Evidences of Election

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1 Thessalonians 1:4-6

Knowing, brothers beloved, your election of God.…

I. THE WORD OF GOD COMING HOME WITH POWER. The power of the gospel —

1. Does not lie —

(1) In the preacher, otherwise men would be the converters of souls.

(2) Nor in the preacher s learning, or it would consist in the wisdom of men.

(3) Nor in the preacher's adaptation to his work; that is a secondary agency, not the cause.

(4) Nor in the pathos the preacher may employ. People may weep at a theatre. No, there is something more wanted. A half-drunken man said to Rowland Hill, "I am one of your converts." "Yes," said he, "I dare say you are one of mine; but if you were one of God's, you would not be in that state."

2. It does lie in the power of the Holy Ghost.

(1) Did you ever — never mind where — in listening to the Word, feel a Divine power coming with it? Not an impression — that may be wiped out — but a power convincing of sin, making you tremble under it, and then wooing you to Christ, in whom you believed and then became a changed man?

(2) And since that has the Word rebuked you, filled you with God's love and light and joy, and desire after holiness? If not, you lack a proof of your election. Not that it will be so every time, for the preacher is not always in a fit frame.

II. RECEIVING THE WORD WITH MUCH ASSURANCE — not full assurance; that comes afterwards. There are some people who play fast and loose with principles; put a hymn book in their pockets when they are going to meeting and a song book when they are going somewhere else. They can hold with the hare and run with the hounds. Such people have never much confidence in their religion: and it is very proper that they should not, for their religion is not worth the time they spend in making a profession of it. But the true Christian, when he gets hold of principles, keeps them. His religion is part of himself. He believes the truth, not because he has been taught it, but because it is true to him; like the servant girl who, when she could not answer her infidel master, said, "Sir, I cannot answer you, but I have a something in here that would, if it could speak." Now, if you have received the gospel with much assurance, you can say, "Christ is mine. I know that Christ is precious, not by 'Paley's Evidences' or 'Butler's Analogy,' but by my heart's inward evidence, the analogy of my soul's experience." If you can say that, whether you believe the doctrine of election or not, you are one of the elect.

III. BECOMING FOLLOWERS OF US AND OF THE LORD; by which the apostle does not mean that they said, "I am of Paul, I of Silas, I of Timothy." No, they imitated them so far as they imitated Christ. Are you Christ-like, or do you want to be? Can you forgive your enemy, love him, and do him good? Are you prayerful as Jesus was? If a man follow not Christ, whatever he may say about election he is not the Lord's.

IV. ENDURANCE OF AFFLICTION WITH JOY.

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