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Major W. Ian Thomas
Major W. Ian Thomas (1914–2007) was a British preacher, evangelist, and Bible teacher whose ministry emphasized the indwelling life of Christ as the key to victorious Christian living. Born on September 13, 1914, in London, England, to Albert and Jennie Thomas, he was raised in a middle-class family. Converted at age 12 during a Crusaders Union camp, he committed his life to Christ’s service at 15, preaching on Hampstead Heath and engaging in evangelistic efforts. Educated at Merchant Taylor’s School, he studied medicine at London University for two years with aspirations of becoming a missionary doctor in Africa but left to pursue full-time ministry after experiencing spiritual burnout at 19, a turning point marked by a midnight prayer in 1933 that revealed Christ as his life source. Thomas’s preaching career spanned decades and continents, beginning with open-air evangelism in the UK and expanding globally after serving in World War II with the Royal Fusiliers, including the Dunkirk evacuation, earning him the Distinguished Service Order for gallantry. In 1946, he and his wife Joan founded the Capernwray Missionary Fellowship of Torchbearers at Capernwray Hall in England, a ministry that grew into Torchbearers International, with 25 Bible schools worldwide by his death. He pastored no single church but preached itinerantly, authored influential books like The Saving Life of Christ and The Mystery of Godliness, and moved to Estes Park, Colorado, in the late 1980s. Married to Joan, with whom he had four sons—Chris, Mark, Peter, and Andy—he died on August 1, 2007, leaving a legacy as a preacher who transformed lives through his focus on Christ’s sufficiency.
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Major W. Ian Thomas preaches about the need for sinners to seek forgiveness and redemption in Christ, emphasizing that Jesus is all that a guilty sinner needs for salvation. By putting our trust in Him, we can be saved and receive His indwelling Holy Spirit, experiencing true life in Him. Walking in the Spirit involves taking one step at a time, listening for Christ's guidance in every situation, and acknowledging His sufficiency in all circumstances. True godliness is manifested when our hearts declare Jesus Christ as the only explanation for our lives, unwaveringly affirming His adequacy and sufficiency.
I Am Thou Art
It may be that your need is still that of a sinner seeking forgiveness; you need to be redeemed, and you are still trying to find your way back to God and godliness. Christ is saying to you now, as He said to His disciples of old in the Upper Room, after he was risen from the dead, "Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself" (Luke 24:39); in other words, "I AM - all that a guilty sinner needs! The wounds in My hands and My feet are the hall-marks of My Saviourhood; put your trust in Me, and I will save you!" All you need to say to Him is this, "Lord Jesus - Thou art! For me - Just what I need! My Saviour and my Redeemer - for ever!" You will be redeemed, and He will give you life; by the gift of His indwelling Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ. He will give you His Life, and this is what it means to "live in the Spirit"; but "If we live in the Spirit let us also walk in the Spirit: (Galatians 5:25), and this is what it means to "walk in the Spirit" to take one step at a time, and for every new situation into which every new step takes you, no matter what it may be, to hear Christ saying your heart, "I AM!" - and then to look up into His face by faith and say, "Thou art! That is all I need to know Lord, and I thank Thee; for Thou art never less than adequate!" True godliness leaves the world convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the only explanation for you, is Jesus Christ to whose eternally unchanging and altogether adequate "I AM!" your heart has learned to say with unshatterable faith, "Thou art!"
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Major W. Ian Thomas (1914–2007) was a British preacher, evangelist, and Bible teacher whose ministry emphasized the indwelling life of Christ as the key to victorious Christian living. Born on September 13, 1914, in London, England, to Albert and Jennie Thomas, he was raised in a middle-class family. Converted at age 12 during a Crusaders Union camp, he committed his life to Christ’s service at 15, preaching on Hampstead Heath and engaging in evangelistic efforts. Educated at Merchant Taylor’s School, he studied medicine at London University for two years with aspirations of becoming a missionary doctor in Africa but left to pursue full-time ministry after experiencing spiritual burnout at 19, a turning point marked by a midnight prayer in 1933 that revealed Christ as his life source. Thomas’s preaching career spanned decades and continents, beginning with open-air evangelism in the UK and expanding globally after serving in World War II with the Royal Fusiliers, including the Dunkirk evacuation, earning him the Distinguished Service Order for gallantry. In 1946, he and his wife Joan founded the Capernwray Missionary Fellowship of Torchbearers at Capernwray Hall in England, a ministry that grew into Torchbearers International, with 25 Bible schools worldwide by his death. He pastored no single church but preached itinerantly, authored influential books like The Saving Life of Christ and The Mystery of Godliness, and moved to Estes Park, Colorado, in the late 1980s. Married to Joan, with whom he had four sons—Chris, Mark, Peter, and Andy—he died on August 1, 2007, leaving a legacy as a preacher who transformed lives through his focus on Christ’s sufficiency.