No Time For Shipwrecks

If you'll turn me in First Timothy chapter 1 — get right into the Word of God — First Timothy chapter 1, verses 18 through 20, we'll just launch from there today. Says: "This charge I commend unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them modest war a good warfare, holding faith in a good conscience, which some have put away concerning faith, have made shipwreck."

A title today: No Time for Shipwrecks. We see time running out, and we see prophecy being fulfilled. We see the scriptures unfolding in our very newspapers and news articles. And I've come to tell somebody: there's no time for shipwreck in your life. It's time to sure up your faith, to get your conscience in order, to know the truth that you need to live by and hold firm to, and what you're going to do going forward.

We all are in a battle every single day we live. If we're breathing, we're in a battle. As followers of Christ, we must realize that the position that we're in right now is God's calling. So many say, "Well, when I get to this point, when I retain this, when I get this cleared out of my life, then I'm going to pursue what it is I feel God's calling me to do." But I've come to tell you: where you're at is where God intends for you to be at this very moment. I've come to tell you: where you're dealing, and what you're facing, and the situations that you call a snag and a shortcoming in your life — barriers are the framework for what he's destined you to do. Don't allow those things to stop you or hinder you from obtaining the real calling and the purpose and plan he has for your life.

Our spiritual life — it has weapons, because this spiritual life is a war. Whether it be our culture, our environment, or even our own selves, sometimes we allow those things to dull our senses, to call spiritual lethargic reaction in our being, and disengagement on the battlefield. Most people are generally uncomfortable when you begin to talk about spiritual warfare in their lives. Or worse, they don't even recognize that they're in the midst of a battle and spiritual war is taking place, and they set unaware of what's taking place.

Satan wants to come in and to undermine our faith with doubt and fear and anxiety. He works in our culture to influence us to value earthly things over heavenly things. How much stuff can I obtain? How much things can I accumulate? Instead of focusing on what he intends us to focus on — the heavenly things, the spiritual things in our life. Satan clouds are mine and comes in with controversy, sometimes very significant in our lives, but sometimes it's minutes. But nonetheless, it's all distracting us from our intent, our purpose, and the battle that's taking place. He deceives and he lies to us about our families and our other relationships that we have, and causing havoc and breaking up of friendships and destroying marriages. He fuels the hate and the mainstream media, and it comes down into individual lives, and he fuels terrorism, immorality, human trafficking, addictions of all sorts and forms. But possibly the worst of all, he attempts to suppress your desires for Christ, so that your faith becomes cold and lifeless.

I've come to tell you: we must fight. We've got to engage in the battle. We've got to step in, and the full armor that he has provided for us, and fight a good fight. We've got to allow the power of the Holy Ghost to be alive and to flow through us and to work through us to accomplish the task at hand. We win or we lose based on the plan that we pursue: God's will or our own fleshly desire. Too often we try to shift the responsibility of our fleshly decisions with excuses like, "Well, the devil made me do it." I've come to give you a power nugget: the devil doesn't have the power to make you do anything. Don't believe the lie of the enemy that tells you, "Well, you've got to do this," because I've come to tell you: you have the power to overcome. If you are living and filled with the Holy Spirit inside of you, you have power over the enemy. Amen. Your flesh not being under subjection, and you choosing to allow it to rule and to guide you, it's where the blame truly lies when we stumble and we mess up. We make that choice.

We live in a world — world is full of people having different beliefs and value systems. What's wrong according to my values may be right to another. So how do we define and interpret right and wrong? Our conscience acts like a network system that sends a stop signal when something wrong hits it. How many times have you been in a conversation with somebody, maybe in a spiritual fashion, and they begin to give you an opinion, and your little Holy Ghost meter starts dinging out, you know, like, "Hey, something's not right"? You better heed to those warnings in your life. When situations arise and there's a choice to be made — a choice that's right and a choice that's wrong — you better not ignore your conscience to listen to the voice of the enemy trying to persuade you in the wrong direction. Can you trust your conscience to give you the correct warning regarding right or wrong? Or do you allow social media and the media itself to define what is right in society?

