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[ Silence ] (choral singing) (singing in foreign language) [singing]

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[MUSIC] ♪ Shipwrecked, tired ♪ ♪ Dirty dog ♪ ♪ Shipwrecked, tired ♪

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♪ Get on board ♪ ♪ Get on board ♪ [Music] [MUSIC]

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There's no ring up in the water. There's no ring up in the water. Get on board, get on board. She has landed in your houses.

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She has landed in the Alcala. She has landed in the Alcala. Get Onboard again, Get Onboard again..... [MUSIC PLAYING]

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[MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] (dramatic music) [MUSIC PLAYING]

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(dramatic music) (dramatic music) (dramatic music) [Music]

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[music] I should like to read scripture again using a different translation from what is known as the book of 10 Dale Publishers. Acts the 27th chapter verses 39 through 44. When it was day, they didn't recognize the coastline, but noticed a bay with a beach and wondered whether they could get between the rocks and be driven up onto the beach.

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They finally decided to try. Cutting off the anchors and leaving them in the sea, they lowered the rutters, raised the foresail, and headed ashore.

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But the ship hit a sandbar and ran aground. The bow of the ship struck - stuck fast while the stern was exposed to the violence of the waves and began to break apart. The soldiers advised their commanding officer to let them kill the prisoners lest any of them

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swim ashore and escape, but Julius wanted to spare Paul so he told them no. Then he ordered all who could swim to jump overboard and make for land and the rest to try it on planks and debris from the broken ship so everyone escaped safely ashore.

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The subject of the message, Saved by Shipwreck. Sailing the high seas is an adventurous experience. It is a momentous journey from beginning to end.

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It's a voyage from shore to shore. Paul and his company are on a voyage from Caesarea to Rome. Every life is like a voyage. It's a voyage from birth to maturity, from bondage to freedom, a journey from I to we, from actuality to potentiality, from

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time to eternity. We have been on a journey through the year, from January through December. Now on the journey to Rome there were balmy days with gentle breezes and smooth sailing. There were also days and nights on stormy seas with fierce winds and raging waters. There were times in the course of the journey

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when those on the ship wondered if they would ever make it to Rome safely. Life Life is like a ship that sets sail upon the seas. And whenever a ship sets sail upon the seas, it should be prepared to encounter storms. Every year has its elements of contentment as well as discontent, of joy and sorrow,

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of pleasure and pain, of success and defeat. And come what may, the voyage continues. reports that in the face of danger when they were uncertain as to whether the storm would destroy the ship that the sailors planned to lower the boat into

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the sea and abandon the ship. They had carefully planned their getaway. They wanted out. They wanted to escape. There are those who think of the Christian faith as an escape mechanism, a way of not facing the difficult and dangerous circumstances of human existence. They think that the Christian faith is a way

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of avoiding hard situations, of avoiding the hard realities. You see these sailors decide to abandon the ship. It's a sort of a cop-out. Think of men who are well trained, who are skilled in sailing the seas. Those on whom the passengers rely to get them from one place to the next, the sailors. But in the midst of the

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storm the sailors have planned to run off, to abandon the ship. But when we really think about it that conduct is not so unusual because most people would like to avoid the storms. We would like to be free of the difficult and the dangerous. We don't take any delight in gloomy skies, the muttering of the thunder,

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The howling of the winds. We don't take any delight when life is like a ship on the angry billows of the deep being tossed about like a leaf. We don't delight in that. And Paul discovers the sailors plot to abandon the ship and And he reveals their scheme to the captain.

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And he says to the captain, now these men have planned to make their getaway, but except they abide in this ship, they cannot be saved.

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We are all in the same boat together. No matter who we are, black or white, brown, yellow, we're all in the same boat together. We must stay in the ship in order to be saved.

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What affects one nation affects the other. We're all in it together. One minister that I knew a number of years ago was passed on now, he said, "You know what fellowship means?

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It just means two fellows in the same ship." Well, there are certain experiences in life that if we would live this life, we must all share. And salvation depends, wholeness and harmony in our lives

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depends upon staying in the ship, sailing through the storm, facing life, confronting the difficult and the dangerous. Salvation depends upon engagement in life

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and not the abandonment of life. And so they sail on because they want to reach Rome. And they have a feeling that they are near land, but they cannot altogether see it at one time.

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Then finally daybreak comes and they aim for the shore. The ship is driven toward the beach and it is caught in the cross currents, caught in the cross currents where the seas, two seas meet.

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Some waters pushing this way and some waters pushing that way. You know life is like that. Every one of us knows something of being caught

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in the cross currents. Paul says, "When I would do good, evil is always present." When you're trying to go forward, you can be sure that there are always some back-dragging forces. And it's quite a dilemma to be caught in the cross-currents.

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Which way will the ship go? Water's beating upon it from this direction and from the opposite direction, just beating. And Luke describes it very vividly. He says, "Caught in the cross currents."

