Full and Free

Just twenty years after the Cross had been lifted up, the messengers of the gospel were spoken of as those who had “turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:6), and the faith of the Thessalonian church “sounded out” as with a trumpet blast “in every place” (1 Thess 1:8). Soon after, we read that the faith of the Roman church was honored “throughout the whole world” (Rom 1:8). Scarcely more than thirty years after our Lord’s return to the Father, Paul reminds the Colossians that the gospel which they had received was being preached “to every creature under heaven” (Col 1:23). And this in spite of the most vicious persecution. Tacitus, the Roman historian, relates that in the persecution under Nero, which broke out in the year ad 64, “an immense multitude” of Christians suffered death for the sake of the Name. Such was the power of the message of a loving God, a triumphant Savior, a full and free redemption, and a transforming Spirit, the same message we have to proclaim today.

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