And what can our thoughts devise, our tongues utter, or our lives express, better, than the praise of our good God, that ever loadeth us with his benefits? that so God may delight still to show himself unto us in the ways of his mercy, and think thoughts of love towards us, and dwell amongst us to the world’s end.
Richard Sibbes
Today, we celebrate the deliverance from the spiritual and political tyranny of the Roman Catholic Church over the Western world. Without this deliverance, countless millions would have remained lost, there would never have been a United States of America, and Europe would have remained under a spiritually dead and anti-Christ theology.
May we never return to that reign of tyrannical darkness.
In our own day, we face political and spiritual tyrants again. The Islamic influence over Western countries, cities, and capitals, including London and New York, is a major threat to the freedom we currently enjoy in the spread of the Gospel. Again, more pressing, is the restriction on the liberties and joys we once held as our prize possession. In the West, governments are committing to all out assaults on religious and political liberty. Once again, we find ourselves facing a political and spiritual leviathan.
While “The church can perform its work even in the face of murderous hostility from the government…,” we should not wish for such a fate. Were the West to return to the totalitarian nightmare, it would mean that we had wilfully fallen off the great ladder which God had erected to bring us here. Would we suffer the sacrifice of millions of faithful Christians to end with us? Would we renounce the work of God in ages past?
O England, the nation that did more to end slavery than any other nation; the people that built the infrastructure (intellectually, technologically, and economically) for the liberty of the world.
You defeated Napolean, and stood against Hitler when all others fell away and won.
You saw the threat of Communist Russia when your allies across the ocean were blind to it.
Your child, America, is what it is not despite you, but because of you.
You raised the greatest theologians the world has seen since the fall of the great papal tyranny.
You produced the missionaries that have forwarded the Gospel to every continent.
You conquered a quarter of the globe, and left your colonies better than when you first arrived.
Would you now forfeit all that you have enjoyed? Would you stand against two thousand years of God’s blessing imperfect Christians to bring you to the where you are – to the pinnacle of human civilization and the most widespread Christianity has ever been? In the name of tolerance, being driven by the sense of “shame” for being great because of God’s blessing, would you stand against God’s work thus far by throwing up your hands in surrender and indifference when God and your children urge you to stand? Are we so ungrateful to God that we would abandon the last great hope on earth for a Christianity free of government tyranny, and the last hope for a free world? No! may it never be! If we suffer this great light to go out here in the West, those countries in the East under tyranny will never see deliverance until the return of God Himself to earth. And those Christians in the East, at least, pray for us and our nations.
For ourselves, we cannot better show our thankfulness for this deliverance [from the tyranny of the Pope who “hath temporal jurisdiction over princes, that he may excommunicate them; that he may, out of fulness of power, dispense until the oath of allegiance: that he cannot err; that subjection to him is a point of absolute necessity to salvation, &c.”], by means whereof we enjoy our lives and our religion, than to preserve that truth, that is grounded upon the foundation of truth, which hath been derived unto us from those that went before, who held out the same truth; that hath been sealed by the blood of so many martyrs; that hath been established by the authority of gracious princes; that God hath given witness to by so many deliverances; that concurs with the confessions of all reformed churches; that God hath blessed with a constant tenor of peace, even to the rejoicing of all neighbour churches, to the envy of our enemies, and to the admiration of all.
~ Richard Sibbes, The Complete Works of Richard Sibbes, Volume 1, p. 392-393
We see all countries round about us in a confusion, and we, as it were the ‘three young men in the fiery furnace,’ safe, Dan. iii., without so much as smoke or smell of fire; as if we were the only people of God’s delight. Now, what is that which God careth most for amongst us, but his truth? which, if we suffer, as much as in us lieth, to take any detriment, God may justly make us the spectacles of his wrath to others, as others have been to us. Beloved, God hath a cause and a people in the world, which he esteemeth more than all the world besides. Let us therefore own God’s cause and people; his side one day will prove the better side.
I beseech you consider, what hurt have we ever had by the Reformation of religion? hath it come naked unto us? hath it not been attended with peace and prosperity? hath God ‘been a barren wilderness to us?’ Jer. ii. 31. Hath not God been a wall of fire about us? which, if he had not been, it is not the water that compasseth our island could have kept us. So long as we keep Christ’s truth, Christ will keep us. Otherwise, trust to it, Christ and his truth will leave us. No nation under heaven hath so much cause to say ‘Behold’ as we have. Men are ready upon all occasions to be sensible of civil grievances (as in Solomon’s time gold was as stones in the street, 2 Chron. i. 15, ix. 27), but we should be sensible of the spiritual favours we enjoy. If we look upon other kingdoms abroad, what nation under heaven hath the like cause to bless God for religion, for prince, for peace, &c., as we have? Beloved, we cannot better deserve of our king, church, and state, than to give up our lives to God who hath thus blessed us. The greatest enemies of a church and state, are those that provoke the highest Majesty of heaven, by obstinate courses against the light that shineth in their own hearts. It is seriously to be considered what Samuel saith to the people; and therefore, if not for love of ourselves, yet for the love of our king, religion, and state, let us take heed of provoking courses, and take heed of tiring the patience of God over-long. To conclude all, it is prayer that gets, but thankfulness witnessed by obedience that keeps, blessings. And what can our thoughts devise, our tongues utter, or our lives express, better, than the praise of our good God, that ever loadeth us with his benefits? that so God may delight still to show himself unto us in the ways of his mercy, and think thoughts of love towards us, and dwell amongst us to the world’s end.
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Standing Before God, This We Are and No More 
Well-put Noah. Thank you for these thoughts. I share your call/question to England . . . a lot is hanging in the balance . . . and the Sibbes quote at the end was very thought provoking.
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Thank you! The more I read from Sibbes and others, the more pointed it feels to our own day. It’s an amazing thing how applying God’s Word to the current day can be so timeless.
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