The Shipwreck — G.W. North

Reading Acts 27: The Shipwreck and Salvation

Turn to the Acts of the Apostles, and I want to read to you a whole chapter. Now, that's fairly unusual on these occasions. I usually start off and skim around. If you want to go to sleep, you can go to sleep for 44 verses.

If you want to keep awake, then the Lord bless your soul. In the 27th then, of the Acts of the Apostles, there has been much talk tonight among us about the sea, and you will remember that this chapter is the chapter, one of the famous and dramatic chapters of the Bible to do with the sea.

Here it is. When it was determined that we, that is, Paul, Luke, and a Macedonian named Aristarchus, all right, and the rest of the people that were on the ship, when it was determined that we should sail into Italy, they delivered Paul and certain other prisoners unto one named Julius, a centurion of Augustus' band.

And entering into a ship of Adramitium, we launched, meaning to sail by the coasts of Asia, one Aristarchus, a Macedonian, a Thessalonica, being with us. And the next day we touched at Sidon, and Julius courteously entreated Paul and gave him liberty to go unto his friends to refresh himself.

And when we had launched from Pence, we sailed under Cyprus, because the winds were contrary. And when we had sailed over the sea of Cilicia and Pamphylia, we came to Myra, a city of Lycia. And there the centurion found a ship of Alexandria sailing into Italy, and he put us therein.

And when we had sailed slowly many days, and scarce would come over against Nidus, the wind not suffering us, we sailed under Crete, over against Salmone. And hardly passing it, came unto a place which is called the Fair Havens, nigh whereunto was the city of Lassia.

Now when much time was spent, and when sailing was now dangerous, because the fast was now already past, Paul admonished them, and said unto them, Sirs, I perceive that this voyage will be with hurt and much damage, not only of the lading and ship, but also of our lives.

Nevertheless, the centurion 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 Phenice, there to winter, which is an haven of Crete, and lieth toward the south-west and the north-west.

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 Euroclidon.

And when the ship was caught and could not bear up into 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, which, when they had taken up, they used helps, undergirding the ship, and fearing lest they should fall into the quicksands, straight sail, and so were driven.

And we being exceedingly tossed with the tempest, the next day they lightened the ship, and the third day we cast out with our own hands the tackling of the ship. 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.

But after long abstinence, Paul stood forth in the midst of them, and said, Sirs, ye should have hearkened unto me, and not have loosed from Crete, and to have gained this harm and loss, and now I exhort you to be of good cheer, for there shall be no loss of any man's life among you, but of the ship, for there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve, 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, howbeit we must be cast upon a certain island. But when the fourteenth night was come, as we were driven up and down in Adria about midnight, the shipmen deemed that they drew near to some country, and sounded, and found it twenty farrands, and when they had gone a little further, they sounded again, and found it fifteen farrands.

Then, fearing lest we should have fallen upon rocks, they cast four anchors out of the stern, and wished for the day, and as the shipmen were about to flee out of the ship, when they had let down the boat into the sea, under colour as though they would have cast anchors out of the foreship, Paul said to the centurion, and to the soldiers, Except these abide in the ship, you cannot be saved.

Then the soldiers cut off the ropes of the boat, and let her fall off, and while the day was coming on, Paul besought them all to take meat, saying, This day is the fourteenth day that we have tarried and continued fasting, having taken nothing.

Wherefore I pray you to take some meat, for this is for your health, for there shall not an hair fall from the head of any one of you. And when he had thus spoken, he took bread, and gave thanks to God in the presence of them all, and when he had broken it, he began to eat.

Then were they all of good cheer, and they also took some meat, and we were in all in the ship two hundred three score and sixteen souls, and when they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship, and cast out the wheat into the sea, and when it was day, they knew not the land, but they discovered a certain creek with a shore, into the which they were minded, if it were possible, to thrust in the ship, and when they had taken up the anchors, they committed themselves unto the sea, and loosed the rudder bands, and hoised up the main sail to the wind, and made toward shore, and falling into a place where two seas met, they ran the ship aground, and the forepart stuck fast, and remained unmovable, but the hind part was broken with the violence of the waves, and 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 get to land, and the rest, some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship, and so it came to pass, that they escaped all safe to land, and when they were escaped, then they knew that the island was called Malta.

The Psychological Background to Salvation

Amen. I can remember an occasion in Bradford, how many years ago now, I don't know, and God laid this great chapter on my heart, to preach one Sunday night. It's memorable in my heart, simply because I've never preached on it since, and two, that my eldest daughter that night reached out to God.

