glorycloud's Diaryland Diary

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A Call to the Unconverted to Turn and Live

"O careless sinners! that you did but know the love that you
unthankfully neglect, and the preciousness of the blood of Christ
which you despise! O that you did but know the riches of the
gospel! O that you did but know, a little know, the certainty, and
the glory, and blessedness, of that everlasting life, which now you
will not set your hearts upon, nor be persuaded first and diligently
to seek, Heb. xi. 6. and xii. 28. Matt. vi. 12. Did you but know the
endless life with God which you now neglect, how quickly would
you cast away your sin, how quickly would you change your mind
and life, your course and company, and turn the streams of your
affections, and lay your care another way! How resolutely would
you scorn to yield to such temptations as now deceive you and
carry you away! How zealously would you bestir yourselves for that
most blessed life! How earnest would you be with God in prayer!
How diligent in hearing, and learning, and inquiring!—How serious
in meditating on the laws of God! (Psal. i. 2.) How fearful of sinning
in thought, word, or deed; and how careful to please God and grow
in holiness!—O what a changed people you would be! And why
should not the certain word of God be believed by you, and prevail
with you, which, openeth to you these glorious and eternal things?
Yea, let me tell you, that even here on earth, ye little know the
difference between the life which you refuse, and the life which you
would choose. The sanctified are conversing with God, when you
dare scarce think of him, and when you are conversing with but
earth and flesh.—Their conversation is in heaven, when you are
utter strangers to it, and your belly is your God, and you are
minding earthly things, Phil. iii. 18, 19, 20. They are seeking after
the face of God, when you seek for nothing higher than this
world.—They are busily laying out for an endless life, where they
shall be equal with the angels, Luke xx. 36. when you are taken up
with a shadow and a transitory thing of naught. How long and base
is your earthly, fleshly, sinful life, in comparison of the noble,
spiritual lfe of true believers! Many a time have I looked on such
men with grief and pity, to see them trudge about the world, and
spend their lives, and care, and labour, for nothing but a little food
and raiment, or a little fading pelf, or fleshly pleasures, or empty
honours, as if they had no higher things to mind.—What difference
is there between the lives of these men and of the beasts that
perish, that spend their time in working, and eating, and living, but
that they may live? They taste not of the inward heavenly
pleasures which believers taste and live upon.—I had rather have a
little of their comfort, which the fore-thoughts of their heavenly
inheritance afford them, though I had all their scorns and
sufferings with it, than to have all your pleasures and treacherous
prosperity. I would not have one of your secret gripes and pangs of
conscience, and dark and dreadful thoughts of death and the life to
come, for all that ever the world hath done for you, or all that you
can reasonably hope that it should do. If I were in your
unconverted carnal state, and knew but what I know, and believed
but what I now believe, methinks my life would he a fore-taste of
hell: How oft should I be thinking of the terrors of the Lord of the
dismal day that is hastening on! Sure death and hell would be still
before me. I should think of them by day, and dream of them by
night; I should lie down in fear, and rise in fear, and live in fear,
lest death should come before I were converted. I should have
small felicity in any thing that I possessed, and little pleasure in any
company, and little joy in any thing in the world, as long as I knew
myself to be under the curse and wrath of God. I should be still
afraid of hearing that voice, Luke xii. 20. “Thou fool, this night shall
thy soul be required of thee.” And that fearful sentence would he
written upon my conscience, Isa. xlviii. 22. and lvii. 21. “There is no
peace, faith my God, to the wicked.”—O poor sinners! it is a
joyfuller life than this that you might live, if you were but but truly
willing, to hearken to Christ, and come home to God. You might
then draw near to God, with boldness, and call him your father,
and comfortably trust him with your souls and bodies. If you look
upon the promises, you may say, they are all mine: If upon the
curse, you may say, from this I am delivered! When you read the
law, you may see what you are saved from!—When you read the
gospel, you may see him that redeemed you, and see the course of
his love, and holy life, and sufferings, and trace him in his
temptations, tears, and blood, in the work of your salvation. You
may see death conquered, and heaven opened, and your
resurrection and glorification provided for in the resurrection and
glorification of your Lord. If you look on the saints, you may say,
“They are my brethren and companions.” If on the unsanctified you
may rejoice to think that you are saved from that state. If you look
upon the heavens, the sun, and moon, and stars innumerable, you
may think and say, “My Father’s face is infinitely more glorious; it is
higher matters that he hath prepared for his saints; yonder is but
the outward court of heaven: The blessedness that he hath
promised us is so much higher that flesh and blood cannot behold
it.” If you think of the grave, you may remember that the glorified
Spirit, a living Head, and a loving Father, have all so near relation
to your dust, that it cannot be forgotten or neglected, but more
certainly revive than the plants and flowers in the spring, because
that the soul is still alive, that is the root of the body; and Christ is
alive, that is the root of both.—Even death, which is the king of
fears, may be remembered and entertained with joy, as being the
day of your deliverance from the remnants of sin and sorrow, and
the day which you believed, and hoped, and waited for, when you
shall see the blessed things which you had heard of, and shall find,
by present joyful experience, what it was to choose the better part,
and to be a sincere believing saint. What say you, Sir? is not this a
more delightful life, to be assured of salvation, and ready to die,
than to live as the ungodly, that have their hearts overcharged with
surfeiting and drunkenness and the cares of this life, and so that
day comes upon them unawares? Luke xxi. 34, 36. Might you not
live a comfortable life, if once you were made the heirs of heaven,
and sure to be saved when you leave the world?—O look about you
then, and think what you do, and cast not away such hopes as
these for very nothing. The flesh and world can give you no such
hopes or comforts." Richard Baxter

http://reformedaudio.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/RB_Call-to-the-Unconverted-to-Turn-and-Live-A.pdf

http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=97151923480

9:05 p.m. - 2016-01-20

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