Shipwrecked Faith and Satan's Seminary Text: 1 Timothy 1:18-20
Introduction: The Christian Life is a Fight
We live in an age that wants a soft Christianity. It wants a therapeutic savior, a God who is more of a celestial guidance counselor than a commanding general. It wants the crown without the conflict, the resurrection without the crucifixion, and the peace of the kingdom without the war that establishes it. But the Apostle Paul will have none of it. He writes to his young son in the faith, Timothy, not with platitudes and gentle reassurances, but with a soldier's commission. The Christian life is not a playground; it is a battlefield. And on this battlefield, there are real casualties, real shipwrecks, and real enemies.
Paul is not speaking in metaphors for hurt feelings. He is describing the grim reality of spiritual warfare. The charge he gives to Timothy is to "fight the good fight." This is not an optional extracurricular activity for the particularly zealous. This is the baseline definition of what it means to follow Christ in a fallen world. You are either a soldier or you are a deserter. There is no middle ground, no conscientious objector status in this war.
In our text today, Paul gets down to brass tacks. He explains the equipment necessary for this fight, the nature of the casualties that occur when that equipment is abandoned, and the extreme, last-resort measures that a good commander must sometimes take to deal with mutiny in the ranks. This is a hard passage for our soft generation. It speaks of faith, conscience, shipwreck, and handing men over to Satan. This is not seeker-sensitive language. It is the language of a church militant, a church that understands the stakes are eternal and that doctrinal and moral purity are not suggestions, but matters of spiritual life and death.
We must therefore gird ourselves to hear what the Spirit says to the churches. We must understand that the same charge given to Timothy is given to us. We are to fight. And to fight well, we must know what we are fighting with, what we are fighting for, and what happens to those who throw down their weapons and go over to the other side.
The Text
This command I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you may fight the good fight, keeping faith and a good conscience, which some, having rejected, suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith. Among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan, so that they will be taught not to blaspheme.
(1 Timothy 1:18-20 LSB)
The Prophetic Commission (v. 18)
Paul begins by grounding his command in the supernatural work of God.
"This command I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you may fight the good fight," (1 Timothy 1:18)
Paul's command to Timothy is not based on his personal preference or a mere strategic decision. It is rooted in the declared will of God. At some point, likely at Timothy's ordination, prophets had spoken over him, identifying him and setting him apart for the ministry. This was God's draft notice. Paul is reminding Timothy of this. He is saying, "Remember your commissioning. Remember that God Himself called you to this. This fight is not something you stumbled into; it is the very purpose for which you were set apart."
This is a profound encouragement. The fight is hard, the enemies are real, and the faint of heart will falter. Paul tells Timothy to draw strength from the fact that God has already spoken. God's prophecies are the Christian soldier's ammunition. When the battle is fierce, when you are tempted to doubt your calling, you are to look back to the sure word of God. God does not call men to a task and then fail to equip them. The prophecies were not just a nice ceremony; they were spiritual weapons. Timothy was to fight by them, empowered by the certainty of God's call on his life.
Every believer has a similar armory. We may not have had prophets lay hands on us in the same way, but we have the sure word of prophecy in the Scriptures. We have the promises of God, which are all Yes and Amen in Christ. We have the great commission. We have our baptism, which is God's public declaration over us, marking us as His own. We are to fight by these things. Our warfare is not a matter of screwing up our courage, but of remembering God's promises.
The Essential Equipment (v. 19a)
Next, Paul specifies the two essential pieces of equipment for this fight.
"keeping faith and a good conscience," (1 Timothy 1:19a LSB)
Think of this as the soldier's rifle and his body armor. You need both to survive and be effective. "Faith" here refers to the body of Christian truth, the objective doctrines of the gospel. This is the "what" you believe. It's the apostolic teaching that Paul has been defending throughout this chapter. You must hold fast to it, guard it, and refuse to compromise on it. This is your offensive weapon. You fight lies with truth.
But that is not enough. You must also keep "a good conscience." This is your moral integrity, your subjective walk with God. It is the body armor that protects your vitals. A good conscience is a conscience that has been cleansed by the blood of Christ and is kept clean through ongoing repentance and obedience. It is a conscience that does not accuse you before God, because you are walking in the light.
Notice the relationship between the two. They are inseparable. You cannot have one without the other for long. If you begin to compromise your conscience, allowing sin to take root, your heart will harden. And a hard heart cannot truly believe the soft truths of the gospel. You will begin to resent the faith that convicts you. Conversely, if you begin to drift from the true faith, your moral compass will lose its true north, and your conscience will become seared and unreliable. Sound doctrine and sound living are two sides of the same coin.