God did something in her, in a very real and wonderful way. I've never preached on this chapter since. It isn't because of any particular reason, but there it is, this is the way the spirit of the Lord goes, and he blows where he lives, and so tonight I want to talk to you from this chapter.

I can remember now vividly, and I suppose it must be all of, and 15 years ago, when I spoke on this chapter, I don't know, my wife's got the memory along these lines. I suppose it must be, but I can remember vividly, how God laid on my heart in those days, the truth of salvation that's in this chapter.

The great truth of the inward struggles that go on in people's hearts, the folly of mankind, the stupidity and the stubbornness, and how the last thing people will do is let God save them with his great and wonderful salvation.

It is fully exhibited in this chapter, and I can remember how that when I got up to speak that night, God at this period was opening up, or had been for some time, deep hidden things of the human personality to me.

He'd been making me understand the reasons why people don't really get through with spiritual reasons, psychological reasons. I can remember that I stood up and announced my subject as the psychological background to salvation, and one little lady in the in the congregation promptly sort of went, nearly fainted, that I should announce such a subject.

Fancy this, a preacher talking like this in a church like ours, the preacher at death, but this was how in these days God had been making revelation upon revelation to me of this, and this is, it's these kinds of things, beloved, which make me say over and over again, there's only one real textbook on psychology, and God wrote it, and it's this, it's this book, it's all here, and probably you will be surprised before you go out of the room tonight, how this chapter reveals so much of the inward workings of the human heart, and the subtleties, and the wickedness, and the stubbornness, and the hardness, and the underleaf, and everything that lies there, and though it is that it is dealing with this great subject of salvation, and we only think of salvation usually as sort of a time when you were converted or saved, yet beloved, it is nevertheless true of men's souls when they are faced up with the great things of God.

The revelation is in this chapter, and you will see that it works out in all things of life, and it can be the reason why some of us, perhaps in this room tonight, I don't know, I'm judging nobody, but I speak because God has put this on my heart, I speak thus, must be real if God has done it.

The reason why so many do not, perhaps you perhaps, are not right there where God wants you to be, hallelujah, and this I promise you by the grace of God, that if you will heed and take note of what God says in this chapter, and you will open your heart to it, and receive the word of God, you may have noticed a statement that this man said, I believe God, I'm looking at verse 25, that it shall be even as it was told me, amen, and so far as God is concerned, it shall be.

Whenever God tells you anything, it shall be exactly as he says. This is the test in the ultimate of every preacher and every prophet, amen, even as it was the test of the angel, for it was the angel of the Lord that said this, and the angel was tested by it too, praise God, whether or not it comes to pass as God says it will, amen, but before a thing can come to pass as God says it will, it must be believed without reservation, but let's examine the chapter, shall we?

The Ship as a Picture of the Human Soul

This ship represents man's soul, and you will notice that there were three dominant factors, and three dominant features in this ship. There was the owner of the ship, there was Julius, and there was Paul, and you know, beloved, inside all of us, there are always these three great dominant factors, and this is why often in people's experiences, they never get through to what God wants them to be.

You see, what happened was this, that Paul represented God, the voice of God in that ship, and you know, inside you, inside every one of us, there is that which represents the voice of God. There was Julius, he was there, and he sort of represents me, and there is the ship master, the owner of the ship, and it's between these three that the ultimate destiny of that whole ship and its company, it was all resolved.

I don't know whether it's like that in you, that there are often inside you, sort of opposing voices that argue one against another. That's right, it is in every one of us until the whole matter is solved by the Lord Jesus Christ.

You know what happened? Paul is being sent to Italy. He's going there, and he's going to lose his life in Italy. He doesn't mind a little bit about that. He could have pleaded with God, said, oh God, I'm glad this ship's going to sink, I'll escape.

Don't you believe that? He was going to Italy to lay down his life, preaching to Nero. Do you remember Nero? Heard about him in history? Don't you ever pity him? Paul preached to him. Wicked sinner, deadly man.

Paul preached to him. Think of it, Paul laid down his life to preach to Nero. Nero's gone to hell because he wouldn't listen to the word of God, who's the greatest man perhaps that has ever walked on this earth since Jesus Christ, very probably.

Now beloved, God speaks to us, and you see, here are these three people, and Paul is going to Italy, and you know what happens? There's a transshipment, and you're told this, that there's a man called the master of the ship.

