Book Description

A pastor of forty years who has throughout his ministry found the Puritans to be a great source of spiritual encouragement, David MacKinnon presents here 366 extracts from the works of the Puritan pastor Richard Sibbes, which may be used each day of the year by readers as an aid to devotion.

Each extract has been carefully selected, and a suitable accompanying Scripture text provided at the start of each daily reading. Occasional antiquated words in the original have been updated, and overly long sentences have been shortened, but all with a view to retain Sibbes’ flow and meaning for present-day readers.

For those who have never encountered Sibbes before, this volume will serve as an excellent introduction. All will find in these daily readings spiritual refreshment for the soul, coming from one who in his day was known, appropriately, as the ‘heavenly doctor.’

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More than anything else, Richard Sibbes (1577–1635) was a great preacher. He never lost sight of the fact that the best Christian counselling is done by the Holy Spirit through the patient and lively exposition of God’s word. Sibbes excelled as a comforter of the troubled and doubting. But he also possessed a rare gift of illuminating every passage of Scripture he handled by drawing out its significance for his hearers and readers.

These features of Sibbes’s ministry figure prominently in The Glorious Feast of the Gospel. Sibbes takes for his text Isaiah 25:6-9 in order to display ‘Christ’s gracious invitation and royal entertainment of believers.’ The subject-matter is a perfect blend of rich doctrine and practical application. Here is an ‘admirable feast indeed … Jesus Christ is the master of the feast, and the cheer and provision too.’

If you have lost the ‘spiritual relish of savoury practical truths,’ these sermons, if read prayerfully, will help you recover it.

‘Now, I will shew why Christ, with his benefits, prerogatives, graces, and comforts, is compared to a feast…’

— RICHARD SIBBES

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‘Christians today need not only the truth and comfort Sibbes offers here; they need his heartfelt delight so that they live for no other end than the very glory of God.’ — MICHAEL REEVES

Book Description

A Heavenly Conference is Richard Sibbes’ exposition of the memorable meeting that took place on the first Easter Sunday when the risen Christ met Mary Magdalene at the empty tomb. Though only a few words were exchanged between the Lord and Mary, Sibbes saw in them the gospel in a nutshell.

A Heavenly Conference is a wonderfully original treatment of the doctrine of the believer’s union with Christ. It is written by a loving and tender-hearted pastor whose main aim is to help believers enjoy the comfort that comes from knowing that Jesus’ God and Father is our God and Father too. ‘For from this, that God is our God, cometh all that we have that is good in nature and grace. Whatsoever is comfortable cometh from this spring, that God in Christ is our God, our reconciled God.’

Without such assurance, we simply cannot live Christian lives as God would have us. God would have us thankful, cheerful, rejoicing, and strong in faith: but we will be none of these things unless we are sure that God and Christ are ours for good. Here, then, are pastorally vital truths that Sibbes seeks to work into us.

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The post A Heavenly Conference appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

More than anything else, Richard Sibbes was a great preacher. He never lost sight of the fact that the best Christian counselling is done through the patient and enlivening exposition of the Word of God. Sibbes excelled as a comforter of the troubled and doubting, but he also possessed the rare gift of illuminating every passage of Scripture he handled by drawing out its significance for his hearers and readers. The republication of the Nichol edition of his complete works is a notable event for all who have an appetite for helpful and faithful biblical preaching.

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Reviews

• Review by Tony Doppke

The post The Works of Richard Sibbes appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

‘To read the work of a Puritan doctor of the soul is to enter a rich world of spiritual theology to feed the mind, heart-searching analysis to probe the conscience, Christ-centred grace to transform the heart, and wise counsel to direct the life. This series of Pocket Puritans provides all this in miniature, but also in abundance.’– SINCLAIR B. FERGUSON

Book Description

The Puritan preacher Richard Sibbes (1577-1635) really knew how to awaken and invigorate faith, love and joy in Christ in the hearts of his hearers. Taking Paul’s words in Philippians 1:23,24, Sibbes ably shows that we will only begin to desire Christ above all else when we sense how much he loves us sinners, how much he has suffered for our forgiveness, and how unfathomably kind and merciful he is and has been. We love him, because he first loved us (I John 4:19).

