Sermon Tone Analysis

Shipwrecked

Earlier this week a group of explorers found the Endurance near the Antarctic under 10,000 feet of water and ice.

Sir Ernest Shackleton was determined to be the first to reach the South Pole, but Roald Amundsen made it there just before him in December, 1911.

So Shackleton turned his attention to the idea of crossing the antarctic on foot from seashore to seashore.

The result of his ambitions would become known as the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition.

With a crew of 27 members, Shackleton sailed from South Georgia Island—a tiny, uninhabited Island south and east of the tip of South Africa—in a ship named Endurance.

They had no idea what that name would represent in the coming months and years.

Two days after leaving South Georgia the endurance entered the pack ice—a thick barrier of sea ice that circles Antarctica.

For weeks they poked their way through the ice, but on January 18, 1915, a southern gale blew the ice hard against the shore and pinned the endurance among the ice flow.

In the words of one of the crew, Thomas Orde-Lees, they were “frozen like an almond in the middle of a chocolate bar.”

The ice pushed and pressed and cracked the Endurance.

Knowing the ship was going down in the ice the crew salvaged all they could and set up camp on the ice flow.

They initially tried to cross the ice flow to land, but they averaged only a mile a day and soon abandoned that idea.

They were getting close to land before being trapped, but now the ice flows were pushing them farther and farther away from their landing.

On April 7, 1916, over a year after being trapped in the ice, they could see the snow-capped mountains of Elephant Island, a tiny, uninhabited island off the horn of Antarctica.

Two days later the flow of ice that had been their home for a year broke up, forcing them to abandon their camp.

In the life-boats they had salvaged from the endurance they faced the freezing spray and tumult of the open ocean in a fierce attempt to get to Elephant Island.

For six days they rowed and finally reached landfall.

One of the crew wrote that between the dysentery and seasickness, 1/2 the crew were basically insane.

In spite of their condition, they had to face the reality that no one was going to come near Elephant Island.

No rescue ship was on its way.

Their situation was hopeless without someone to rescue them.

And so is ours.

The human condition

People want to think of themselves as basically good.

The world recognizes the enmity for evil that God implanted in the human heart but they think its just innate goodness and surmise that if given enough time, humans will evolve into a tolerant, cooperative species.

If we only had the right technology or the right conditions then our society would be great.

But the best result that could be hoped for from that theory is just a world with fewer natural disasters, fewer wars, more education, and less disease.

There is no utopia.

while we might figure out how to extend someone’s life, there is no hope that we could solve the deeper problems of greed, lust, and selfishness.

Unlike the evolutionary theory the fittest don‘t survive the evolutionary process, and there is no evidence that humanity is growing towards the ideal they long for.

The Bible tells the story of a human race that was created in the image of God, but who distrusted Him and wanted to define right and wrong for themselves.

And the result has been separation.

Isaiah 59:2 “but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.”

The real problem is that humanity has rejected the life-giver and his law of love and embraced self-reliance and independence from all authority.

And like those sailors who were trapped on Elephant Island, sick and dying, we are lost in sin with no hope of saving ourselves.

Romans 7:12, 14 “So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

...For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.”

Romans 7:24 “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

That’s the question everyone is asking.

Even if they don’t know how to define it yet, everyone realizes there’s a problem with their life.

They try and try to fix it, but they are beaten back again and again by their own nature.

Who will save us?

And what the world doesn’t tell you is that we are all on borrowed time.

Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death...”

Our separation from the life-giving, Creator is a terminal condition.

If not for God’s grace, no one would survive.

Grace

As they pulled their boats onto shore with pounding surf and blowing winds Ernest Shackleton knew that there was no way anyone was looking for them and no ship would intentionally pass by elephant island.

So he took a small crew and one of their life-boats and began to row across the open ocean with the hope of chartering a ship to go back and rescue his men.

Even this attempt was a long shot.

They had to make it some 800 miles back to South Georgia island where there was a small whaling station.

Then they would hope that a ship would come by to pick them up.

And then they would charter another ship and brave the harsh weather back to Elephant Island, hoping beyond hope that there were sailors still alive to rescue.

God had a similar problem.

He created humans with all the love in His heart, but then they snubbed their nose at him and joined the rebellion.

He knew that there was no way for them to live apart from Him.

If He had given them what they seemed to think they wanted, then he would have removed Himself completely and they would have perished without His life-giving power.

But out of love and compassion He preserved their lives and gave them a way to reconcile with God.

For Adam and Eve and then Abraham and then the Israelites that way was a sacrificial lamb that pointed forward to the promise of a redeemer.

Until one day a man named John saw Jesus walking along the Jordan River and he shouted,

John 1:29 “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

Jesus, described his rescue mission like this:

John 3:16-17 ““For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

Do you want a way out of the trouble you’re in?

A solution to the problems you face?

Do you want to be rescued?

John 14:6 “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Too many people think that God is cruel and unkind and angry.

But Jesus showed us that he is Ex 34:6-7 “...a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin...”

What parent doesn’t get angry when their child does something stupid that risks their life and safety?

They’re not angry at the kid, their hearts are full of love for them.

But there is a deep anger at the evil that would reach out and harm your little one.

God has that anger too, a love-filled anger.

Micah 7:18 “Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression...

He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love.”

We are like those men, shipwrecked on Elephant Island, but we have hope.

God came to earth in Jesus to rescue us.

Isaiah 53:5 “But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.”

Romans 5:8 “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Repentance

What would have happened if Shakelton had returned with a rescue ship but some of his men refused to get on?

Instead they threw themselves into the water in a desperate attempt to swim to South Africa.

Or Maybe they decided they were going to wait until the water froze over and they could walk from Elephant Island to Antarctica?

They would have died.

There is no life apart from God and no rescue from our situation except that we choose to accept God’s rescue plan.

How can we be saved?

Peter told the people who had called for Jesus’ crucifixion that Jesus was really their Savior, and when they realized what they had done, they asked,

Acts 2:37-38 ““Brothers, what shall we do?”

And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

Repent.

It means to turn back from your rebellion and turn to God.

There are many who fail to understand the true nature of repentance.

Multitudes sorrow that they have sinned and even make an outward reformation because they fear that their wrongdoing will bring suffering upon themselves.

But this is not repentance in the Bible sense.

They lament the suffering rather than the sin.

Steps to Christ (Chapter 3—Repentance)

But when the heart yields to the influence of the Spirit of God, the conscience will be quickened, and the sinner will discern something of the depth and sacredness of God’s holy law, the foundation of His government in heaven and on earth.