5 NOVEMBER
Living witnesses for God and his truth
‘… For no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.’ John 3:2
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Philemon 8–21
Now if you ask who or where are these extraordinary persons [who experienced miraculous healings], I acknowledge they are comparatively but few. The subjects of our Lord’s miraculous power were but few likewise, and he has taught us to expect that his flock will be a little flock. I confess the best are subject to so many infirmities—so many things are still amiss (for this is but a begun work). I allow that too many are pretenders. This, likewise, we are taught to expect. But there are some, and not hard to be found and known … who are living witnesses for God and his truth, who are not ashamed of the gospel, nor a shame to it, but have found and do evidence that it is the power of God unto salvation, and whose lives and conversations too prove that they are different from what they once were, and from the generality of those about them.
On the other hand, we challenge any to produce instances of the same effects wrought by any other doctrine. How much is said and written to tell people what they should be and what they should do, yet where the gospel principles are not enforced there is nothing done, nothing attempted, beyond a formal round of dull and heartless service—a little something like religion on Sundays: to go to church when the bell tolls, to repeat words because other people do, to hear without attention and then to run full swing into the world again.
Or if here and there a person is truly touched, where they have no better helps, the consequence always is that they renounce the things they held for truths, are brought into that way of thinking which is agreeable to the gospel preaching, and receive it gladly whenever it comes in their way.
FOR MEDITATION: He can call the most unworthy persons, and bring them from the most unlikely places, to labour in his vineyard. Had it not been so, you would never have heard of me. Consider what I was, and where I was (in Africa) and you must acknowledge that I am a singular instance of the sovereignty and the riches of his mercy!
John Newton to John Ryland, 29 November 1799
SERMON SERIES: JOHN 3:1–2, NO. 2 [6/6]
Milo 