Acts 27. I've titled this message broken
things, broken things. Luke is the one that wrote acts
as we heard Wednesday night. Luke is giving us the account
when Paul being a prisoner. Is being taken. That he must
appear before Caesar is what his words were. Paul is traveling
from Caesarea to Rome as a prisoner. The chapter. starts with saying, when it was
determined, we should sail to Italy. Now Luke's the one writing
this, and so if he says we, Luke's with Paul at this point, right? I mean, that's the obvious conclusion
I came to. Briefly, there's described details
about the journey. There's many ports that they
enter into, harbors. There's different ships that
they change from one to the other. When they finally reach a certain
place, The name of that place is called the Fair Havens. Paul
warns them not to go on, but winter there. He said, winter's
coming. Don't go any further. We should winter here in this
haven. Paul tells them the voyage will
be much hurt and much damage, not only to the lading and the
ship, but also of our lives. Now the lading would be the cargo.
Anybody's ever received something that had to travel via cargo,
you know, that you get a bill of lading. That's what they're
called. So what he's telling them is you're not only going
to lose everything that you're hauling and the ship, but it's going
to cost much damage to our lives. The possibility of a death is
what he's telling them. Well, look with me in verse 11
at what takes place here. Nevertheless, the centurion,
now he'd be the, he'd be the captain, the leader of this,
uh, excursion, if you will, but he's not the master of the ship.
The owner of the ship is said later on. Nevertheless, the Shinturon
believed the master and the owner of the ship more than those things
which were spoken by Paul. And because the haven was not
commodious to winter in, the more part advised to depart. Thence also, if by any means
they might attain to Phenicia and there to winter. which is
a haven of Crete, and lieth toward the southwest and northwest.
And when the south wind blew softly, supposing that they had
obtained their purpose, loosing thence, they sailed close by
Crete. But not long after there arose against it a tempestuous
wind called Eurycleidon. And when the ship was caught
and could not bear up unto the wind, we let her drive. And running
under a certain island, which is called Clauda, we had much
work to come by the boat. This is a picture of all men
trusting in what they can see. Trusting in what they can see.
These men did not trust Paul. Paul said, we should winter in
this haven. We shouldn't go any farther. It's turning winter. And I don't know if it's not
clear that he actually said that it's going to be a tempestuous
wind that's going to blow us. What happened? It's a typhoon is what
it is. It's the same exact word as typhoon.
And I looked this up. I didn't know all this, but I've
heard of cyclones and typhoons and twisters and tornadoes and
hurricanes. I was curious to the difference. Well, some of
them's on land and some of them's in the sea. We call, because
of where we live geographically, a storm that comes over the ocean
that We call them hurricanes when they get big enough. We
call them hurricanes. Well, this being where it's located would
be called a typhoon. This was a hurricane that come
upon them. That's what they're enduring
here. Now, the scripture's not clear that the Lord said, Paul,
there's gonna be a hurricane, but he told them, he says, no,
it's that we, Lord said, Lord's told me that we shouldn't go.
We need to winter here. But they didn't believe what
Paul said. All men can only trust what they
see. And they saw this little haven
and they thought, this is, no, we're not wintering here. This
is too small. This is not, it's not that it
wasn't sufficient. It was a sufficient haven. It
had food, it had shelter, right? I mean, it wouldn't have been
dangerous to stay there. That wasn't the problem. No,
it just didn't, it wasn't commodious. It wasn't accommodating maybe
to their lifestyle. Maybe it didn't have the proper
facilities that they wanted. They wanted the lavish beds and
the better things of the world, not this little haven, not what
this little haven was offering. And so they left. They were not interested in Paul's
warning. It is unnatural to believe God's word. It is unnatural according
to the flesh. Flesh cannot believe God's Word,
unless God makes us do so. And even then, it's the new man
that believes. It's not the old man. It's not
the old nature that we have that it bows, it serves the new man. The old nature does, doesn't
it? The flesh serves that new man and says, truth, Lord, I
am a dog. But it's the new man that takes
ownership of the sin. It's the new man that confesses
Christ is all. That old man still has his fist
up in the face of God every chance he gets. You know that to be
true. The Lord's made you a believer. It's just how it is. Well, they
were interested in the things of the flesh and decided not
to follow Paul's warning, not to heed, not to winter in fair
haven because of its simplicity, because of its not being commodious
enough. It wasn't good enough, not appealing
to the flesh. Now we have one picture here
that faith says, don't leave the haven. The new man says,
don't leave the haven. And then we have the other picture
of the flesh saying, well, I think we should do it this way. You
ever find yourself in that circumstance, in that situation where you,
you realize I should not have put hands upon this. I've messed
it up again. And what do we do at that moment?
