Top 381 Quotes & Sayings by J. C. Ryle - Page 6

Young men, I beseech you earnestly, beware of pride. Two things are said to be very rare sights in the world- one is a young man that is humble, and the other is an old man that is content. I fear that this is only too true.

Before Christ comes it is useless to expect to see a perfect Church.

Doubting does not prove that a man has no faith, but only that his faith is small. And even when our faith is small, the Lord is ready to help us.

Let us awake to a sense of the perilous state of many professing Christians. 'Without holiness no man shall see the Lord'; without sanctification there is no salvation (Hebrews 12:14). Then what an enormous amount of so-called religion there is which is perfectly useless!

The hand of the wicked can't stir one moment before God allows them to begin, and...one moment after God commands them to stop.

Without the blessing of the Lord, your best endeavors will do no good. He has the hearts of all men in His hands, and except He touch the hearts of your children by His Spirit, you will weary yourself to no purpose. Water, therefore, the seed you sow on their minds with unceasing prayer.

On the one hand stand salvation by free grace for Christ's sake; but on the other stands renewal of the carnal heart by the Spirit. We must be changed as well as forgiven; we must be renewed as well as redeemed.

So long as you do not quarrel with sin, you will never be a truly happy man.

We want more men and women who walk with God and before God, like Enoch and Abraham.

Weak, feeble and foolish as it may seem to people, the simple story of the Cross is enough for all mankind in every part of the globe.

Humility and love are precisely the graces which the men of the world can understand, if they do not comprehend doctrines. They are the graces about which there is no mystery, and they are within reach of all classes... The poorest Christian can every day find occasion for practicing love and humility.

Troublous times, departures from the faith, evil men waxing worse and worse, love waxing cold, are things distinctly predicted.

Who shall dare to talk of strength when David can fall?

But if there is one thing clearly and plainly laid down about election, it is this: that elect men and women may be known and distinguished by holy lives.

The true Christian regards all Christ's friends as his friends, members of the same body, children of the same family, soldiers in the same army, travelers to the same home. When he meets them, he feels as if he had long known them. He is more at home with them in a few minutes, than he is with many worldly people after an acquaintance of several years. And what is the secret of all this? It is simply affection to the same Savior and love to the same Lord.

Let it be a settled principle in our minds that the first and chief business of the Church of Christ is to preach the Gospel.

A man may just as soon read the Scripture without eyes, as understand the spirit of it without grace.

The brightest saint is the man who has the most heart-searching sense of his own sinfulness, and the liveliest sense of his own complete acceptance in Christ.

I should as soon expect a farmer to prosper in business who contented himself with sowing his fields and never looking at them till harvest, as expect a believer to attain much holiness who was not diligent about his Bible reading, his prayers, and the use of his Sundays.

Such true worship will stand the test of Christ's great principle, “By their fruits you shall know them”. It sanctifies the Christian's life, and makes them walk with God, lifting them above fear and love of the world. It enables a Christian to show God to other folks. Such worship comes from heaven, and has the mark of God upon it.

The person that goes regularly and intelligently to the Lord's Table finds it increasingly hard to yield to sin and conform to the world.

The 'means of grace' are such as Bible reading, private prayer, and regularly worshiping God in Church, wherein one hears the Word taught and participates in the Lord's Supper.

When the Lord Jesus Christ gives a man remission of sins, He also gives him repentance.

True faith will always show itself by its fruits . . . I suspect that, with rare exceptions, men die just as they have lived.

Value all books in proportion as they are agreeable to Scripture. Those that are nearest to it are the best, and those that are farthest from it, and most contrary to it, the worst.

Naked we came upon earth, and naked we go forth, and of all our possessions, we can carry nothing with us.

A true Christian is one who has not only peace of conscience, but war within. He may be known by his warfare as well as by his peace.

No doubt a man may be saved, like the penitent thief, without having received the Lord's Supper. It is not a matter of absolute and indispensable necessity, like repentance, faith, and conversion. But it is impossible to say that any professing Christian is in a safe, healthy, or satisfactory condition of soul, who habitually refuses to obey Christ and attend the Lord's Table.

If you want to warm a church, put a stove in the pulpit.

If anyone feels his sins, let him come at once, straight, direct, not merely to church, or to the sacrament, or to repentance, or to prayer, but to Christ Himself.

When you cannot answer a skeptic, be content to wait for more light; but never forsake a great principle.

Prayer is the surest remedy against the devil and besetting sins.

Wrong views about holiness are generally traceable to wrong views about human corruption.

There is one subject in religion, about which you can never know too much. That subject is Jesus Christ the Lord.

We live in an age when there is a false glare on the things of time and a great mist over the things of eternity.

Next to praying there is nothing so important in practical religion as Bible reading. By reading that book we may learn what to believe, what to be, and what to do; how to live with comfort, and how to die in peace.” Happy is that man who possesses a Bible! Happier still is he who reads it! Happiest of all is he who not only reads it, but obeys it, and makes it the rule of his faith and practice!

