I'm turning this morning to 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 and that's on page 1191 in the Church Bible. 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 and verse 4, knowing brethren beloved your election of God for our gospel came not unto you in word only but also in power and in the Holy Ghost and in much assurance as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake. And ye became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost. so that you are examples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. For from you sounded out the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to God is spread abroad, so that we need not to speak anything. For they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom ye raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come. My friends, last week we spent the whole message really looking at that subject of election. And we, this week, are going to move on a little bit to look at the evidences of election. How can you tell? Because it is possible to tell. whether a person is elect or not. Some people say you can't tell. You can. It should be in fact very clear. Sadly we live in a time where things are blurry and you can't always tell. But Paul speaks about the Thessalonians that he knew that they were the elect of God because of what he saw in them. The elect, those whom God has chosen, a specific number, a special number, not because they are special, but because of God's sovereign choice. It's his good pleasure. He has chosen that number before the foundation of the world. He has chosen that number before they were even born, before they had done anything good or anything bad. God chose those specific people. There was no correlation between God's choice on the one hand and His full knowledge of their faith and their repentance and their turning to Him. There was no link between the two. God chose them for reasons unknown to them. It was completely sovereign. It was entirely something of God. It was completely gracious of God and that's how we received it. C. H. Spurgeon, when he was speaking about the doctrine of election, he said, these words, I believe the doctrine of election because I'm quite sure that if God had not chosen me, I should never have chosen him. And I'm sure he chose me before I was born or else he never would have chosen me afterwards. And he must have elected me for reasons unknown to me, for I never could find any reason in myself why he should have looked upon me with special love. And that encapsulates everything really that we were trying to say last week. Well, here in verse 4 again, Paul, the apostle, says of these Thessalonian believers, I know, brethren, beloved of God, your election. I know. that you're included in that number. It's not that I've had some revelation from heaven. I've had many revelations from heaven, but this is not one of them. I've had many promptings of the Spirit, many intimations from the Spirit of God in my Christian life, but this is not one of His promptings. I've just seen, I've seen it in your life. I've seen the tokens of election in your life and that's how I've come to this conclusion. I've seen that there are clear evidences that you are believers. I see it in your turning away from idols that which you worshipped and served for years, the family religion that you were bound to and you stuck to. But when you heard the Gospel, you turned away from those things and you turned to the living God to serve Him, to follow Him, to give your life for Him, to suffer for Him, In the midst of persecution, you heard the good news, you heard the gospel, but that didn't put you off. You still wanted to know. You still wanted to believe. Nothing deterred you from believing in the Lord. You wanted to go this way. And I saw that as an evident mark in your life. In fact, almost all the verses following verse 4 are to do with evidences of election. In verse 5 he talks about the powerful way in which the gospel was preached and came to those Thessalonians when Paul and his colleagues had preached. Timothy and Silas went there and they preached and they preached in such a powerful and effectual way that they saw God working through their ministry. And then in verse 6, he talks about how they, the response that was in them, not only the Holy Ghost was working through the preaching, the Holy Ghost was working in those individuals so that they responded and they became followers of Paul and of the Lord. And they received, as we said, that word in the midst of much persecution. and in the joy of the Holy Ghost. Verse 7, another evidence is that they became examples themselves. They were exemplary of the Christian life and of what it was to be a Christian to others. Others could say this is a Christian indeed and could learn from them. And verse 8, they were concerned for others. They received the gospel, they wanted to get it out to others as well, so that other people, not only in their homes and in Thessalonica where they were, but they wanted to get it out to all wherever They could, it's not just a passive thing that with them that people heard about them and that they were believers and so that affected them. No, they themselves were active in getting the word out, in witnessing to others near and far. They were on that Ignatian way, that way that led all the way to Rome. the businessmen went out and took the gospel to those places that they went to. It was a port city, a seaport, and people would come in on ships and no doubt those believers who were converted in Thessalonica and who went out on those ships and on their duties and would take the gospel where they went and other people were hearing about their faith and their