You throw your hands up and say, save me, Lord, save me, Lord.
Our flesh says, well, it's not far to that better haven. And
we take matters into our own hands. It always ends up the
same way. We end up crashing, don't we? We end up falling.
Peter didn't fall because he kept his eyes on Christ. He fell
because he took his eyes off of Christ. He looked at the storm.
He looked to the flesh, didn't he? What the flesh could see.
And that caused great fear, didn't it? And he fell and he sunk. And he said, Lord, I'm going
to drown. He didn't have time to get all those words out, did he?
He said, Lord, save me. And the Lord in mercy saved him. Now,
another picture here is man by nature towards God's gospel.
The gospel is not accommodating to the flesh at all. The gospel
is not accommodating to the flesh at all. I received a phone call
and I might've told you this before, but since I've been your
pastor, I don't know how many months ago it's been, but a man
called me up and said, I'm inquiring about your church. I'm inquiring
about what you have to offer there or what you do there. And I said, we worship. That's
what I told him, we worship. He says, yeah, but what kind
of classes do you have for the children? And I said, well, there's
one Bible class that happens on Sunday morning, but the purpose
of that is to declare the same gospel to them that we're preaching
in the other part. And he says, well, what classes
do you have for the adults? I said, we have three, Sunday
morning at 10, Sunday morning at 11, Wednesday night at seven.
We have three, it's the gospel. And I kept explaining it and
I wasn't being ugly to the man in any way. I was very calm and
gentle and kind. And my hope is that he would
come in here. And it was evident to me that he
was looking for entertainment. These men were looking for entertainment,
weren't they? And this haven was not commode. Brethren, this
haven that we have right here that we love because it's our
place of worship, the love that we have towards one another that
we have here, the blessings of the Lord that he's given us and
the physical things, but not just that, more importantly,
the spiritual things he's given us. Do we not love this little
haven? Is this not precious to us? Is
our Lord not precious to us? He's little to these men of this
world. He's not entertaining to the
flesh. He's not But he didn't come to save according to the
flesh. He didn't come as the king of
Israel to sit and reign on our earthly throne. He says, my kingdom
is not of this world. The foxes have holes, the birds
of the air have nests. Son of man has no place to lay
his head. Christ wasn't looking for things to be commodious. He was looking to serve his father,
wasn't he? He had one purpose, one purpose,
and it was to honor his father. And he did. Now this is not commodious because
we have one thing to offer men and women, just one thing. But
it is the only thing needful, the one thing needful. It's the
only source of life. It's the most important thing
in the world. Do we realize that? God's gospel
is the most important thing in the world. It is. It's the only
thing that's life and death to the soul. It's how the Lord calls
his people. It's how the Lord brings about
his people to be born again. It's how he gives life. Without
the gospel, we're lost. We're damned. We're dead. And
he uses this gospel to do so. I'm thankful for all the Lord's
little havens that he's popped up, Rob was praying about the
candlesticks. That's what they are, little flickers of light
just scattered here and there. Nobody can notice them. Nobody
sees, nobody says, wow, look at that church. Nobody will pass
by here. Maybe they'll look at it and
think, well, that's an old building. I'd like to see that because
it's old, but it definitely isn't. Man, look at the splendor of
that building. That's not it, is it brethren?
We did what we had to do to this little place in order to make
it Well, it's more than sufficient now, isn't it? It's everything
that we need to worship the Lord and to fellowship with one another.
But the haven is the Lord Jesus Christ himself, isn't he? That's
where we rest. That's where we winter in this
cold, dead world that we live in. It's his haven. It's him.
It's him. And only the Lord's people heed
the call that says, Lord says, weather here. We say, Lord, I
want to weather there where you're at. Just like Naomi and Ruth. What did Ruth tell Naomi? My
people will be your people and your God will be my God. Where
you lodge, that's where I want to lodge. Where you die, that's
where I want to die. Is that not our hearts cry unto
the Lord? Lord, wherever your gospel is, I got to be there.
