Joyfully Awaiting Christ
1 Thessalonians 1:7-10
So that you were ensamples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia.…


It was an old woman who said — "Is He not a precious Saviour? so great and good, and willing to save all us poor sinners!" She was lying on a hard bed in the dreary infirmary ward of a workhouse; and the power of faith and love to create a happiness independent of circumstances came out with almost startling force in her answer to the inquiry, "You know Him then, and love Him?" "Yes; I do know Him, and love Him: His presence makes a heaven of this room. If you heaped up my bed with gold and silver," she added; "and if you could give me the queen's carriage and horses, and her palace and her garden, and all her beautiful flowers, and health and strength to enjoy it all, I would not take them, if they would hinder me from going home to my Saviour. They talk of the pains of dying: what will they be to me? They will but hurry me to heaven and to Jesus." Delivered from the wrath to come: —

I. THE AWFUL DESTRUCTION REFERRED TO.

1. The actual infliction of the Divine displeasure (Psalm 11:6). Shut out —

(1)  From heaven.

(2)  From God.

(3)  Into miseries.

(4)  And torments.

2. This wrath will respect body and soul (Matthew 10:28).

3. This intense fierceness of wrath is to come (Romans 2:5).

4. This punishment will be eternal (Mark 9:44).

II. A BLESSED LIBERATION DECLARED.

1. From the sentence of wrath (Romans 8:1).

2. From meetness to this wrath (Romans 6:14).

3. From the gloomy forebodings of wrath (1 John 4:18).

4. From the possibility of wrath (Colossians 3:3).

III. THE GLORIOUS DELIVERER ANNOUNCED, EVEN JESUS.

1. Meritoriously by Jesus Christ (Colossians 1:14);

2. Instrumentally by His Word (John 8:32);

3. Efficiently by His Spirit (Romans 8:14);

4. God will deliver us personally and eternally (2 Timothy 4:8).

(T. B. Baker.)



Parallel Verses
KJV: So that ye were ensamples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia.

WEB: so that you became an example to all who believe in Macedonia and in Achaia.




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