Striving for a Legacy: Farewell Sermon from Thomas Brooks

Thomas Brooks as a puritan preacher and a Navy chaplain in the 1600s, serving in London, England for many years. Many of his works are available online for free or very inexpensive. An excellent collection is available here: Thomas Brooks.

In his farewell sermon, he purposed to leave his congregation with a charge to pursue lasting, godly legacies. That is, individually and corporately, what commitments will leave a lasting impact. Interestingly, a legacy can also be defined as an amount of money or property left to someone in a will (Oxford Languages, "Legacy"). This Puritan Pastor left spiritual property to help his congregation make a lasting impact before they departed from this world.

What follows are the 27 legacies from Thomas Brooks, preached in 1662. They can be found the "The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks." The italicized words are my own brief commentary.

Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices

In 1652, Puritan Pastor Thomas Brooks published a wonderful help to Christians striving by God's grace to put sin to death. His work was called Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices. It has been treasured by sin-fighting Christians for centuries. In it, he candidly and pastorally helps Christians see the strategies Satan often uses to tempt or lure us into sin. Paul warned the Ephesian Christians, "Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil," (Ephesians 6:11, ESV). The schemes are the devices Satan uses against Christians. Brooks' work aimed to expose those devices and provide remedies or helpful combat strategies against them. 

Leaving Egypt

Does life ever feel like a tough journey through a desert?  Biblically, the Israelites' 40-year journey through the wilderness provides a rich analogy for the kind of life to which a Christian is called.  John Bunyan employed the image vividly in Pilgrim's Progress, a book he wrote while in jail making an allegory of the Christian life's journey from salvation to the gates of Heaven.  What if the Christian life is like a journey leaving Egypt, the Country of Sin, walking through the Desert of Life, and coming home to the Promised Land of Heaven with Jesus?  The link below is a brief sketch of what the allegory played out might be like: Click Here.

Thank you to Dr. Peter Gentry for teaching me that it is easier to get the Israelites out of Egypt than it is to get the Egypt out of the Israelites.  Thank you, too, to Pastor Bill Winton for teaching me that far too many times Christians try to return to Sin Town.