conversion. They were active in witnessing, and verse 9 and 10, they're turning to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for His Son patiently from heaven. So all these things He saw in them. So let's just consider some of them, especially we're going to focus on verse 5. For our gospel Paul says, came not unto you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Ghost and in much assurance. Our Gospel. This is the message of salvation. The message of good news. The Gospel, friends, is good news. The Gospel is about what God has done for undeserving sinners. God, who created man upright, but man decided to rebel against God, to disobey God, and he fell through his sin and disobedience. And he became a wretched, corrupt, sinful person through and through. This is how he is. He's in a mess spiritually and he has no contact with his maker. He has no relationship with him. He has no even desire to be with him. There's no connection and we could say he's in big trouble because of his sins. He's in a massive amount of trouble, personal trouble, because he's under the judgment of God. He's accountable to God for his sins and he isn't ready to give an account to Him. What can he do? He's in a perilous position. Is there any hope for him? He's helpless. Who can save him from such a position? There is the good news. That's where the good news comes in, friends. That's where the good news that God has provided a savior for this sinful, undeserving person, this man, this woman, this boy, this girl. There is a Savior for them if they will just turn to Him. Christ the Son of God has come from heaven and has taken to Himself that human body and has gone and suffered and died in such great agony, bleeding and died. What a great cost to Himself. Why? So that sinners could be forgiven their sins. so that all those who put their trust in Him and turn from their sin may be forgiven all and may go to heaven. This is the good news. Maybe there is hope, friends, for the sinner only in Jesus Christ and nowhere else. All that the sinner needs, he needs righteousness before God. It's in Christ. It's provided for him. There's forgiveness in Christ. There is eternal life in Christ. All is provided in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the good news. How can I escape? How can I escape the wrath of God that is to come? How can I escape the judgment day and be accepted on that judgment day and be passed from that into heaven? It's only through Christ. But there is hope there. If only I will turn to Him. This is the message that Paul and his companions preached in Thessalonica. This is his gospel. But he says, our gospel came not unto you in word only. It came in word, it has to come in words, but not in word only. Friends, we have to say a little bit here that the gospel must come to us in words. Otherwise, how can we understand it? If it doesn't come to us in words and sentences that we can understand, if Paul went to these Thessalonians and spoke a language, maybe he spoke in Hebrew and only the Jews would have understood it, but these Greeks wouldn't have been able to comprehend it. The gospel must be understood. The gospel is communicated to us, to our minds, God coming, God reasoning with us, God using a language that we can grasp so that we can understand exactly what is required of us so that we can be clear in our minds of this gospel and of our need of Christ. And it was through preaching, through the preached word, that the message was communicated to these Thessalonians. God, through His messengers, reasoning with souls. And it's important for us to stress this because we live in a day where people, or less and less, is made of preaching. People, if they do listen to preaching, they say, just give us a little bit of preaching. Just give us 20 minutes of preaching. Let's have an hour and a half of singing and dancing and 20 minutes we'll put to the side to preaching. And usually by the hour and a half, people are so tired they haven't got a year to hear for preaching. They're wishing for the preaching even then to be over. But preaching is to be central friends and not sidelined. And so we have the pulpit right at the center. We don't want words, people are saying. We want signs and wonders. We want to see the miraculous things happen. We want healing services. We want miracle services. We want those kind of evidences. But we don't want preaching. Some people say, well, Preaching's a bit antiquated now. And, you know, we need to be up with the times. You know, people are not, young people especially, well, they're not used to preaching. They're used to YouTube, entertainment. And they're used to, you know, action movies. And so we must give them the gospel with YouTube or with action. We must give them the gospel with entertainment and drama and get to them in that way. Films and other kind of medium. No, friends, it's in word. We have to come to them in the direct preaching of the Word. Words are crucial. Preaching is crucial. Preaching is central. But Paul says, not just words. We don't want just boring, dry lectures. The Word of God is not boring. The Word of God is interesting. If you ever hear a boring sermon, you blame the preacher, but don't blame the Word of God because he has the responsibility to bring out these interesting things in the Bible. They're there. Somebody, one preacher once said, I'm not sure if I agree with him, but he said, to preach a boring sermon is sin. And maybe it is, but we shouldn't be doing that. But here, the word is interesting, but we don't want just words. And Paul says, our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power. And Paul, he got up to preach. there in Thessalonica, and when he preached, he