Grace Classics: Escape to Reality Greatest Hits, Volume 2 (8 page)

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)

What does it mean to shipwreck
your faith? Paul said this had happened to at least two people so I guess it
can happen to you. But how does it happen and what are the consequences? Most
people have no idea but fear the worst: “Shipwrecked faith means you’ve lost
your salvation. It means you’re going to hell.”

Actually,
it means no such thing.

Look
again at the passage above and note how Paul defines fighting the good fight as
“holding on to faith and a good conscience.” These two things are connected. If
you reject or cast away a good conscience your faith will become shipwrecked:

Holding
fast to faith (that leaning of the entire human personality on God in absolute
trust and confidence) and having a good (clear) conscience. By rejecting and
thrusting from them [their conscience], some individuals have made shipwreck of
their faith. (1 Timothy 1:19, AMP)

This is not about ignoring your
conscience; it’s about the dangers of thrusting away your
clear
conscience. In other words, if your conscience condemns you, you will have
trouble believing what God says is true about you.

Dear
friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and
receive from him anything we ask… (1 John 3:21–22a)

Condemnation is a faith-killer.
Condemnation will cause you to be timid before God making it hard for you to
receive from the abundance of his grace. If your conscience is constantly
telling you that you’re unworthy, you’re a hopeless Christian, and you don’t
deserve to be in the kingdom, you will be in danger of shipwrecking your faith.

What is shipwrecked faith?

If you are not secure in your
Father’s love—which you won’t be if your conscience condemns you—you’ll make a
wreck of your faith. Like a ship that fails to reach its destination, you’ll
fall short of all that God has in store for you.

And no,
that doesn’t mean you’ll lose your salvation and go to hell. It simply means
you won’t mature in the faith (Luke 8:14). You’ll lose the freedom that is
yours in Christ (Galatians 5:1) and you’ll fear punishment that isn’t coming (1
John 4:18).

The New
Testament writers list many bad things that can happen when we fail to trust
God in our daily lives, but the thing many Christians fear most—Christ writing
them off—is the one thing that absolutely cannot happen. If you are one with the
Lord be at peace, for the One who took hold of you will never let you go. If
the Holy Spirit dwells in you he will never leave. Jesus promised (see John
14:16).

So what
does it mean to shipwreck your faith? It means moving from the secure
foundation of Jesus Christ. It means diluting your faith in God with faith in
self, faith in effort, faith in your ability to perform. It’s trying instead of
trusting and striving instead of resting.

What Paul never said

“If you shipwreck your faith,
you’ll lose your salvation.” Preachers of insecurity love to quote this verse
as support for the idea that we can undo what we never wrought—as though we
could unfuse the Holy Spirit from our spirits and tear ourselves from God’s
mighty grip. Don’t you think if that could happen, Paul would’ve mentioned it?
Yet he says nothing of the kind.

What
Paul
does
say is that a group of certain men had shipwrecked their faith
and of that group two men had been handed over to Satan so that they might be
taught not to blaspheme. I don’t know exactly what Paul had in mind with this
handing over business—perhaps it meant kicking them out of the fellowship—but
note that he did it with the intention of teaching them, not condemning them.

What else
do we know about these two guys Paul handed over to Satan? We know they were
part of a group of teachers (i) who were promoting controversies rather than
God’s work—which is by faith (v.4) and (ii) they saw themselves as teachers of
the law (v.7).

Ask the
right questions and you will get the right answers:

–
       
How do we preach law? By telling people
they must work for salvation/sanctification/blessings, etc.

–
       
What is the purpose of the law? Its
purpose is to condemn us.

–
       
What had happened to these
law-teachers? Their consciences began to condemn them.

–
       
What was the result of their ministry?
God’s finished work was no longer preached and their faith was shipwrecked.

Here’s the story as I see it.
After Paul left Ephesus, certain teachers arose from among their own number and
began preaching law. They might have been Judaizers with circumcision knives or
they might have even preached the commands of Jesus. The point is not what sort
of law they were preaching, but their improper application of it.

Paul
said “the law is good if one uses it properly (but) they do not know what they
are talking about or what they so confidently affirm” (vv.7–8). In any case,
the outcome was they were distracting themselves and their hearers from “God’s
work—which is by faith” (v.4).

Paul
said Hymenaeus and Alexander were blasphemers. To blaspheme is to slander or
speak falsely of someone. It’s saying things like; “The blood of Jesus doesn’t
avail for me.” (It does!) “Jesus needs my help.” (He doesn’t!) “The Holy Spirit
is convicting me of sin.” (He isn’t!) “God will not finish what he begun.” (He
will!) “I can sin my way out of his grace.” (You can’t!) This sort of teaching
promotes controversy and distracts people from trusting in God’s finished work.

