Welcome to a year of reading Richard Sibbes together! The reading plan for the entire year can be accessed here. I encourage you to stick with us, allow yourself time to read, and soak in the riches of this gifted and prolific Puritan preacher. You will be edified and encouraged.
If you have trouble with how Sibbes used words, check out the Lexicons of Early Modern English for definitions from the period.
Summary/Engagement
How many times has your dad left you with chores to do, something specific he wanted accomplished while he went away or did something else? The decision that enters our minds is, do we do what he said? Do we do it now, or play for a while and try t rush it through? Do we trust that he’s coming back? Do we want to please him or do we not care if he is angry or not?
I have at times disobeyed and neglected to do what he left for me to do. I was then subject to punishment and his disappointment for not obeying him. I have also done what he desired and received his appreciation and gratitude for listening to him and doing what was asked.
When I obeyed, I looked forward to his return. I couldn’t wait to see him again. When I disobeyed I dreaded his return and the punishment I knew was coming.
So it is with the return of Christ. To be clear, my theologically minded friends, my obedience will not earn my place in heaven. No, that is for Christ and his sacrifice to purchase. My faith, given to me by God, is all that I have to lay hold of Heaven.
My obedience evidences whether I have that faith. Do I hear my Shepherd’s voice and obey him (John 10:27-30), or am I a shameful wedding crasher who will be tossed out?(Matt. 22:11-13)
“Labour to be reconciled to God. Maintain and preserve thy peace and reconciliation with God, and athen all things will be reconciled unto us, that are between us and the second coming of Christ.”
Application / Further Discussion
Why all that stuff about obedience, and dads, and shepherds, and dudes who crash weddings?
Christ is coming again.
“Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.” Revelation 1:7
Have you ever wondered why the second coming of Christ is part of nearly ever church’s statement of faith? Why is this so important that your assent to it is required for full participation in most churches?
Again I say, Christ is coming again.
Salvation means something. It is not spiritual Xanax to reduce our guilty conscience and it’s spiritual panic attacks at the thought of judgment. We are not playing monopoly where salvation is our “Get Out Of Hell Free” card. It is not some cultural conformity we agree to in order to be accepted by a group of people.
Salvation is man’s realization of his guilt before a holy and righteous God. It is the realization that he has been in rebellion against the Sovereign Ruler of the Universe, and that he stands condemned to a just and eternal punishment in hell for this treason against the King. It is then God’s gift of repentance to man, that he turn from his high treason, his sins, and believe in Jesus Christ’s sacrificial death and resurrection on behalf of all who would believe.
Salvation is a restoration of something long ago broken. Salvation is the bending of the knee to King Jesus, swearing fealty unto death. Salvation is the coming home of our wayward and sin-sick souls on paths of self-destruction to the One who loved us while we were yet sinners, and died for us.(Romans 5:6-11) There is no salvation without thanks to God. It is a desire to be united with the Savior who loved us and bought us with His blood for His own possession.
“That a Christian, if he hath true faith in the times to come, he will have answerable desires, and correspondent prayers.”
Christ is coming again.
We believe He is coming again because He said so. (John 14:1-3, John 14:18, Matthew 24:29-51, Revelation 22:20, etc.)
We long to see Him who saved us. Come, Lord Jesus! We long for our sins to be finally and fully put to death, and to be raised in glory by Him who made all things by the word of His power. Everything in this life can fade away except that blessed hope of Christ and His return for us.
“If the good things that we have by grace here are such ‘as eye hath not seen, or ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man to consider of,’ (1 Cor 2:9) … how transcendently then unutterable and unconceivable are those things that are reserved against that time! If the ‘first fruits’ are so sweet, what is the full harvest! (Romans 8:23)
If Peter was so ravished with a little drop and glimpse of heaven, when he saw the transfiguration of Christ in the mount, so that he even lost and forgot himself, and ‘wist not what he said,’ Matthew 27:4, how shall we be affected, think you, when we shall see Christ, not in his transfiguration, but in his glorification, for ever!
If the communion of saints here be so sweet, even an heaven upon earth, 1 John 1:3, what will it be when all the blessed souls that have been from the beginning of the world unto the end shall be all together, and they altogether freed from all corruptions and infirmities! what a blessed sight will that be!”
He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
Revelation 22:20
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Last week, we read The Fruitful Labor for Eternal Food.
Next week, we read The Redemption of Bodies.
