The Danger of Shipwreck
Robert Wurtz II
The bellows are burned, the lead is consumed by the fire; the founder is smelting in vain: for the wicked are not drawn off. Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the LORD hath rejected them (Jeremiah 6:29-30).
Having faith and a good conscience, which some having rejected, concerning the faith have suffered shipwreck. (1 Timothy 1:19)
An old-time preacher once said that a person should stop and consider how many means Jesus Christ is employing at this very moment to secure their repentance and salvation. The goodness of God leads people to repentance, and when that doesn’t work, He uses a plethora of means to cause one to consider their soul and need for Christ.
Since Genesis 6, we read of God “striving” with humankind and eventually striving no more. As individuals, we can rebel until God stops dealing with us. The same was true in the time of Jeremiah. God used the illustration of smelting, where dross is cleared from molten silver, to show His work striving with the wicked to repent. God “heated up” the lives of the Israelites like a smelter until the bellows caught fire and burned up. Think about the awesomeness of that picture.
When people don’t want conviction or reminders of their sins, they take measures to cut those reminders off. The time would fail to list the names of people who have cut me off in life simply because they won’t be reminded of God. Fighting God and His influence leaves a lot of innocent people behind. Rebellion is a hard taskmaster.
Smelting in Vain
The bellows are burned, the lead is consumed by the fire; the founder is smelting in vain: for the wicked are not drawn off. (Jeremiah 6:29)
A bellows is a big air pump you press down on to blow oxygen into a fire. It intensifies the heat until iron becomes red-hot and flows like a liquid. What an awful picture of people who refuse to turn to God no matter what He does to get their attention. For Israel, they often served false gods and idols. This is why He brought judgment. Matthew Henry once said, “God is never at a loss for a means of dealing with rebellious people; His quiver is always full.” Yet the sad reality is that God is “smelting” in vain. In other words, it’s useless to continue.
A similar picture is used regarding the conscience in which a person “sears” their conscience with a hot iron (hot poker or branding iron) by repeatedly transgressing it (1 Timothy 4:2). We get our English word cauterize from this word, and it means to be branded or seared into insensibility (numbness). They are “past feeling,” meaning they are past feeling any pricking of their conscience when they do evil (Ephesians 4:19). This Greek word means to cease from grief and become insensible or callous.
Reprobate Silver
Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the LORD hath rejected them. (Jeremiah 6:30 KJV)
Reprobate is a word seldom used today. It means rejected in the same way you would reject something that didn’t pass a quality inspection. God had done everything to clear the people of their sin and idolatry, and nothing worked. They were like silver that couldn’t be purified and was useless and rejected.
Have you ever seen a new silver coin? It looks new because somebody purified it. God wants people who are refined like a new silver coin. When we reject this process and rebel against God, we end up rejected and reprobated. We sear our conscience, and God gives us over to a reprobate mind to do evil without any pain of conscience. It’s as if He curses our conscience in response to our searing it.
As a youth pastor in the early 2000s, I warned teenagers about rebelling against God’s dealings. I used the illustration of a boat tethered to the shore and the boaters doing all they could to break free. “Just cut me loose, God! Just cut me loose!” Finally, God would give them their wish; they would break away and become almost unreachable or theologically, reprobated. Or as Paul put it, Having faith and a good conscience, which some having rejected, concerning the faith have suffered shipwreck. (1 Timothy 1:19)
False Commitments
I have seen hundreds or perhaps thousands of people commit to serving God over the years, yet they never followed through. We have all seen it. Was it not an insult to God to make a false commitment? When God’s goodness doesn’t work, the smelting process begins. The bellows are burning up from fanning the flames of adversity in their lives, yet they grow harder and more evil. They are treasuring up wrath against the day of judgment because they are treading underfoot the blood of Christ; they are trading almost nothing for their everlasting soul.
They don’t feel conviction or their conscience. The Holy Ghost is being grieved away, and their conscience is searing moment by moment with a hot iron. With each passing second, they are hardening and getting farther from God and the ark of safety. This is what “God, just cut me loose” looks like initially.
Looking Back
I look at young people who rejected Christ, who are now adults and tremble. These people have heard things that many prophets and great men desired to hear but did not hear. God has poured His Spirit on them and shown them many signs and wonders. Nevertheless, the rebellion and the reprobation process continues.
Today, many are “cut loose” from God and His influence. Like a boat carried adrift on the ocean, they are carried along by rebellion and sin. All the while, they add a spouse to their boat and then little babies and grand-babies. It’s a ship now in need of a miracle. Solomon understood this process when he wrote:
Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; […] Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil. (Ecclesiastes 12:1-8)