That's the haven, the only rest I've got. Most men will hear this and say,
well, I'd rather winter somewhere else. May God calls us to realize
this is the most important thing. It's not about us. Life's not about us. I tell my
children that pretty often. Life's not about you. Life's
not about me. Life's about Him, His gospel. It's about what He's done for
His people. It's all about Him. May He be pleased to make us
hungry and thirst for this haven for His righteousness. Well,
this Censuron followed what he could see, the master of the
higher ship, and shortly there ran into a typhoon, in verse
14 again. And not long after there arose
against it an impetuous wind called Urak-Lidon. Now, this is a picture of a hireling
being paid to tell men what they want to hear. You remember, and
I know that this was big in news lately, and I'm not trying to
talk about current events, but this was a past event that happened
that's been brought to light again. It was the Titanic. They
said when the Titanic was made, God himself couldn't sink this
ship. It was said that it was unsinkable. It was extravagant.
And the Lord didn't have to use a finger to sink it. He let an
iceberg do it. He put it there on purpose. But
the point is, as men trusted in that ship in so much, they
didn't even put enough lifeboats on the ship for the people, did
they? They were that confident. And this is the same thing that's
happening here. Yeah, we'll be okay. The ship's
good to go. My ship is, it's fantastic. There's
nothing that can hurt this ship. I've been, as the captain, how
dare you insult my ship? That's, think about that pride
that would have been in there. This is my ship. I'm the, I'm
the captain. I'm the, the master. That means he's the owner. I
own this ship. That's men and their self-righteousness,
isn't it? How dare you tell me that my
ship won't carry me safely to heaven? How dare you tell me
that when I stand before him and present my ship to him, that
he won't be satisfied. But that's what we declare. Isn't
it very clear? No, you stay in the Haven. Don't leave the Haven. That's, that's the problem. If
you leave the Haven, you're going to hit the hurricane, the wrath
of God. That's what this is a picture
of. Men want to be told what they
want to hear. And that's what this is a picture of is this
man was paid to carry them. This man was paid to do something.
He was paid and what he told them what they wanted to hear.
The ship's good to go. Well, that's what men do today. They're
paid to tell men what they want to hear. The tickling of the
ears, the scripture calls it. I meant to mention this the first
hour, but as we talked about tongues in the first hour and
how that that was just very simply that the Lord allowed every man
to hear in their own language and the disciples to speak in
their own language. It's not gibberish. We've already established
all of that, but because this is a second message I had to
reiterate, somebody else may listen later on. But Paul says
this, he said, though I speak with tongues, though I have,
everything that he said that he could possibly have, he says,
if I have not charity, If I have not charity, it's nothing. And
the scripture tells us this, and I read this back in the men's
study. It says, now about these three,
faith, hope, and charity. But that hope and that faith
will end in sight. But you know what's going to
remain? That's the charity. That's the charity. Well, men who are
hirelings, they don't have that. They don't have, first of all,
they don't have faith and hope either, but they don't have charity. You know what charity is? It's
love. What does love demand that the gospel preacher do? Tell
the truth. If I love you, I'm going to tell
you the truth, no matter how hard it is on me or matter how
much I know it's going to make you mad or hurt you. If it's
the truth and it's in love and it's in compassion, that's what
we want, isn't it? As the Lord's people. Well, that's
not what a hireling is going to do. He's going to tickle ears.
He doesn't have charity. He's nothing. He's become nothing
but a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. He's a nothing. He's
a nobody. His only hope is that God will have mercy and save
him. Call him by his grace. Men say, Jesus loves everybody.
He died for everybody. Let's winter in that harbor.
That's a much better harbor to winter in. I can let God do something
there. It's more commodious for myself. So by nature, all men shove off
from the harbor of rest and begin to try to do things their way.
You know why? Because everybody's born in sin. Everybody's shaping
into iniquity. Everybody would choose self,
self. The lie is very simple. There's
a little bit of good in everybody and you can do something to fix
it. You can do something for salvation. There's a little bit
of good in everybody. That is not true. That is not true. There is none good. No, not one.
