The sermon preached at the Society’s 186th Annual General Meeting by Mr Jabez R. Rutt, Pastor of Lamberhurst Strict Baptist Chapel, Kent.

‘For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance’ 1 Thessalonians 1.5.

We draw your attention to the Apostle Paul’s first epistle to the Thessalonians chapter 1 and the first part of verse 5: ‘For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance’. This is the apostle’s Gospel, which he received from heaven: that Divine commission that he had to go forward among the Gentiles to preach the everlasting Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Lord gave him great success; but as he mentions, the Holy Ghost is the vital necessity and power for the work.

When the apostle preached first in Thessalonica (as recorded in the seventeenth chapter of the Acts) the unbelieving Jews raised up a great tumult against him. Indeed almost wherever he went a great tumult was raised up, with men shouting that these men ‘have turned the world upside down’ (Acts 17.6). When the Gospel is preached with the power of the Holy Ghost it literally turns our world upside down.

We are in the world; we are of the world; we have a carnal nature; we are born in sin; we are shapen in iniquity; we believe in that fundamental Scriptural doctrine of the total depravity of man. Man fell into sin: it was a dreadful, utter, complete fall. And man has no ability whatsoever to deliver himself from that fall. But as Martin Luther learned, there is a solution which is entirely of the grace of God. As Paul says in his epistle to the Ephesians (2.8), ‘by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God’.

The Holy Spirit

So let us look firstly here in 1 Thessalonians 1.5: ‘and in the Holy Ghost’. We want to look at the Divine Person of the Holy Ghost. I purposely use that word Person: He is a Divine Person. He is not an emanation from the Godhead. He is not an attribute of Almighty God. He is the glorious third Person in the Trinity—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost proceeded forth from the Father and from the Son (cf. John 15.26). The Lord Jesus, preaching the everlasting Gospel, spoke to and taught His disciples saying, ‘I send the promise of my Father upon you’ (Luke 24.49)—that promise is the Holy Spirit.

Nothing can be done in a spiritual way without the Holy Ghost. The Divine work of the Spirit of God is vital. Hence He makes this distinction for the good news of salvation: ‘our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance’.

The Lord Jesus clearly and beautifully sets before us the sacred Person and work of the Spirit of God in that blessed discourse, in John 14, 15, and 16, which is usually referred to as His valedictory discourse. He says unto the disciples, ‘But the Comforter [capital C because He is a Divine Person], which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you’ (John 14.26). This glorious Divine Person is the Spirit of God. We would not say ‘He’ if referring to an attribute, but a Person.

In John 15 we read in verses 26 and 27, ‘But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me [that is the Divine work]: and ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning’. These Scriptures reveal to us the vital need of the Holy Ghost, the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. ‘He’ is what makes a true Christian believer: a person cannot be a true Christian unless the Holy Ghost makes them live and dwells in the heart. As the apostle says to the Ephesians, ‘And you hath he quickened, who were dead …’ (Ephesians 2.1).

The apostle when writing to the church at Corinth says ‘know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost’ (1 Corinthians 6.19); ‘know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you’ (1 Corinthians 3.16). How vital then that we ask the questions: Does the Spirit of God live in my heart? Has the Spirit of God quickened my soul to life? These are absolutely essential questions.

In the discourse in the Gospel according to John the Lord Jesus goes on in 16.7 to say, ‘Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you’. Here Jesus uses the personal pronoun—‘I will send him’. This is not an attribute: it is a glorious Divine Person, the third Person in the blessed Trinity, co-equal and co-eternal with the Father and with the Son. And we are given a solemn admonition in the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ: if we speak a word blasphemously against the Son it shall be forgiven, but if we speak a word blasphemously against the Holy Spirit it shall never be forgiven (cf. Matthew 12.32; Mark 3.28–29). Attributing the work of the Holy Spirit to the devil is a solemn, awful thing, a blasphemous thing to do. A person who does such shall never be forgiven.

These sacred doctrines are purposely set before us in the Word of God to instruct us that He is a Divine Person. When that blessed Divine Spirit was poured forth on the day of Pentecost, the promise of the Father was sent. The Spirit was poured forth from heaven in a sacred effusion of power and love and grace.

