The Men of the Titanic

On the night of April 14, 1912, one of the worst maritime disasters in history occurred. The British luxury liner, Titanic, a 46,000 ton ship on her maiden voyage from Liverpool, England, to New York City, struck an iceberg about 95 miles south of the Grand Banks of New Foundland The ship that had been hailed unsinkable, because of its sixteen water – tight compartments, sank in just three hours. The iceberg had penetrated five of the compartments—one more than was considered possible in any single accident.

The captain of the ship had boasted that not even God could sink the ship. Because of the overconfidence of her builder, lifeboats had been provided for only a fraction of the passengers and crew. Some 2,220 persons were on board the giant ship; of these 1,513 lost their lives.

But as tragic as the disaster was, it has left us one of the greatest illustrations of sacrificial love in history. We are told that while the ship’s orchestra played “Nearer My God to Thee,” 1,513 brave souls, mostly men who had given up their places in the life boats for the women and children, gave their lives in the freezing waters of the North Atlantic. It was reported that some 600 widows of the Titanic disaster were left in Liverpool alone!

Recent investigations have shown that the metal of the Titanic was inferior. The mettle of the men of the Titanic was not!

Someone has reported that a recent survey asked the question, “Would you have given up your right to a seat in a lifeboat if you had been on the Titanic?” Forty-eight percent responded “No.” It would seem that this was a much safer place for women to live in, during the days when the Judeao-Christian ethic (or chivalry) was still alive.

How heroic these men of the Titanic were! But what they did was only what God’s Word demands of every Christian Husband. In Ephesians 5:25 we read, “Husbands, love your wives,as Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it.” So, the Christian husband is to demonstrate sacrificial love for his wife just as those men of the Titanic demonstrated their unselfish love for the women and children of the ill-fated ship, by giving their lives for them.

February has just passed. It is the month when we think a lot about the real meaning of love. So let me pose this question, “How much do you love your wife.” How have you demonstrated sacrificial love for her? Let me suggest some tangible ways that you can show her you love her. Think for a moment about some things that you are quite sure irritate you wife most and give them up. It may be a habit that annoys her, it may be a hobby that keeps you away too much, or it may be something else. Give it up if you love her. Make it your goal to change these things in order to demonstrate the reality of your love.

On the positive side, do something tangible for her. Send her flowers, open the car door for her, tell her that you love her, take her out to dinner—just the two of you, not just on Valentine’s Day, but all through the year.

Be like the men of the Titanic in demonstrating your love. Better still be Christ-like in your love for your wife. Christ proved His love for the church by paying the supreme sacrifice. How have you demonstrated your love for your wife?

Quotable Spurgeon

Quotes from The Quotable Spurgeon

Harold Publishing Company

From the introduction:

“The great German theologian and pastor Helmut Thielicke stated,” ‘Sell all the books you have…and buy Spurgeon.’”

“At the age of six…being already well able to read…[he] picked up a copy of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.  It fascinated him—actually, he read it over one hundred times during his life.”

“He said, ‘the revealed word awakened me; but it was the preached word that saved me; I now think I am bound never to preach a sermon without preaching to sinners.”

“Spurgeon was also tremendously sensitive to the absolute necessity of the work of the Holy Spirit in his pulpit style and ministry.”

“Many things could be said about Spurgeon’s preaching style, but perhaps central to it all was the fact that he was absolutely committed to the full authority of the Scriptures.”

“…for three years there were over one thousand people every Sunday turned away from the ten-thousand-seat-capacity Surrey Gardens Music Hall, where he preached to a packed building before the construction of the Metropolitan Tabernacle building.”

From the section titled “Preaching the Word.” pp. 207 – 232 (other sections include:  Evangelism, Prayer, His Holy Word, Living Faith, God’s Grace, Affliction, Sinful Nature, etc.)

“However learned, godly, and eloquent a minister may be, he is nothing without the Holy Spirit.”

“…men love spiritual warmth.  Cold truth, even cold gospel truth, is never attractive.  Ministers must be fervent, their spirits earnest, and their style energetic, or many will not come to them.  Religion is a dish to be served hot; once it becomes lukewarm it is sickening.  Our baptism must be with the Holy Spirit and with fire if we would win the masses to hear the gospel.”

“Let the preacher give his people food, and they will flock around him, even if the sounding brass of rhetoric and the tinkling cymbals of oratory are silent.”

“The best teachers are those who have labored to be understood by the dullest capacities.  Preachers who all along have aimed to suit the educated never become so simple or efficient as those who have made a point of explaining even the elements [basics] of faith to the ignorant.”

“The church has never had worse enemies than false teachers.  Infidels and persecutors do but mild injury to her, but her heretical preachers have been as evening wolves.”

Quotes on Preaching from Gathered Gold by John Blanchard

“If you shoot over the heads of your congregation, you don’t prove anything except that you don’t know how to shoot.”  - James Denney

“If it is bad to preach over people’s heads, not to preach to their heads at all is worse.”

-          James S. Stewart

“The Christian ministry exists for the promotion of holiness.” – Donald MacLeod

“My grand point in preaching is to break hard hearts, and to heal the broken one.” 

-           John Newton

“If we can teach Christ to our people, we teach them all.” – Richard Baxter

“There are three particular temptations that assail Christian leaders:  the temptation to shine, the temptation to whine and the temptation to recline.” – Anon

“A pleasing preacher is too often an appeasing preacher.” – Anon

“A self-serving minister is one of the most loathsome sights in all the world.”  

-          Walter J. Chantry”

“It has always been the mark of false prophets and preachers that they preached what people wanted to hear.”  - Peter DeJong

“I had rather be fully understood by ten than admired by ten thousand.” – Jonathan Edwards

“Popularity has killed more prophets than persecution.” – Vance Havner

“No man ought to be in a Christian pulpit who fears man more than God.” – William Still

“A man cannot really preach until preach he must.  If he can do something else, he probably should!” – Vance Havner

                 

“A man should only enter the Christian ministry if he cannot stay out of it.”

-          D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“I cannot recall, in any of my reading, a single instance of a prophet who applied for the job.”

-          A. W. Tozer

“Error in the pulpit is like fire in the hayloft.”  - Anon

“Preaching is truth through personality.” – Phillips Brooks

“I preached as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.” - Richard Baxter

“I go out to preach with two propositions in mind.  First, every person ought to give his life to Christ.  Second, whether or not anyone else gives him his life, I will give him mine.” 

-          Jonathan Edwards

“A minister without boldness is like a smooth file.” – William Gurnall

“A minister should go to every service as though it were the first, as though it could be the best, and as though it might be the last.” – Vance Havner

“I preach as though Christ was crucified yesterday, rose from the dead today and was coming back tomorrow.” – Martin Luther

“To me, the work of preaching is the highest and greatest and the most glorious calling to which anyone can be called.” – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“No man who is full of himself can ever truly preach the Christ who emptied himself.”

-          J. Sidlow Baxter

“No man can give at once the impressions that he himself is clever and that Jesus Christ is mighty to save.” – James Denney

“Make sure it is God’s trumpet you are blowing….” - W. Ian Thomas

“We must study as hard how to live well as how to preach well.” – Richard Baxter

“He will make the best divine that studies on his knees.” – John Flavel

“We should begin to pray before we kneel down and we should not cease when we rise up.”

-          C. H. Spurgeon

“A preacher should have the mind of a scholar, the heart of a child and the hide of a rhinoceros.  His biggest problem is how to toughen his hide without hardening his heart.” – Vance Havner

“If any minister can be satisfied without conversions, he shall have no conversions.”

-          C. H. Spurgeon