The Danger of Drift

Scripture Reading: Hebrews 2:1

Years ago the manager of the branch of the company I was working for told me about his weekend mishap. He had taken his small houseboat out on a lake in the area. It was late Saturday evening and he had just eaten dinner and was sitting on a chair, relaxing, watching the sunset while the boat gently rose and fell with the movement of the water. Eventually, he drifted off to sleep and stayed asleep for several hours. When he finally woke up he discovered that his boat had drifted into a shallow cove and become hung up on a sand bar. There was nothing he could do to dislodge his boat so, he had to just sit and wait for someone to happen by and help tow him out to deeper water. (This was pre-cellphone days, so he couldn’t call for help).

This, in a spiritual context, is what the writer of Hebrews is warning against. My boss didn’t intend to drift into shallow water and get himself stuck there. It wasn’t done on purpose. The mistake he made was not being anchored and then drifting off to sleep. The writer of Hebrews is trying to anchor us to Christ. He is trying to stir us up into wakefulness because if we are asleep and unanchored we will drift away from the truth.

While some people willfully walk away from the faith, most who leave do it gradually. They slowly drift with small compromises and incremental unbelief. They are rocked to sleep by the world’s waves and carried along by the devil’s deceptions until they crash against the rocks and are sunk in a sea of sin.

Therefore, “we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.”