Jesus speaks further of the Spirit: ‘when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment’ (John 16.8). The Spirit did so when He came on the day of Pentecost, and He continues to do so. Men and women were convicted and convinced. It says He will reprove: if you have a marginal reference for the word reprove it probably says convince. It is a very strong word. He will absolutely convince: ‘he will reprove the world of sin’. He will convince you that you are a sinner; this is one of the marks or evidences of being possessed by the Holy Ghost. You do not just think, you know and feel that you are a sinner.

It says further in John 16.8, ‘and of righteousness’. God is righteous, pure and holy. In Isaiah we read: ‘Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts’ (Isaiah 6.3). He is the Eternal God who dwells in light inaccessible, unto which no man can approach, immortal and invisible (cf. 1 Timothy 6.16). Do you know you are sinners? Do you know that God is righteous and holy?

The passage in John also says ‘and of judgment’. When the Holy Spirit comes to a sinner’s heart, He convinces them that they must one day appear at the judgment seat of Jesus Christ and give an account before Almighty God for the whole of their life. ‘It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment’ (Hebrews 9.27). When the Spirit of God comes to the heart that is what He teaches: that we are lost sinners, fallen sons and daughters of Adam.

The Holy Spirit teaches from the Word of God, since He is the author of the Word of God—‘holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost’ (2 Peter 1.21). We can absolutely depend upon the Word of God. We hear scholars say today, ah, but the Bible only contains the Word of God. However, we know that it is the Word of God, from Genesis to Revelation: it is the pure, holy, inerrant Word of God. We can absolutely depend on it. What is written here, in this blessed book, is the Word of God. It was inspired by the Divine and blessed Spirit of truth (John 14.17, 16.13).

It goes on in John 16.13 to say, ‘Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth’. He is the Spirit of truth, ‘for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come’. The Spirit is a revealer: He reveals things to those souls whom He has quickened. He reveals their sinfulness; He reveals the holiness of God; He reveals the day of judgment; He reveals Christ: ‘He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you’ (verse 14). How vital, how essential, is the Divine work of the Holy Spirit in the heart! How vital it is that we have a living experience of God’s Word!

In Word Only

Our Gospel—the Gospel of the grace of God in Jesus Christ—if it comes unto you in word only it will only enter your intellect. In 1 Thessalonians 1.5 Paul is making a distinction from those who have only an intellectual understanding of the truth. They might have sat under a very sound ministry; they might have been clearly catechised (and I am not speaking against that); they might have been taught in the faith and know the truth of God. But they know it only in the head: they have only an intellectual understanding. It might be a very good, sound, expansive intellectual knowledge, but if it is only intellectual it is not living: it is in word only.

Paul says concerning the faith of the Thessalonians that it was not in word only but in power; and that is what we so need: the Divine power of the Holy Ghost. The beautiful epistles of Paul are so deeply instructive to us in the ways of truth and righteousness and the spiritual understanding of the Word of God. In 1 Corinthians, 2.9–11, he says to those at Corinth,

But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.

What a wonderful testimony if we have that witness: the witness of the Spirit in our heart that we are the children of God! Paul goes on to say (verses 12–13),

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

What it means here is comparing Scripture with Scripture. Then Paul writes (verses 14–16) a most important doctrine of our most holy faith.

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.

The apostle speaks very emphatically concerning the Spirit of God: ‘If any man have not the Spirit of Christ’—this means the Holy Ghost, because they are one—‘he is none of his’ (Romans 8.9). In 1 Corinthians 12.3 he says, ‘no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost’. He means in a living vital way: to be able to say He is my Lord. Not just any lord: He is my Lord; He is my Saviour; He is my Redeemer; He is my Deliverer.

In Power

Let us return to our passage in 1 Thessalonians: ‘For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance’. In power: have we known the power of the Gospel? Has it reached into our hearts? Has it changed our lives?

We read in the Holy Scriptures of the graces of the Spirit (Galatians 5.22–23)—brought when the Holy Spirit dwells in a poor sinner’s heart, when He brings you into union with Christ. But how does He bring us into union with Christ? He gives faith. Faith is the gift of God; it is a Divine work, a Divine grace of the Holy Ghost wrought in the heart. How vital it is!

