Forsaken Advice

What should I do when someone forsakes sound spiritual advice and suffers the consequences? Do I say, “I told you so!” and leave the person to suffer? Do I pretend nothing happened and enable them to keep making poor choices? Do I ignore them? When certain people scorned Paul’s advice and wound up in a storm that left them in grave danger, Paul did not simply say, “I told you so!” He did not enable them to continue to make poor choices. Nor did he ignore their pleas. Let’s pick up the text to see what he did.

Acts 27:21-26 “Since they had been without food for a long time, Paul stood up among them and said, ‘Men, you should have listened to me and not have set sail from Crete and incurred this injury and loss. Yet now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. For this very night there stood before me an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I worship, and he said, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul; you must stand before Caesar. And behold, God has granted you all those who sail with you.’ So take heart, men, for I have faith in God that it will be exactly as I have been told. But we must run aground on some island.”

The situation was dire, but Paul knew that God was still involved. When people don’t heed sound spiritual advice there are consequences. However, to repudiate them, to enable them, or ignore them is not right. Like Paul, we need to help them see their mistakes and learn from them while helping them to move forward.