For the message in song, for the hymns
of Zion that we have been singing, we
thank thee for thy presence and we ask
Lord that as we consider now the life
of this eminent servant of thine and as
we consider the Word of God that was
such a blessing in his own heart and
life, we do pray that the power of
the Lord will be present amongst us.
O God, I pray, give me the Holy
Ghost.
Give me power to preach thy Word and
may that Word bring glory to thy name.
For we ask for Jesus' sake.
Amen and amen.
In this series of studies that we've been
conducting on favorite scriptures of faithful or famous
saints of the Lord, we have been examining
the biographies of outstanding Christians and those Bible
verses which were most precious to them.
I want to look with you tonight at
a text of scripture which greatly moved the
heart of one of England's mightiest men, one
who was considered by J.C. Ryle as
the greatest preacher England ever produced.
He was a Puritan, one of those in
the Anglican Church of his day, given that
title because they sought a simpler faith and
form of service.
Some of the more illustrious names from that
era of the 17th century are known to
students of church history, perhaps known even to
yourself.
Men such as John Owen, John Bunyan, Richard
Sibbes, Thomas Goodwin, Thomas Manton and many others
besides.
Stephen Sharnock, John Flavell, Jeremiah Burroughs, Thomas Hooker,
Thomas Brooks, Archbishop Leighton, etc, etc, etc.
The Puritans were mighty men.
They were the salt of English society in
their day and they gave to the world
some of the best of evangelical literature.
In that regard I think of John Bunyan
alone who was responsible for Pilgrim's Progress.
That was and is a classic work, a
spiritual allegory dealing with the pilgrimage of a
sinner who became a sinner saved by grace
who eventually went into the New Jerusalem, into
heaven itself.
Bunyan wrote that book when he was incarcerated
in Bedford prison for 12 years.
The country in which I now minister, the
United States of America, along with other countries
owes a great debt to the Puritans.
For many of the Puritans emigrated to these
shores and made the nation what it became
under God.
But one of the galaxy of Puritan stars
was Richard Baxter of Kidderminster in the county
of Worcester in England.
Baxter has been described as the most outstanding
pastor, evangelist, and writer on practical and devotional
themes that Puritanism produced.
While another biographer records, it is no exaggeration
to affirm that this one man drew more
hearts to the great broken heart than any
single Englishman of any age.
That's quite a statement.
He was therefore a gospel preacher.
And the great verse of Scripture, the text
which seems to have been the favorite of
Richard Baxter, was the latter part of Luke
chapter 18 verse 13.
God be merciful to me a sinner.
Like many others, Richard Baxter was not sound
in everything he taught.
For example, on the doctrine of the atonement,
he came up with a novel idea which
actually was given the name Baxterianism or sometimes
Neo-Nomianism.
You don't need to worry about what it
is, but it was a somewhat novel view
of the atonement, not in keeping with a
truly reformed position.
Yet nevertheless, despite that, Richard Baxter was undoubtedly
a giant of the faith and a true
revival preacher.
His favorite text, at least it appears to
have been his favorite, is a great text.
It is a text which is great in
its gospel emphasis.
What a prayer this is.
What a statement of supplication this is.
The publican, smiting upon his breast, said God
be merciful to me a sinner.
I want this evening, with the Lord's help,
to look at this text as it relates
to the life of Richard Baxter.
And as we've been doing in these meetings,
I want really to weave his life around
this text of the Word of God.
And first of all, I want us to
think about this text in relation to the
conversion of Baxter.
Richard Baxter was born into a good home
on the 12th of November 1615.
In his later writings, he didn't really speak
much about himself, but he did often refer
to the goings of God in his soul.
It is a fact that he had a
godly father.
And that does appear to be a strain
running through even some of the men that
we've been studying.
Robert Murray McShane, David Brainerd, certainly it was
true of the Lord's servant whom we considered
last night, John G.
