Shipwrecked!

Learning from the Bible Bad Guys

by Jonathan C. Brentner

Book Review by Terry James

Have you ever thought, If I could just do that over again? Or thought, Wish I had made a different decision way back then…

I have done so many times over my many decades of life. It’s a common human trait to lament some of the mistakes we’ve made. But, of course, wishing makes no difference. It changes nothing. If is for children, as the lyrics to Roger Whittaker’s song goes.

To avoid having to constantly look back at our lives and say, “If only…” the avoidance must be accomplished through preventative action. We must prepare in some fashion so that we make wise decisions as they come in order to avoid looking back and having to say “If only…”.

Jonathan Brentner has given us a book that offers such wisdom—how to avoid the pitfalls of life that cause us to look back and have to say “If only…”.

The author has pulled the points of wisdom from the greatest of all works authored by the Greatest of all Authors. I’m referring, of course, to the Holy Bible, dictated to human writers by the Lord, Himself. One simply cannot go wrong under such direction.

Thus, Jonathan’s is a book that I can wholeheartedly recommend.

But I also think it is one of the truly unique concepts I’ve come across for helping us avoid the pitfalls of life as described above.

Shipwrecked!: Learning from the Bible Bad Guys is a title perfectly describing that unique concept. The author uses the mistakes made by some of biblical history’s most notorious rebels against God’s prescription for living.

He expertly weaves the narrative to present us with a colorful tapestry of how we shouldn’t conduct our lives. The reverse way of life to that conducted by the Bible’s “bad guys”—the correct way—as we proceed through our given years, thus is almost supernaturally, I think, etched into the reader’s realization.

As I say, Jonathan Brentner, a former pastor, has composed a unique and effective volume for how to avoid many pitfalls into which we are prone to plunge and, of course, later regret.

The emphasis is different in each case the author presents. A key theme of the book, however, always involves encouraging the reader to learn from the mistakes of the characters. Exhortation is geared toward encouraging us to apply Bible precepts rather than give into negative emotions and sinful desires.

A few examples of Brentner’s Bible “bad guys” and their choosing the wrong way are demonstrated in the following.   

• With Saul, we learn the importance of trusting God rather than religious behavior. In the second chapter, the author contrasts Saul’s behavior with that of Saul’s son Jonathan to show differing results that come from seeking to glorify God rather than self.
• Absalom was truly a ticking time bomb. His anger and bitterness toward his dad after Amnon raped Absalon’s sister, Tamar, festered inside him for many years. With Absalom, Brentner stresses the importance of dealing with anger quickly before it turns into a root of bitterness and affects those around us.
• With King Asa, Brentner explores the danger of forgetfulness in the matter of the importance of remembering all that God has done for us. As Christians who have been believers from an early age, it’s so easy to forget the wonder of the cross and all the answered prayers over the years.
• Cain shows us how one can be close to the Lord and not really know Him. In this chapter, Jonathan Brentner emphasizes the Gospel. Cain was not an atheist; he could never deny God’s existence. He even had arguments with him. But still, he never came to truly know the Lord or trust Him.
• John Mark shows us that failure does not have to be the final chapter in our lives. The author says he loved writing this chapter because of how it illustrates that God gives us chances after our failures. Despite the young man’s initial failure that led Paul to reject him, John Mark later became someone useful to the apostle and was used mightily by the Lord later in life.

These and many, many more illustrations make this a book that will enhance anyone’s life who applies these Bible truths to his or her spiritual heart.

The author says his desire in the book is to draw people away from merely relying upon worldly principles and religious behavior. He wishes to, instead, point them toward a true and vital walk with the Lord.

Jonathan writes, “Although I was truly a believer at the time, as a young pastor I treated God as though He was a vending machine. If I behaved a certain way, the Lord, I thought, would respond accordingly. Such was a recipe for disaster when my life went far off the tracks.”

