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
“Who can reveal to us the mind of God but the Spirit of God?”
Good question. Think about that for a minute. How do we know what God thinks on a given subject or about a particular thing but that the Spirit of God has revealed it to us? The Bible, you say. Yes, but who wrote the Bible? Men, carried along by the Spirit. (2 Timotyh 3:16; 2 Peter 1:21) Our special revelation, which is those things we know because God has expressly revealed them to us come by way of His Spirit. I’m not talking about some feeling you have, or a “word from the Lord,” which many people can’t adequately distinguish between that and what they ate for lunch; I am talking about the Word.
We were not left as orphans in the world without a Father and unable to discern what He wills. He left us all that is necessary for life and godliness, revealed by His word, and sealed by the Holy Spirit at our salvation. God graciously inspired His word to be written and preserved it with authority from antiquity in the incredible multitude of manuscripts. We know what the Bible says.
Yet, we often do not do what it says. We, the redeemed of God, grieve the Holy Spirit especially when we who have knowledge of what He would have us do act in a contrary manner. Sin. How deeply corrupt we are when the following is true.
“So in a Christian the most inward part, the spirit, is, as it were, the ‘holy of holies,’ where incense is offered to God continually. What a mercy is this, that he that hath the heaven of heavens to dweill in will make a dungeon to be a temple, a prison to be a paradise, yea, an hell to be an heaven.”
Application / Further Discussion
We have lost what it means to sin. All of us. Before you protest too loudly, you still sin. Every Time you do, you proclaim that you are sovereign and not God, and thus you illustrate your momentary contempt for God. “Temptation!” you say. “This person tempted me to sin.” Or, “you don’t know what it’s like to struggle against such and such.” Where before our souls might have proudly said you know what it means to sin we are now reduced to a quivering lip and overwhelming shame.
“We weigh sin in our own balance, and not in his, whereas no sin is to accounted little; for if it were once set upon the conscience, and the wrath opened due unto it, it would take all comfort from us.”
There are no ‘white lies.’ There are no small sins. “Why are you being so condemning?” I am not. Friends, we are at war. In war you must know who your enemy is, or you might as well sit down and pick daisies. Every day we wake up is a gift from God and a summons back to the front line. This battle is not merely external, however. We war within ourselves and the outcome of this battle is eternity.
We cannot win anything in the battle, however. The moment of our salvation decides which General we serve. Paul expounds in Romans on the slavery of the Christian, formerly to sin, and after salvation to Jesus Christ. Why slave and not bondservant, or servant, or friend, or homey? Slaves are constrained to obey. Before Christ we had no choice but to sin. We are sinful by nature, and our dead hearts could not choose God. When He saved you, if indeed you are His, he replaced your heart of stone with a heart of flesh. He regenerated you and gave you a new will. This new will is constrained to serve Him.
Therefore do not take sin lightly. Do you grieve the Holy Spirit because you want no part of Him? Is your constant sin evidence that you really don’t care, but are putting on a show for those around you? Come now, it’s just you and me here, be honest. Are you conforming for the sake of family or friends or the place where you live? Do you have any desire for Him, or just the fake good feelings you get from keeping rules? Doesn’t that feel empty? Don’t you feel that ache for something more?
Do you, Christian, grieve the Holy Spirit and presume on His grace? Do try to work from your own strength, ignoring His? Are you walking contrary to God all the while knowing what He would have you do? Are you so easily giving in to sin, saying you are fighting, yet allowing your enemy to blow up portions of your wall? Have you lost your first love in the crushing press of life? It’s easy to slip back into that old man, you know him well.
To the rebellious sinner who wants no part of God: He will not strive with you forever. Do not presume His interest will remain until such time you see fit to bend your knee. There will come a time when you will bend your knee, in eternity, and you will answer for your sins. Do not be the Laodicean whom God will spew from His mouth in their lukewarm hypocrisy. (Rev. 3:14-22) Christ died for the sins you think nothing of. It took the death of Christ to pay for such heinous rebellion. Repent, and believe.
To the Christian:
“God the Father hath ordained you to salvation by the redemption of Christ his Son; and that you might have the comfort of it in the way to it against all discouragements you may meet with, the Holy Ghost hath assured you of it, and set his seal upon you as those that are set apart for so great salvation; that the sense of this love might breed love in you again, and love breed a care out of {ingenuousness,} not to offend so gracious a Spirit.”
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Last week, we read Salvation Applied.
Next week, we read A Fountain Sealed. Part 2: Pages 432-455.