Patton, the missionary to the New Hebrides.
They had godly parents and particularly fathers who
loved God, and Baxter was no exception.
His father was a lover of the Savior.
But as a boy in his teens, God
began to have mercy upon Richard Baxter by
using a circumstance in his life, in fact
a severe illness, to focus his attention and
his heart upon eternal things.
It was another Puritan, Thomas Watson, one of
my favorite Puritan writers, who said, God often
puts us on our backs that we might
learn to look up to him.
And that's sometimes what God does, even with
his people.
He may send some affliction, but it will
but make us long for home.
For in love and not in anger, all
his chastenings will come.
He places us on our back the times
that we might learn to look up to
him.
Baxter became ill, he recovered of course, but
he had been dangerously sick.
And the illness had awakened in his mind
the solemn thought of where will I be
in eternity.
There were questions like these that arose in
his heart.
Where is God?
Who is God?
Is there such a thing as a future
life?
Is the soul immortal?
Are the scriptures really true?
And at the time when these thoughts were
coming into his mind, young Baxter found the
Bible on his father's table.
Not only that, but he read three Puritan
volumes.
One book by a Puritan man called Bunny.
It wasn't a rabbit, but his name was
Bunny.
Another was the Bruised Reed by Richard Sibbes,
the Puritan.
And the third book was a great work
on repentance by William Perkins.
Somebody wrote about the effect that these three
books had upon Richard Baxter's young heart.
This is how he put it.
Bunny showed him the majesty of God.
Sibbes showed him the loveliness of Christ.
And Perkins showed him all his own heart.
By faith Richard Baxter was enabled to lay
hold on the mercy of God in Christ,
just like the publican in the parable.
God be merciful to me, a sinner.
Baxter realized that he was a condemned sinner
in need of the cleansing of the atoning
blood of Christ.
When you think of this text, when you
look at it, it actually literally could be
rendered be propitious or be appeased toward me,
the sinner.
The thought is of the Pharisee and the
publican going to the temple at the hour
of prayer, because that is what it says
in Luke 18 verse 10.
And of course during that time there was
the offering up of the evening sacrifice.
And it would have been on that basis
that the publican, the condemned sinner prayed.
And he was saying, Lord be propitious or
be merciful to me, a sinner.
Look upon me as when thou didst look
upon the blood on the altar.
That's what he was thinking about.
That is the import of this text.
God be propitiated, be appeased by the blood
of the sacrifice.
And the turning away of God's wrath therefore
is in view in this text.
Lord look upon me as when you look
upon the blood.
And on that basis, save me.
Leviticus chapter 17 and verse 11 has this
to say concerning the blood of the altar.
Leviticus 17 and verse 11.
For the life of the flesh is in
the blood.
And I have given it to you upon
the altar to make an atonement for your
souls.
For it is the blood that maketh an
atonement for the soul.
And that day in the temple the blood
was upon the altar.
And that blood was blood that spoke of
richer blood.
Even the blood of Christ that would be
shed not on the altar but upon the
cross.
And that sacrifice is the sacrifice on the
ground of which God forgives sinners.
My Bible teaches me that God is angry
with sin.
The Lord is angry with the wicked every
day.
That God is not only a God of
love.
He is a God of wrath.
He is a God of infinite justice.
That wrath of His must be appeased by
sacrifice.
And the Word of God teaches us in
Hebrews chapter 2 and the verse 12.
I'm sorry, Hebrews 2 verse 17.
That the Lord Jesus is a merciful and
faithful high priest in things pertaining to God
to make reconciliation for the sins of the
people.
And if you look at that in the
original, you'll find that the making of reconciliation
for the sins of the people actually refers
to the making of propitiation.
It refers to the turning away of wrath
on the basis of the bloodshed.
This same thought is found in Hebrews chapter
8 and verse 12.
Hebrews 8 verse 12, God says, for I
will be merciful.
You see, there's the word again.