I remember years ago reading—I think it was in William Gurnall’s Christian in Complete Armour—of the graces of the Spirit. Faith works with love, patience, humility, repentance: these are some of the Divine graces of the Spirit of God. What so enlightened me was this: He said that these graces never come alone, one at a time. You cannot have faith without repentance; you cannot have faith without love. They are like the five fingers of a man’s hand: it is not a complete hand if one of them is missing. And so it is that the Divine graces of the Holy Ghost are wrought in the heart of the true believer. The Spirit of God gives faith.

What does faith do? It looks alone to the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith lays hold of Christ. It is like that woman who came pressing through the crowd when Christ was here on earth. What did she say? ‘If I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole’; and He replied, ‘Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole’ (Matthew 9.21–22). It was the Spirit of faith that led her to Christ.

But mark this: faith does not come alone; there must be repentance. The actual literal meaning of repentance is to turn right around completely. By nature we are dead in trespasses and sins. The world is our element. But when the Spirit of God gives real faith and repentance we turn right around. The apostle calls it ‘repentance toward God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ’ (Acts 20.21).

What a glorious active grace repentance is. I find a lot of people confuse the doctrine of repentance with sorrow; because a person has lots of tears they believe it is real repentance. And indeed true, real repentance will produce Godly sorrow, a ‘repentance to salvation not to be repented of’ (2 Corinthians 7.10). So where do we find real repentance? Where do we find the Spirit of faith in all its glory and loveliness? At the cross of Christ.

I look back into my own personal spiritual experience in my late teens. I was here in the city of London and the Lord began to work in my heart. I had gone away from a Godly home and thought ‘I will have my freedom and do what I want to do’. I say that to my shame. The Lord had other ideas—for which I am very thankful—and began to work in my heart and soul. For some two years the Spirit of God convicted and convinced me more and more that I was a sinner before a Holy God.

One day I had a sense of the majesty and the holiness of Almighty God. It made me tremble. I was rooted to the very spot; the holiness and the majesty of God struck me with awe. This is not everyone’s experience, so please don’t think that I am setting my own experience for everyone else to follow; that is not the case. On the day after this experience I went into my office all alone and instead of a sense of awe of God, of His majesty, I felt enmity. I remember shouting out loud: I will not have this man to rule over me (cf. Luke 19.14). O the terrible enmity that rose up in my heart: ‘the carnal mind is enmity against God’ (Romans 8.7). I look back to that experience and realise that the Lord taught me things that have come out so clearly since I have been in the ministry. ‘ It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy’ (Romans 9.16). I was running in the opposite direction, and even when the Lord showed me His holiness and majesty my heart rose up in terrible enmity against this holy, holy, holy God.

In His great grace the Lord did not take me at my word that day. Over the next two years, by His Spirit He convinced me and convicted me day after day what a sinner I was, how wretched I was, how ruined I was, how undone I was. I was in such terrible darkness and suffered such awful temptations and such terrible bondage. I believed that God could never have mercy upon such a wretched, rebellious sinner. I couldn’t possibly see how it could be otherwise!

I began attending the means of grace: I was listening to the preaching of the Gospel. That preaching was to me a reminder that I was too great and too awful a sinner. I had rejected this great God of love and grace. But in the most sovereign way—when I was brought absolutely to the end of myself—the Lord appeared. I came home from work, all alone, and picked a book off my father’s bookshelf: it was a book of sermons by J. C. Philpot. I opened it to a sermon on the text ‘ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may … know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge’ (Ephesians 3.17–19). The scales fell off my eyes, and light, life, and liberty flowed into my heart: O the preciousness of Christ!

Before, wherever I went, everything was all darkness and bondage and there was no hope. Now I went out for a walk in the fields near where I used to live, and all the trees of the field clapped their hands. Everything had changed: such light, life and liberty filled my heart. Christ was so precious to my soul; He was the altogether lovely One, the chiefest among ten thousand. The Gospel had come to me not in word only, but also in power. It absolutely changed my life: it turned me right around. From that time you could not keep me out of the Word of God. Every single day I searched the Holy Scriptures, and learned the precious and wonderful things that the Holy Spirit revealed to me in the person of Christ, in the Word of God, the way of truth!

