(The following are brief notes of a lecture given by the Rev A B Ndebele, Ingwenya, on the 2nd of January, 1995.)
“Jesus said unto the Jews which believed on Him: If ye continue in my Word, then are ye my disciples indeed: And ye shall know the Truth and the truth shall make you free.” John 8 vv 31, 32.
1. Classes of the hearers of the Gospel at all times.
Some believe and some believe not what they hear. Those who believe are taught and led by the Holy Spirit unto the Saviour. Man in his natural state does not receive the things of the Spirit of God. They are foolishness unto him.
2. The mark of the working of the Holy Spirit in the heart of a gospel hearer, or the mark of the living and invisible Church of God:
They continue steadfast in the Word of God. But he that will endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. A keeping to the Word of God, the Bible, is a great gift of the elect.
3. The reward which God gives to those who hear and believe the Gospel and continue in it is knowledge.
The biggest weapon which Satan uses to destroy mankind is ignorance. Man is born ignorant of God, ignorant of the Lord Jesus Christ, the alone name given among men whereby we must be saved. He is ignorant of the damage which sin has inflicted upon his whole personality. He is ignorant of the deceitfulness of his own heart. Man does not know that the wages of sin is death.
But those whom God has chosen from the foundation of the world, He grants them knowledge of Himself, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent. He gives them knowledge of themselves as poor needy sinners on the way to eternity. He grants them an alert ear so that they hear the Word of God and receive it into their souls.
4. The effects of the knowledge which comes into the heart of the redeemed is as a light that comes into a dark room and generates:
(a) Freedom from the power of sin, as it was with Joseph: “How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God.”
(b) Freedom from the attractions of natural religions.
(c) Freedom from the fear of the majority.
(d) Freedom from the loneliness of the narrow path.
5. “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”
If the Lord Jesus has freed a sinner from the guilt of sin, its influence in the heart, its power of darkness, its corrupting effects, that sinner is free indeed.