Now you have to realize, beloved, that before you ever come to taking any decisions like Julius in the ship, you've got to realize that the ship into which you've been born and launched on life's sea is under a master and an owner, and it's the devil.

Do you understand that? When Adam sold us out in the garden, he sold us out to Satan and sin, and before you ever received a human personality, it was sin absorbed, and you were born under a master and not God.

If you will understand this, and understand why in every case God has to engineer a shipwreck, so that he can really save us. The ship's got to be smashed. Alleluia. Now we got some subtle teachings from modernistic preachers and psychological people to try and avoid all this, that it's the sort of duty of us to sort of save our ship.

I want to tell you that God's only interested in saving souls. He's not concerned about saving ships. Praise the Lord for that. And beloved, it's simply because oftentimes man doesn't know himself. He's not prepared to recognize what's going on inside him.

He cries, he does all sorts of things, and in this chapter, beloved, if ever God's got the imprimatur and got the photograph, or what it is, of human beings in a chapter, he's got us all in this one. It's only a sort of a biological incident, but beloved, it's a tremendous revelation.

Fair Havens and the False Security of Religion

Let's examine it, shall we? For you will remember that they put forth, it says this, they launched in verse four, and so on, and they find another ship in verse six, and they sailed in that ship slowly many days, and scarce would come over against Nidus, the wind not suffering us.

We sailed under Crete over against Salmoni, and hardly passing it, came under a place which is called the Fair Havens. Nigh whereunto was the city of Lassia, and when much time was spent, and when sailing was now dangerous, because the fast was now already passed, Paul spoke to them.

God spoke, and he said, Sirs, I perceive that this voyage will be with hurt and with much damage, not only to the lading of the ship, but also of our lives. Here, then, is the tremendous thing that God wants us to understand.

What a revelation is here. Now, especially young people, and I warn you that it only takes time to turn you into old people, that's all it takes. And you young people, I don't think I need especially emphasize this here, but it can be true with us all if we're so foolish as to get older without letting God do this great thing for us.

There are so many, beloved, who linger so long in Fair Haven. They linger long there. They think it's all right here, and they think it's all right there, and things seem all fair, and all nice, and all wonderful.

And we've got some notion of religious things. You look at this verse nine. What's all this about the fast being passed? It's just a religious feast. Nobody knows all the religious observation. It comes in somewhere in life, religion, but what this fast is, is not explained.

And we sort of come to know what's all this about, this religion business. People fasting, feasting, praying, going to churches, singing, and I don't know what. Now, listen, beloved. There isn't an explanation given because God's not interested in giving explanations about religion.

He's not interested very much in fasting, feasting, and calendar dates, and all this. That's not the main thing. In any case, a soul can't find salvation in those things, not in those at all. A man at last has to be brought to a realization of his own dreadful state, for unless a person knows their dreadful condition, they won't want to be saved from it, if they can last in fair places, and find haven for their souls in this, that, and the other.

And they do. This book speaks about people who make fair speeches. They make fair talks, I believe, beloved, with all my heart. And I'm sorry to have to say it, that there are many that make fair speeches, nice little sermonettes, and all this, to get people to haven up in them, and find some comfort for their soul, for God knows life's hard.

He listened to what God had to say, but he listened to the shipmaster, the owner of the ship, and the owner of every ship, that has a voice in every life, is the devil. Do you see that? And so many Julius's, they believe what the devil says, and God allows them to, God allows them to, praise the name of the Lord.

He believed the master, and the owner of the ship, more than those things which were spoken by Paul. Amen. Let's understand this great truth. And because, you see, his brain came to work now, he wasn't listening to God now, he was working it out in his mind.

The haven was not commodious to winter in. And so he was the more part advised to depart thence also, if by any means they might attain to Phoenicia, there to winter. And when, verse 13, the south wind blew softly, they were, he was absolutely sure that what he was doing was right.

Just the soft, warm, gentle blowing of the south wind, supposing they had obtained their purpose. Now isn't this true? That deep down in the bottom of every man or woman, unregenerate, there is a distinct determination to obtain your own purpose.

What you want in life, and what you want out of it. I purpose to do this. I purpose to go here. I please myself. I'm the captain of my fate, the master of my destiny. So talks ambitious and atheistic man.

And you see, it seems that everything's set fair for it too. Hallelujah. And God reveals this great truth that he wants us to understand. It's not so long, is it, beloved? And it won't belong. I don't know whether you've reached this point yet in your life, but it's not long before there arises a tempestuous wind called Euryclidon.