There is not one man, one woman, one boy or girl that is good. There's only one and his name
is the Lord Jesus Christ, the God man. There's only one problem
with thinking they can fix Oh, whatever happens out here on
this sea, I can fix it. I've been a captain a long time.
I know how to handle every storm. There's only one problem. This
is the typhoon of God's judgment for disobedience. This is the
typhoon of God's wrath. God had prepared a typhoon. All
men by nature trust in the work of their hands. Can you not think
that they would have been like, well, we'll just row a little
bit harder. Well, it's evident what they do, and I'll read it
in a minute to us, but they throw everything overboard, just like
Jonah. You remember the account of Jonah, the story of Jonah,
whenever they knew they were in trouble, and rather than listening
to Jonah, you got to throw me overboard. They said, well, let's
get rid of all the wares. Let's get rid of this. Let's get rid
of this. It's a picture of men in false religion. Let's lighten
the vessel and God will let us go. We'll get to there safely
if we lighten the vessel. No. No, the vessel's bad. You're in the wrong vessel. That's
the problem, isn't it? We're born in the wrong vessel.
Lord, I need to be in Christ. I need to be found in Christ.
That's the vessel I must be in. That's the haven I must be in.
No, we can't row harder to fix it. We can't lighten the load
to change our lives. We can't choose God and let him into our
heart. Be less sinful. Boy, the believer knows that's
not true. We need to be less sinful. You ever heard that before?
I heard a man the other day, I repeat these things. I know
I do, but I can't remember if I've said it or not, but he said,
you need me to be more like Jesus. And I need you to be more like
Jesus. What he meant by that was, is the life that he was
living, the way that he was conducting himself, but he don't have charity,
but he don't have hope. He don't have faith. No, it's
true. I want to be like Christ more
so, but we won't, we won't become more like Christ in this flesh.
In regards to having a righteousness by it. He'll allow that truth
to come out in love. He'll allow that charity to come
out only he's given us that and it'll come out, but not as our
righteousness, but because. We're not, we're not going to
become less sinful. That's what I was starting to say. It's that's
impossible. You can't become less sinful by what we do. We know that that's impossible,
but that's exactly what these. represent. That's exactly what
they try to do. Look in verse 18. And we being
exceedingly tossed with a tempest. And the next day they lighten
the ship. And the third day we cast out with our own hands,
the tackling of the ship. Tackling means they cast, and
there's several definitions. So I'm going to give us several
of them. They cast out the ropes, they cast out the ribbing, the
rigging, they cast out the cranes that would allow them to get
the, the fares onto the, uh, the fares onto the ship itself
from the land, they cast out the crane, they cast out the
pulley, they cast out the extra anchors, they cast out the baggage,
the furniture. They got rid of everything. What
sounds like religion, don't it? Sounds like religion. Just get
rid of everything and the Lord will be satisfied. Lord will
be pleased and we'll be safe. That's not true. That's not true. They had cast out everything
and still it was not enough to stop the imminent doom. None
of these things will save us from the typhoon of God's wrath,
none of them. Nothing that we do will save us. God makes his
people realize that no matter what we cast overboard in our
lives, it will never please him. But Christ did. Christ pleased
him. For the Lord's people, we've
made to know we cannot constrain him or restrain him. Only God
can make someone realize this. Only God could make that little
haven. appealing by giving a new nature, by seeing that it was
sufficient, by seeing that Christ is all Christ is not only enough,
but he is all to the believer. Only God can do that. God makes
us realize. God makes us realize that he.
Always keeps his promise. In keeping his people, and we've
got to have him because of that. He's true. Well, how does he
do this? We'll look in verse 20. And when
neither sun nor stars in many days appeared and no small tempest
lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away.
They had no hope. And is that not what God does
to his people? He completely gives them repentance,
no hope whatsoever of saving themselves. I was talking to
brother Terry there towards the end and he said, The worse I
get, the more, and he wasn't talking about his health. He
was talking about his sin nature. He said, the worse I get, the more
that I realize I can't help myself no matter what I do. Every time
I try to do something, I'm making it worse and I'm making it worse.
But he said, I spent all those years. He said, why don't I spend
all those years in books and in study, trying to figure out a
way to fix it. He said, what a waste of time.
