The Three States of a Believer's Life

A man who is on the way to heaven may be in any of three states:
(1) The state of nature, when he cares about neither heaven nor hell, so he may please the sensual nature and go on without fear or wisdom; without grace, he may even satisfy himself in a course of sin. This is the worst state, the state of nature.
(2) But God, if he belongs to him, will not allow him to be in this brutish condition long; he brings him under the law. That is, God sets a man's own corrupt nature before him and shows him the course of his life. Then he is afraid of God: 'Depart from me; I am a sinner' (Luke 5:8). As Adam when he had sinned, ran from God, who was sweet to him before. When a man's conscience is awakened to sin, when he considers that there is but a step between him and hell, and considers what a God he has to deal with and that after death there is eternal damnation, when the Spirit of God has convinced him of this, then he is in a state of fear. In this state, he is unfit to run to God. He uses all his power to move away from God all he can, and hates God, and wishes there were no God, and trembles at the very thought of God and of death.
(3) Oh, but if a man belongs to God, God will not leave him in this condition either. But there is another condition, and that is the condition of liberty, when God by his Spirit reveals to him in Christ forgiveness of sins, the gracious face of God ready to receive him: 'Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden' (Matt. 11:28), says Christ; and where sin has abounded, grace more abounds' (Rom. 5:20). When a man hears this still, sweet voice of the gospel, he begins to take comfort in himself, and he goes to God freely.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
Glorious Freedom, pp. 59-61 [65-66]
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