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Caught. That's the description of our world. We're caught in the cross currents. Some nations are in the democratic camp,

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some are in the communistic camp. Caught in the cross currents. Contrary ways. When it comes to this matter of security

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and terrorism that we've become so concerned about, and rightly so in recent months, we find ourselves caught in the cross currents. In this matter of war and peace,

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we are caught in the cross currents. When it comes to success and failure, we are caught in the cross currents. And the ship, you see, as it is being beaten upon

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by these waves, the back part of the ship is broken into pieces by the power of the waves. So that shipwreck. Shipwreck.

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And it seems just on the surface that once the ship is wrecked that there is no possible way to get to Rome. Soldiers would have killed the prisoners because it was a Roman custom that once a prisoner is committed to the guard that you are to deliver that prisoner

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or else your life is to be taken. So it would have been better according to the practice but the centurion desires to save Paul. You know God has strange and wonderful ways of looking after his servants and so he commands them that none should be killed he commands soldiers that none should be killed but

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that all of them should try to reach the shore those who could swim swim others Those who cannot get on some pieces of the ship, planks or whatever, anyway, cling to what's there as long as you can make it." They did and they all reached the shore safely.

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Shipwreck is catastrophe. Catastrophe. Shipwreck. shipwreck. There's an old Greek story of men who took over a ship. They got rid of the sailors and they saw the compass.

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And they said, "What is this, this compass here? What's this sort of contraption? We don't need this." They threw it overboard and they sailed on to shipwreck. Shipwreck often occurs in the lives of people when we have no inner sense of direction. We don't know where we're going.

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We're lost and baffled about by the cross currents and with no definite sense of direction we have catastrophe. And many times when we think of catastrophe as being utterly disastrous, but sometimes it is redemptive.

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And some of the most meaningful experiences may come through the most painful conditions. The 276 passengers on this ship on the voyage to Rome and they are all saved by shipwreck. It seems that they would have been lost had some of them gotten out in the midst of the storm, but they are advised to stay in the ship and the ship is wrecked and every one

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of them is saved by shipwreck. Shipwreck. It's a lesson here for us. The ship is lost. The structure in which they were is destroyed, but the passengers are saved. You know, a wife is driving a new car, Mercedes Benz, her husband has just purchased it and she has an accident and she is afraid of what the husband is going to say.

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This new car, the newness is not off of it and she has an accident. She calls the husband to report to him that she has been involved in an accident and the first thing the husband wants to know is how is the car? Did you damage the car much?

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What condition is the car in? Well, that tells you something about the husband in that case. It's all together something different when the husband says, "Well, now honey, are you all right?

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all right we can take care of the car. That's sort of the thing that we need to consider. Many times we become so concerned about the structure that we are willing to lose our lives in order to preserve the structure when Paul says now you stay with the ship and the ship

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is wrecked, but their lives are preserved. So sometimes structure must be destroyed in order for people to be preserved. You know that's the case in South Africa. That's the case in South Africa. Look at the structure. There are those who are willing to go down and destroy the

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nation in order to preserve the structure. They don't care how many lives are crushed in the process if we can only preserve the structure. But somehow the Eternal has arranged it. There is one who is over all of us and somehow the Eternal has arranged it. The Eternal has already spoken saying, "Paul, don't be afraid. You're

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gonna get to Rome. Ship may be destroyed but everybody's gonna be alright. And the Eternal has spoken saying in that structure don't be afraid that somehow the Eternal is concerned about justice and justice must be done even though the ship is wrecked. Justice must be preserved. And so that's the way God

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works. Israel suffers shipwreck. The temple is destroyed, the finest young people are carried into Babylonian captivity, but there emerges a new order, new hope. They are saved by shipwreck. So the restless sea breaks the ship asunder, but the passengers are tossed from the bosom of the sea to firm ground and they're

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saved by shipwreck. And that's sort of the story of life. Paul had his way of life wrecked on the Damascus Road. And he fell to the ground and he cried out, "Lord, what would you have me do? God spoke to him. He saved him by wrecking his life. That past was put aside and he started all over again. Hard circumstances we

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face. Here we are situated near the edge of the year. We have a little less time now than we had before, but we need not worry. We are somehow through the grace of God been brought through many circumstances, some storms, some sunny days we've had some no doubt shipwreck experiences but God through it all has

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worked for our redemption and the wonderful thing about it is when we find ourselves in the cross currents of life that God meets us in that situation that's exactly where he has put the cross the cross of Christ that if we understand the meaning of the cross of Christ, it's somehow when we find

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ourselves in the midst of the cross currents of life with all kinds of conditions and circumstances beating against us and right in the midst of it above it all is the cross. The cross that separates BC from AD, right in the center of life, the cross. The cross right in the midst of the cross currents, the cross is

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there, an emblem of suffering and yes an emblem of redemption, the cross, the cross, the cross, the cross. In the cross of Christ's high glory, towering over the wrecks of time, in the light A sacred story gathers round its head sublime. The cross, the cross, the cross, the cross. In the midst of all of the fears, in the midst of all of our frustrations,

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the cross is there as an emblem of redemption. The cross, the cross. Well, the ship is wrecked. You know they got rid of all the cargo. They started out gonna take some grain to Rome but in the process of making the journey and the storm raging they threw all the cargo, most of the cargo overboard and the ship

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is destroyed. And sometimes that's the way life is. Oh some of us have, if we look back over this past year. You've had some successes. Maybe you haven't done many of the things you'd like to do. Maybe some things haven't happened the way you'd like for them to happen. Maybe you haven't made the grades in college you'd like to make. Maybe you haven't had the kind of experiences all along the way. You've had some reverses. You put one foot forward and it looked like sometimes you've had to take two steps backwards. Sometimes that's happened. Part of living the Christian life is learning how to face shipwreck. Shipwreck.