A man may commit sin and yet be ignorant of it, and fancy himself innocent when he is guilty... We shall do well to remember that when we make our own miserably imperfect knowledge and consciousness the measure of our sinfulness, we are on very dangerous ground.

What will it cost [a person] to be a true Christian? It will cost him his self-righteousn ess. He must cast away all pride and high thoughts, and conceit of his own goodness. He must be content to go to heaven as a poor sinner, saved only by free grace, and owing all to the merit and righteousness of another.

That Bible is read best, which is practised most.

What is the reason that some believers are so much brighter and holier than others? I believe the difference, in nineteen cases out of twenty, arises from different habits about private prayer. I believe that those who are not eminently holy pray little, and those who are eminently holy pray much.

He does not regard the quantity of faith, but the quality. He does not measure its degree, but its truth. He will not break any bruised reed, nor quench any smoking flax. He will never let it be said that any perished at the foot of the cross.

Let us learn to be patient in the days of darkness, if we know anything of vital union with Christ.

Infidelity and skepticism abound everywhere. In one form or another they are to be found in every rank and class of society. Thousands are not ashamed to say that they regard the Bible as an old obsolete Jewish book, which has no special claim on our faith and obedience, and that it contains many inaccuracies and defects. In a day like this, the true Christian should be able to set his foot down firmly, and to render a reason of his confidence in God's Word. He should be able by sound arguments to show good cause why he thinks the Bible is from heaven, and not of men.

If we would be sanctified, our course is clear and plain—we must begin with Christ. We must go to him as sinners, with no plea but that of utter need, and cast our souls on him by faith, for peace and reconciliation with God.... If we would grow in holiness and become more sanctified, we must continually go on as we began, and be ever making fresh applications to Christ.

A zealous Savior ought to have zealous disciples.

To talk of comparing the Bible with other "sacred books" so called, such as the Koran...or the book of Mormon, is positively absurd. You might as well compare the sun with a rushlight, or Skiddaw with a molehill, or St. Paul's with an Irish hovel, or the Portland vase with a garden pot, or the Kohinoor diamond with a bit of glass. God seems to have allowed the existence of these pretended revelations, in order to prove the immeasurable superiority of His own Word.

Sin always seems 'good, and pleasant, and desirable,' at the time of commission.

Politics, or controversy, or party spirit, or worldliness, have eaten out the heart of lively piety in too many of us. The subject of personal godliness has fallen sadly into the background.

We ought to regard the sacrament of baptism with reverence. An ordinance of which the Lord Jesus Himself partook, is not to be lightly esteemed. An ordinance to which the great Head of the Church submitted, ought to be ever honorable in the eyes of professing Christians.

The cause of Christ does not need less working, but it does need among the workers, more praying.

I must honestly declare my conviction that, since the days of the Reformation, there never has been so much profession of religion without practice, so much talking about God without walking with Him, so much hearing God's words without doing them.

Experience supplies painful proof that traditions once called into being are first called useful, then they become necessary. At last they are too often made idols, and all must bow down to them or be punished.

The Bible applied to the heart by the Holy Ghost is the chief means by which men are built up and established in the faith, after their conversion. It is able to cleanse them, to sanctify them, to instruct them in righteousness, and to furnish them thoroughly for all good works.

Lastly, we must be holy, because without holiness on earth - we will never be prepared to enjoy Heaven. ...I do not know what others may think - but to me it does seem clear that Heaven would be a miserable place to an unholy man. It cannot be otherwise. People may say in a vague way, that they "hope to go to Heaven, but they do not consider what they say. There must be a certain "fitness for the inheritance of the saints in light.

A zealous man feels that like a lamp he is made to burn; and if consumed in burning, he has but done the work for which God appointed him. Such a one will always find a sphere for his zeal. If he cannot preach and work and give money, he will cry and sigh and pray.

Another real danger to young men is thoughtlessness and lack of consideration. Lack of thought is one simple reason why thousands of souls are cast away forever. Men will not consider,-will not look forward,-will not look around them,-will not reflect on the end of their present course, and the sure consequences of their present ways,-and awake at last to find they are damned for lack of thinking.

Sin and the devil will always find helpers in our hearts.

Bibles read without prayer; sermons heard without prayer; marriages contracted without prayer; journeys undertaken without prayer; residences chosen without prayer; friendships formed without prayer; the daily act of prayer itself hurried over, or gone through without heart: these are the kind of downward steps by which many a Christian descends to a condition of spiritual palsy, or reaches the point where God allows them to have a tremendous fall.

No doubt men may easily think too little of God the Father, and God the Spirit, but no man ever thought too much of Christ.

Persecution, in short, is like the goldsmith's stamp on real silver and gold - it is one of the marks of a converted man.