The same word that's used in Luke chapter
18 verse 13.
I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and
their sins and their iniquities will I remember
no more.
In other words, I will be appeased.
I will be appeased toward their unrighteousness.
Satisfaction is made for their unrighteousness.
Therefore, on the basis of the sacrificial blood,
their sins and their iniquities will I remember
no more.
Because those sins have been atoned for by
the blood of the Lamb.
That's the thought.
If you think about these two men that
the Lord spoke of in the parable, the
difference between those two men is that one
was full of self-righteousness.
You read these words and you find that
he sees nothing wrong with himself at all,
but the other sees nothing right with himself.
He sees himself full of sin, full of
unrighteousness and says, Lord, God be merciful to
me, a sinner.
He approaches God humbly on the ground of
the shed blood.
That's what Richard Baxter did as a young
man.
He was brought to see himself as a
vile sinner in need of mercy.
And it is interesting that in a classic
confession, Baxter closes with these words, and I
quote, I mention all these distempers in order
that my faults may be a warning to
others.
As for myself, these faults, they call me
to repentance and watchfulness.
Because of the merits and sacrifice and intercession
of Christ, God be merciful to me, a
sinner, and forgive my known and unknown sins.
I ask you this evening, are you converted?
Have you looked to Christ for salvation?
Have you said, God, look upon me as
when thou dost look upon the blood?
Have you said, Lord, be propitiated, be appeased
by the blood of the sacrifice?
Have you looked to Christ alone for salvation
as all the ground of your forgiveness?
For I tell you that God cannot show
you mercy except in Jesus Christ.
The idea that God is just a God
who willy-nilly forgives people without regard to
any sacrifice or any atonement for sin is
a false notion.
God doesn't just forgive people because He feels
like forgiving them.
God forgives sinners on the basis of sacrifice.
God always punishes sin.
He either punishes sin in the sinner himself,
and that's why there's a hell, or He
punishes sinners and the sinners substitute even Jesus
Christ, and on the basis of His sacrifice,
allows them to go free.
That's the gospel.
For God so loved the world that He
gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth
in Him, or trusts in Him, or abandons
himself to Him, or rests upon Him, or
looks upon Him, should not perish but have
everlasting life.
God cannot show you mercy except in the
person of Jesus Christ.
There is no salvation anywhere else.
God be propitiated, be merciful to me a
sinner.
Lord look upon me as when you look
upon the blood of the sacrifice.
That is the confession of Richard Baxter as
well as of the publican.
But not only can we think of this
text in relation to his conversion, but also
in relation to the commissioning of Baxter.
He was commissioned by the Lord.
He was called by the Lord to be
a preacher of the glorious gospel, and it
was the profound recognition of divine mercy to
him as a sinner that drove Richard Baxter
into the ministry.
For having obtained mercy himself, he became a
herald of God's mercy, began to preach to
others the gospel that had redeemed his own
soul.
But it was his father's ambition, though he
was a godly man, it was his ambition
that young Richard become a courtier at London.
And so at the age of 18, young
Richard set out for Whitehall with a letter
of introduction.
But one month at the court of Charles
I, one of the line of the ungodly
stewards, the infamous rulers, one month at that
court was sufficient to fill him with disgust
and loathing, and at Christmas time he returned
home.
The story is that the weather was severe
at that time.
The roads were deep with frozen snow, and
as he rode through the country and through
the county of Shropshire, he met a loaded
wagon coming the other way.
To make room for the wagon, Baxter spurred
his horse up the bank, but the horse
slipped, the girth broke, and Richard was immediately
thrown under the wheel of that wagon.
And he testified himself that when the wheel
was all but touching him, the horses unaccountably
stopped, and he escaped with his life.
He ever afterwards looked upon this as a
miraculous deliverance, and it deeply impressed him at
the time.
Baxter felt that truly he had been preserved
by God, that his life might be devoted
to a higher end.