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And some of us are at that stage. Some who hear me today. I remember Reverend S.M. Lockridge, one of our outstanding preachers who pastored the Calvary Baptist Church in San Diego, California. He was stricken and he was left partially paralyzed on one side and there were those who said to him, "How you gonna make it? You've lost the use of

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some of the members of your body. How you gonna serve?" He said, "Well I'm not so concerned about what I've lost." He said, "I'm just concerned about what I got left." And I'm not gonna serve God with what I've got left. Some of us have wasted some hours, we've wasted some years,

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but serve God with what you have left. Serve God with what is left, given what's left. Hopes may have been shattered, you may have suffered crushing disappointments,

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You may have experienced the loss of health or the loss of loved ones and friends, but whatever may have happened back there, serve God with what you've got left. Keep the faith, for we're saved by shipwreck. God comes to us in our crisis experiences. He comes and redeems us. You know it's amazing how God comes to us in the midst of shipwreck. It's amazing. It's amazing. I've in the course of my ministry I've listened to people say

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you know Reverend I've tried everything. I've tried dope, I've tried alcohol, I've tried gambling, I've tried all the ways of the world, Reverend, you name it I've tried it but I found out it doesn't work. Now finally I've decided to give my life to Jesus Christ. Somehow those things pushed them on and on until they recognized

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that their only way to live life abundantly was to commit one's life to Christ, saved by shipwreck. Saved by shipwreck. It's amazing. It's amazing. It's amazing that we're here. It's amazing. John Fort Newton engaged in the slave trade. He was making money selling black people. He made many trips across the

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seas. He had an anxious mother who tried to talk to him about it but he didn't care as long as he was making money he was doing all right. But he came through a great storm in which the ship was threatened being utterly destroyed but somehow by the grace of God he came through it. And after it was all over he wrote the words of that immortal hymn

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amazing grace how sweet the sound. To save the wretch like me I once was lost but now I am found, was blind but now I see." And it is amazing. You know we don't care who wrote it, we know that somehow that it expresses our testimony. We know that that experience has been ours, that it's amazing how God has brought us from where we were to where we are today. it's amazing. It's amazing how God lifts us up from the muck and mar and puts our

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feet on a solid rock, puts a new song in our mouths. It's amazing. It's amazing. It's amazing. We know that by the grace of God we've come. It's amazing that he He saves us by shipwrecking. It's amazing.

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We ask you now, as we give thanks to God for having brought us thus far along life's way, that somehow each one of us can make our way across the ocean.

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Maybe you'll find this way in history and never let it go away from you. (upbeat jazz music) (upbeat jazz music)

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(soft jazz music) (upbeat jazz music) (audience chatter) (gentle piano music)

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(upbeat jazz music) (upbeat jazz music) (upbeat jazz music) [MUSIC PLAYING]

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[MUSIC] [ Music ] [MUSIC] ♪ The sea, the sky ♪

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♪ Has saved a wretch like me ♪ I was one voice, and now I'm alone. ♪ One eye ♪ ♪ One mouth ♪

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♪ I see ♪ ♪ A face ♪ ♪ Like Paul ♪ ♪ My heart ♪

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♪ Should be ♪ ♪ My grace ♪ ♪ My peace ♪ ♪ With Thee ♪

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♪ Our prayers ♪ ♪ Are deep ♪ ♪ And praise ♪ ♪ The King ♪

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♪ He loves ♪ ♪ Our faith ♪ ♪ Believe ♪ ♪ Look in ♪

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♪ His name ♪ ♪ The Lord ♪ ♪ And say ♪ ♪ I have always belonged ♪

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♪ But this time I'm gonna be saved ♪ ♪ Jesus, Lord, we sing of Thee ♪ ♪ We sing of Thee ♪ ♪ Our prayers will be heard ♪

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♪ Will live ♪ ♪ Behold ♪ ♪ He lives ♪ ♪ In heaven ♪

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♪ Thou ♪ ♪ All the years ♪ ♪ I've shined ♪ ♪ In the sun ♪

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♪ The sun ♪ ♪ In the ♪ ♪ In the ♪ ♪ Let's sing ♪

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♪ Oh say ♪ ♪ Does that star spangled banner yet wave ♪ ♪ O'er the land of the free ♪ [Music]

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