I said, so that you can sit there and rest right now, knowing that
it is not you at all. It took God to call you. It took
God to save you. And that's exactly what he does
for his people. He gives us no hope, no confidence in the flesh,
no self-righteousness whatsoever. And then he gives us salvation.
Then he shows us, you're mine. I've chose you. I've bought you
with my own blood. You're mine. There's my hope.
There's my hope, the Lord Jesus Christ. Look in verse 21, we're going to read a few verses here. But
after long abstinence, Paul stood forth in the midst of them. I
love that the gospel preacher didn't speak until it was time
for him to speak. They weren't prepared to hear,
were they? They weren't ready to listen. He was abstinent.
He didn't talk. He didn't say a word to them
until God had prepared their heart. They lost all hope. Now
they're ready to hear what the gospel preacher has to say. That's
us, isn't it? That's exactly us. After long
abstinence, Paul stood forth in the midst of them and said,
sirs, you should have hearkened to me. You should have listened. Hmm. And not have loosed from
Crete to have gained this harm and loss. And now I exhort you
to be of good cheer. Well, here's the good news for
there shall be no loss of any man's life among you, but of
the ship. And there stood by me this night,
the angel of God, who I am, whose I am. and whom I serve. Now we know the angel of God,
that's Christ, that's the Lord Jesus Christ. Saying, fear not
Paul, thou must be brought before Caesar and lo, God hath given
thee all them that sail with thee. Wherefore, sirs, be of
good cheer, for I believe God, that it shall be even as it was
told me, how be it we must be cast upon a certain island. But
when the 14th night was come, as we were driven up and down
Adria, About midnight, the shipmen deemed that they drew near to
some country, and sounded and found it twenty fathoms. And
when they had gone a little further, they sounded again and found
it fifteen fathoms. Then, fearing lest we should
have fallen upon rocks, they cast four anchors out of the
stern and wished for the day." God is going to bring every single
one of his people safely to shore. That's what this is a picture
of. Every single person in this ship is going to be brought safely
to shore. Why? Because he's already done
it. It's already finished. Now we
just have to go through the motions of it. That night on the ship,
the men discover that the shore was about 90 feet away. I looked
up fathoms and did the math. I'll skip you the come see me
later. I'll explain it to you." About
90 feet away. Some thought they would just take a dinghy to shore,
as it says later on. They're going to load up a ship.
We'll read that in a second. I think I jumbled my notes or
something here. I'm not sure. They thought they
would take a dinghy to shore because they were close enough.
They were close enough to the shore to, well, We haven't been
able to secure the big ship, so let's get this little guy
out there on the hurricane. I mean, that's exactly what we
do, isn't it? That's what we, why would we do that? That's
just who we are by nature. That's our nature. I'm going
to take the dinghy. I can row. Yes, sir. I got 90 feet in me.
I can do that. I can do that. No, we can't.
No, we can't. We have to, we have to, hear the words that
Paul says in verse 31. Paul said to the centurion, oh,
it says in verse 30, and as the shipment were about to flee out
of the ship, and they had let down the boat, the little dinghy,
into the sea under color, as though they would have cast anchor
out of the foreship, Paul said to the centurion, to the soldiers,
except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved. Then the
soldiers cut off every one of the ropes. Said, nobody's leaving. There ain't nobody leaving this
boat. No, if he says we got to stay here, we got to stay. They
were ready to listen, weren't they? They were ready to listen. And
we think that we can, well, I heard the truth. We think I've heard
the truth. I know I'm going to be saved,
but I'm going to, but I thought, and is that thought the worst
thing we could possibly say? I thought, I thought I'd try
this way or that way. That's not faith. Faith always
looks to Christ. Now, you know, As well as I know,
if the Lord has saved us and revealed his truth to us, we
never ever look for righteousness in anything but the Lord Jesus
Christ, do we? Why? Because he's given the faith
that looks to him. That's the only reason. But how
often are we in the flesh and we start departing from him,
taking our eyes off of him? He allows us to leave the haven
for a minute. And here we are caught up in
this hurricane, not as the wrath of God in this picture, but just
not heeding his word, and then, oh Lord, I repent, but I can't
get back to shore now. Lord, you're gonna have to save
me. I can't do any, I've messed it up, and I can't fix it. Lord, you're gonna have to save
me. What does he say? What does he always say to his
children? I will be thou made whole. I will, I'll save you. Be thou clean. Why is it significant that we
have to abide in the ship? Because if Christ loses one,
one of his sheep, if Christ loses one person for whom he shed his
blood for, he is a failure. He is a failure, but he will
not lose one. He cannot lose one. All that
the father given to me shall come unto me. And I will in no
wise cast them out. The Lord knows his people and
he keeps his people. Everyone that's in the ship will
be kept. God was satisfied with his son.
