J.C. Ryle: The Simplicity of the Remedy for a Thirsty Soul

There is a spiritual thirst within every human being, no matter what time in the history of the world.  It is true today and it was true in the time of J.C. Ryle.  But there is only way to remedy this thirst as the battle between our desire to earn the favor of God and to approach Him as an empty vessel rages.  The words of J.C. Ryle below explain this battle well and cut directly to the heart of our own sin.

"How simple this remedy for thirst appears!  But oh, how hard it is to persuade some people to receive it!  Tell them to do some great thing, to mortify their bodies, to go on pilgrimage, to give all their goods to feed the poor and so to merit salvation, and they will try to do as they are bid.  Tell them to throw overboard all idea of merit, working or doing, and to come to Christ as empty sinners, with nothing in their hands and, like Naaman, they are ready to turn away in disdain (2 Kings 5:12).  Human nature is always the same in every age.  There are still some people just like the Jews, and some like the Greeks.  To the Jews, Christ crucified is still a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness.  Their succession, at any rate, has never ceased!  Never did our Lord say a truer word than that which He spoke to the proud scribes in the Sanhedrin, 'You will not come unto Me that you might have life' (John 5:40).

"But, simple as this remedy for thirst appears, it is the only cure for man's spiritual disease, and the only bridge from earth to heaven.  Kings and their subjects, preachers and hearers, masters and servants, high and low, rich and poor, learned and unlearned, all must alike drink of the water of life, and drink in the same way.  For eighteen centuries men have labored to find some other medicine for weary consciences, but they have labored in vain.  Thousands, after blistering their hands, and growing gray in hewing out 'broken cisterns which can hold no water' (Jer. 2:13), have been obliged to come back at last to the old Fountain, and have confessed in their latest moments that here, in Christ alone, is true peace."