So I've never heard of that before. No, it's always something you've never taken account of. Never. That's right. It comes. It's like that man in the far country, where that, that prodigal, he never expected that to happen to him, that happened to him, but it did.

And bless the Lord for his mercy that he allowed it. And God has to do these things, beloved, to so many people. And now look, the ship's caught. There it is. It's caught. It doesn't believe it's caught.

They believe they're in control still, and they are. It's all right. Caught. You know, this is the, this is the story of drug addicts. It's the story of alcoholics. It's the story of nicotine smokers.

It's the story of sex troubles. It's the story of all this. They're caught. It's a lovely soft wind that blows first. It's all so nuts. You really think this is going to let you attain your, attain your purpose.

Amen. Achieve your ideals, eh? Now listen, beloved. And then they could not bear up into the wind, and, and we let her drive. Do you see this? We let her drive. We're still in control. Yeah, we're still in control, but we let her, we let her go.

Here it is. And, and then running under a certain island, which is called Clauda, we had much work to come by the boat. At last, they're admitting it. They, it's almost uncontrollable. Just got it now.

We've just been able to come by the boat. That's all. Hallelujah. And when they had taken up, they used helps. They undergirded the ship, and they feared lest they should fall into the quicksands, and they straight sailed, and now they've had to admit it.

They're driven. Realizations there. And the realization comes in terrible and stark fear. Amen. Gone too far now. And listen, here's the great trouble. In verse 21c, it says that after long abstinence Paul spoke, God ceased to speak.

He spoke to you a long time ago. And now, just the time when you want God to speak, he doesn't. And you say, oh God, what's happened? Where has he gone? This loving God that's supposed to speak to me.

You see. And never, and not only that beloved, but see, but see the conditions in deadly fear. Verse 18, exceedingly tossed with a tempest. And here's man. He's going to do everything to save himself.

See what he does. He helps himself. Verse 17, he makes his ship strong. He does everything. He now lightens the ship. He gets rid of some things. This is the trouble with so many people. They try reformation.

They start to cast out some things. See if they can ride this storm. But you can't. It's impossible. Throw this away. Get rid of that. Cast something else out. But you're in the grip, beloved. And nothing can be done for you.

And God's not talking to you. And the third day, we cast out with our own hands. They're tackling at the ship. They weren't going to tackle the ship anymore. Talk about abandonment. This is the way it goes.

And neither sun nor stars appeared in many days. And no small tempest was on us. And all hope that we should be saved was taken away. No hope. No control of your vessel. You can't direct it or guide it anymore.

Living in fear. Darkness. No sun. Total depression. Not a star that you can guide your ship by. Nothing. And how dependent you are on the stars. Nothing. Darkness. Hopelessness. Despair. Fear. Hallelujah.

And listen, beloved. God has to allow this so often in a life. God has to allow it. He has to let people come to a place where they stop trying to undergird themselves. He has to let them prove that all their own efforts at salvation are as valueless as the froth on the waves.

He has to let them see that there's no steerage and there's no way of tackling the problem at all. None. And all the advice is useless. And you discover at last that the word of the devil is wrong. And all your suppositions have been wrong.

And all your purposes have been wrong. And all your holing up in fair holes has all been wrong. There's only one place of rest, beloved. There's only one place of safety. There's only one place of life.

There's only one place of guidance. There's only one place of strength. There's only one place of tackling life. There's only one way and he's not talking to you. Black darkness of despair exceedingly tossed to and fro.

No protection from the howling blast. Your soul there? Ever been there? God allows that. Bless him. Bless him. He allows it. It's a fearful experience. Absolutely fearful. And you will know that they staggered from fear to fear.

For you've got it again in verse 29. They feared. They went from one fear to another. How dreadful it all is, beloved, when a life's like that. One fear, another fear. If it's not rocks, it's quicksands.

If it's not quicksands, it's a howling gale. Your very friendly sails of you become your enemies. You don't know what to do. Right in the midst of it, God starts to talk. Right in the midst of it. And you're a wise, wise person if you listen to God.

You listen to God when he starts to talk to you. Amen. After long abstinence, verse 21, Paul stands in the midst of them and says, Sirs, you should have hearkened unto me and not have loosed from Crete and to have gained this harm and loss.

That's what your life's been. Gaining harm and loss. What a terrible gain. I don't know. That's what you do. And he says, There stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, whom I serve. And that voice, beloved, that speaks in your heart was put there by God, all that ability, and it swings to God.