He didn't try to please the father. He pleased the father. God's
not dependent upon you and I for anything. Thanks be to God, this
man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat
down on the right hand of God. For by one offering, he hath
perfected forever them that are sanctified. I love that. He's
already perfected them that are sanctified, made holy, made just
like Him. That's how He sees His people,
those who are in this ship. He goes on and He says, I'll
remember your sins and iniquities no more. That's what He did.
They're gone. When He bowed His head upon Calvary's cross, He
put our sins away, put His people's sins away. They're gone. He successfully
saved them from their sins. He successfully made them the
righteousness of God in Him. And He brought them to the shores
of glory. presented them as perfect under
the Father. The Father was satisfied, the Father was pleased. It's all because He endured the
typhoon of God's wrath for His people. See, the picture also
here is that that ship is Christ. And all of His people are on
that ship and cannot be harmed, just like Noah's ark. You remember
Noah? What did Noah do during the storm?
Did he throw things overboard? Nope. Didn't even have a steering
wheel on it, did it? No, he looked to God in faith.
God told him all the provisions they needed. God shut the door.
They didn't have a key on the door, did it? They didn't have
a knob. I mean, God shut the door. No man's gonna open it.
No man can close it. God did it. And everybody that was in
that ship, what happened to them? They were safe through the storm.
That's exactly the picture right here. These men were safe, except
you abide in this ship. You shall not be saved. But we
can't get overboard. There is no little vessel anymore
that we're clinging to. No little bit of self-righteousness,
is it? We don't run back to that. No.
No, we cleave unto Him. After they come closer to the
store, they get stuck. Can you imagine being hopeful
and even getting stuck? You ever felt like that before?
I get stuck all the time. You get in a rut. Rob read the verse to us in Psalm
where David said, I've determined not to sin anymore with my mouth.
And he goes on to say, well, I couldn't say anything at that
point. That's us, isn't it? That's why we get stuck because
of what we say. Most of the time we put our foot in our mouth.
We mess up, we fail and our hearts are so cold. We spend our days
getting stuck. And what do we do? What did they
do? Look in verse 42. Well, By God's grace, we hope this
is what the Lord calls us to do. The soldier's counsel was
to kill the prisoners lest any of them should swim out and escape.
But the centurion willing to save Paul kept them from their
purpose and commanded that they which could swim should cast
themselves first into the sea and go to land. The rest, some
on the boards and some on broken pieces of the ship. And so it
came to pass that they escaped all safe to land. What I didn't
read to you was, is because of them getting stuck, the waves
beat against the ship and it broke into pieces. And yet the
Lord had made provision for them to make it safe by the pieces
of that ship. And that's where my title came
from, Broken Pieces. Some floated on boards, some
floated on broken pieces. Picture here is that we had a
plan to get somewhere in our flesh. We had a plan to do something,
go to a different haven, but the Lord didn't let us. The Lord
wouldn't let us. The Lord put us exactly where
we were supposed to be. The Lord keeps his people in life, doesn't
he? God sends his gospel, shows that we're doomed to face the
typhoon of justice alone. Then he makes us throw everything
overboard, yet that's not enough. He breaks us apart completely.