In much assurance

‘For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance’. That assurance of faith comes when Christ is made so precious to your soul. You can look back at the way the Lord has led you and the wonderful things He revealed to you. But as the Christian believer goes on there is still that Divine witness of the Spirit with our spirit. There is still the conviction of sin, and it gets deeper and deeper as the Holy Spirit reveals to you more of your sin. He witnesses with your spirit, giving you a tender conscience. You delve more deeply into that word in Jeremiah by the teaching of the Spirit, ‘the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked’ (Jeremiah 17.9).

There is a balance in Divine teaching. As you go forward in the Christian journey, as you are taught more deeply your sinfulness, so the blessed Spirit will lead you more fully, more clearly to view the glorious Person of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The more you feel yourself a sinner, the more you feel the preciousness of Christ.

If ever my poor soul be saved
’Tis Christ must be the way.¹

So Christ becomes the centre, the sum and substance of all your hopes and desires. As the Spirit of God deepens that work of grace in the heart and shows you more clearly what you are, He will lead you more clearly to see Christ.

As the Spirit deepens the work in the heart, He will bring us to Calvary, to Gethsemane; He will bring us to that place where the Saviour bore the sins of His people. This is the Divine work of the Spirit: to show you that you are a poor lost sinner, but also that Jesus is an Almighty Saviour.

In the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah we read that our gracious eternal Father laid upon His only begotten Son the iniquity of us all. When you catch a sight of that dear Saviour in your wretched place and stead, you will have a sacred realisation given to you that ‘he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed’ (Isaiah 53.5). So the blessed Spirit leads you more fully to view and to see this glorious Saviour.

Often I look at it like this: when the children of Israel sinned grievously against the Lord He sent fiery serpents among them and whoever was bitten died. But Moses cried unto the Lord and was then commanded to make a brazen serpent and to lift it up amidst the camp of Israel and whoever looked on that serpent was saved (Numbers 21). It was the serpent-bitten ones that needed to look; and it is those who have been taught of the Spirit that they are sinners that need to look to Christ. Those in the immediate vicinity where that serpent was would have looked at it and would have seen all the details of that serpent. Those right on the periphery of the camp of Israel could only see the brazen serpent in the distance and yet in looking they still lived.

It is not the depth of your experience: those that were close saw it very clearly, very beautifully; they could see all the details. Those in the distance could not see all the details but they still lived. So it is with the Gospel. Some are brought really close to Christ; they have close union with Christ, such clear views of Him and His glorious sin-atoning sacrifice. Others on the periphery of the camp cannot tell you all the great details of the doctrine of truth, but they look and live. Have you looked? ‘Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else’ (Isaiah 45.22). Look unto Jesus: ‘looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God’ (Hebrews 12.2).

I have spoken of my early experience, of what is commonly known as being under the law and the deep sense of sin and wretchedness. But if the blessed Spirit brings you to Calvary to view the glorious Person of the Son of God, manifest in the flesh, crucified, wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, you will know deeper conviction of sin than you knew under the law. You will see what your sins have done to your holy blessed Saviour. Then you weep tears of deep repentance and feel Godly sorrow. You grieve over the awful heinousness of sin when you see it in the sufferings of Jesus Christ.

That holy sinless life the Saviour lived as a man here below fulfilled the holy law of God. ‘Think not that I am come to destroy the law … but to fulfil’ (Matthew 5.17): and that is what Christ has done. He has fulfilled that holy law on behalf of His people in every jot and every tittle. He was made of a woman—think of the natural condescension of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who left the bosom of His Holy Father. He came into this sin-cursed world, and lived perfectly obedient to the holy law that He had given. Why? Love: infinite, Divine love. ‘God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son’ (John 3.16).

The Lord Jesus Christ is the righteousness of the church, an everlasting righteousness. He is Jehovah Tsidkenu ‘the LORD our righteousness’ (Jeremiah 23.6). We have been thinking recently of Luther and ‘the just shall live by faith’ (Romans 1.17). We are justified: by faith in Jesus Christ, by faith in His glorious righteousness, by faith in His holy sin-atoning sacrifice. In the precious sin-atoning blood that He shed, there is an atonement that has been made for sin.

All penal wrath to Zion due,
Infinite justice on him threw.²

We can never begin to enter into the depths of the agonies and sorrow and the tremendous weight and burden of the sin of the whole church that was laid on Christ. We are given tiny glimpses of His being in agony: His sweat as drops of blood falling down to the ground. But then you see sin in its true light when you have a view by faith of that blessed Saviour in your wretched place: suffering, bleeding, and dying for you.