The God who had been merciful to him
in salvation had shown mercy to him for
his service.
And so when he got home, he was
seeking to go about his daily life, but
it was only a short time till his
mother died, and those emotions that had been
stirred when he fell from his horse were
further awakened by his mother's death.
And so a desire to become a minister
of Jesus Christ welled up within his heart.
He felt that it was his duty now
to live to tell others of the mercy
of God, and he became an eminent minister
of Christ.
It was said of him as a pastor
that his study walls were stained with his
praying breath.
That's a tremendous testimony, isn't it?
The walls of the study were stained with
his praying breath.
Oh, that that could be said of us
all.
But from the commissioning of Baxter, and it
was really through tragedy that the Lord called
him to the ministry, we want to move
on to the compassion of Baxter.
For as a minister of the gospel, Richard
Baxter was a man of great compassion.
If you were to go with me in
your mind's eye to the town of Kidderminster
in England, you'll see that there stands there
in the center of the town a noble
statue.
It is the representation of the famous pastor
who spent 19 years there preaching the gospel.
Richard Baxter is depicted there standing with upraised
hand and pointing to the skies.
And somebody said that in that mute gesture
there's a subtle touch of spiritual genius, because
it was to the skies that Baxter pointed
as he preached, preaching the mercy of God
in Christ.
And through him, many found the way to
heaven.
Pointing the way to heaven in his preaching,
Baxter was a winner of souls.
He was a man of great passion, tremendously
and desperately in earnest as he preached.
I don't know if you've ever read any
books or sermons by Baxter, but if you
do, you will see and feel the passion
of the man as you read.
He loved the souls of men.
One of Richard Baxter's famous quotes is, I
preached as never sure to preach again, and
as a dying man to dying men.
He was in earnest.
He was in earnest as he preached.
He had great compassion.
Why?
Because God had had mercy on him.
God was merciful to him, a sinner.
And through his earnest labors, many others were
to experience that same mercy.
On one occasion, Richard Baxter wrote, Oh, if
you have the hearts of Christians or of
men in you, let them yearn toward your
poor, ignorant, ungodly neighbors.
Alas, there is but a step betwixt them
and death and hell.
If they die unregenerate, they are lost forever.
Have you hearts of rock that cannot pity
men in such a case as this?
If you believe not the word of God
and the danger of sinners, why are you
Christians yourselves?
If you do believe it, why do you
not bestow yourself to the helping of others?
Do you not care who is damned, just
so long as you be saved?
If so, you have sufficient cause to pity
yourselves, for it is a frame of spirit
utterly inconsistent with grace.
Dost thou live close by them, or meet
them in the streets, or labor with them,
or travel with them, or sit and talk
with them, and yet say nothing to them
of their souls or of the life to
come?
If their houses were on fire, thou wouldst
run and help them.
And wilt thou not help them when their
souls are almost at the fire of hell?
And what challenging words those are.
Baxter not only preached like that to others,
but he practiced that himself.
He was one who loved the souls of
men and sought to pluck them as brands
from the burning.
The Lord had mercy on Baxter, and he
felt that it was his life's work to
preach the mercy of God to others.
God be merciful to me, a sinner.
We've spoken of the conversion of Baxter.
We've mentioned the commissioning of Baxter and the
compassion of Baxter.
I want to spend a little time now
on the contribution of Richard Baxter.
It would, of course, be very difficult for
me, as it is with all of these
eminent saints of God, to tell you everything
that I need to tell you about the
contribution of Richard Baxter to church history and
to the cause of Christ.
How could we sum up the contribution of
this man to the cause of the Lord
Jesus Christ and to the history of the
church?
Well, I think we could do so in
a couple of ways.
We must refer, when thinking about his contribution,
to the power of his preached words.
The power of his preached words.
I said earlier that J.C. Ryle, who
himself was a great preacher and one whom
we will consider later in the week, said
that it was his belief that Richard Baxter
was the greatest of English preachers.