Amen. It's there for the service of God. God's put a mouth in your heart so that he can talk to you. Hallelujah. That's right. And it's there to serve God. But you see, if people will listen, if Julius had only listened to God, it would have been all right.

But he didn't. And I suppose we've all been in this place at some time. Don't know what voice to listen to until it seems that the voice of the devil and the voice of the howling gale and all the demons out of the pit seem to take the place.

Many, many. And he says, Be of good cheer, sirs. I believe it should be even as it was. What's the dominant voice in your heart? Are you believing God? You see, beloved, we don't always know the turning point in our life.

It comes often at the deepest, darkest and most dreadful moments. That's where the turning point. The storm didn't stop. The howling didn't cease. Nobody said they believed Paul. It's just that somehow, gloriously bless his name, this wonderful Lord comes and asserts his power right in our midst.

And we find that he's beginning to dominate now. It's what God says. There's no Julius saying, I don't believe you now. No shipmaster saying, chuck him in irons. Not now. God asserts, bless his wonderful name when he works by grace in power.

Bless him. He comes and he makes his voice and his word and himself and his power to ascend above everything. He doesn't pull back the dark clouds from the sky. He doesn't say to you, you rock it and cease your howling and sun and moon and stars appear.

He starts to talk in your heart. You howl out for him to alter nature. Do this, do something else. Beloved, do you see, perhaps you haven't realized it yet, God's plan to smash you, smash you. That's the force of Calvary.

He can only save us properly by smashing us. This is what he said. I perceive this journey is going to be of much harm. Did you read it? Verse 10, much damage and hurt, not only of the lading and the ship, but also of our lives.

Is that God talking, saying he's going to damage and hurt our lives? Of course. That's the trouble. We bind our lives up with sin and with Satan and God has to come in sometimes like a battering ram to smash it all up.

Of course he does. God doesn't mind hurting us. How often times we've said this. What he doesn't do is harm us. He hurts us at times. Why? You've heard it in the testimony of our dear brother David. That wasn't the easiest thing to do.

What he did cost him three days. It hurt. It hasn't killed him though. It hasn't damaged him. You see, beloved, this is the thing. We've got silly, stupid, sentimental ideas about a God that didn't hesitate to nail his own son on a cross to save us.

God's not sentimental. He can't stop and dally and dabble about with sentimentality, beloved. He wants to save your soul because you got yourself hitched up in some fair haven when you thought you'd be all right with you for the rest of your life sort of thing until you died.

God's not concerned about that. He's concerned about an eternity and in some people it takes a tremendous storm and it's not in a teacup either. It's the whole of life. Everything blasted and ruined. Praise the Lord for this.

He doesn't care as long as he can save us. But he says this, listen, he says this, verse 22, you be of good cheer though. There won't be any loss of life among you. No, it won't be lost. No, God's got to save that.

He's going to smash up what you think has been life. Everything. Smash your ship up. Totally. Glory. This is wonderful. It's not pleasant when it's happening but bless God. He doesn't hold back the knife just because he knows it's gonna hurt.

Praise him. Praise him. He's very faithful. I shall never forget one of my daughters once coming to me one day and she lifted up a little finger and it was hurting her. She wasn't very old. She was just a few years old.

Perhaps she was six or seven. I can't tell but she showed me her finger and it was all yellow with pus and it was hurting her terribly and Daddy saw there was a thorn in it and I was always the expert thorn remover in our family.

Right. And I said, oh dear, it's got a thorn in it, lovey. Let Daddy do that. I'll just go and get a needle, lovey, and you just hold it there. I promise you. Now it will hurt you, dear. It will hurt you.

You must never tell a child it won't hurt if it will, you know. I said it will hurt you, dear. But it'll soon be over. She said, no, no, no, she said. No. I said, I won't hurt you, lovey. I'll just get a needle quick enough.

I'll hold it tight and I told her everything I was going to do and I said I'll go and it'll soon be out. Ever so easy. Look, it's only just. Look, you can see it yourself and it's that that's causing all that pain and all that yellow stuff.

It's gone bad in there. It must come out. She said, no, no. I said, alright, I'll let her go. About half a day after I think it was, she came and said, take it out, Daddy. Did you mean to tell me you left it there to hurt her for another six hours?

Yes, I did. She came to her senses. I knew it wouldn't kill her. So she came back and thought she could say, oh, it was all over. I didn't mind hurting her. I knew I'd have to. I knew I'd have to, Daddy.

