THE BEST NEWS OF ALL TIME!

"God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ." -I Thessalonians 5:9 [KJV]

Here is a precious negative, a glorious positive, and happy souls. Lord help us to meditate upon them, to our profit. (1st.) The negative. “God hath not appointed us to wrath.” St. Paul has in his eye, what our proud nature cannot bear to hear of, the sovereignty of God. It is as though he had said, we are all by nature children of wrath. We have all by practice deserved wrath. Here is myself, the other day I did not know the Son of God, but persecuted Him and His servants. If God had dealt with us according to our just deserts, we should have suffered His eternal wrath in hell. 

Is your conscience convinced of this? Do your eyes see it? Does your tongue confess this? Does your heart fear this? Rejoice with wonder. That just God, Who had a sovereign right, yet will not appoint you to wrath for your sins. If you have trembled under a sense of wrath, now rejoice at the sound of everlasting love. 

For, (2d.) Here is a glorious positive. “God hath appointed us to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.” Ye poor, shortsighted beings, who talk of a possible salvation—of being brought into a savable state—of a conditional salvation, suspended upon certain terms we are to perform, and of one knows not what unscriptural jargon. Behold and stand reproved. For ye weaken faith, deject hope, and damp love, in an absolute, sure, and certain salvation: appointed by God, for those who deserved wrath: even the salvation, the finished salvation of our Lord Christ. This, this is the blessed foundation for faith, the spring of hope, the source of love. 

(But 3d.) Who are appointed to obtain it? I hope we will allow the Lord of all, the liberty which we mortals take, of appointing whom He pleases to live with. US; (1st.) whom God hath pleased to appoint. (2d.) US, for whom Christ died. (3d.) US, who are not in darkness. (4th.) US, who are the children of the light, and of the day. These characters stand in the context. Are they yours? 

Has God,Who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, shined in your heart to give you the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ? Have you seen such glory in the face, the offices, the work of Christ, that you choose Him for your Saviour, and trust Him for your salvation? O fall down and adore sovereign love and free grace! God has as surely appointed you to salvation, as He did St. Paul or any of the apostles. Who shall disappoint God? If God be for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31.) 

 

We all deserve eternal wrath, 

As the just wages due to sin; 

But God appoints to all who’ve faith 

In Christ, salvation to obtain. 

Then what shall disappoint our God? 

Or ever frustrate His intent: 

O magnify His name abroad, 

And love and praise Him ev’ry saint.

 

-preacher Wm. Mason (1724-1797 A.D.)

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