LECTURE 1.

WAITING FOR CHRIST THE FRUIT OF FAITH IN THE GOSPEL.

BY THE REV. EDWARD BICKERSTETH,

RECTOR OF WATTON, HERTS.

1 THESS. I. 10.

"To wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come."

THE First Epistle to the Thessalonians, we have reason to think, was among the earliest, and, as is generally supposed, the first of the inspired epistles of the New Testament. It was written by the great apostle of the Gentiles, St. Paul, and thus contains the earliest aspect of Divine truth set before the Gentile Church. The freshness and the power of the whole are evident. The prominence of the great hope of the Church, the

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second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, is very striking through the epistle. In this view it has been selected by the beloved brethren who have planned the courses of lectures delivered on that subject in Lent for the last two years in this church, as eminently calculated to quicken our minds to that blessed hope.

In our text, waiting for the Lord is joined with service of the living and true God, as the second chief mark of the real conversion of the Christians at Thessalonica: Ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and the true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven.

But the Church has now greatly lost sight of this hope. The unlooked-for long delay of its accomplishment has been full of blessing in the large increase of those who shall share its fullest joys for ever; but, through the unbelief of man, it has made even the wise virgins cease to be watchful for it. Christians have too much forgotten their blessed hope, and have put death in the place of the second coming. The millennium has also been unhappily regarded as taking place before the coming of our Lord, and viewed as the immediate object of hope; and thus men's eyes have been turned from the coming Saviour to other hopes. The spirit of waiting for Christ has thus been very widely lost in the Church of

Christ. It must be generally restored, and we have good hope that it will be restored; for Christians are the children of the light, and are not in darkness, that that day should overtake them as a thief. Thus will they be prepared for his coming. To assist the Lord's people to attain this waiting spirit is the special duty of the Lord's watchmen in this day.

I feel assured, then, that our beloved brother, your minister, in opening his pulpit for three successive years to his brethren in the ministry, and inviting them to preach on this subject to his flock, has been consulting your best spiritual interests. I feel assured, that in calling them to this office, and giving them the opportunity, in a central church of our metropolis, and before crowded congregations, to direct the attention of the Church of Christ at large to this blessed hope, he has been fulfilling a high and sacred duty to our Lord Christ and to his Church. There have been many blessings with the two courses already delivered. They have awakened a growing interest in the subject among Christians, and have lifted up a standard for this truth. May a still larger blessing rest upon the course of Lectures now to be delivered on those passages in this First Epistle to the Thessalonians which relate to the coming of our Redeemer. I

earnestly entreat your prayers for myself and my beloved brethren in the ministry, and the congregations who shall hear us, that there may be a special outpouring of the blessed Spirit on all who shall seek to instruct you in the weighty truths contained in this epistle on this subject, as well as on all who shall attend on the instruction given.

And, O gracious Redeemer, thou ever present Saviour, always in the midst of thy people when assembled in thy name, manifest thyself unto us, as thou dost not to the world. Do thou fill us with thine own Spirit, to guide us into all truth, to show us things to come, and to reveal to us the riches of thy grace and the brightness of thy glory in thy heavenly kingdom, for thine own Name's sake. Amen.

We may discern from our text, that besides conversion to serve the true and living God, a waiting spirit is a true effect of rightly receiving the Gospel. This will more distinctly appear in considering various reasons which show us that waiting for Christ is one chief fruit which a cordial reception of the Gospel produces, and open the way to set before you the duty as enforced in the text.

Let us consider these things,

I. Waiting for Christ is the fruit of the Gospel.

II. The solemn truths by which this duty is enforced in the text.

III. The practice of this blessed duty at this time.

I. WAITING FOR CHRIST IS THE FRUIT OF THE GOSPEL.

Our natural spirit is altogether alienated from such a duty. We are carnally minded, and the carnal mind is enmity against God. We are of the earth, earthy, and our hopes centre there. The 'natural man receives not these things, nor can he know them. The wisdom of God, in this part of revelation also, is foolishness with men. We speak, the Apostle says, the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory, which none of the princes of this world knew ;......but God hath revealed them to us by his Spirit; hence waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is described as a special gift of God to us. (1 Cor. i. 7.) Such is our natural darkness on this subject.

But let the Gospel come with all its good tidings of great joy; let the Gospel of the kingdom be proclaimed, and let God give testimony to the Word of his grace, and accompany it by his Spirit, and natural men are made spiritual men, and discern all things; they are truly con