felt the Lord was with him, and the Lord attended to his preaching, and the Holy Ghost was present, and he felt this is not just a dry lecture I'm giving to people. He said, I feel and I know the power of God is coming through. I know it. God is present here. God is working here. He sensed it when he was preaching. The message was accompanied with power. The Lord Jesus said, when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you shall receive power. Now there is, friends, I think we could say a power in eloquence. There are people who have great oratorical skills and they're able to hold captive great audiences and they have great followings and they're very capable people in terms of the words that they use and how they're able to articulate those words. We wish we were like that, but we are not. Some of us are not. But people are very clever in the way they use their words. And so it was in the Corinthians, amongst the Corinthians, when Paul went, and from where actually he is writing this letter to the Thessalonians. But when he was in Corinth, he said to the church there, 1 Corinthians 2, verse 4, my speech, my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, That is cleverly put words, manipulative words, words which were spoken for effect but in demonstration of the spirit and of power. I just put the words simply before you. I didn't try and manipulate you and win you into the kingdom by the way in which I use my words. You know, in C.H. Spurgeon's time, the 19th century, preaching was very much focused on eloquence and flowery language. And when Spurgeon came onto the scene, he was criticized because he was, he didn't speak in a flowery language. He didn't speak in that, he was an eloquent preacher, no doubt, but he didn't use all the flowery language of the other people of the day, and he was criticized for it. But people used to, the preachers of those days used to spend hours preparing a sermon, adjective here and adjective there, and describing things in detail and trying to win people's attention just by their words. But Spurgeon was not like that. He did use sometimes flowery language, but it wasn't with a use, with a purpose of just trying to entice people and to attract people. He spoke in the power of the Holy Spirit. Today also we have people who tell, preachers who tell sob stories. And they try and get you into the kingdom by telling these enticing sob stories that get to you emotionally. And you're brought into the kingdom of God because you responded to that story. But you're never being convicted of your sin. You never realize I'm a sinner. You just thought, this is nice, I'll join this club. But you never realize, I'm a sinful person, I need a savior. I need to be right with God. which is what a true convert feels. Power here is divine power, a power beyond Paul's own power, a power to bring that message home to people's hearts. When he preached, there was a power that awakened souls that were sleeping, awakened that soul who didn't care less before he came into the church. And now he does care about his soul. He didn't care before, but now he does, a person who has A power that attended and persuaded that self-righteous man who walked in and sat and was full of himself when he sat in the congregation and when he heard the preaching, the Word came with power to him and he said, I'm undone. All my good works are as filthy rags in God's sight. I'm not worthy to stand before God. I'm in big trouble. The Word came with power to him and made him see this and realize this. It was people who came in with their prejudices and, ha, ha, ha, we're going to go and see what this great preacher that we've heard of is speaking. And they came in to oppose him, but they were overcome by the Spirit of God and the Word of God. Their prejudices, their biases, which they had held onto for years and years and years, and they were determined not to let go. Well, they couldn't, they had to let go when they heard the Gospel message. It wrought a change in people. That's what power of the Holy Ghost does. Those who were argumentative and who were determined to argue with the Apostle Paul became childlike. They said, we're going to have to listen. I have to learn. Oh, what a mark of God's working that is. I'm no longer going to argue. I'm going to listen to what the message says. Dear friend, has the word come to you with power? You've heard many sermons. Has it made an effect in you? Has it brought about a change in you? This is the question. You know, there were Paul preached with great power and the blessing of the Spirit, but there were some to whom it was just word only. Those Jews who listened to him, many of them, most of them, it was just word only. They carried on in their own religion. They carried on belief. disbelieving in Christ. They refused to believe, turned to Christ. They turned against Paul. It was only word only. It's a nice talk that we've heard too, but we don't believe it. We don't want to listen anymore to it. It had no effect on their lives. Maybe the same with me. It may be the same with us as we're hearing sermon after sermon. The sermon is designed not just to be a lovely song for people to hear, but it's designed by God to change us, to bring about a transformation in our lives. So that we come in one and we go out differently, not the same again and again and again, week after week. No change. Oh, it's an interesting talk. Oh, that was so amusing. That was so wonderful. But no change. He must affect his friends personally. And then he says in the Holy Ghost, Our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Ghost. The Spirit of God, the third person of the triune God, attended Paul's preaching, and he came with illuminating