Look to it, my dear friends, that none of you be found Christless at your appearance before him. Those that continue Christless now, will be left speechless then. God forbid that you that have heard so much of Christ, and you that have professed so much of Christ, should at last fall into a worse condition than those that never heard the name of Christ.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of having faith in Christ before facing judgment.
John Flavel's quote serves as a solemn reminder to individuals about the necessity of embracing faith in Christ. It stresses that those who neglect this essential commitment may find themselves in a dire situation at the time of judgment, facing eternal consequences. The speaker urges believers to take their faith seriously and warns against being complacent, highlighting that mere knowledge of Christ is insufficient without genuine faith.
In practice
In a sermon, a pastor might use this quote to urge the congregation to strengthen their relationship with Christ.
All the tears of a penitent sinner, should he shed as many as there have fallen drops of rain, since the creation, to this day, cannot wash away one sin. The everLasting burnings in hell, cannot purify the flaming conscience, from the least sin.
All the dark, intricate, puzzling providences at which we were sometimes so offended...we shall [one day] see to be to us, as the difficult passage through the wilderness was to Israel, "the right way to the city of habitation".
Providence is like a curious piece of tapestry made of a thousand shreds, which, single, appear useless, but put together, they represent a beautiful history to the eye.
The carnal person fears man, not God. The strong Christian fears God, not man. The weak Christian fears man too much, and God too little.
Whatsoever we have over-loved, idolized, and leaned upon, God has from time to time broken it, and made us to see the vanity of it; so that we find the readiest course to be rid of our comforts is to set our hearts inordinately upon them.
It is the duty of the saints, especially in times of straights, to reflect upon the performances of Providence for them in all the states and through all the stages of their lives.
No citizen enjoys genuine freedom of religious conviction until the state is indifferent to every form of religious outlook from Atheism to Zoroastrianism.
One hurries through, even though there's time; the past, the continent, is behind; the future is the glowing mouth in the side of the ship; the dim, turbulent alley is too confusedly the present.
If this be to have sense, if to be awake Be but to see this bright, great sleep of things, For the rarer potion mine own dreams I'll take And for truth commune with imaginings
To be sure, those who are actually engaged in combat - those who actually see the maimed bodies and mourning mothers - struggle more than the rest of us to make sense of the reality of war.
Keats mourned that the rainbow, which as a boy had been for him a magic thing, had lost its glory because the physicists had found it resulted merely from the refraction of the sunlight by the raindrops. Yet knowledge of its causation could not spoil the rainbow for me. I am sure that it is not given to man to be omniscient. There will always be something left to know, something to excite the imagination of the poet and those attuned to the great world in which they live (p. 64)
I understood . . . that those who desired salvation should act like the trustee who, though having control over great possessions, regards not an iota of them as his own.
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