Any righteousness that we have in and of ourself, he breaks
it. Destroys all hope in ourself, makes his elect completely dependent
upon him. We're left with nothing, nothing but a bunch of broken
pieces. Lord called it in Jeremiah chapter two, he said, my people
have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain
of living waters, and they've hewed them out cisterns, broken
cisterns that can hold no water. Now, my great grandfather was
a preacher in some kind of Baptist. I don't know which one now. I
don't think it's freewill, but anyways, he preached a message
one time on broken cisterns. And I remember that message very,
very well. What his message was is that
men of today are becoming more liberal in their lifestyle, their
Christian lifestyle. He said, the women are now wearing
pants and the men are now wearing shorts and everybody's got a
TV and everything they didn't do is what he preached on. My
great grandmother, his wife on her deathbed actually made this
statement, it's been two months since I've sinned. This was their
mentality. But what they were preaching
is the broken cistern, not what he was preaching against. That
wasn't the broken cistern. The broken cistern is the false
gospel that he was preaching. There's no hope in that. He's
saying, lighten the wares, get rid of the laden, let the ship
loose. That's not the gospel. No, the
gospel is abide in the ship, look to Christ, look to him to
bring you safely. The gospel starts with don't
leave the haven to begin with, doesn't it? But we have to see
the picture here of Christ enduring God's wrath for his people. Any
other gospel is a broken cistern. And men by nature love to hew
them out cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water. When
the Lord reveals that to us, we see that we are the broken
sister and I'm broken by nature and all I am is sin. I need to
be healed. I'm broken beyond all hope of
saving myself. I'm broke of all repair of myself. Matter of fact, I'm dead. I'm
not only broken, but I'm dead. And we see that as being a twofold
picture. And I'm probably trying to preach
two or three messages at one time. I find myself doing that
very often now, so bear with me, but The broken cistern here
is us by nature. And so we are in the world where
we're full of the Lord getting a drink of that fountain when
we come here. This is what another picture of this is. We're getting
a drink of the fountain, and yet we're all full of holes and
things. And we go out into the world and we just, before too
long, we're dirty and we're empty all over again. And we come back
in here as a broken vessel. Lord, you got to fill me again.
Is that not the truth? And what do men do whenever they
hear that? Well, they try to hew them out a cistern of their
own to fix it. Well, not God's people. No, there's
nothing we can do. There's nothing I can do to fix
myself. I'm broken. It would be foolish for me to
say that the Lord. During our entire life, he just keeps patching
us up, but that's true. He does. He does all the mess
ups that we do. It's already finished. So I'm
not saying that. He has to continue working on us to fix us and make
us better. No, we've been made the righteousness
of God in Him, so don't misconstrue my words. He's already sanctified
us. We read that. He's perfected them that are
sanctified. That's finished. But as far as
we're concerned, do we not fall flat on our face about every
single day? That's because we're just a bunch
of broken cisterns that need to be prepared. Lord, I see it
so clearly. When it comes to you and I, I
have good news. The only thing that the Lord uses is broken
things, broken things. He breaks his people. We come
to him as Cain and bring the works of our hands. Cain wasn't
broken. He could do it himself. He won't accept that. But if
we come to him. As Abel clinging to his promises, clinging to
the lamb, looking to the ship, looking to that haven, looking
to His hand, looking to Christ as both Lord and Christ, confessing
Christ is all. David said in Psalm 34, the righteous
cry and the Lord heareth and delivereth them out of all their
troubles. The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart
and save as such as be of a contrite spirit. Why does he hear those
with a broken heart and a contrite spirit? He did it. He did it. He gave repentance. That breaks
the heart, doesn't it? He gives faith that gives contriteness
towards him. Lord, have mercy on me, the sinner.
They say, I will be thou made whole. And the last picture I
want us to see. Is the picture by faith that
this represents the spiritual picture, and I've kind of went
back and forth on it several times here, but I want to be
as clear as I can in the last little bit to make sure we get
the message this morning, the clear message, and it's this.
It's not our brokenness that he looks to. It was Christ's
brokenness that he looks to. It was not us that endured God's
wrath. It was Christ. If we endure it, it'll be for
eternity. But Christ Jesus endured the wrath of God on the cross.
You and I are the broken thing. We see that clearly made, born
in sin, shaping into iniquity. But Christ had to become the
sinner substitute. He had to trade places with us
and become the broken thing. so that you and I might be made
the righteousness of God in him. What did he tell the disciples?
His last words, this is my body broken, broken for you. This is my body broken for you.
No matter what these men thought they were doing, they were in
the ship. No matter how much they had made
it worse when they were in the boat. Before time, God hath put
his people in the ship, the Lord Jesus Christ, and there is nothing
Nothing that can touch us that doesn't pass through his hand.
Even the wrath of God, because he endured it for his people.