Fight the good fight

I hope you understand that when it
comes to saving you and making you acceptable to God, Jesus does it all and his
perfect work cannot be improved upon. This is the gospel truth and it is worth
fighting for. I am not talking about fighting people but demolishing arguments
and taking captive every thought that is opposed to Christ. Usually this is a
battle waged inside our own minds.

If your
conscience condemns you as a sinner (Christ died for sinners!) or unworthy of
grace (grace is for the unworthy!), the remedy is not to try and clean yourself
and make yourself acceptable. That way lies disaster and shipwreck. The only
cure for a guilty conscience is the cleansing blood of Jesus (Hebrews 10:22). It
is seeing the cross and the empty tomb, and believing the good news that Jesus
has done it all!

If
someone uses the mirror of the law to point out your imperfections, don’t cast
off your good conscience but fix your eyes on Jesus and his glorious
perfections. You are one with the Lord and as he is so are you in this world (1
John 4:17).

And the
next time someone says, “You’re not good enough for God and you need to work to
improve yourself,” tell them, “I am one with Christ and
he
is good
enough for God,
his
work is finished, and in
him
I have found my
eternal rest!”

A word after

I have nothing profound to add to
this stunningly brilliant article (cough), so here’s a shipwreck joke for you.
(It’s a classic!)

A tramp
steamer is passing through the South Pacific when its crew observes smoke
rising from what was thought to be an uninhabited island. The captain of the
steamer decides to investigate and sets off in the longboat. He lands on the
island and is greeted by a haggard man.

“I’m so
glad you found me,” says the man. “My boat was wrecked years ago and I have
been stuck here alone ever since.”

The
captain asks, “If you’re alone, how come I can see three huts?”

The
survivor replies, “That one is my home and the other one is where I go to
church.”

“What
about the third hut?” asks the captain.

The man
replies with a scowl. “That’s where I used to go to church.”

What do you say to the parents of
a Christian teenager who has killed himself? I faced this situation several
years ago and, I have tell you, it’s not easy. Premature death is hard to
handle at any time, but suicide leaves loved ones especially bewildered at its
senselessness.

It seems
the subject of suicide is a touchy one that Christians don’t like to talk
about. That’s probably because most of us don’t have anything good to say! Ask
a believer, “What happens to Christians who kill themselves?” and you’ll likely
get one of the following responses:

1.
     
They go to hell because they never
repented for the sin of murder.

2.
     
It’s not up to us to judge—we don’t
know what happens.

3.
     
It’s a grave sin but God will somehow
take care of it in his mysterious ways.

None of these responses brings
much comfort to those who are left behind. But happily none of these responses
is true. Let’s compare each response with what the Bible says.

What does the Bible say about
those who commit suicide?

First, do people who commit
suicide go to hell? Not if they’re saved. Revelations 21:8 tells us that the
lake of fire—whatever that is—will be full of murderers. But you don’t end up
in the lake of fire
because
you are a murderer (see Revelation 20:15).
If murder sent you to hell, King David would be a goner. But it doesn’t and he
isn’t.

But
didn’t God say, “Thou shalt not murder”? He did—it’s the sixth commandment and
part of the law. There are harsh consequences for breaking the law but you are
not under the law (Romans 6:14). When Jesus went to the cross he fulfilled the
requirements of the law on your behalf so that you might live free from its
curse. Don’t look to your own obedience for salvation; look to his. On the
cross Jesus carried the sins of the world and as a result you are completely
and eternally forgiven.

But what
about repentance? Don’t we have to repent in order to receive forgiveness?
Isn’t this the stumbling block for those who kill themselves—that they never
repent? No. We are not forgiven on the basis of anything we do or don’t do. We
are forgiven because of what Jesus has done. “In him we have the forgiveness of
sins” (Ephesians 1:7).

In God’s
eyes you are forgiven whether you repent or don’t repent. To say, you must
repent to be forgiven, is to cheapen the riches of his grace. The blood of
Jesus paid for the sins of the whole world, including the unrepentant and
suicidal (1 John 2:2). This isn’t to say that all are saved, for we all need to
respond to the grace of God by faith (Ephesians 2:8). Everyone is forgiven but
not everyone has received the gift of his righteousness (Romans 1:17). But we
are talking here about those who are saved when they die. Can a Christian
nullify God’s forgiveness by committing suicide? No, it’s impossible. God’s
gifts are irrevocable.

