Men you should have taken my advice …. But now I urge you to keep up your courage , because not one of you will be lost; only the ship will be destroyed. (Acts 27: 21, 22).
How the passengers who left New York on the night of 1st May 1915 would have loved to hear that message. For it was the ill- fated RMS Lusitania that set sail, bound for Liverpool just as submarine warfare was intensifying in the Atlantic.
Germany had declared the seas around the United Kingdom to be a war-zone, and the German embassy in the United States had placed a newspaper advertisement warning people not to sail on Lusitania. On the afternoon of 7 May,
Lusitania was torpedoed by a German U-Boat, 11 miles off the southern coast of Ireland and inside the declared “zone of war”. She sank to the bottom in 18 minutes. Of the 1,959 passengers and crew aboard 1,195 lost their lives that afternoon.
While most of those lost in the sinking were either British or Canadians, the loss of 128 Americans in the disaster outraged many in the United States, and was a significant factor in the USA’s eventual decision to join with the allies in declaring war on Germany later on in 1917.
It was another time many years before where we read in Acts 27 of the apostle Paul and some other prisoners who were on board a ship that set sail bound for Italy. Whilst in those days there was clearly no threat from U boats the weather was set against them to such an extent that Paul warned the centurion in charge of impending disaster saying
‘Men I can see that our voyage is going to be disastrous and bring great loss to ship and cargo.’ Yet those in charge decided to sail on and ignored the warning. How often do we ignore good advice and decide to follow our own ways ? When we are eventually shown up to be in the wrong there is always someone on hand to say ‘You should have taken
my advice !’ and this is exactly what Paul said to his ship mates who after several days in the eye of the storm had finally given up all hope of being saved. Yet he said ‘But now I urge you to keep up your courage , because not one of you will be
lost, only the ship will be destroyed.’ Again he was to say to them Keep up your courage men , for I have faith in God that it will happen just as he told me. Paul wrote in similar vein to the Colossians (1:22) when he said: once you were far
apart from God ‘but now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight …. if you continue in your faith, established and firm , not moved from the hope held out in the gospel.
The gospel of Jesus Christ holds out a lifeline to all those who are facing eternal separation from our Father in heaven and we who have faith in Him are part of the crew who have been called to throw out that lifeline and pull on the ropes to bring those adrift closer to the spiritual shoreline. Later this month we all have a chance to share that gospel face to face with some of our neighbours as we are invited to take part in an Outreach UK training event. If you want my advice it’s an opportunity not to be missed, but don’t take my word for it.
Listen to Jesus who said ‘Go and make disciples of all nations.’ (Matt 28:19)
Stuart Beadle
Sept 2014
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