There's nothing, no wrath left. He's drank it dry. All the damnation
he drunk dry. The justice of God has been satisfied
because of Christ Jesus being our ship, our hiding place, our
hiding place. Here we see God's elect clinging
to the broken pieces of his body as we're just floating around
this this world, this dark, sinful world where we're just clinging
on those pieces, aren't we? We're just hanging on to his
promises. We're hanging on to him. I love the thought of all
the pieces of that ship being broken apart. How many do you
think there were? I mean, plenty to go around. That's the point,
isn't it? Plenty, more than enough. Oh, he's more than enough to
his people. I don't like this board. Yes, you do. If you're
his, you love it. That board you have is the perfect board,
the one he gave to you. We're just holding on to it,
praying that the Lord keep us, praying that the Lord spare us.
Believing Him through the eyes of faith, by the faith that He's
given us, we are made to rest. It's not you that was broken.
Oh, no, it's not our penance. It's not our, we don't look to
what we do in any way. It was His brokenness that we
look to, isn't it? It's His brokenness that the
Father's pleased with. I love the words that Paul said,
you're not allowed to get out of the boat. If you get out of
the boat, nobody's going to be saved. You can't get out of the boat.
We're not allowed. We're not allowed. We have, he put us there
and he's going to keep us there. Can't get out of the boat. There
is no lifeboat. There is no, we don't have a
backup plan, a contingency plan. Well, if it doesn't work, I'll
try this. No, we're all in. We're completely desperate for
this one truth, this one truth. If you don't abide in the ship,
you'll perish, but you cannot lose one. That peace that we're
hanging on to. That peace that is Christ that
we're hanging P.A.C.E. and peace is in a piece of board,
that peace that we're hanging on to in both ways, that's Christ,
isn't it? And it's not really us that's hanging on to the board,
is it? It's him that has us in the palm of his hand. We are
kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to
be revealed at the last time. He does all the keeping, doesn't
he? Lord, I thought I was hanging on to you, Peter. No, Peter,
you weren't hanging on to me. You're going to deny me three
times. Isn't that us? But Peter, I pray for you. I've given you some pieces of
the ship that's going to carry you safely through. I've given
you faith. I've given you peace. I've given you eternal life.
Cling to these promises. Cling to these broken pieces.
And I don't mean broken as in, I don't think I have to explain
what I mean. I think you understand exactly
what I mean. God's peace is not broken, but it's part of Christ.
It was the body that was broken for his people. Look at verse
44 again in closing and the rest, some on boards. I love the top
part says, and they that could swim should cast themselves first
into the sea and get to land in the rest. Boy, that's us.
We can't swim, can we? And we've been made to know we
can't swim. I've got to have a board when it comes to spiritual
things. I've got to have life in the
rest, some on board, some on broken pieces of the ship. And
so it came to pass that they escaped all. A-L-L, I love that
word. All safe to land. We are clinging to every piece
of Him by grace, His purposed pieces in our life. No sooner
do we mess up, no sooner do we make mistakes and fall down and
get discouraged, does He not send us a little bit of peace
that surpasses all understanding? Do we not get a a breath of fresh
air by his grace being shown to us again. Do we not get a
taste of his manna once more? And we have this refreshing.
That's the that's the purpose pieces that he's ordained before
time. They're always right on time.
We're just waiting for the glorious moment when it'll be said it
came to pass. They all escaped safe to dry land. That's what
we're waiting on right now. Paul said, how shall we escape
if we neglect so great salvation? which at first began to be spoken
by the Lord and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him.
How shall we escape? We can't. We can't. If we neglect, if we refuse,
if we say, no, I'm going to do things my way. I don't need this
haven. I don't need this ship. I'm going to get out of this
ship. The Lord's people can't leave, can they? The Lord's people
can't get away from it. You know what that means? We've
already escaped. We've already made it safe to
dry land. He did all the bringing. Child of God, lay hold of eternal
life. Cling to Him. Cling to Him. Cling to all of His promises. Cling to His person. Believe
on Him. Rest in Him. It's finished. It's finished.
He became the broken thing that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. I love that the Lord uses broken
things, don't you? He uses the worse, the vessel. He made the vessels of dishonor
into vessels of honor. He took the broken cisterns and
made them whole again. He did all the work in this glorious
salvation. I'm so thankful he didn't leave
us as a bunch of broken, dead dog sinners, but he made us the
righteousness of God in him because Christ traded places with us.
Cling to his pieces.