck with regard to the faith. Among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme. 1 Timothy 1:18-20

Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly. Their teaching will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have departed from the truth. They say that the resurrection has already taken place, and they destroy the faith of some. 2 Timothy 2:16-18

Alexander the metalworker did me a great deal of harm. The Lord will repay him for what he has done. You too should be on your guard against him, because he strongly opposed our message. 2 Timothy 4:14-15

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

No matter how hard the church tries to stay centered in the Gospel and on Jesus, Satan is always at work trying to disrupt those efforts and shipwreck Christ-centered faith. Anytime the church tries to grow stronger, the enemy always seeks to weaken it. It’s was true at the very advent of the Christian church and it has been true through the ages to our present days.

How does this happen?

Because the church is made up of sinners, imperfect people who can easily be influenced to change their thinking in ways proposed by the world and contrary to the scriptures. Instead of the Gospel advancing on the seas of the world, steered by the wind of the Holy Spirit, there are believers who can cause the church to change course and run aground.

We see it today within mainstream congregations where decisions have been made to change church polity toward the world and its ways, despite those changes being in complete contradiction to the inerrant Word of God. In these cases, massive schisms have occurred, shipwrecking the body of Christ and breaking it up into smaller fragments of believers. In the aftermath, the Christian church has become divided and greatly disempowered in its Gospel work.

This is exactly what the Apostle Paul was trying to prevent from happening in the Ephesian church as he writes two letters to Timothy, the second informing sometimes informing the first as we see in today’s message.

As Paul finishes up the first chapter of his first letter, he exhorts his missionary partner to “fight the battle well” while “holding onto faith and a good conscience” against those who were bringing “false doctrines” into the church, doctrines that included “myths and endless genealogies” which promoted “controversial speculations” and “meaningless talk” instead of “advancing God’s work” (1 Timothy 1:3-4,6,18-19).

Who was he up against?

Paul calls out those who were attempting to disrupt the church doctrine, those who he declared to be shipwrecked in their faith.

He first mentions Hymenaeus and Philetus, and we have to go to the second letter to Timothy to gain some specific knowledge as to what they were doing that was sinfully altering the scriptures and the Gospel. Referring to their actions as blasphemy, we learn that they were proclaiming the resurrection, the return of Jesus to claim those who had believed in Him, had already happened.

Imagine for a moment if you were a member of the Ephesian church and you heard this. You were holding onto the assurance that because you believed in Jesus, you were guaranteed to be saved and that this saving would happen when He returned. And now, one of your fellow Christians is asserting that the resurrection has already happened. If you believed him, your faith would indeed be destroyed. One shipwrecked faith would cause another.

Such was the danger of men like Hymenaeus and Philetus to go unchecked and unchallenged in the church and it was Timothy’s job as pastor to restore the purity and sanctity of the Gospel while weeding out those who were trying to distort it before the falsities infected the church like “gangrene”.

As for Alexander, we know he “opposed” the message Paul and the other missionaries brought to Ephesus when the church was established and this message was the Gospel. We don’t know exactly how he was opposing but we do know from the second letter to Timothy that the metalworker did the Apostle great harm and Paul felt that the Lord would repay him for his actions. Like Hymenaeus and Philetus, the Apostle warned Timothy to “be on guard against him”.  

We need to be on guard today as well because Satan is not giving up on his efforts to destroy the Christian church and sabotage the advancing of the Gospel. All Christian believers need to be strongly knowledgeable of the Word of God and immersed fully in the Holy Spirit. For in doing these two things, we can prevent ourselves from being led astray to where our faith is shipwrecked by those who are already there.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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