The Holy Ghost, if you will allow, can calibrate our conscience. When we surrender ourself completely to him, intentional daily time of prayer, studying, reading his Word, and hiding it in our heart allows that examination to take place. But ignoring these things were surely lead us to a corrupt conscience.

Anybody enjoying the price of gas these days? Don't care what political field you're from, or environment you grew up in, or your flavor of the day, but I don't know anybody that's yehon about the gas prices. And just like our disgust toward the high gas prices — costing us more money and making us have to change the entire budget just to get from point A to point B — we all know that we can't put gas in our tank and add water to make up the difference and act surprised when the car no longer runs right. Yet so many people choose to water down truth and ease their conscience, and then blame God when the choices that they made don't end in the right result.

The life of a Holy Ghost field individual is one of joy and peace, and I'll defend it to my very death. But don't be disillusioned: it will cost you some things in your life. It is a battle. You have to choose. It is a battle you have to fight each and every day. Some say, "Well, it's just a struggle, and it's just too hard." They've been deceived, because the truth is, we, every single one of us, enter into a battle every day that we live. The choice is up to you whether you get in and you engage, or you surrender to its attack.

I've come to encourage somebody. I want you to know you're worth fighting for. Don't give up. Don't give in. Do not quit. You read the back of the book: we win. We are victorious. We are winners. We are overcomers. He will not defeat us. He will not drag us down. But he also knows his end result, and he wants to take as many as he can with him.

People, a month and a half ago, paid an average of and sixty 6869 dollars for a Super Bowl ticket, with the highest ticket price going for seventy thousand eight hundred and ninety-one dollars, to sit and watch a team that does not know them and most likely never will, to watch them play a game that their team had no guarantee to win, and that there's zero dollars coming to the people watching in the stands just because they bought a ticket. Yet they lose their minds when a victory takes place. They go berserk. But listen to this: I've come to tell you, the ticket for your salvation has been paid on an old rugged cross, and no amount of money can buy you back. You are

his, and his alone. And he knows your name. He knows where you're at. He knows what you're going through and what you face tomorrow. He is with you in the midst of your fight and your struggle and in your battle that you're fighting. And I've come to tell you: it's a win, and it's guaranteed. They want to say we're crazy, but I've come to tell you we're not crazy. They want to say that you're brainwashed, but oh, are they also wrong. We are blood-washed. We are born again of the water and of the Spirit. And we have a promise and a guarantee that if we will remain faithful to him, he will bring us through. Celebration is in order, because victory is mine.

You're no longer your own, but we're bored with a price. And with that price in return, he wants a relationship. The precious blood of Calvary that was paid — that price for our redemption. And for us to remain full and victorious, we have to die out to self. The flesh must be under subjection, and we must embrace him as our Lord and Savior — both. He must be our Lord and our Savior. So many want a Savior. They want an individual: "When I'm in trouble, Jesus, come help me. I'm in the midst of sit — I've got myself in a situation. Come get me out." And here he comes, and he brings us out of that situation, and suddenly we're forgotten him again. We get into another situation: "Jesus, come help me." Too many times we just simply want a Savior, and we never want to surrender our life over to allow him to be the Lord of our life.

The difference in separating these two is this: when he's only recognized as your Savior, you only see him as necessary when you're in trouble. I'm a visual person, so I always like to have something to — so many times, when we have that Savior mentality, we get into a situation and, "God, I need your help," and we come and we grab a Band-Aid from the altar. "let me Let me patch this up." If you've ever been around kids, Band-Aids are miracles. You know, "Well, I've got that covered up." But suddenly, you know, they got to check: is it still there? And now the Band-Aid doesn't work. I need another Band-Aid. And we find ourself in that routine: I've got to get a Band-Aid, I've got to get a Band-Aid, I've got to cover it up, I've got it, and we're never fixing the situation. All we're doing is accumulating Band-Aids and sticky spots and all it entails with covering the scar and the bruise. But hear me when I say: Band-Aids will never fix a broken bone or a torn muscle. Yet we act disappointed when we come to the altar for the spiritual Band-Aid for a broken heart, a shipwrecked marriage, and addiction, and it does not work.

