The Anchor Will Hold When The Rudder Fails
"And when they had taken up the anchors, they committed themselves unto the sea, and loosed the rudder bands, and hoisted up the mainsail 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 hinder part was broken with the violence of the waves." (Acts 27:40,41)
In these verses an account is given of a shipwreck which could have been as disastrous to the crew and passengers as it was to the cargo, which had to be thrown overboard in order to lighten the ship. You will notice that this wreck occurred after they had lifted anchor and loosed the rudder bands. The rudder was supposed to be a guide to the ship, but in this case it was not strong enough to buck the storm-tide. It is surprising that the seasoned sailors aboard did not realize that it would have been much safer to have remained at anchor. A good, strong anchor could have kept the ship from being carried away by the currents of the converging seas. The rudder could not accomplish this. Thus is the thought suggested, that the anchor will hold when the rudder fails.
The thought is not original with me that we are all "ships afloat on the sea of life." This being true, there is the constant danger of running aground on the sandbars of sin, making shipwreck of our faith and our hope. In 1 Timothy 1:19, the apostle Paul speaks of those who "concerning faith have made shipwreck." We are all acquainted with individuals who were once stalwart vessels but now are hopeless derelicts with souls torn asunder, as it were, from bow to stern. The sea on which we sail is a stormy one with currents, if we permit it, dragging us ever closer and closer to the shores of disaster and ruin.
These currents are the uninspired philosophies of men, the human opinions concerning things divine. These dangerous currents have always flowed. The Son of God spoke of those in His day who, "In vain do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." Paul found it necessary to warn against the commandments and doctrines of men, which had a show of wisdom in will worship. (Colossians 2:22, 23) Whenever man pits his mind against the mind of God and injects his will into things which partake of a divine nature, he is "intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind." Will we never learn that "it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps?" Paul in his first epistle to the Corinthians wrote, "The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.... but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise." Then he tells us in chapter 2 of the same letter, "....your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God." But in spite of this plain teaching the currents still rage. On such a sea as this a rudder is of little use; an anchor is indicated.
A ship's rudder is its guiding instrument. In this respect it could be a figure of the creeds, confessions of faith, manuals, and other formulations of sectarianism; for these are designed by the devil to guide men into the currents of fallible philosophy. These humanly-wrought books cannot prevail against the dangers of the wave. The ship guided by them is at the mercy of the billows. Either they contain less than they should, or they contain more than they should, or they contain something other than they should.
Some feel that the human conscience is the rudder of the ship. We have all heard the advice, "Just let your conscience be your guide." We have heard it said that it makes no difference what one believes, if he is really honest and sincere, But let me tell you, friend, that honesty is not enough and sincerity is not enough. It takes more than these to be pleasing in the eyes of Almighty God. Sincerity and honesty are both fine virtues, but it is possible to be honestly and sincerely wrong. A man might have a perfectly clear conscience and still be in error. The conscience is subject to education, and may not be properly educated. An enlightened conscience is a wonderful thing, but a deceived or neglected conscience is a very dangerous thing. With the currents of error all around us, we should not rely upon the rudder of our conscience to guide us. What we really need is an anchor; one that will hold; one that will not let us drift. I submit that we have such an anchor if we will use it. This is the anchor that will hold when the rudder fails. And the rudder is a failure from the beginning! What is this anchor?
The word of God alone will qualify. It is the one thing which can keep us from being tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. It is the one thing which can give us hope of eternal salvation, "Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast." (Heb. 6:19) Can a church manual give us this hope? Can subscribing to a certain discipline anchor us securely? Nay, these are no anchors. He who leaves the pages of divine revelation to follow these things, or to follow his own conscience in contradiction to God's unalterable word, is a sailor who lifts anchor and looses the rudder bands, like the sailors of our text. Shipwreck is as certain to follow.
Friend of mine, when you stand before your Lord in Judgment, He will not ask you if you believed the tenets of any denomination. He will not even ask you if your conscience is clear. But He will ask you concerning your attitude toward, and disposition of, His holy word. "The words that I have spoken, the same shall judge you in the last day." (John 12:48)
— 1364 Manzanita Ave., Chico, California