He writes further, “My hope is that my book will help believers deal with emotions and desires when their lives turn out differently than how they imagined. Rather than give in to the negative emotions and desires, I prayerfully hope to draw them to the Gospel, God’s love for them, and their hope for eternity.”

In summary, he writes,” I also pray that many will come to know the Lord as their Savior as a result of reading Shipwrecked!”

Shipwrecked! Learning from the Bible Bad Guys

Author: Jonathan C. Brentner

Publisher: Bold Vision Books

ISBN: 0978946708-20-5

To order:

http://www.boldvisionbooks.com

The book is also available at amazon.com

Billy Graham
It was 1949, I’m almost sure. My mother dressed me in my Sunday finest, but we weren’t going to church.

Memories of those days revolve around going to church, the Seventh Street Bible Tabernacle on the corner of Derby and 7th street in Pekin, Illinois. As they say, when the doors opened, we were there.

It was a church that was nondenominational, yet loosely ensconced within an organization–the Independent Fundamentalist Churches of America. That association continues to offer the most biblically centered teaching to be found, in my view. And I mean to denigrate no other church organization.

We were going that day in 1949, I was told, to Peoria, a city about 10 miles across the Illinois River from Pekin. We often went there for Mom and her sister, Auntie Bet, to shop.

I hated those trips with all that was within me. A boy of 6 or 7 years of age gets no pleasure out of shopping trips–then, or now.

The only saving grace on those trips as I remember was that my Uncle Horace and I could sit and wait for Mother and his wife, sitting in his big, black Buick that I fantasized to be like the one driven by one of my radio heroes, the Green Hornet.

It was extremely humid and hot on those summer days in Peoria, but listening to my favorite baseball team play, whose big star was Stan the Man Musial, made the heat bearable.

So it was when Mom dressed me in my Sunday finest I wanted to know why I had to get dressed to go to Peoria. Usually, it was just shirt, shorts, and tennis shoes on those hot days.

We were going to hear a preacher speak about Jesus, I was told.

Oh, just going to church, huh? That was most likely my response.

You know how you have bits and memories from your childhood at that age. Well, mine, on this occasion, remains relatively clear in some spots, not so much so in others, and vivid yet again in others.

We arrived at this enormous building. It was probably just a very large church as compared to ours back in Pekin. What I remember most was descending into the basement area. The basement was cavernous, as I remember. People were milling, and chattering, and seemed excited about something.

It was a different atmosphere than the usual church setting back at the Seventh Street Bible Tabernacle, where people kind of talked softly, then settled in. But the congregants did quiet down finally, there were some hymns sung–probably a solo, too–then somebody introduced the speaker.

I remember a tall, thin man in a suit and tie of about my dad’s age stepping to a large podium. The eyes were what were so arresting, as I remember from my childhood perspective. Those eyes seemed to pierce right into your brain.

Next, the way he spoke captured my young imagination. He was an exciting guy, I could tell. He held captive my thoughts, although I can’t remember but two words he spoke that day in that huge basement.

The word were “Jesus Christ.”

This was my first awareness of Billy Graham. He had not yet made it big in conducting evangelistic crusades, etc. But, in my 6- or 7-year-old mind, this guy was a star, not unlike ol’ Stan the Man Musial.

Now, I was prone to mimic all of my heroes, whether it was the Green Hornet, Stan the Man, or…now…this preacher they said was Billy Graham.

I remember standing out in my backyard of the basement house where we lived (yes, there was just a basement at the time), and pretending I was Billy Graham, the guy in Peoria. I indeed gave a dynamic message that day–in my own mind.

Now, I’m not saying that it was Billy Graham who was responsible for the message that led me to accept Christ not long after that basement message he delivered and the “message” I thought I was preaching that day in the back yard. But I did come to know the Lord for salvation a short time later as a very young child.

What a homecoming the Lord must have prepared for this faithful servant! He also has one prepared for each of us who name the name of Jesus Christ, when we come to him through the portal of death as did this great man at age 99, or through the Rapture, which, literally, I believe, is on the very brink of happening.

–Terry