When you allow God to be the Lord in your life, suddenly he can also become the great physician and mend your heart and repair your marriage and cut away the addiction out of your life that has simply controlled you to this point. But all the blessed assurance is: my faith is in him. Regardless of the storm I may face, regardless of the bumps and bruises, he is always my Lord. So I can come to him and say, "God, this is so big, it's overwhelming. Can you help me in the middle of this?" He is my Savior. He is my redeemer. He's the great physician who heals, who fixes, and who lifts me up from my broken mess.

As only a Savior, his voice has no value in your life. He cannot guard you and heal you or make you all that he desires for you to become. The mistakes that you struggle with will continue to torment your life, because he is not your Lord. And what has always controlled you will continue to repeat its cycle until you're willing to yield his lordship in your life. Until you come to the realization — and a person realizes and is willing to understand this fact — the blessings of God cannot flow into a life unyielded to his voice. How many times have we been guilty of, "God, I need this, God, I need that, and I don't want you to do that. Just take care of what I ask and let me do the rest"? God's waiting on us to say, "God, just take it all. Lead me, guide me, order every step of my life." The mercy and the grace of God cannot work, because we're not willing to release that ownership and that authority to him.

The picture of warfare that we read in our text — it is appropriate, because Timothy was to engage in conflict with the false teachers of the day, and he was to oppose the false doctrine by teaching true doctrine, the gospel of Lord Jesus Christ. And God calls genuine men to shepherd his flock. God calls pastors every day to wage the good warfare against error and against the enemy attack against the church. One of the tasks of a pastor is to refute that error and proclaim truth. They stand firm against those who mislead the people of God, and they're to feed God's people and the Word of God in such a way that they can grow by it. And our pastor does a phenomenal job of waging the good warfare. He prays for our soul day in and day out. He watches out for this church as one who gives a count to the Lord. As a shepherd, he's constantly watching against error and deception creeping into the church, and to address it and to come against it head-on. And I'm so grateful and so thankful for God blessing us with Pastor Allen, who serves us as one who wages that good fight of faith. And I hope that you are grateful and you pray for him every day of your life.

In 1984, there was a Spanish airline hit a mountain. Rescuers showed up, went into the rubble. There were no survivors, and the plane was all over the place. They finally discovered the little black box to give them the details of what maybe took — it was the recorder that dialogued what was going on in the cockpit at the time of impact. They retrieved the tape and found a frightening discovery when they listened to it. The cockpit recorder indicated that just before the crash, a computer-synthesized voice from the plane's warning system started repeatedly saying, "Pull up, pull up, pull up," in English. Inexplicably, the pilot shouts back, "Shut up, farner," and turns off the switch. In mere seconds, the plane hits the mountain and all is destroyed.

We cannot disregard the conscience speaking in our life. Conscience is a human faculty. It's like pain. How many are thankful for pain? Truth is, it's a good thing. We hate that we deal with it when it happens, but it's our indicator. It's our warning, telling if you've got a problem. And sometimes if you don't address the problem, you may die. It's what our conscience does to us in our spiritual life. It tells you, "Hey, something's wrong. You need to stop. You need to pull up. You need to move. You need to get back on course." And throughout scripture, we see it mentions four different types of conscience. There's a seared conscience that's talked about in First Timothy four in a week conscience in First Corinthians eight. A corrupted conscience in Titus one. A good conscience that we read about today in our scripture text.

