Hope For The Lost

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I entreat them to seek ‘a good hope’ while it can be found. A good hope is within the reach of any man, if he is only willing to seek it. It is called emphatically in Scripture, a ‘good hope through grace.’
It is freely offered, even as it was freely purchased: it may be freely obtained, ‘without money and without price.

Our past lives do not make it impossible to obtain it, however bad they may have been.

Our present weaknesses and infirmities do not shut us out, however great they may be.

The same grace which provided mankind with a hope, makes a free, full, and unlimited invitation:—’Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely;’—’Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find.’ (Rev. 22:17; Matt. 7:7.)

The Lord Jesus Christ is able and willing to give ‘a good hope’ to all who really want it. He is sealed and appointed by God the Father to give the bread of life to all that hunger, and the water of life to all that thirst.

‘It pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell.’ (Coloss. 1:19.)

In Him there is pardon and peace with God, bought by the precious blood which He shed upon the cross.

In Him there is joy and peace for any believer, and a solid, well-grounded expectation of good things to come.

In Him there is rest for the weary, refuge for the fearful, a cleansing fountain for the unclean, medicine for the sick, healing for the broken-hearted, and hope for the lost.

Whosoever feels labouring and heavy-laden with sin, whosoever feels anxious and distressed about his soul, whosoever feels afraid of death and unfit to die,—whosoever he is, let him go to Christ and trust in Him.

This is the thing to be done: this is the way to follow. Whosoever wants ‘hope,’ let him go to Christ.”

–J.C. Ryle, Old Paths: Being Plain Statements of Some of the Weightier Matters of Christianity (London: Charles J. Thynne, 1898), 113–114.

Aviod Jelly-Fish Preaching

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UPDATE: The new devotional, "Morning Grace, Evening Truth" 365 Days in the Psalms and Gospels with Charles Spurgeon and J.C. Ryle has been released and is available for purchase on Amazon (soft cover and kindle) order HERE. 

“The times require at our hands distinct and decided views of Christian doctrine. I cannot withhold my conviction that the professing Church of the nineteenth century is as much damaged by laxity and indistinctness about matters of doctrine within, as it is by skeptics and unbelievers without.

Myriads of professing Christians now-a-days seem utterly unable to distinguish things that differ. Like people afflicted with colour-blindness, they are incapable of discerning what is true and what is false, what is sound and what is unsound.

If a preacher of religion is only clever and eloquent and earnest, they appear to think he is all right, however strange and heterogeneous his sermons may be. They are destitute of spiritual sense, apparently, and cannot detect error.

Popery or Protestantism, an atonement or no atonement, a personal Holy Ghost or no Holy Ghost, future punishment or no future punishment, High Church or Low Church or Broad Church, Trinitarianism, Arianism, or Unitarianism, nothing comes amiss to them: they can swallow all, if they cannot digest it!

Carried away by a fancied liberality and charity, they seem to think everybody is right and nobody is wrong, every clergyman is sound and none are unsound, everybody is going to be saved and nobody going to be lost.

Their religion is made up of negatives; and the only positive thing about them is, that they dislike distinctness, and think all extreme and decided and positive views are very naughty and very wrong!
These people live in a kind of mist or fog. They see nothing clearly, and do not know what they believe. They have not made up their minds about any great point in the Gospel, and seem content to be honorary members of all schools of thought.

For their lives they could not tell you what they think is truth about justification, or regeneration, or sanctification, or the Lord’s Supper, or baptism, or faith, or conversion, or inspiration, or the future state. They are eaten up with a morbid dread of CONTROVERSY and an ignorant dislike of PARTY SPIRIT.

And yet they really cannot define what they mean by these phrases. The only point you can make out is that they admire earnestness and cleverness and charity, and cannot believe that any clever, earnest, charitable man can ever be in the wrong!

And so they live on undecided; and too often undecided they drift down to the grave, without comfort in their religion, and, I am afraid, often without hope.

The explanation of this boneless, nerveless, jelly-fish condition of soul is not difficult to find.

To begin with, the heart of man is naturally in the dark about religion,—has no intuitive sense of truth,—and really NEEDS instruction and illumination. Besides this, the natural heart in most men hates exertion in religion, and cordially dislikes patient painstaking inquiry.

Above all, the natural heart generally likes the praise of others, shrinks from collision, and loves to be thought charitable and liberal. The whole result is that a kind of broad religious “agnosticism” just suits an immense number of people, and specially suits young persons.

They are content to shovel aside all disputed points as rubbish, and if you charge them with indecision, they will tell you,—“I do not pretend to understand controversy; I decline to examine controverted points. I daresay it is all the same in the long run.”
Who does not know that such people swarm and abound everywhere? Now I do beseech all who read this paper to beware of this undecided state of mind in religion. It is a pestilence which walketh in darkness, and a destruction that killeth in noon-day.
It is a lazy, idle frame of soul, which, doubtless, saves men the trouble of thought and investigation; but it is a frame of soul for which there is no warrant in the Bible, nor yet in the Articles or Prayer-book of the Church of England.

For your own soul’s sake dare to make up your mind what you believe, and dare to have positive distinct views of truth and error. Never, never be afraid to hold decided doctrinal opinions.

And let no fear of man and no morbid dread of being thought party-spirited, narrow, or controversial, make you rest contented with a bloodless, boneless, tasteless, colourless, lukewarm, undogmatic Christianity.

Mark what I say. If you want to do good in these times, you must throw aside indecision, and take up a distinct, sharply-cut, doctrinal religion. If you believe little, those to whom you try to do good will believe nothing.