The Holy Spirit opens up to us the Word of God and you get a clear sight of the Divine nature of the eternal Son of God: ‘the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth’ (John 1.14). That is Christ and that is the centre, sum, and substance of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I remember years ago a man writing to me who said in his letter, ‘Why is it that you are always speaking on the person of Christ?’ I thought, ‘Man, what am I supposed to preach?’ ‘We preach Christ crucified’ (1 Corinthians 1.23). This is the everlasting Gospel, centred in Peter’s glorious, eternal confession, ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God’, to which Christ replied, ‘Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven … and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it’ (Matthew 16.16–18). They will try but they never will prevail against this glorious Saviour. ‘Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ’ (1 Corinthians 3.11). This is the eternal foundation.

When the Apostle Paul was writing to his son in the faith Timothy, he spoke of how the Lord called him by His grace although he had persecuted the church and was a blasphemer. Then he breaks out into those beautiful words, ‘Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen’ (1 Timothy 1.17). He was meditating on the work of the Spirit in his own heart and how the Lord had led him to the glorious Person of Jesus Christ, and he saw Him as his only Redeemer, his only Saviour, the immovable rock, the eternal rock of ages.

‘For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Ghost and in much assurance’. That sweet assurance of faith, that lovely work: as Paul says in Galatians 4.6, ‘God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father’. Notice the connection of the three Persons of the Trinity: all are involved in our salvation.

Sometimes we can get a wrong view and think of the Father as being some austere Being sitting up in heaven who cannot be approached: an angry God. What a totally perverse view that is! He is the most loving, gracious God. Think of the words of Christ, ‘for the Father himself loveth you’ (John 16.27). Jeremiah quotes the Father as saying, ‘Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee’ (Jeremiah 31.3). Where have we been drawn to? To the glorious Person of Christ. That glorious sacrifice on the cross of Calvary, that atonement for sin, at one moment unites together the Triune God and sinners; there we were reconciled. It is there that peace was made between God and man, and the Eternal Father is well pleased.

It is for His righteousness’ sake—it can never be for your righteousness since ‘all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags’ (Isaiah 64.6). We are all as an unclean thing; we go forth from the womb ‘speaking lies in hypocrisy’ (1 Timothy 4.2). You may accuse me of painting a pretty black view of human nature. But I can’t paint it black enough. You are a lost sinner. There is only one Saviour, Jesus Christ, who is ‘the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever’ (Hebrews 13.8). But think too of that precious sin-atoning blood of the Saviour: ‘the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin’ (1 John 1.7).

The Holy Spirit brings you close to that Saviour, close to that cross and that precious sin-atoning blood. And all the dignity and worth of that precious blood is in this: that He is the eternal only begotten Son of the Father. There is an infinite fulness in the blood of Christ: it cleanses away absolutely the sin of the whole true church of God. Peter says, ‘forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot’ (1 Peter 1.18–19), ‘the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world’ (Revelation 13.8). Oh that precious sin-atoning blood! Is the blood of Christ precious to you? He poured out His life. We read in Leviticus, ‘he shall even pour out the blood thereof … the blood of it is for the life thereof’ (Leviticus 17.13–14). Some speak of Christ on Calvary as if He were at the mercy of all His enemies and died in utter weakness. What a perverse view of the truth! Jesus said regarding His life, ‘No man taketh it from me … I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father’ (John 10.18).

The life Christ is speaking of is that holy human life that He took in the womb of the virgin Mary. How vital is that doctrine of the virgin birth to our most holy faith. If He had been born by natural generation, He would have been born in sin and shapen in iniquity as we are (cf. Psalm 51.5). Instead the Holy Ghost overshadowed Mary and that holy Child which was born of her was called the Son of God (see Luke 1.35): without sin, perfect, pure, holy. When my son was probably five or six years old, the local Church of England vicar used to come in and take the school assembly. My son came home one day and said, ‘Dad, Mr So-and-So said that the Lord Jesus was just like we are and He used to do wrong things. That is not right, Dad, is it’. How true; Jesus did not sin, He knew no sin.