She's got all her fingers, too. But here's the tremendous truth. I want to tell you, beloved, that God doesn't mind hurting you. And do you know, he won't hurt you trying to get your own way, superimposing it on everybody, thinking you're going to obtain your purpose in this and that and the other.

You know, you might be able to twist a lot of people around your finger, but you can't twist God. And he's built you on certain laws that a psychologist might call psychological laws. But I'm telling you that God made you and he knows how to deal with you.

He knows how to deal with us all. Hallelujah. Praise him. And he says, he says, no loss of life. But listen, your ship's got to be smashed up. Ship's going to be smashed up. Praise God. And it shall be as God told me.

You see, there came a time when old Paul had a shipwreck, only he was on a ship of the desert called a camel, I expect. He was going to Damascus, but God wrecked his ship for him. Absolutely smashed it.

Got his master's certificate, too, in his breast pocket. Didn't make any difference. God smashed it. Amen. Isn't it marvelous? Didn't do Paul any harm. Struck him blind for three days. God didn't mind that.

God didn't mind him being struck blind for three days. Showed him the spiritual darkness he'd been moving in, trying to guide other people's lives. When God does it, he does it. It's not what the devil does.

And here's the tragedy that there are times when we get God and the devil mixed up. We're so confused. We don't know which way we're going. It says here they were driven up and down in Adria, in the Adriatic Sea.

They were just driven up and down, tossed to and fro. They didn't know where they were. Do you know where you are? Listen to what God says. Verse 26. You must be cast upon a certain island. Amen. That's right.

Now God's taking a hand. Hallelujah. You know, I'm not a great lover of Whittier's poetry because he was a universalist. He didn't know the salvation of God. And if you sort of love O Sabbath Rest by Galilee and all that, that was written by a universalist that didn't believe in the atonement of Jesus Christ.

Isn't it amazing what lovely stuff unbelievers can write? Just to twist you off, you stick to Wesley and people like that. You'll do a lot better. You see? But this is what he did right. There are some things that he wrote that are very nice.

Somebody had a little chat with me today and said, do you know I've discovered lots of things that psychologists write are very near to things you say. Yeah, they are. They're very nice. But they've got no blood in them.

No atonement in them. No salvation in them. None at all. But this is what Whittier says. He says, I know not where thy islands lift their fronded palms in air. I only know I cannot drift beyond thy love and care.

That's right. And this is right. You've got to be cast upon a certain island. You've got to come right off that mainland. You've got to be put on the one island in the sea of life that can save you. And that's Jesus Christ.

You've got to be shipwrecked there. Hallelujah. Glory be to God. You've got to be so shipwrecked that you can't sail out again. We'll come to that. Here's the wonder of it. And here we go. And it says in verse 27 that when the 14th night was come and we were driven up and down in Adria about midnight, the worst time of all, in the deepest gloom of all, after all that God spoke to me, I've been in deeper gloom since.

Yeah, that's right. This is the psychological background of salvation. You wonder I preached it. This is how God taught me to deal with souls. And this is how I knew. It's in the Bible. Here it is. Many a person says, it's been worse with me since you said so and so.

Yeah, that's all right. I'll do a little smile up my sleeve. Don't let them see that. I know what God's doing. That's right. Praise God. I'm very loving and sympathetic with them because I've been in their boat.

I know. But I know what God's doing. Let a man or a woman come to believe God. That's why God leaves them in the darkness to make sure they do believe him. That they're not fiddling just to get bright skies over them again.

Bright skies will soon be on me. You know, they're not fiddling with God. It's got to be real, beloved. Absolutely real. It's got to be a fusion of your spirit and life with Jesus Christ or it's nothing.

Understand it, so far as God's concerned. That bloody Calvary means God at desperation point to win you and you have to come to desperation point before you'll get there. You understand that? Look at that shipwrecked man there.

Absolutely shattered. Everybody left him and fled. Didn't they? That's right. You've not been forsaken all the time God is starting to speak to you. If God has said anything to you, he's going to do it.

Amen. Hallelujah. And though you still might say, oh well, I'm not dead. Yeah, I know. All the arguments. Listen. About midnight, the shipmen redeemed that they drew near to some country and found it 20 fathoms.

And when they'd gone a little further, they found it again. They found it 15 fathoms and fearing, still in fear, deadly. Oh, give anything if we could have some light. Oh, let's put a halt to this mad rush.

They cast four anchors out of the stern. And Lord, they go through. Have mercy upon me. Lord, forgive us. Lord. That's right. It's a terrible state. They've been so dark and deadened. Listen so much to their own arguments and reasons and the voice of Satan.