Richard Sibbes
Those who have gone far in religion may yet, nonetheless, fall away and become apostates.
Reason 1. Because they rest on their own strength, and there is no support in man to uphold himself. Without Christ we can do nothing. We see how weak the apostles themselves were till they were given strength from above. Peter was blasted by the speech of a damsel. Therefore in every encounter and in all our fears of falling, we should lift up our hearts to Christ, who has Spirit enough for us all. We should say with good Jehoshaphat: Lord, we know not “what to do, but our eyes are upon Thee” (2 Chr 20:12). The battle we fight is Thine, and the strength whereby we fight must be Thine. If Thou dost not go out with us, we are sure to be foiled.
Satan knows that nothing can prevail against Christ, or those that rely upon His power. Therefore he considers how to keep us looking to ourselves and to the creature, but we must carry this always in our minds: that what is begun in self-confidence will end in shame.
Reason 2. Because Satan, that grand apostate, has himself fallen from the truth and he labours to draw others to fall back with him. Being a cursed spirit, himself cast and tumbled down from heaven, where he is never to come again, he is full of malice and he labours all he can to ruin and destroy others, so that they may be in the same cursed condition with himself. By his envy and subtlety we were driven out of paradise at the first, and ever since he envies us the paradise of a good conscience. He cannot endure that a creature of lower rank than himself should enjoy such happiness.
Application. I beseech you therefore, let us learn that exhortation of the Apostle, “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall”. A watch-
1The first of two extracts from a sermon, entitled “The Danger of Backsliding”; Sibbes’ text was: “For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world” (2 Tim 4:10). Taken, with editing, from Works of Richard Sibbes, vol 7. The set is available both as a set and as individual volumes. Sibbes (1577-1635) was a noted Puritan.
ful Christian stands when careless spirits have many a fall. It is no easy matter to keep our ground. We often see tall cedars shake and fall. How many are like buds in a frosty morning, nipped suddenly! We have true grace only if we hold out to the end.
Question. But how shall we persevere in goodness?
(1.) Labour for true grace. What is sincere, is constant. True grace is what the Spirit of God works in us and is not built on false grounds: as to have respect to this or that man, or by-ends of our own.
That we may have true grace, let us labour to be thoroughly convinced of sin; grace will follow conviction of our evil ways. So we should pray earnestly for the Spirit, which will convince us of all sin (Jn 16:9) and work this grace of constancy in us, and all other graces. For where the Spirit is, there is a relish in all the ways of God. How sweet to a spiritual heart is the goodness of God in our redemption, justification and preservation!
(2.) Again, if we would hold out, get a strong resolution against all opposition. Know this: scandals will come, difficulties will arise, but firm resolution will carry us through all. Those that go out to walk for pleasure, return at once if a storm comes; whereas he that is to go on a journey, even if he meets with never so many storms and tempests, yet he will go through all because he hath so resolved beforehand. Things are either good or evil, as a man wills them. The bent of the soul to God makes a man good.
(3.) To persevere to the end, labour to be as obedient in your practice as you would for the obedience of faith – to believe the truth. Labour to know the truth and to practise what you know, that so you may be built on the rock Christ Jesus. If you fall, it is your own fault for building on the sand. Therefore put this question often to your soul: Is this truth that I hold? Would I die for it? If so, then hold it fast, otherwise suspect there is unsoundness.
(4.) Above all things, get the love of God in your heart. This will constrain us to obedience. If we look altogether on our discouragements, we shall alas soon flag and fall away. But if we eye our encouragements, it is impossible to desert Christ or His truth. Who would not hold out, having such a Captain and such a cause as we fight for. Where the truth is received in the love of it, there is constancy.
(5.) Strive to grow daily in self-denial. No one can come to heaven but he must first strip himself of himself. He must not consider his own wit, will or affections; he must be wholly emptied of himself. He must deny himself in all his aims after the world, in its pleasure, profit or advancement. He must not respect anything if he will follow Christ. Such a religion is never sound. A true Christian has a single eye; he serves God for Himself. A man that has worldly aims has a double eye as well as a double heart; such a man cannot
but waver. Bring therefore single eyes, hearts and aims to receive the Word. The great fault of many is that they bring false hearts with them to God’s ordinances. It is said of Israel that he brought Egypt into the wilderness (Num 11:18). So most men want to have religion and their lusts together, but whatever begins in hypocrisy will end in apostasy.
Know this: he that has religion does not need to go out for aims or good company. He is acquainted with God and Christ, and he has an eternal inheritance to aim at. There are encouragements enough in religion itself. We need not go out and look abroad for more. I say this especially because false aims and ends are the ready means to undo men, when they have respect to such a person or such a thing in their practice of holiness. Joash was a good king all the while Jehoiada lived. This kept him in awe. The eye of a great person restrains some men and often causes them to blaze forth in a greater show than many others who inwardly are more sincere.
(6.) Labour to have divine truths engrafted in you; not to have them loose, for then they will never grow. But get them engrafted in your heart that so they may spring forth in your life as that which is set into a stock turns the stock into the same nature. We should embrace truths inwardly. Indeed God’s children will have truths as belonging to themselves. As a wife receiving a letter from her husband says, This is sent to me and belongs to me; so we should say of every truth, This was penned for me and directed to my soul in particular.
(7.) To grow deeper in religion, grow deeper and deeper in humiliation. A man is humble when he accounts sin his greatest evil and grace his chiefest good; such a person will hold out in time of trial. If temptations of profit or preferment come on the right hand, he will say, Christ is better to me. And if sin comes on the left hand to draw him aside, he will say, This is the vilest thing in the world; it is the worst of all evils; I must not yield to it.
Love is the everlasting grace that shall abide and be in use and exercise when the acts of other graces shall cease. There are some graces suitable especially to our estate of imperfection in this world. To live by faith, to repent and mourn for sin, to live in hope of the glory that is to be revealed, to wait till we be possessed of the mansions which are above, to desire all the good that is promised to us, but not yet conferred upon us. But hereafter faith shall be turned into vision, hope into fruition, desires into possession, waiting into obtaining. And then we shall thus believe no more, nor hope, nor desire, nor wait; but then we shall love still, yea, more than ever, more abundantly, yea perfectly, without diminution; continually without intermission; and eternally, without cessation; in which respect, among the three cardinal graces, love hath the pre-eminence, “Now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three, but the greatest of these is charity” (1 Cor 13:13) because it is the longest in duration. Thomas Doolittle