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‘Faithful is He that calleth you, Who also will do it.’
1Th_5:24
I. ‘The calling’—what is it?—Every ‘call’ of God, when rightly interpreted, means either ‘Come to Me!’ or,’ Come nearer to Me!’ or, ‘Come back to Me!’ And every one of us has one or another of these ‘calls’ at this moment. But sometimes a ‘call’ takes a more definite shape. It is a ‘call’ to some specific work. Three things should generally combine to make that ‘call.’ A ‘call’ from the Holy Ghost within you; a ‘call’ of Providence; and a ‘call’ of the Church. If those three unite, the ‘call’ is real and probably imperative.
II. To what is God ‘faithful’?
(a) To you: ‘I will never leave you, or forsake you.’
(b) To His own work: ‘He Which hath begun a good work in you, will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.’
(c) To His own Word: ‘His Word continueth ever.’
(d) To His covenant: ‘My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of My lips.’
(e) And that beautiful ‘Nevertheless.’ ‘Nevertheless My loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer My faithfulness to fail.’
(f) And to Himself: ‘I am the Lord, I change not.’
III. And what will He do with us?—Everything. Everything. He will be to you the very God of peace. ‘And the very God of peace will sanctify you wholly; and your whole spirit and soul and body shall be preserved blameless until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ Is not it everything? ‘Faithful is He that calleth you, Who also will do it.’ Grand words! Too grand for the faithless one to ask; but not too grand for the Faithful One to do.
Rev. James Vaughan.
Illustration‘If any one should think that this text is unpractical, and that it might lead to spiritual pride or carelessness, let him remember where it comes; after what a long list of most minute commands and duties. And then let him look into his own heart, and he will find this, that the more confident we are at the beginning that we shall succeed, the better we always do everything. And he will fully feel how rightly it adjusts the whole subject. We are to “forgive,” to “rejoice,” to “pray,” and “praise”; never to “quench,” never to “despise” the Spirit’s work; to “prove,” to “hold fast,” to “abstain from all appearance of evil,” to be “holy,” “perfect,” and “blameless.” But all the while, when we have done it all—we are laid in the dust, while it is our faithful God, and only He, Who did it all.’
PERSEVERANCE
I. It would be absolutely unnecessary for St. Paul to pray that the gift of perseverance might be given to his converts if any such theory were true as that, once saved always saved. It is perfectly obvious that if once saved always saved, if St. Paul had believed that, then he certainly would not have prayed that their salvation might go on, that they might have the gift of perseverance.
II. The gift of perseverance is not the same as perseverance in us; the gift of perseverance is a power given to us by God in order that there may come out in us the fruit of perseverance. They are two distinct things; sometimes the gift of perseverance has been spoken of as passive perseverance; while the result in us is spoken of as active perseverance. We must not analyse too much in that direction. The gift of perseverance is that power given to us by God to enable us to bring out in our lives the power of perseverance.
III. By what means or conditions, by what inner conditions, shall we best keep the gift of perseverance that God gives us?
(a) The first is said to be fidelity to grace; our being faithful to the grace that God gives us.
(b) The next is the following the impulses of grace in our action, in our heart, in our affections; the allowing our heart to play upon those things which God’s grace points out as fit subjects for our regard, our love, our devotion.
And the third thing meant by fidelity to grace is this: the being faithful to the action of the Holy Spirit in our will.
All these things affect our conduct. The first points out what we ought to do; the second what we ought to like; the third what we ought to resolve upon and fulfil.
—
Rev. R. J. Wilson.
Illustration‘We must meditate frequently on the follies of those who began so well and ended so badly. You can think of them in the Bible; think of Balaam the seer, and his miserable end; you can think of Solomon, the wisest man, led into sin through sensuality; you can think of Judas, once an innocent boy, with those gifts and graces and capacities which our Lord saw were such as fitted him to become an Apostle, and yet forfeiting everything through the sin of covetousness; or think of Demas, who endured all the hardships of Paul’s missionary life, and then deserted because he loved this present world. There are plenty of subjects through which we can bring home to our minds that however well we may have begun, still there is the risk of losing this precious gift of perseverance.’
THE CALL TO MISSIONARY SERVICE*
I. He that calleth now with a voice never before more articulate and more inspiring.—Look at what has been openly effected by Christian teaching in India. But those who are best able to judge assure us that its measurable results are but a small part of its total influence on practice and opinion. Dissatisfaction with the old faiths has been deepened by the recognition of a purer ideal of duty. Something has been done to show that a true religion—and man is born religious—must be a spring of moral energy. The gospel is seen to be more than an exotic creed. The rapid organisation of a native ministry has brought it nearer to the hearts of the people, and proved that it is in no sense a peculiar possession of their conquerors.
II. But the time is short, and cannot return.—Never was there an occasion when more seemed to human eyes to be imperilled in the faith, the energy, the devotion of a generation. The conquest of India for Christ is the conquest of Asia for Christ. And the conquest of Asia seems to offer the near vision of the consummation of the Kingdom of God. So God calls us; calls us by the circumstances of national development, calls us by the political conditions of our empire, calls us by our position and character as Englishmen. We must be a missionary people.
III. The experience of the mission field meets, in a word, the necessities of our time of trial.—For what we need now, above all things, is the assurance of a voice of God speaking to us—the sense of a living voice. That voice does, I believe, sound about us in our lanes and cities; but it is often lost in the confused cries of the conflict in which we are engaged. From the distant battlefields of the Faith it comes with a clearer message. Let us only pause to listen, and we shall hear how every region of the globe sends the same witness of thoughts revealed out of many hearts, of wants satisfied, of lives ennobled by the old tidings—old and ever new—of ‘Jesus and the Resurrection.’
—
Bishop Westcott.
Illustration‘We could wish, indeed, that the competition for admission to the apostolic army of missionaries were keener; but what must we feel when we read that at the time when the Church Missionary Society was founded no English clergyman had as yet gone forth as a missionary to either of the continents of Asia or Africa; that for a long period afterwards “the hope of a supply [of clergy] for the work from our own Church was abandoned in despair”; that only after sixteen years two clergymen were willing to accept the charge; that not long before this departure to the work a distinguished writer could say in the foremost Review, that “no man of moderation and good sense could be found to perform it”! We have, I admit, even now given scantily; but we have given, and we are giving, of our best to mission work.’
THE FAITHFULNESS OF GOD
‘Faithful is He that calleth you, Who also will do it.’
1Th_5:24
I. The call.—Observe
(a) The goodness of God in calling.
(b) Our great need of being called.
(c) The gracious persisting patience of Him Who calls.
II. The faithfulness of God.
(a) His faithfulness does not alter its own purpose.
(b) His faithfulness does not forget.
(c) His faithfulness does not grow weary, impatient, or angry, because of our slowness, perverseness, many shortcomings, and many sins.
III. The great result.—It is held before our view, as attainable, out of the calling and faithfulness of God, that there shall be complete sanctification—‘preserved blameless in spirit and soul and body unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ There is One, only One, Who can, ‘Who will do this.’