And that's high praise indeed.
But there's a reason why Ryle believed that.
If you think about the power of the
preached words of Baxter, you will refer to
his own testimony in Kidderminster days, because there
you will find evidence of the power of
his preached words.
Baxter used to say, it must be serious
preaching which will make men serious in hearing
and obeying it.
And he was in deadly earnest.
A contemporary of his, a Dr. Bates, said
of Baxter, there was a noble negligence in
his style.
His great mind could not stoop to the
affected eloquence of words.
He despised flashy oratory.
But his expressions were so clear and powerful,
so convincing to the understanding, so entering into
the soul, so engaging the affections, that those
were as deaf as an adder who were
not charmed by so wise a charmer.
His preaching was effective.
It was said that at Kidderminster it became
necessary to build five new galleries in the
church in order to accommodate the congregations who
came to hear him.
In London, the crowds that attended his ministry
were so large that it was sometimes dangerous
and often impossible to be one of his
hearers.
There was one occasion when he was about
to preach at a place called St. Lawrence
Jewry.
He sent word to Mr. Vines, the minister,
that there were two eminent noblemen who were
going to come to hear him preach, the
Earl of Suffolk and Lord Broadhill.
They were going to come in a coach
with Baxter and they would be glad to
have seats in the auditory to hear him
preach.
But when Baxter and his noble companions reached
the door of the church, the crowd that
was there had so little respect for persons
that the two peers had to turn around
and go home again because they could not
get within hearing.
Mr. Vines himself, the minister, was obliged to
get up into the pulpit and sit behind
the preacher because there was no room for
him anywhere else in the building.
And Baxter actually preached standing between Mr. Vines'
feet.
No room but standing room only.
He was a powerful preacher.
On another occasion when he was preaching to
an enormous crowd at St. Dunstan's in Fleet
Street, London, he made striking use of an
incident that took place during the sermon.
While he was preaching, there was a piece
of masonry, a piece of brick, that fell
down in the steeple.
And there was an alarm raised in the
church that the old and rotten building was
falling down.
Well, scarcely was the alarm allayed when a
bench on which some of the people were
standing broke with their weight and the confusion
was worse than ever.
People really began to panic and they crowded
to the doors to get out.
They were in a terrible state.
One old woman was heard loudly asking God's
forgiveness for having come to the church at
all and promising that if she would only
get out safe, she would never come there
again.
And in the midst of that confusion, Baxter
alone of all the people was calm and
unmoved.
And as soon as order was restored, he
rose up and he said this, we are
in the service of God to prepare ourselves
that we may be fearless at the great
noise of the dissolving world when the heavens
shall pass away and the elements shall melt
with fervent heat.
He used the occasion to urge upon men
and women how the judgment was coming and
how that which they saw in the building
that day was as nothing compared to the
wrath of God that would fall upon them.
He was an earnest preacher.
He, it was said, always spoke like one
who saw God and felt death at his
back.
Such a man will seldom fail to preach
well.
Baxter was not only a faithful preacher, he
was a fruitful preacher.
When he came to Kinnerminster, it was to
a dark, ignorant, immoral and irreligious place with
about 3,000 inhabitants.
And as I read this, it encouraged my
heart.
Because though he found it in such a
state, when he left it, at the end
of some 14 years of preaching, he had
completely turned the parish upside down.
It was said by his contemporary, Dr. Bates,
that the place before his coming was like
a piece of dry and barren earth, but
by the blessing of heaven upon his labor,
the face of paradise appeared there.
The bad were changed to good and the
good to better.
Baxter, talking about his own ministry in that
place, said that when he first came to
Kinnerminster, listen to this, there was about one
family per street which worshipped God at home.
But when he went away, there were some
streets in which there was not more than
one family on a side that did not
worship the Lord.
And this was the case even with inns
and public houses and taverns.