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More than anything else, Richard Sibbes was a great preacher. He never lost sight of the fact that the best Christian counselling is done through the patient and enlivening exposition of the Word of God. Sibbes excelled as a comforter of the troubled and doubting, but he also possessed the rare gift of illuminating every passage of Scripture he handled by drawing out its significance for his hearers and readers. The republication of the Nichol edition of his complete works is a notable event for all who have an appetite for helpful and faithful biblical preaching.

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The post The Works of Richard Sibbes appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

Richard Sibbes always sought to get under the superficial layer of his listeners’ behaviour and deal with their hearts. He knew that the outward acts of sin spring from the inner desires of the heart. Merely to alter a person’s behavior without dealing with those desires would cultivate hypocrisy, the self-righteous cloak for a cold and vicious heart. Sibbes believed that hearts must be turned, and evil desires eclipsed by stronger ones for Christ.

This book is as relevant today as when it was first published in 1629. Our busyness and activism so easily degenerate into a hypocrisy in which we keep up all the appearance of holiness without the heart of it. Christians even use Christ as a package to pass on to others, instead of enjoying him first and foremost as their own Savior. But true reformation must begin in the heart, with love for Christ. And that can only come when the free grace of God in Christ Jesus is preached.

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Review

• Review by Trevor Kirkland
• Review by Alan Hill

The post Josiah’s Reformation appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

More than anything else, Richard Sibbes was a great preacher. He never lost sight of the fact that the best Christian counselling is done through the patient and enlivening exposition of the Word of God. Sibbes excelled as a comforter of the troubled and doubting, but he also possessed the rare gift of illuminating every passage of Scripture he handled by drawing out its significance for his hearers and readers. The republication of the Nichol edition of his complete works is a notable event for all who have an appetite for helpful and faithful biblical preaching.

Table of Contents Expand ↓

The post The Works of Richard Sibbes appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

More than anything else, Richard Sibbes was a great preacher. He never lost sight of the fact that the best Christian counselling is done through the patient and enlivening exposition of the Word of God. Sibbes excelled as a comforter of the troubled and doubting, but he also possessed the rare gift of illuminating every passage of Scripture he handled by drawing out its significance for his hearers and readers. The republication of the Nichol edition of his complete works is a notable event for all who have an appetite for helpful and faithful biblical preaching.

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The post The Works of Richard Sibbes appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

‘I shall never cease to be grateful to. . .Richard Sibbes who was balm to my soul at a period in my life when I was overworked and badly overtired, and therefore subject in an unusual manner to the onslaughts of the devil. I found at that time that Richard Sibbes, who was known in London in the early seventeenth century as “The Heavenly Doctor Sibbes” was an unfailing remedy. . . The Bruised Reed. . . quietened, soothed, comforted, encouraged and healed me.’ — D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Book Description

Richard Sibbes (1577-1635), one of the most influential figures in the Puritan movement during the earlier years of the seventeenth century, was renowned for the rich quality of his ministry. The Bruised Reed shows why he was known among his contemporaries as ‘the sweet dropper’.

The Bruised Reed is now issued for the first time in a smaller format in the Puritan Paperbacks series. Some of the language and punctuation have been modernized to make the work more accessible.

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Reviews

• Review by Nick Roark
• Review by Derek J. Brown (TGC)

The post The Bruised Reed appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

More than anything else, Richard Sibbes was a great preacher. He never lost sight of the fact that the best Christian counselling is done through the patient and enlivening exposition of the Word of God. Sibbes excelled as a comforter of the troubled and doubting, but he also possessed the rare gift of illuminating every passage of Scripture he handled by drawing out its significance for his hearers and readers. The republication of the Nichol edition of his complete works is a notable event for all who have an appetite for helpful and faithful biblical preaching.

Table of Contents Expand ↓

The post The Works of Richard Sibbes appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

More than anything else, Richard Sibbes was a great preacher. He never lost sight of the fact that the best Christian counselling is done through the patient and enlivening exposition of the Word of God. Sibbes excelled as a comforter of the troubled and doubting, but he also possessed the rare gift of illuminating every passage of Scripture he handled by drawing out its significance for his hearers and readers. The republication of the Nichol edition of his complete works is a notable event for all who have an appetite for helpful and faithful biblical preaching.

