Top 381 Quotes & Sayings by J. C. Ryle - Page 4

I am one of those old-fashioned ministers who believe the whole Bible and everything that it contains.

We know nothing of humility by nature, for we are all born proud.

Good hymns are an immense blessing to the Church. They train people for heaven, where praise is one of the principal occupations.

A saved soul has many sorrows. They have their share of bereavements, deaths, disappointments , crosses. What shall enable a believer to bear all this? Nothing but the consolation there is in Christ.

Look not to yourselves! You are by nature wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked. Look simply unto Jesus.

The parent who tries to train without setting a good example is building with one hand, and pulling down with the other.

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.

Never let us be guilty of sacrificing any portion of truth on the altar of peace.

All the simplicity in the world can do no good, unless you preach the simple gospel of Jesus Christ so fully and clearly that everybody can understand it. If 'Christ crucified' has not His rightful place in your sermons, and sin is not exposed as it should be, and your people are not plainly told what they ought to believe, and be, and do - your preaching is of no use!

Jesus hears us, and in His own good time will give an answer... He may sometimes keep us long waiting...but He will never send us empty away.

Let us serve Him faithfully as our Master. Let us obey Him loyally as our King. Let us study His teachings as our Prophet. Let us work diligently after Him as our Example. Let us look anxiously for Him as our coming redeemer of body as well as soul. But above all let us prize Him as our Sacrifice, and rest our whole weight on His death as atonement for sin. Let His blood be more precious in our eyes every year we live. Whatever else we glory in about Christ, let us glory above all things in His cross.

There are few professing Christians, it may be feared, who strive to imitate Christ in the matter of private devotion. There is abundance of hearing, reading, talking, professing, visiting, contributing to the poor and teaching at schools. But is there, together with all this, a due proportion of private prayer? Are believing men and women sufficiently careful to be frequently alone with God?

Without holiness on earth we shall never be prepared to enjoy heaven. Heaven is a holy place. The Lord of heaven is a holy Being. The angels are holy creatures. Holiness is written on everything in heaven... How shall we ever be at home and happy in heaven if we die unholy?

If you profess to be a child of God, leave it to the Lord Jesus to sanctify you in His own way.

If Christ had not gone to the cross and suffered in our stead, the just for the unjust, there would not have been a spark of hope for us. There would have been a mighty gulf between ourselves and God, which no man ever could have passed.

The true Christian delights to hear something about his Master. He likes those sermons best which are full of Christ.

Let us resolve by God's grace, that however poor and feeble our prayers may seem to be, we will pray on.

There must not only be good preaching, but good hearing.

Miserable indeed is that religious teaching which calls itself Christian, and yet contains nothing of the cross.

Blessed are they who feel like pilgrims and strangers in this life, and whose best things are all to come!

When a person’s tongue is extensively wrong, it is absurd, no less than unscriptural, to say that their heart is right.

It was the whole Trinity, which at the beginning of creation said, "Let us make man". It was the whole Trinity again, which at the beginning of the Gospel seemed to say, "Let us save man".

The chief end for which He lived and died was to provide eternal redemption for mankind.

I want people to fill their minds with passages of Scripture while they are well and strong, that they may have sure help in the day of need. I want them to be diligent in studying their Bibles, and becoming familiar with its contents, in order that the grand old Book may stand by them and talk with them when all earthly friends fail.

What is the cause of most backslidings? I believe, as a general rule, one of the chief causes is neglect of private prayer.

There is but one fountain of comfort for a man drawing near to his end, and that is the Bible. ...All comfort from any other source is a house built upon sand.

We are all naturally self-righteous. It is the family disease of all the children of Adam.

Christ is never fully valued, until sin is clearly seen.

We should no more tolerate false doctrine that we would tolerate sin.

The best of men are men at best

Beware of self-righteousness in every possible shape and form. Some people get as much harm from their "virtues" as others do from their sins.

What would you expect? Sin will not come to you saying, 'I am sin.' It would do little harm if it did. Sin always seems 'good, pleasant and desirable' at the time of arrival.

Let us be real, honest, and sincere in our Christianity. We cannot deceive an all-seeing God.

Why is a believer patient? Because he looks for the coming of the Lord...He waits quietly for the King.

The true Christian does not need to be reminded that he has a crucified Master. He often thinks of Him.

Prayer will consume sin, or sin will choke prayer.

Do we profess to love Christ? Then let us show it by our lives.

Let us daily strive to copy our Savior's humility.

Prosperity is a great mercy, but adversity is a greater one, if it brings us to Christ.

If I never spoke of hell, I should think I had kept back something that was profitable, and should look on myself as an accomplice of the devil.

There is something sadly wrong when it is more important to us whether others are a part of our denomination, rather than whether they repent of sin, believe on Christ and live holy lives.

Men fall in private long before they fall in public.

People may refuse to see the truth of our arguments, but they cannot evade the evidence of a holy life.

He that has trained his children for heaven, rather than for earth- for God rather than for man- he is the parent who will be called wise at the last.

Inability to distinguish doctrine is spreading far and wide, and so long as the preacher is "clever" and "earnest," hundreds seem to think it must be all right, and call you dreadfully "narrow and uncharitable" if you hint that he is unsound!

Instruction, and advice, and commands will profit little, unless they are backed up by the pattern of your own life. Your children will never believe you are in earnest, and really wish them to obey you, so long as your actions contradict your counsel... Think not your children will practise what they do not see you do. You are their model picture, and they will copy what you are... will seldom learn habits which they see you despise, or walk in paths in which you do not walk yourself.

Let us watch against PRIDE in every shapepride of intellect, pride of wealth, pride in our own goodness.

No prayers can be heard which do not come from a forgiving heart.

The true secret of spiritual strength is self-distrust and deep humilty.

The beginning of the way to heaven, is to feel that we are on the way to hell.

If the Bible is not the Word of God and inspired, the whole of Christendom for 1800 years has been under an immense delusion; half the human race has been cheated and deceived, and churches are monuments of folly. If the Bible is the Word of God and inspired, all who refuse to believe it are in fearful danger; they are living on the brink of eternal misery. No man, in his sober senses, can fail to see that the whole subject demands most serious attention.

We have the truth and we need not be afraid to say so.

The man who has nothing more than a kind of Sunday religion -- whose Christianity is like his Sunday clothes put on once a week, and then laid aside -- such a man cannot, of course, be expected to care about growth in grace.

The very sermon that we needlessly miss, may contain a precious word in season for our souls.

The early Christians made it a part of their religion to look for His return. Backward they looked to the cross and the atonement for sin, and rejoiced in Christ crucified. Upward they looked to Christ at the right hand of God, and rejoiced in Christ interceding. Forward they looked to the promised return of their Master, and rejoiced in the thought that they would see Him again. And we ought to do the same.

A right heart leans on Christ, hangs on Christ, builds on Christ and cleaves to Christ.

Meekness is one of the brightest graces which can adorn the Christian character.

Prayer is the mightiest weapon that God has placed in our hands.

People are backsliders on their knees long before they backslide openly in the eyes of the world.

We must cast away everything which hinders us upon our road towards heaven – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye and the pride of life; the love of riches, pleasures and honors, the spirit of lukewarmness and carelessness and indifference about the things of God – all must be rooted out and forsaken if we are anxious for the prize. We must mortify the deeds of the body, we must crucify our affections for this world.