Joyfully Awaiting Christ
T. B. Baker. 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.