power. How necessary this is. Oh, dear friends, dear brothers and sisters, pray for the illumination of the Spirit as I preach. that God will open people's minds. He came, He's the one who removes the blindfold from people's eyes so that they can see, so that they can, He's the one who gives understanding so that they can perceive the truth of the message, the worth of the message, the value of the message, the need to believe in the Lord and turn to Him. You don't need me to tell you that a blind person cannot see. You know that. People are out there. Trees are out there. The sky is out there. Beautiful blue sky. The birds are flying past. So many things are out there, but he can't see it, that poor blind person. His eyes are dysfunctional. He cannot see. Cure his eyes. Let the light come in. and he'll be able to see immediately everything, isn't it? Suddenly, in a moment, he's able to see everything. So it is when the Spirit removes the blindfold, when the Spirit of God gives us eyesight, we are able suddenly to see the spiritual things that we never saw before. They were there all the time, but we couldn't see it because of our blindness. The natural man understandeth not the things of God. They are foolishness to him. In the 18th century, there was a very well-known British prime minister. His name was William Pitt, William Pitt the Younger. His father was also William Pitt, so I guess that's why they called him William Pitt the Younger. But he was a learned, erudite, very skillful prime minister. one of the best maybe that Britain has had. And one of his good friends was William Wilberforce. William Wilberforce, as you know, was a politician who fought tirelessly for the abolition of the slave trade. And successfully, we could say, well, William Wilberforce really wanted to get William Pitt to come to know the Lord. And so I thought, well, one good way, let me take him to the church where John Newton, the former slave trader, was preaching. And I was down by the bank, actually, St. Mary Woolnorth, down near London Bridge. And he managed to persuade William Pitt to go and to hear. And as he was going, no doubt like we all do, he was longing that, well, I really hope John Newton's going to be on form today because I want the message to come to this prime minister. I really hope that the spirit of God is going to move today and we're going to hear something that's really going to attract him and win him to the Lord. And he was not disappointed. Sure enough, John Newton was on form, gave a wonderful sermon. The Spirit of God was present. The people were attentive, silent, quiet. And William Wilberforce thought, surely God has spoken to this man. Surely God has done something in this man. And when they got outside and they were in their carriage on their way back, Wilberforce turned to the Prime Minister and said, well, what did you think of that? And William Pitt said, frankly, I didn't understand a word that he said. I didn't understand anything. All went over his head. Others were captivated. It didn't make sense to him. It came to him in word only. The natural man understands not the things of the Spirit of God. They are foolishness to him. So it is, friends, with those who do not come to turn to the Lord. But he goes on to say, not only in the Holy Ghost, but in much assurance. And the Thessalonians, he's speaking, I believe, or that could be Paul's preaching, but it also be the other way, the Thessalonians' reception. of the word preached. When they heard it, there were no doubts, there were no quibbles in their minds about it. They were persuaded of it, fully persuaded. This is the word of God. In fact, that's what he says later in chapter two. When you heard the word of God, when you heard the preaching, the gospel, you received it not as the word of man, but you received it as the word of God. Are we receiving the message today? as the word of me. I was just a preacher. It's his word, or is it the word of God? This is how they received it. They were fully persuaded. This is the truth. This was another mark of their election, because they received it in this way. They were all attentive. They were on the edge of their seats, listening to the Apostle Paul preach these things, I'm sure. I'm sure there were not many sleeping, although we read of one who slept when he preached too long, but that was in another place. But they were received in much assurance. As you know what manner of men we were among you, for your sake, there were people going around in Thessalonica saying, oh, Paul and his companions, well, they're charlatans. They only come to you to get money from you. They only come to you because they want something from you. They're not interested in you. The Paul says, you know. And we'll go on to that in chapter two. You know what kind of people we were when we lived amongst you. We lived simply. We worked tirelessly. We preached to you in the morning and we worked all night. We didn't ask anything from you. We were reluctant. It was our right to do so, but we didn't do it because we wanted to win you to the Lord. and we didn't want anything to come in and affect what we were doing for you and turn you away. The accusers were saying this about them, but you know, you saw it in the way that we lived. We were not living it up. We were not preachers who lived it up and wanted to be served. We were serving amongst you. So friends, we could say that the anointing of the Spirit, the unction of the Spirit was upon the preachers and the message that was preached. Power of the Holy Spirit was upon them. But it's not enough just for a preacher to preach powerfully and with unction. It's not enough. The anointing must also be upon the hearers as well. And