The victories of Christianity, wherever they have been won, have been won by distinct doctrinal theology:

• by telling men roundly of Christ’s vicarious death and sacrifice
• by showing them Christ’s substitution on the cross, and His precious blood
• by teaching them justification by faith, and bidding them believe on a crucified Saviour
• by preaching ruin by sin, redemption by Christ, regeneration by the Spirit
• by lifting up the brazen serpent
• by telling men to look and live,—to believe, repent, and be converted.

This,—this is the only teaching which for eighteen centuries God has honoured with success, and is honouring at the present day both at home and abroad.

Let the clever advocates of a broad and undogmatic theology,—the preachers of the Gospel of earnestness, and sincerity and cold morality,—let them, I say, show us at this day any English village or parish, or city, or town, or district, which has been evangelized without ‘dogma,’ by their principles.

They cannot do it, and they never will. Christianity without distinct doctrine is a powerless thing. It may be beautiful to some minds, but it is childless and barren. There is no getting over facts. The good that is done in the earth may be comparatively small.

Evil may abound, and ignorant impatience may murmur, and cry out that Christianity has failed. But, depend on it, if we want to ‘do good’ and shake the world, we must fight with the old apostolic weapons, and stick to ‘dogma.’ No dogma, no fruits! No positive Evangelical doctrine, no evangelization!”

–J.C. Ryle, Holiness: Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties and Roots (London: William Hunt and Company, 1889), 416–419.

We Can’t Have Enough of Christ!

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UPDATE: The new devotional, "Morning Grace, Evening Truth" 365 Days in the Psalms and Gospels with Charles Spurgeon and J.C. Ryle has been released and is available for purchase on Amazon (soft cover and kindle) order HERE. 

“The New Testament begins with the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. No part of the Bible is so important as this, and no part is so full and complete. Four distinct Gospels tell us the story of Christ’s doing and dying.

Pray For the Success of the Gospel

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Prayer is one of the best and most powerful means of helping forward the cause of Christ in the world. It is a means within the reach of all who have the Spirit of adoption. Not all believers have money to give to missions.

Grace is the Main Thing

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“Let the religion which we aim to possess be a religion in which grace is the main thing. Let it not content us to be able to speak eloquently, or preach powerfully, or reason ably, or argue cleverly, or profess loudly, or talk fluently.

Ponder the Real Gospel

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Christ’s death is the Christian’s life. Christ’s cross is the Christian’s title to heaven. Christ “lifted up” and put to shame on Calvary is the ladder by which Christians “enter into the holiest,” and are at length landed in glory.

Don’t Grow Dull Towards the Gospel

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Men and women who hear the Gospel regularly, I often fear much for you. I fear lest you become so familiar with the sounds of its doctrines, that you gradually become dead to its power.

Hope in the Gospel

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Who shall deliver us from this body of death? Let us thank God that Jesus Christ can. He is that divine Physician, who can make old things pass away and all things become new. In Him is life.

Pray For the Success of the Gospel

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UPDATE: The new devotional, "Morning Grace, Evening Truth" 365 Days in the Psalms and Gospels with Charles Spurgeon and J.C. Ryle has been released and is available for purchase on Amazon (soft cover and kindle) order HERE. 

Prayer is one of the best and most powerful means of helping forward the cause of Christ in the world. It is a means within the reach of all who have the Spirit of adoption.

The Tender Mercy of Christ by J.C. Ryle

“Never, never let us curtail the freeness of the glorious Gospel, or clip its fair proportions. Never let us make the gate more straight and the way more narrow than pride and the love of sin have made it already.

No Love for Christ? Anathema!

If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha. -1 Corinthians 16:22 (KJV) 

Paul allows no way of escape to the man who does not love Christ. He leaves no loophole or excuse. A man may lack clear head-knowledge and yet be saved.

Ministers: Preach the Gospel!

I am satisfied that the happiest minister is the man who most diligently discharges the office committed to him.

In Need of a New Heart

Would you know the reason why so many hear the Gospel year after year, and yet remain unmoved by it? Their minds seem like Bunyan’s “slough of despond.” 

The Plain Truth of False Doctrine

“The plain truth of false doctrine has been the chosen engine which Satan has employed in every age to stop the progress of the Gospel of Christ.

The Gospel Has Not Lost its Power

“Weak, and feeble, and foolish as it may seem to man, the simple story of the Cross is enough for all the children of Adam in every part of the globe. The tidings of Christ’s death for sinners, and the atonement made by that death, is able to meet the hearts and satisfy the consciences of all nations, and peoples, and kindreds, and tongues.

Repentance and the Real Gospel

Let no man ever persuade you that any religion deserves to be called the Gospel, in which repentance toward God has not a most prominent place. That is no Gospel in which repentance is not a principal thing.

What Are You Doing With the Gospel? By J.C. Ryle

What are we doing with the Gospel? We live in a Christian land. We have the Bible in our houses. We hear of the salvation of the Gospel frequently every year. But have we received it into our hearts?

Present the Gospel Accurately by J.C. Ryle

“Do not present only one side of Christianity. Do not keep back ‘the cross’ of self-denial that must be carried, when you speak of the cross on which Christ died for our redemption. Explain fully what Christianity entails.

Hold Firmly to the Gospel! By J.C. Ryle

Trouble or no trouble—pains or no pains—controversy, or no controversy—one thing is very sure: that nothing but Christ’s Gospel will ever do good to our own souls.

5 Gospel Warnings by J.C. Ryle

1. Substitute anything for Christ, and the Gospel is totally spoiled!

2. Add anything to Christ, and the Gospel ceases to be a pure Gospel!