So how do we have a good conscience? How do I stay the course? How do I keep my faith where it needs to be? The truth is, we've got to live by the instruction book that he left for us. We've got to feed on the Word of God. Give accurate information into your conscience. Anybody in the computer world knows: you get out what goes in. Bishop said it multiple times: garbage in, garbage out. Our conscience is that same way. Our conscience functions like a skylight. The skylight doesn't have a light on its own. It just lets light in that reaches to it. It doesn't generate it on its own, but what comes through it is what you shine on it. We've got to feed our system with God's Word. Romans 2 and 15:

says: "Which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another." Based on your information, your conscience will accuse or excuse — or excuse, sorry. What you feed it determines the output. That's why it's so crucial that we hide the Word of God in our heart, that we might not sin. We've got to sensitize your conscience to God's Word. What we believe must be based on God's Word. My opinion does not matter. As right as it is, it does not matter. The conscience responds to your highest system of morality. So what are we feeding into our conscience? If you have a low type of belief system, your conscience will be sensitive only to that that's input.

There are people who know that lying's a grave sin, but lie just like everyone else in the world. They shut off that sensitivity that should be sending triggers and alarms and bells and whistles and saying, "Hey, this isn't right. Don't go there." But in spite of knowing the Word, you desensitize, and you continue to pursue sin. We must listen to that voice leading and guiding us. And when we place the Word of God in our heart and allow that to be our conscience and our guide, he'll never lead us wrong. He'll never lead us astray.

We also must deal with sin where it starts. Just like a little insignificant water leak: "Well, it'll be okay. It's just a little drip." Ignore it long enough, and the whole ceiling comes crashing down. "Well, I didn't think it was that big a deal, but now it's a big deal." We have to face it head on. And where does it start? It starts in the mind. James 1:15, and NIV, says: "Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full grown, gives birth to death." There's a cycle. There's a process. There's conception, there's birth, there's growing, and there's death. You have to deal with it when it starts in your mind. You think, "Well, it's not on the outside, so I'm okay. It's just in my mind." Come to tell you: you better take captive every thought that comes in. You may not can stop the thought, but you don't have to feed it and dwell on it and allow it to grow and eventually cause death. No sin is more destructive than that sin that we allow to run rampant in the mind, because on the outside everybody thinks you're okay, and you've even deceived yourself: "I'm all right. Nobody knows. I'm doing good."

When Paul was writing to Timothy, he was essentially telling him that what you're doing is a matter of life and death. Lives are hanging in the balance. Timothy, if you don't do your job, if you do not hold to your faith, if you do not have a good conscience, lives could be at stake. So we must fight. We must fight the good fight. We must stand our ground and do everything within our power — and the power that he's placed in us — to win the day, because if you don't, your very soul may be the one that dies. Paul tells Timothy some have rejected these things and have shipwrecked their faith. Paul could talk about shipwreck. He was in a few. When you experience something, you're the best eyewitness of, "Hey, how's that go?" And I don't think they have that ride at all the amusement parks: "Let's go ride shipwreck." But people have shipwrecked their faith and were going to hell, because they decided their faith wasn't a matter of life or death. "I'm okay. I'll be all right. Nobody really knows." And suddenly the vessel begins to crumble and to come apart.

I've come to tell you: there's no time for shipwreck. Now is not the time to start playing church and patty-caking for Jesus and making everything look good on the outside, while the inside of the vessel is destroyed and coming apart and in need of repair. Time's too short to listen to the warnings and disregard. We must shore up our faith. We must make sure the only thing that's going to get us out of the battle.

