Works (Vol 1) - Sibbes - XVII - The saint's safety in evil times - Discourse 1

Required reading
The Works Volume 1 by Richard Sibbes (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read the first discourse entitled 'The saint's safety in evil times'.

My summary
Now we read Sibbes sermon on Psalm 7:14: 'Behold, he travaileth with iniquity, and hath conceived mischief, and brought forth falsehood.' 

Firstly Sibbes looks at what the enemies of David did.  We see the conception, birth, carriage and miscarriage of a plot against David.

Secondly Sibbes observes what God did in response to the sin of David's enemies: 'This defeating ariseth by five steps : 1, they were disappointed; 2, they fell into danger; 3, they were contrivers of this danger themselves; 4, there was a penal proportion, they fell into the same danger which they plotted for another; 5, they were a means of doing good to him whom they devised evil against; and raised him, whom they thought to pull down.'

Thirdly we are taught what we all should do when we are tempted to any hurtful design: '...look upon Christ, and that great project for our redemption undertaken by him, and reason thus with ourselves: hath he plotted and wrought my salvation, and shall I plot against him in my members.'

What grabbed me
I found Sibbes' description of sinful thoughts helpful: '...they were so well pleased with the brat of their own brain that they travailed of it. It increases guilt when men upon view and sight of their plot grow so far in love with it that they long to be delivered of it. The more the soul dwells upon any sinful plot, the more estrangement there is from God ; because the happiness of the soul consists in cleaving to God the fountain of all good. The more deliberation any man takes in sinning, the more his soul is pleased with wickedness. A heart long exercised in sin will admit of no impression of grace ; for the spirits are so absorbed with other designs that they are dry and dead to better things. Many thousands are in hell at this day for suffering their spirits to shove them too far into sin. Many suck out the delight of sin before they act it, as Esau pleased himself by thinking ' the day of mourning for his father would come, wherein he might be revenged of his brother,' Gen. xxvii. 41.'

Sinful thoughts are not harmless.  They will take you straight to hell.

Next week's reading
Read the second discourse entitled 'The saint's safety in evil times'.

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.