{"id":41031,"date":"2015-10-12T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-10-12T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/captain-of-sinking-ship-gave-false-hope\/"},"modified":"2015-10-12T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-10-12T00:00:00","slug":"captain-of-sinking-ship-gave-false-hope","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/captain-of-sinking-ship-gave-false-hope\/","title":{"rendered":"Captain of Sinking Ship Gave False Hope"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The British ocean liner, the <em>R.M.S. Lusitania<\/em>, was struck by a torpedo from a German submarine on May 7, 1915. It appears that in an effort to minimize panic, the captain, William Thomas Turner, created a false sense of assurance. Shortly after the torpedo struck the liner, a fellow passenger, Charles Lauriat, heard a female passenger call out, &quot;Captain, what do you wish us to do?&quot; Author Erik Larson writes he replied, &quot;Stay right where you are, Madam, she&#39;s all right.&quot;<\/p>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>&quot;Where do you get your information?&quot; she asked. &quot;From the engine room, Madam,&quot; he said. But the engine room clearly had told him no such thing &hellip; Lauriat and the woman now headed back toward the stern, and as they walked they told other passengers what the captain had said. Second-class passenger Henry Needham may have encountered the pair, for he recalled that a passenger approaching from the direction of the bridge had shouted, &quot;The Captain says the boat will not sink.&quot;<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>&quot;The remark,&quot; Needham wrote, &quot;was greeted with cheers and I noticed many people who had been endeavoring to get a place in the boats, turned away in apparent contentment.&quot;<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Turner&#39;s words merely confirmed what the passengers and crew already believed, or wanted to believe: that no torpedo could cause the ship mortal damage.<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Of the 1,959 passengers aboard the <em>Lusitania<\/em>, 1,198 perished.<\/p>\n\n<p><em>Possible Preaching Angles: <strong>(1) Judgment; Hell; Warning<\/strong>&mdash;Jesus spoke about hell and judgment (as do other parts of Scripture) not to scare us, but to prepare us for what&#39;s really coming. <strong>(2) Honesty<\/strong>&mdash;This is also a good example of the need to speak the truth in love in Christian community.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3382,3677,3817,3884,3990,4134,4139,4164,4313,4774,4806],"tax_ctp_topics":[386,388],"class_list":["post-41031","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-admonition","tax_ctp_tags-consequences-of-sin","tax_ctp_tags-divine-judgment","tax_ctp_tags-eternal-death","tax_ctp_tags-final-judgment","tax_ctp_tags-heaven","tax_ctp_tags-hell","tax_ctp_tags-honesty","tax_ctp_tags-judgment","tax_ctp_tags-rebuke","tax_ctp_tags-reproof"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Captain of Sinking Ship Gave False Hope - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/captain-of-sinking-ship-gave-false-hope\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Captain of Sinking Ship Gave False Hope - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The British ocean liner, the R.M.S. 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