that's what he goes on to say. It was with these Thessalonians as they listened that not only they heard a powerful message, but the Holy Spirit worked to bring home to their minds and to their hearts, as we said already, the truth of these things. And they responded, they believed the things that they heard. So much so in verse 6, and ye became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction with joy of the Holy Ghost. This was the result. They became followers. They changed. They put away their idols. They said, what have we been doing? We've wasted our lives serving idols. We're putting those things away. Now the rest of my life is going to be committed to serving God. And they began, the living God, and they began by this way, following first the Lord and following the apostle Paul. One preacher said, a man when he is first converted is not fit to be a leader. he has to be a follower. He has to learn the drill. One to do if you're in the army here. You know that when you join the army, you have to learn the drill. You cannot go in telling your sergeant what to do and so on. You're not a boss. And that's one of the first lessons a new convert learns. I'm a learner. The argumentative spirit has gone. He becomes childlike. He becomes a listener. He speaks less because he knows he doesn't know everything. This is the way he begins his Christian life. He's not going to find fault with this and oppose this and oppose that and say, well, I don't believe that. He listens to the preacher. He listens to the pastor. He listens to the oldest believers who've walked with the Lord and talked with him and have had experience of him and who know his word. He wants to learn from them. He's not going to discredit what they are saying. He discredits what he thinks. He says, I must be wrong, I've been so wrong. I want to know what is the truth. There's this childlike teachableness that is in him. He never had that before. He's following Paul and the apostles, Paul and the others, and in doing so he's following the Lord. And as we said, he received the word in the midst of much affliction with joy of the Holy Ghost. Are you sure you want to be a Christian? You're going to have to suffer for it. You're going to have to lose your job. You're going to have to give up your job. You're going to have to get some menial manual job to support your family. You're going to have to put in extra long hours tirelessly just to make a few pennies to support them, to put some bread on the table. Are you willing to do that? Oh, yes. Because what I have in Christ is so much better. What I've gained in Christ I cannot give that up. I'd rather give up all the other things. I'd rather have the enmity of the world, the scorn of the world, the despising of people, so-called friends, cutting me off. Yes, I'd rather have all that, even family cutting me off, than to have Christ cut me off. to have Him, to have the most precious thing in all the world that there is to have, to have, to know that He knows me, He loves me, and He set His love upon me forever, to know that my sins are all forgiven, to know that my name is written in heaven, to know that when I die, I'm going to be in heaven with Christ forever. That is what I want. That's joy. That's my joy. And they wanted that more than the others. Just recently I was reading about a young girl in Uganda, 11 years old, 11-year-old girl, and she came to know the Lord. Somehow, we didn't say how, but she knew the Lord and she got baptized, but she was from a Muslim family. And the father, when he found out, was very angry with his daughter. And he tried to persuade her, or not persuade her, he told her to reconvert. He told her to give up Christ. She didn't want to. He beat her badly, again and again. And when she refused, he put her into a cell where it was all dark and it was all cold, and he didn't give her any food until she retracted until she gave up the Lord. She wouldn't do it. And one of her brothers had to sneak dried bananas to give to her, something at least to eat. And it was only after six months that the authorities found out and managed to free her from that prison cell. And she was so malnutritioned, that her bones became so brittle and she's had to walk ever since then on crutches. But she wouldn't give up her faith. She wouldn't give up the Lord Jesus. because she knew she had something better in him. In the midst of affliction and she's still going on with the Lord today. Well friends, verse 7, they also became examples to other believers in Macedonia and Achaia. And then verse 8, they actively propagated the gospel. The gospel came to them, they received it, and then they were keen to send it out to others. And we shall leave it there. But friends, just before I close, we have to, friends, we have to come back to ourselves. How is it with me? Is there evidences of the election in my life? We must ask that question. Can a believer look at you and say, for sure that person is a Christian. I see these marks in that person. They heard the gospel. They're not closing their ears. They're not falling asleep. They're not disregarding it. It's something important to them. It's something serious to them. They've heard it. They turn to the Lord when they receive the message. They've come out on the Lord's side. They said, I am the Lord's. They're not hiding it. They're not afraid to show it. I'm following him now. I'm setting my public image as going to be, I am a believer, I am a Christian. And I'm keen to get the message out to other people. This is just some of the Marks, friends. Oh, friends, let it be said of us. Let it be so clear. that we are the Lords. Let's close by singing our final hymn, 355. Come ye sinners, poor and needy.