W. Ian Thomas
Former World War II British major and founder of
Torchbearers Ministry
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The major [Ian Thomas] is every inch
a soldier. He served in the British Expeditionary Forces in Belgium in World
War II. Often in combat in France,
Italy, and Greece…he found the Lord Jesus to be his complete
sufficiency. The major is likewise a
soldier of the Cross, faithful to the Captain of our salvation. [The major] has found life an adventure
with God…a pageant of triumph in Christ. At the age of fifteen, he felt
convinced that he should devote all of his life to the service of the Lord
Jesus. At university Ian became a
leader in the InterVarsity Fellowship group.
If ever there was any evangelistic activity going on, this youthful
zealot was “buzzing around the place, every holiday, every spare
moment!” He started a slum club down
in the East End of London. “Out of a sheer desire to win souls,
to go out and get them, I was a windmill of activity until, at the age of
nineteen, every moment of my day was packed tight with doing things…” Then, one night that year, just at
midnight…I got down on my knees before God, and I just wept in sheer
despair. I said, ‘Oh, God, I know I am
saved. I love Jesus Christ. With all my heart I want to serve
Thee. I have tried to my uttermost and
I am a hopeless failure!’ That night
things happened.” “I can honestly say that I had never
once heard from the lips of men the message that came to me then …but God,
that night, simply focused upon me the Bible message of Christ who is our Life (Colossians 3:4)…The Lord seemed to make
it plain to me that night, through my tears of bitterness: ‘You see, for
seven years, with utmost sincerity, you have been trying to live for Me, on
My behalf, the life that I have been waiting for seven years to live through
you.’” That night in the space of an hour,
Ian Thomas discover the secret of the adventurous life. Step by step the Most High led His trusting
and obedient servant into paths that he neither foresaw nor chose. “Since the war alone I have traveled a
quarter of a million miles to preach [Christ]. I found that it is anything but inactivity;
it is simply His activity, and that is what makes all the difference.” (Introduction by V. Raymond Edman) |
God in righteousness has no option but
to find you guilty as a sinner – by nature dead in trespasses and sins – and to
pass on to you the sentence of death.
But more than 1900 years ago, God in Christ stepped out of eternity into
time, and there extended to you the nail-pierced hands of One who suffered,
“the just for the unjust,” to bring you back to God (1 Peter 2:24a).
This, however, is but the
beginning…“for if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death
of His Son, much more, being reconciled (now
an accomplished fact) we shall be saved (as a continuing process)…by His life” (Romans 5:10). This is the divine genius that saves a man
from the futility of self-effort. It is
the principle of an exchanged life –
“not I, but Christ liveth in me” (Galatians 2:20b)…the true spiritual content
of our gospel – not just heaven one day,
but Christ right now!
We forget that He is the eternal I AM,
the eternal present tense, adequate
right now for every need! If you are born again, all you need is what you have, and what you have is what He is! He does not give you strength – He is
your strength! He does not give you
victory – He is your victory!
The Lord Jesus Christ claims the use of
your body, your whole being, your
complete personality, so that as you give yourself to Him through the eternal
Spirit, He may give Himself to you through the eternal Spirit…that every step
you take, every word you speak, everything you do, everything you are, may be
an expression of Christ. If it is of Him and through Him and to Him, where do you come in? You do not!
“For me to live is Christ”
(Philippians 1:21a, emphasis added).