Monthly Archives: June 2016

If God had left me alone

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Sometimes, when I see some of the worst characters in the street, I feel as if my heart must burst forth in tears of gratitude that God has never let me act as they have done! I have thought, “If God had left me alone, and had not touched me by His grace, what a great sinner I would have been! I would have run to the utmost lengths of sin, dived into the very depths of evil. Nor would I have stopped at any vice or folly, if God had not restrained me!”

I feel that I would have been a very king of sinners, if God had left me alone. I cannot understand the reason why I am saved, except upon the ground that God would have it so. I cannot, if I look ever so earnestly, discover any kind of reason in myself why I should be a partaker of Divine grace.


~ Charles Spurgeon

J. C. Ryle: Life, Ministry, and Wisdom Part 3

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What we weave in time, we wear in eternity; it matters little how we die, but it matters much how we live.

What the sun is in the heavens, is what Christ is in true Christianity. Nothing is to be added to Christ in salvation, nothing is to be joined with Him in honor, and nothing can satisfy apart from Him. Christ is all. All work, without Him, will be burned in the fire, and all riches without Him have wings and will fly away.

There are too many baptized men and women who practically know nothing at all about Christ. What true acquaintance do they have with his offices and work, his blood and righteousness, his priesthood, and intercession? None at all! Ask them about saving faith, ask them about being truly born again of the Spirit, ask them about being sanctified in Christ. What answer do you get? You are like a barbarian to them!

All believers should share the gospel. It is high time that the old tradition be exploded that the clergy alone are the only ones to teach and spread truth. To do good and diffuse light is a duty for which all members of Christ’s church are responsible. Christians ought to tell others that they have found medicine for their souls, when they see others dying for a lack of it. What did the apostle Peter say? “As every man has received the gift, even so minister the same one to another (1 Peter 4:10). It will be happy days for the church when that text is obeyed.

 

 

J. C. Ryle – Life, Ministry, and Wisdom, Part 2

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For various reasons, people may for a time appear to belong to Christ and hold orthodox belief. Upbringing, self-advantages, and culture may hide for a while what is missing. But let the disadvantages of being an evangelical Christian come to be experienced, and those unrenewed by the Holy Spirit will turn to whatever other system has greater appeal to their nature.

William Wilberfore had reason to warn his son, Samuel, when at Oriel school, against the dread of ridicule and the fear of being singled out; he reminded his son, “More perhaps depends on the selection of personal friends than on any other circumstances in life.”

It is easy to be converted from one group to another, one denomination to another, or one set of opinions to another. But what we all need is conversion from pride to humility, from high thoughts of ourselves to low thoughts, from self-conceit to self-humiliation; conversion is needed from the mind of the Pharisee to the mind of the publican. A conversion of this kind we must experience, if we hope to be saved. This is the conversion that is wrought by the Holy Ghost.

Concerning the contrast between the standards of the world and the standards of the Lord Jesus, Ryle said, “They are more than different; they are flatly contradictory one to the other. Among the children of this world, that man is thought to be the greatest who has the most land, money, servants, position, or power. But among the children of God, he is reckoned the greatest who does the most to promote the spiritual happiness of his fellow creatures. True greatness consists of, not receiving, but in giving and imparting to others, not in being served, but in serving, not sitting still and being ministered to, but in going about and ministering to others.
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