Doctrinal Shipwreck (v. 19b-20a)
Paul then provides a grim warning about what happens when this equipment is discarded.
"which some, having rejected, suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith. Among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander," (1 Timothy 1:19b-20a LSB)
The image is stark and terrifying. A shipwreck is not a minor setback. It is a total loss, a catastrophic failure. Paul is saying that some men, who were once sailing with the fleet, have run their lives onto the rocks. And what caused this shipwreck? They "rejected" a good conscience. The Greek word implies a forceful, deliberate shoving away. They had a conscience that was pricking them, warning them, telling them to turn back, and they actively, willfully pushed it aside.
The sequence is crucial. The moral failure came first. They rejected a good conscience. The doctrinal shipwreck was the result. This is almost always the pattern. Heresy does not typically begin with an honest intellectual mistake. It begins with a dishonest heart. It begins when a man wants to accommodate a pet sin, and so he must adjust his theology to make room for it. He shoves his conscience away, and his doctrine follows it overboard.
And Paul is not speaking in hypotheticals. He names names. Hymenaeus and Alexander. These were real men, known to Timothy and the church at Ephesus. This is not gossip; it is a pastoral warning shot across the bow. In 2 Timothy, we learn that Hymenaeus's specific error was teaching that the resurrection had already passed, which is a doctrine that overthrows the faith of some. This was not a small quibble. It was a first-order, faith-destroying heresy. And it began, Paul says, with them rejecting a good conscience. They made a shipwreck of their faith, and now they are a danger to other ships in the water.
Satan's Remedial School (v. 20b)
Faced with this mutiny, Paul took decisive, severe action.
"whom I have handed over to Satan, so that they will be taught not to blaspheme." (1 Timothy 1:20b LSB)
This is one of the most sobering phrases in the New Testament. What does it mean to hand someone over to Satan? This is the language of formal excommunication, the highest level of church discipline. The church is the kingdom of God, the place where Christ rules and protects His people. To be put out of the church is to be put back into the world, which the Bible describes as Satan's domain. He is the "god of this world" (2 Cor. 4:4). So, to hand someone over to Satan is to remove the church's protective hedge and formally declare that this person is, by their unrepentant sin and heresy, living as a subject of the enemy kingdom.
But notice the purpose. It is not ultimately punitive, but medicinal. It is a form of severe mercy. They are handed over "so that they will be taught not to blaspheme." The word for "taught" here is the word for child training or discipline. It carries the idea of learning a lesson through painful experience. Paul is putting them in Satan's remedial class. The goal is that the devil, their new headmaster, would beat them up so badly that they would come to their senses, repent of their blasphemy, and seek restoration with God and His people. This is exactly what Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 5, where a man in unrepentant sexual sin is to be handed over to Satan "for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord" (1 Cor. 5:5).
This is the loving discipline of a true father. It is not the weak indulgence of a modern church that is terrified of offending anyone. A church that refuses to practice discipline is a church that does not truly love its people. It is willing to let wolves remain among the sheep. It is willing to let a spiritual gangrene fester until it kills the whole body. Paul understood that the health of the whole church and the ultimate restoration of the sinner sometimes required this kind of radical spiritual surgery.
Conclusion: No Neutral Waters
The message for us is bracingly clear. We are in a war, and in this war, the condition of our conscience is a life-or-death matter. You cannot fight the good fight of faith while simultaneously waving a white flag of truce to your favorite sins. To do so is to invite shipwreck.
The modern church is filled with the wreckage of men and women who thought they could manage this contradiction. They thought they could maintain an orthodox confession while nurturing a corrupt conscience. But the rocks are unforgiving. Sooner or later, the crash comes. Their faith is shattered, and they often become the most bitter critics of the very truths they once professed.
We must therefore take Paul's charge to Timothy as our own. We must fight. And we must fight with both hands. In one hand, we must grip the faith once for all delivered to the saints. In the other, we must hold fast to a good conscience, kept clean by the blood of Jesus and quick to repent. We must understand that church discipline, all the way to its most severe forms, is not an act of hate, but a desperate, loving attempt to rescue sailors from their own self-inflicted shipwreck.
Let us therefore examine our own ships. Is the hull of our conscience sound? Are we holding fast to the true faith? Or are we ignoring the warning bells, shoving aside that nagging voice that tells us we are drifting toward the rocks? May God grant us the grace to be good soldiers, to keep the faith, to maintain a clear conscience, and to finish our course not as a wreck upon the rocks, but as a vessel sailing triumphantly into the harbor of our God.