Table of Contents Expand ↓

The post The Works of Richard Sibbes appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

More than anything else, Richard Sibbes was a great preacher. He never lost sight of the fact that the best Christian counselling is done through the patient and enlivening exposition of the Word of God. Sibbes excelled as a comforter of the troubled and doubting, but he also possessed the rare gift of illuminating every passage of Scripture he handled by drawing out its significance for his hearers and readers. The republication of the Nichol edition of his complete works is a notable event for all who have an appetite for helpful and faithful biblical preaching.

Table of Contents Expand ↓

The post The Works of Richard Sibbes appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

More than anything else, Richard Sibbes was a great preacher. He never lost sight of the fact that the best Christian counselling is done through the patient and enlivening exposition of the Word of God. Sibbes excelled as a comforter of the troubled and doubting, but he also possessed the rare gift of illuminating every passage of Scripture he handled by drawing out its significance for his hearers and readers. The republication of the Nichol edition of his complete works is a notable event for all who have an appetite for helpful and faithful biblical preaching.

Table of Contents Expand ↓

The post The Works of Richard Sibbes appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

‘To read the work of a Puritan doctor of the soul is to enter a rich world of spiritual theology to feed the mind, heart-searching analysis to probe the conscience, Christ-centred grace to transform the heart, and wise counsel to direct the life. This series of Pocket Puritans provides all this in miniature, but also in abundance.’– SINCLAIR B. FERGUSON

Book Description

Richard Sibbes always sought to get under the superficial layer of his listeners’ behaviour and deal with their hearts, affections and desires. In The Tender Heart, he explains that those who are tender-hearted do not simply desire salvation; they desire the Lord of salvation himself. Only when a person is brought to love the Lord with heart-felt sincerity will they begin to hate their sin truly instead of merely dreading the thought of God’s punishment of it.

Reviews

• Review by Alan Hill

The post The Tender Heart appeared first on Banner of Truth UK.

The Puritan John Dod wrote that this book is ‘so full of heavenly treasure, and such lively expressions of the invaluable riches of the love of Christ’ that it kindles ‘in the heart all heavenly affections unto Jesus Christ’. Indeed it does! And that was very much what Richard Sibbes (1577-1635) was about in all his ministry.

The Love of Christ is a series of sermons preached on Song of Solomon 4:16-6:3. For Sibbes, this Bible book ‘is nothing else but a plain demonstration and setting forth of the love of Christ to his church, and of the love of the church to Christ’. The Song of Solomon does not simply mouth a doctrine: its sensuous imagery sings its message. It is as if this love story is played on violins. The reader is thus brought, not simply to understand, but to taste and share the delights of the lovers. This is precisely what Christ’s people need, as Sibbes knew: it is not enough to be aware of Christ’s love; we must sense, grasp and enjoy it. Only then will we truly love the Lord our God with all our hearts.

That is one reason why so many avoid books like this one: they want information, and they want it fast. But Sibbes intends to affect you, to hold your eyes on Jesus that you might develop a stronger appetite for him. Such work cannot be fast work, but it is profoundly transforming.

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Reviews

• Review by Ben Ramsbottom
• Review by David Morris (page 15)
• Review by Alan Hill

About the author

Richard Sibbes was born at Tostock, Suffolk, in 1577 and went to school in Bury St Edmunds. His father, ‘a good sound-hearted Christian’, at first intended … Read More >>

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A renowned Puritan shows the transforming liberty which comes from seeing Christ in the gospel. This is an exposition of 2 Corinthians 3:17-18.

The original title of this study was The Excellency of the Gospel above the Law. In it Sibbes described the fuller self-revelation of God in the coming of Christ and its greater effect in those who behold that glory by the Spirit. The vitality of the new covenant results in spiritual liberty and likeness to Christ.

Thomas Goodwin and Philip Nye supervised the first edition of this work which was first published in 1639, four years after Sibbes’ death. They described it as showing ‘the liberty of the sons of God… the image of their graces here and glory hereafter’ and as providing ‘much comfort and great encouragement to all (who) begin timely and continue constantly in the ways of God’.

The text of the original treatise is reproduced here with the minimum of editing.

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