Why The Ship Is Sinking

  In 1628 the Swedish warship Vasa was set to take its maiden voyage.  The ship was built on the orders of the King of Sweden Gustavus Adolphus and was richly decorated as a symbol of the king's ambitions for Sweden and himself.  Upon completion she was one of the most powerfully armed vessels in the world. However the maiden voyage didn’t go that well.  Less than a mile offshore the ship encountered what was described as a slight breeze that capsized and sank it.

 

  How could such a powerful war ship go to the depths so easily?

 

  Well official inquires didn’t go too far, it seemed no one was willing to take the blame or the wrath of the King, but it was generally considered to have been built asymmetrically.  This caused the center of gravity to be off and therefore it took very little force to tip the ship.  Now how could this happen?

  Well archaeologists have found four rulers used by the workers; two turned out to be based on Swedish feet with 12 inches.  The other two used Amsterdam feet, with 11 inches.  One group worked on one side of the ship with their ruler, the other on the other side with their ruler.  The finished ship may have looked impressive, but it sank the minute it was faced with difficulty.

  The same thing I think is happening in our religious world today.  For a long time the thinking has been we all can use a different measure for our religious authority.  You have your doctrines and ideas and I will have mine.  It won’t matter because look at the magnificent creation we have made in our spirit of cooperation and togetherness.

  However now the winds of change are starting to blow and that ship is toppling over.  Without one set measure, one set rule, the house is crumbling.  Didn’t Jesus warn us that a house divided against itself cannot stand (Mark 3:25)? Yet we ignored him and now it seems that church groups can’t really stand up against any moral issue because they have compromised so much there is no center ground anymore.  That ship is sinking, before it could ever do battle!   

  It doesn’t have to be that way.  If everyone that claimed Jesus Christ would throw away the flawed measures we have created and agree to one rule, one measure, the ship could be righted.  If we used the measure of our King, found in his Word, the ship that would be created would be formable!  Nothing could defeat it (Matthew 6:18)

Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment.  

1 Corinthians 1:10 

  You can’t build a seaworthy ship with two different rulers. You can make have a structurally sound house with two different blueprints.  You can’t have a church that is truly his, if it ignores how He told us to build it.