Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3551
“For our Gospel came not unto you in word only,” etc., [down to] “from the wrath to come” 1 Thessalonians 1:5-10.
A WORKMAN likes to see that he has been doing something. It is very dispiriting if he has spent much toil and can see no result. God’s workmen by faith would continue still to labor, even if they saw nothing come of it, but it is much more comforting, much more easy for them to continue in service when they see that God is blessing them. Now it is not wrong for a Christian minister to speak about the conversions that have been worked under his ministry, for Paul says that he would have done so, only that others did it so constantly that there was no need of it. Paul, however, would not, under any circumstances, have done a wrong thing and, therefore, we gather that it is sometimes most allowable that we should see what has been done and should speak of it—and the more especially because if any good is done by any ministry, it is God that has done it—and all the glory is due to Him and to Him, alone!
Not to speak of what God has done would be ingratitude. It might have a semblance of humility, but in reality it would be disloyalty to the Most High. Paul, therefore, did not hesitate to speak of his converts at Thessalonica and of their good character—and of the good fruit which they had borne and the way in which they had spread abroad the Gospel. He did not boast—he gave God the glory of it, but he did speak of what had been done. And we think we may do the same in any measure in which God shall bless our work—any one of us may tell of it to the praise and glory of God and to the encouragement of our fellow laborers. Now the Apostle in this passage tells us what God had done at Thessalonica. We will proceed at once, for our text is long—we will proceed at once to the handling of it.
And you will note that he tells us, first, what he had preached at Thessalonica. Then how it had come to the people. And thirdly, what had been the result of this to themselves. And fourthly, what had been the result of it to other people. First, the Apostle tells us—
I. WHAT WAS PREACHED AT THESSALONICA. He says, “Our Gospel”—(note that word)—“Our Gospel came not unto you in word only.” Why does Paul call it, “our Gospel”? He did not invent it! He did not think it out and make it fresh every Sunday. No, it was Christ’s Gospellong before it was Paul’s Gospel. Yet he calls it our Gospel by way of distinction, for there were other gospels. There were those who came and said, “This is the Good News!” And others, on the other hand, who said, “Thisis the Good News,” but Paul says that there was another Gospel and he adds, “Yet not another, but there are some that trouble you.” He, therefore, put down his foot and he said, “Bring what gospels you like, each of you, but I have a Gospel which I preach, distinct from yours, and that Gospel it is which I have preached to the Thessalonians and which has not come to them in word only.” In these times, Beloved, there must be made a distinction between men’s gospel and God’s Gospel, for nowadays man’s gospel is popular enough. Somebody thinks until his head aches and he gets into nonsense—and then he comes and brings this forward as something fresh. Men go to the bottom of a subject until they stir the mud at the bottom and cannot see their own way, themselves, and nobody else can ei-ther—and then forthwith they come out with something marvelous! And, having used some words that are hard to pronounce and harder still to understand, they earn a cheap name for being great scholars and profound divines. Well, let such go their way—that is their gospel, but we have another Gospel from that—one which we have gained in another way and which we desire to propagate in another fashion! Paul said, “our Gospel,” then, by way of distinction.
But he also meant this—it was his Gospel because it had been committed to him. He had received it as a sacred deposit. He was, as it were, a steward for God—put into commission to preserve and keep alive the Truth of God in the world—and Paul did keep it unadulterated, so that when he closed his life he could say, “I have fought a good fight. I have kept the faith.” Whoever may have adulterated the Gospel, Paul did not. He gave it forth as Christ gave it to him. Oh, that each one of us who is called to preach the Gospel and, indeed, every church member would feel that the Truth of God is committed to us to keep it in the world! Our grandfathers kept it at the stake and on the cruel rack—and when they went in their chariots of fire to Heaven, they left the Truth to their sons to preserve. Handed down to us in the long line of martyrs and confessors, Covenanters and Puritans, what will we do with it now? Will we not feel that all the cost expended on it in the centuries past demands of us that we should spend the same—if there is a necessity for it—even our blood and that, while we live, it shall never be said that in our life, in our prayer, in our conversation, or in our preaching, the Gospel suffered anything at our hands? “I know whom I have believed,” said Paul, and, “I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him.” Or rather, as some read it, “He is able to keep my deposit, that which He committed to me to keep. Christ also will keep and preserve the Gospel pure and clear, even until time’s latest hour.” The Lord grant it, for His name’s sake!