Even of the irreligious families, he said, there
were very few which had not some converted
relations.
God moved in mighty power, changing the place
through the preaching of the mercy of God
in Christ.
We've spoken about the power of his preached
words, but there's also the power of his
printed works.
Baxter's three greatest volumes, I suppose, were The
Saints' Everlasting Rest, which is a treatise concerning
heaven, his Call to the Unconverted, and his
book directed particularly at ministers called The Reformed
Pastor.
The Reformed Pastor, one of the first books
that I ever read when I was going
to be a student for the ministry.
These books and others are a heritage to
all ages.
There was one called Boswell who asked another
man by the name of Dr. Johnson, which
of Richard Baxter's books should a man read?
And the reply was, read any of them,
they're all good.
So if you can get a hold of
anything by Richard Baxter, you'll find that it's
worth reading.
Incidentally, C.H. Spurgeon frequently had his own
wife to read aloud to him, The Reformed
Pastor, on the Lord's Day evenings when his
day's preaching was done.
Baxter left a great spiritual legacy when he
went to heaven in 1691.
Some 52 years later, another famous preacher, George
Whitfield, a Methodist evangelist, visited the town of
Kidderminster and he wrote to a friend at
that time, I was greatly refreshed to find
what a sweet savor of good Mr. Baxter's
doctrine, works, and discipline remain to this day.
God's mercy continued to follow Baxter until death
and mercy continued to bless others after his
death.
Others, through reading the works of Baxter even,
have come to know the God of Baxter.
Tonight, I would say to you, as Baxter
once said, actually in the year 1657, on
the basis of the text that I've given
you tonight as his favorite, God be merciful
to me a sinner.
I charge thee to hear and obey the
call of God and turn that thou mayest
live.
You know, one of the sweetest stories that
I ever heard concerning Richard Baxter was the
one about how Baxter, talking about his own
testimony, said that he was glad that John
3 verse 16 was written the way it
was.
For he said, the Bible actually says, for
God so loved the world that he gave
his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in
him should not perish but have everlasting life.
He said, often times he thought it would
have been nice if the Lord had made
it more personal to him, so that the
Bible might have said, for God so loved
Richard Baxter, that he gave his only begotten
son, that if Richard Baxter would believe in
him, Richard Baxter would not perish but have
everlasting life.
But he said he began to think that
if God had written the text in that
way, he would have thought that God meant
some other Richard Baxter.
That the text may not have been for
him.
And so the comfort of the text would
have been lost to him, for he would
have been ever thinking and wondering to himself,
well is it me or is it some
other Richard Baxter of a former day or
of a future day, or who lives in
the same time as me?
He said, I'm glad the Lord put it
the way he did, because when he said,
whosoever believeth in him, he said that takes
in not only me, Richard Baxter, but all
the Richard Baxter's who ever lived or who
ever will live.
What an invitation.
That whosoever, and that means you, whosoever believeth
in Christ will not perish but have everlasting
life.
Have you ever come to the place where
you've said indeed and in truth, God be
merciful to me a sinner.
I don't mean that you've merely taken these
words out of the scripture and used them
as a prayer, but have you come as
a sinner to lean upon and to rest
upon the atoning work of Christ?
Because you see this is all our hope
and peace, nothing but the blood of Jesus.
This is all our righteousness, nothing but the
blood of Jesus.
Oh precious is the flow that makes me
white as snow.
No other fount I know, nothing but the
blood of Jesus.
I say again as Baxter himself would have
preached, there is mercy for you nowhere else
but in Jesus Christ.
And I trust that even under the sound
of my voice, there will be those who
will cry as the publican cried and as
Baxter cried, God be propitiated, be appeased.
Look upon me as when thou dost look
upon the blood.
Have mercy on me for the sake of
Christ's blood.
And if you say that, God will save
you.
If you trust in that, God will save
you and he'll bring you at last to
heaven saved by his precious blood.