Ships were important to travel in the days of Paul. And I don't know if you've ever had an opportunity to to look at one of those wooden vessels, with all the sales and the intricate artwork and detail of building those. It's just a — to me, it's a beauty of the — those old wooden sailing vessels, not much compares to their splendor: of seeing one of those sitting on the water, imagining what it has faced in its lifetime, of enduring aggressive wind and riding the anger of the waves, and just imagining yourself in the marvel of it all, and then recognizing it was probably built with nothing more than simple tools and raw wood. Probably several years of labor going into it, and who knows how much hardwood was cut down to make that possible. The expertise and knowledge that went into crafting that mighty vessel. When it was all finished and it sailed away from the shipyard, there was more than just a boat. It was a floating work of art that several had put in countless hours of detail and making, a weapon of war and a tool of the trade. And how tragic it must have been to know all that was involved in that, and the horror of hearing there was a shipwreck, and what you had built and invested and put sweat and tears into suddenly is destroyed.

There was a Swedish warship named Vasa, shipwrecked on her maiden voyage in 1628, within one nautical mile of leaving the shipyard. The great Swedish king ruled Scandinavia in the early 17th century. He had ordered four new warships to patrol in the Baltic Sea. One of those ships was to be greater than any ship ever built at the time. Sounds like the Titanic, doesn't it? The king himself dictated the measurements to go into that ship. It had two gun decks and held 64 bronze cannons. It said that a total of 40 acres of timber was used to build the ship. In the end, she was a masterpiece of triple-laminated oak walls that were 18 inches thick. The top of the main mass soared to 190 feet. The rudder stood over 30 feet tall. Carvings were attached on the bow and around the high stern — ornaments of kings and knights and warriors and mermaids and weird-shaped animals were all part of the detail meant to scare and intimidate enemies and symbolize power and courage as it made its way.

It took three years to build the Vasa, and when she finally set sail, she was unmatched in her splendor and majesty and raw strength. However, she didn't sell for long. She began her maiden voice on August 10th, 1628. There was a light breeze that prevented her from sailing out of the harbor right away. Her cells were not even hoisted until she reached the edge of the harbor. She had sailed less than a mile when sudden tragedy struck. A sudden, unexpected storm popped up. And though the ship performed as expected in such a weather condition, her gun ports were still open from having fired her farewell salute. When the force of the small squall hit the ship, she listed heavily to one side, and the gun ports sank below the water level, and water rushed into the ship. It only took a few minutes — actually, just a few moments — for her to sink to the bottom. She sank in 100 feet of water, about 100 yards from the shore. The water was relatively clear and only 100 feet deep, and so our mass was visibly above the surface of the water. And because the water was so clear, even the deck was somewhat visible below the water. Such a remarkable, beautiful vessel, and the product of long years of hard work and pride of her king's fleet, now lay at rest on an ocean floor. From that tragic day until she settled into the mud and the silt and disappeared in the obscurity of the ocean, every ship that sailed by could see what once was, but no longer did. No doubt many sailors looked on the wreck ship as one of the greatest tragedies of his time, with all the masterful handiwork that

went into it. The ship below the waves was a constant testimony to unfulfilled potential. It was built to master the wind, yet they watched as it shifted with the tides. It was crafted to ride the waves, yet it laid buried well below. It was a haunting reminder of what could have been. Oh, the battles that it might have won. All the mighty voyages that it might have undertaken. The glory and thing that it might have claimed. And the hopes and dreams of years of craftsmanship were held captive by a dismal grave of the deep, very possibly even rewriting some of history, had it lived out to its full potential.

We got to be careful what we do in our walk with God, because we too are his handiwork. We were built by his design. He gave the plans, and he crafted and shaped and molded and put the very breath in us. But if we aren't careful, and we let our guard down, and we decide we can do it a little bit different, and we don't follow his plan and his intent and his purpose, we too can be lost in a shipwreck, because we didn't hold to the faith. We got to maintain the right course.

