Rest is Near

 COMPLETE REST IS NEAR

“God will shortly put a blessed end to all those troubles, cares, and labors. The time is coming when your heart will be as you desire; when you will be discharged of these cares, fears, and sorrows and never cry out, “Oh my hard, proud, vain, earthly heart!”; when all darkness will be banished from your understanding and you will clearly discover all the truths in God, that crystal ocean of truth; and when you will be perfectly purged of all corruptions. Then your thoughts will be everlastingly, ravishingly, and delightfully entertained and exercised upon that supreme goodness and infinite excellency of God, from Whom they will never recoil like a broken bow. And as for your pride, passion and worldliness, and all other subjects of your complaints and troubles, let it be said of them as of the Egyptians to Israel:

“Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord.” (Exodus 14:13)

These corruptions you see today, henceforth you will see them no more forever! Soon you will lay down your weapons of prayers, tears, and groans and you will put on the armor of light----not to fight, but to triumph!”

~ John Flavel 1627-1691, “Keeping the Heart”

God of His mercies

 "Every man loves the mercies of God, but a saint loves the God of his mercies."

– John Flavel

John Flavel Come Unto Jesus

“Lord, I am fully satisfied of the fulness of thy saving power, but greatly doubt whether ever I shall have the benefit thereof; “for I see so much sin and guilt in myself, so great vileness and utter unworthiness, that I am overweighed, and even sink under the burden of it: My soul is discouraged because of sin. “This objection is prevented in the words of my text, ‘Come unto me, all ye that labour, and are heavy laden.’ “Let not the sense of your sin and misery drive you from your only remedy: “Be your sins never so many, and the sense and burden of them never so heavy, yet, for all that, Come unto me: “You are the persons whom I invite and call. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

 — John Flavel

A grave with Christ is a Comfortable Place

“A grave with Christ is a comfortable place.”

— John Flavel

Bring Heaven to Us

 

It would fall infinitely short

 “If every leaf and spire of grass, nay, all the stars, sands, and atoms, were so many souls and seraphims, whose love should double in them every moment to all eternity,

“yet would it fall infinitely short of what is due to his worth and excellency.

“Suppose a creature composed of all the choice endowments that ever dwelt in the best of men since the creation of the world, in whom you find a meek Moses, a strong Sampson, a faithful Jonathan, a beautiful Absalom, a rich and wise Solomon, nay, and add to this, the understanding, strength, agility, splendor, and holiness of all the angels,

“it would all amount to but a dark shadow of this incomparable Jesus.”

— A “Mr. Jenkin,” cited in Flavel’s Fountain of Life

JOHN FLAVEL ON ASSURANCE

 John Flavel, on the believer pleading for assurance on the ground of the preciousness of Christ’s blood:

“Lord, I am not only thy creature, but thy redeemed creature; one that thou hast bought with a great price: O, I have cost thee dear! for my sake Christ came from thy bosom,

“and is it imaginable, that after that thou hast in such a costly way, even by the expense of the precious blood of Christ, redeemed me, thou shouldst at last exclude me? Shall the ends of both creation and redemption of this soul be lost together?

“…will [God] be content, when sin has marred the frame, and defaced the glory of [the soul], to recover it to himself again, by the death of his own dear Son, and after all this, cast it away as if there were nothing in all this?

“‘Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit:’ I know thou wilt have a respect to the work of thy hands; especially to a redeemed creature, upon which thou hast expended so great sums of love, which thou hast bought at so dear a rate.”

Judas heard all of Christ's Sermons

 Judas heard all Christ’s sermons. — Thomas Goodwin

Flavel on Judas: Never was a dead branch watered so much.

(Found online)

WE PREACH AND PRAY

 We preach and pray, and you hear; but there is no motion Christ-ward until the Spirit of God blows upon them.

John Flavel

YOUR DAMNATION IS JUST

 “O poor sinners! Your damnation is just, if you refuse grace brought home by Jesus Christ himself to your very doors. The Lord grant this may not be thy case who readest these lines.”

— John Flavel

A FEW LEAVES

 O my heart, my haughty heart! dost thou well to be discontent, when God has given thee the whole tree, with all the clusters of comfort growing on it, because he suffers the wind to blow down a few leaves? -- John Flavel

Bring Heaven to Us

 “A saving, though an immethodical knowledge of Christ, will bring us to heaven, John 17: 2, but a regular and methodical, as well as a saving knowledge of him, will bring heaven into us, Col. 2: 2, 3.”

― John Flavel, The Fountain of Life Opened, Or, a Display of Christ in His Essential and Mediatorial Glory Wherein the Impetration of Our Redemption by Jesus Christ Is Orderly Unfolded as It Was Begun, Carryed On, and Finished by His Covenant-Transaction

CAST DOWN

 Remember, you that are cast down, under the sense of sin, that Jesus, your friend, in the court above, "is able to save to the uttermost.”

—Puritan John Flavel, Works 1.178

My children, I write these things to you so that you will not sin. If anyone does sin, we have an Advocate before the Father: Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 1 John 2:1

EFFICACY IN THE BLOOD

 John Flavel – ‘...there is more efficacy in the blood of Christ (to forgive sins, than there is reason in the heinousness of sin to condemn the sinner). There is power enough in that blood, not only to pardon (your) sins, but the sins of the whole world, were it actually applied. There is not only sufficiency, but also a redundancy of merit in that precious blood.’ - (Works, vol.1, p.375)

Our sins stand no chance of standing safely before a Holy God.

 “The greatest guilt that ever was contracted upon a trembling, shaking conscience, can stand before the efficacy of the blood of Christ no more than the sinner himself can stand before the justice of the Lord, with all their guilt upon him. Flavel, 1.328

Paraphrased by James Dorman IV: Just as: A guilty sinner stands no chance of standing safely before a Holy God.

In similar manner: The believer's sins (no matter how large, or greatly felt) stand no chance of standing safely before the powerful, effective atoning pardoning redeeming forgiving blood of Christ.

Surely

 Surely if He would not spare His own Son one stroke, one tear, one groan, one sigh, one circumstance of misery, it can never be imagined that ever He should, after this, deny or withhold from His people, for whose sakes all this was suffered, any mercies any comforts, any privilege, spiritual or temporal, which is good for them.

— J. Flavel

If you could but see

 If you could but see how God in his secret counsel has exactly laid the whole plan of your salvation, even to the smallest means and circumstances; had you liberty to make your own choice, you would, of all conditions in the world, choose that in which you now are. -- John Flavel

MOST DISORDERED

 Man, by the apostasy, is become a most disordered and rebellious creature, opposing his Maker, as the First Cause, by self-dependence; as the Chief Good, by self-love; as the highest Lord,by self-will; and as the Last End, by self-seeking. Thus he is quite disordered. -- John Flavel.

in respect to God

 In respect to God, the death of Christ was justice and mercy.  In respect to this world, the death of Christ was murder and cruelty.  In respect to Himself, the death of Christ was obedience and humility.  In respect to His elect, the death of Christ was wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption.

John Flavel (1627 – 1691)

WHOLE PRICE WHOLE PRAISE

Let Christ have the whole glory of your recovery ascribed to him. It is highly reasonable that he that laid down the whole price, should have the whole praise. —John Flavel