Second,
to say, “we don’t know what happens to Christians who kill themselves” reveals
an ignorance of God’s promises. We
do
know what happens: They go to be
with Jesus (John 14:3). Some say that “suicide is a grave sin,” but is there
any sin that’s not?

The good
news is that God’s grace is greater than our gravest sins. His best is better
than our worst (Romans 5:20). Just as we are not qualified by our good deeds,
neither are we disqualified by our bad. We were condemned by Adam’s
disobedience but now we have been justified through Christ’s obedience:

So then,
just as sin ruled by means of death, so also God’s grace rules by means of
righteousness, leading us to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans
5:21, GNB)

Third, to offer vague comfort by
saying, “God will take care of it in some mysterious way,” is to insult the
finished work of the cross. Take care of it? He already did! He came and died
and rose again so that in him we might have resurrection life:

I am the
resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though
they die. (John 11:25)

Look closely at this promise of
Jesus and see if you can find any conditions pertaining to the means of death.
There are none! The way in which you shrug off your earthsuit has absolutely no
bearing on his promise of resurrection life. Whether you die in a house fire,
from an over-dose, or go down with the Titanic, the one who believes in Jesus will
live, even though he dies.

The main thing

For those who are left behind,
suicide hits like a Mack truck. But allow me to bring some perspective to this
issue. The single most important fact of your life is not where you were born
or how you die, but whether you are in Christ—whether you have put your trust
in him and confessed him as Lord.

You can
be born a prince and die on a field of glory, but unless you know Jesus it’s
all for naught. Conversely, you can die a nobody but if Jesus knows you all is
eternally well. If you have lost someone to suicide and they belonged to Jesus
all is not lost. You will be with them again. Believe what God has promised and
don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

It is
beyond the scope of this article to discuss those things that might drive a
believer to suicide. Perhaps you find it inconceivable that someone acquainted
with the goodness of God would ever consider ending their lives. But only God
knows the depth of pain that some of our brothers and sisters have to endure in
this world.

The
teenager I mentioned above took his own life because he was the ongoing victim
of a sexual predator and he could see no other way out. Who am I to say that I
would’ve chosen differently if I had been in his shoes? I’m not trying to
justify suicide. I’m saying I can’t condemn those who, for reasons I cannot
fathom, prefer death to life.

It’s too
late to help that young man but it’s not too late to comfort his parents and
those of who have lost loved ones. Maybe you have heard words of condemnation
or hollow comfort. Maybe you’ve been be told that the one you lost is lost for
eternity. If so, I encourage you to find rest in the grace of our loving Father
and to cultivate the same conviction as Paul:

For I am
convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the
present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything
else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is
in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38–9)

A word after

I wrote this article with a
specific family in mind and I have been pleased to see that it has since
brought a measure of comfort to other families in similar situations. I’m
talking about families who have lost children to suicide. But this article has
also brought me in contact with another group of people, namely those who are
contemplating suicide.

I didn’t
anticipate this so when I first began hearing from such folk I was a little
overwhelmed.
What should I say? I’ve never been down that road.
The
temptation was to say nothing and hope that other readers might weigh in on the
discussion threads. But I realized that was a cop-out and if I didn’t speak up
who knew what might happen. These were desperate people. They needed help now.

At the
risk of sounding dramatic, I saw this as my Esther-moment. “Who knows, but
maybe I’ve come to this position for such a time as this” (Esther 4:14).
(Clearly I had forgotten the other part of that verse: “If you remain silent at
this time, relief and deliverance will arise from another place.”)

I began
to encourage these folk by telling them how God has met me during the dark
times of my own life. I spoke to dissuade them of the lie that says “this is
all there is and nothing’s going to change,” and I sought to reveal the living
hope that they have in Jesus Christ.

That E2R
would become a sort of suicide helpline was unexpected, but I’m glad it
happened. Grace is for the needy and who is more needy than the person ready to
take their own life? And grace is also the perfect antidote for those who are
beating themselves half to death in the name of religion.

I heard
from one lady who had grown up in the church. She was so worn out from doing
good that she had become depressed to the point of attempting suicide. That she
should fall so low came as a great shock. “Suicide’s a sin,” she told me. “I
never thought I would attempt that.” Good, hard-working Christians never expect
to become suicidal.

Yet Paul
said the law condemns and ministers death (2 Corinthians 3:7–9). Try and live
under the law and death is a very real possibility (see Romans 7:9).

Happily,
this particular lady heard the gospel of grace and was delivered from
performance-based Christianity. She is now convinced that the grace message is
saving lives, especially Christian lives. I totally agree.