Have you ever thought about the importance of that? If Jesus Christ had committed one sin—rejected be the very thought!—we would be lost for ever! That sacrifice, that precious blood, had to be pure and holy to make it an acceptable sacrifice. Jesus lived a pure and a holy life and offered a pure and holy sacrifice. He became a real man, had a real true nature, body and soul, lived here as a man: the Son of God was made flesh and dwelt among us, ‘tabernacled’ among us, was without sin. The matchless condescension of the Eternal God coming into this sin-cursed world, living as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, living a holy perfect life with His people, beset on every hand by the works of the devil and by sinful and wicked men until He offered that glorious sacrifice to put away sin. The world only ever needed that one glorious offering and will never be in need of any other offerings.

‘Now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself’ (Hebrews 9.26). The Lord Jesus Christ is a complete, perfect, Almighty Saviour who ‘is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them’ (Hebrews 7.25). As our theme verse (1 Thessalonians 1.5) says, ‘For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance’. It is a very blessed thing when Christ is revealed and light and life flow into the heart. He is the light of the world, and what a glorious light that shines.

Conclusion

When Christ was first revealed to me I was in utter darkness. It was as if I was shut up in a room in a prison and there were no windows, no light; there was absolute, utter darkness. If you walk out of a dark place into the bright sun it takes a while for your eyes to get used to the brightness of the light. When I was drawn to the Lord that night and the Gospel shone into my heart it was like the door opening and the sun shining so brightly I could hardly see. I could hardly see for the brightness that shone into my heart and soul. It set my heart free and I gained liberty.

But a solemn word: think of the ten virgins in Matthew 25. Five of them are wise, five are foolish. In the professing church of God on earth are those that claim that they love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and in truth. But the Lord who searches the heart and tries the reins (Jeremiah 17.10) can see clearly. There were five wise virgins who had oil for their lamps: they had grace; they had the Holy Ghost; they received the Word with power. The foolish— you and I could not tell any outward difference between them and the wise—they have no oil in their lamps; they had not the Holy Ghost; they had not the grace of God; they were empty. How searching our Lord Jesus Christ is; how we need to make our calling and election sure (2 Peter 1.10). We should seek those sweet confirmations from the Lord, asking Him to keep us close to Christ and give us a living experience of His truth day by day.

The wise virgins had what was needed, but the foolish did not. While the foolish virgins were gone, the bridegroom came—Christ came— and the wise virgins, who were ready, entered into the celestial city. The door was shut forever. They were shut in: they were in that glorious eternal covenant in Christ by the power of the Holy Ghost; they were in union and communion with Him; they loved Him. The foolish virgins had believed that they were right with Him, but there is more to real religion than thinking. They received the word in word only.

The foolish virgins even had an experience that they were His. Have you an experience that you are in Christ? When those foolish virgins came they said, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us’. But He said, ‘I know you not’ (Matthew 25.11– 12). In essence He was saying I did not know you in those eternal counsels of election and you were not among those that the Father has given to me; I did not know you when I was crucified on the cross on Calvary; I did not know you when I rose from the dead; I never knew you. Depart from me.

In another parable He speaks of the same thing: ‘Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord … And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me’ (Matthew 7.22–23). What a solemn thought!

How stands the case, my soul, with thee?
For heaven are thy credentials clear?
Is Jesus’ blood thy only plea?
Is He thy great forerunner there?³

I can think of nothing more solemn, more awful than to come to the day of judgment when, as clearly portrayed to us in Matthew 25, the whole world is gathered before Christ and He separates them into the goats and the sheep. He puts the sheep—those people that have grace—on the right hand and says, ‘Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world’ (verse 34). Come, my sheep, that know my voice. ‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls’ (Matthew 11.28–29).

Then He speaks to the goats on His left hand and says, ‘Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels’ (Matthew 25.41).

Where do you stand? Where do I stand? Are you safe in Christ? Are you following Christ? Are you a true believer in Christ? Have you been able to ‘lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and … run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God’ (Hebrews 12.1–2)? Oh my dear beloved friends, may the Lord be pleased to add His blessing to these few things that we have brought before you. ‘For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance’ (1 Thessalonians 1.5).

Endnotes:

1. D. Herbert in Gadsby’s Hymns no. 678.

2. W. Gadsby, Gadsby’s Hymns no. 536.

3. J. Kent, Young People’s Hymnal no. 235.

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