A violated conscience is usually the cause for a weakened, shipwrecked faith. People feel guilty, so rather than change their behavior, they change their values and their beliefs. And I've come to tell you: the ship will not steer itself and end in a good outcome. Satan has come to shipwreck our faith. And I fear too often, instead of fighting against his attack, we simply climb on board to see what happens. We have a sinful bend in our soul that wasn't totally erased in the salvation process. Doctrine we must hold to — it's extremely important. What you believe is dead serious. Don't take it and water it down and dilute it to make it more comfortable. Not only is it a case of eternity, but it's a case of determination for our choices in this life.

Our world may set traps for us to fall into. They may try to entangle and ensnare us. But if we hid the Word of God in our heart, we recognize, and we can steer clear and guide away from those things that would sink us in this life. Sometimes we get snared. We fall into pits blindly, unintentionally. But there is a way of escape. There is the master builder that will come and repair where you are. Well, I've come to tell you: time's too short. You can't wait until tomorrow to get the repairs done. You can't put off till tomorrow what he is desperately trying to do today. The answer is Jesus Christ. The answer is the waymaker. But we must strive for a good warfare. We must fight a good fight. Our enemy is in this war, and the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul. There is a battle taking place every day. And that law of sin waging war against the law of my mind, and making me captive to the law of sin, according to Romans 7. And we must recognize the devil, who's a murderer from the beginning and the father of lies, wants to drag you down to his final end.

It's a fight for faith. How will you respond? It's a fight for righteousness. What is your answer? It's a fight for a life that he has destined us to live as overcomers. And no one perishes because of this fight, but only in spite of it. It's a fight to save and not to destroy. As I told you in the beginning, it's a fight you can win. There is a guarantee, if you remain faithful, if you remain on course, and you don't sidesteer and come off track and end up a shipwreck.

Jesus made this statement in Luke 18 and verse 8: "I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?" If you see, that's a question. When the end is near, will he find faith on the earth? As the end time approaches, we as followers of Christ — men and women — our faith is going to come under attack, so much so that if we do not fight the good fight, if we do not remain faithful, if we die not — live a life of righteousness — the church will go down looking just like the world, and you won't be able to tell the difference. But we can put our trust and our confidence in his Word. We can continue to fight together for truth. We can see the operation of faith working in our life.

Such a beautiful image, Second Corinthians 3 and 18: "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." In reading this, to me interpret it best as: we all come to Christ, we come to the bottom of the stairs, but he's begging us and drawing us from glory to glory, from glory to glory, and eventually we're going to come glory to glory, and we come face to face with him, and we spend eternity with him forever. But in the process of glory to glory, we must encourage one another. We must extend a hand and win those around us, and draw them to the same truth in the same word and the same gospel and the same faith that is going to get us through. We've got to lift our brothers and our sisters up together, because no man is an island. We don't fight alone. We must fight together. Jesus died to establish the church because we need each other. We've got to challenge each other. We must encourage each other. We must fight for each other. And we also must sometimes confront each other, because the truth is: I don't want to walk in to heaven alone. I want you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you. Let's go together. And the way we make it together is we keep sailing, we keep fighting, we keep the ship on the right side of the water. Time's too short. There's no time for shipwrecks.

As the musicians come, as you stand, these altars are open. If you feel like the battle is too great, or maybe the ship has been tossed and tattered, and you feel like the sails have been torn off, and you just need a little bit of repair, I've come to tell you: the master craftsman will meet you at the point of your need. He will come and put more than a Band-Aid, but he will make it right. He will fix. He will cover and apply his blood to your life and make you the creature that he wants you to be, the individual that he has destined for you to become. So I ask you at this time, these altars are open. Why would you not sail into the harbor and say, "God, make sure the vessel is secure. Make sure my heart is right. Make sure my faith is secure"? Because if you have a problem, if you have a question, he is the answer. He will provide. He will make up what it is that may have come up short. I beg you, don't wait too late. There's no time to play. There's no time to back down. It is a fight. And we wish — we must fight, and we will be victorious. But it must be a determination, a made-up mind: "God, I'm going to do it. God, I'm going to see it through." Church, it's prayer time.