J.C. Ryle' Call to Make Christ Our All in All

"Alas, I fear there is a great piece of pride and unbelief still sticking in the hearts of many believers!  Few seem to realize how much they need a Savior.  Few seem to understand how thoroughly they are indebted to Him.  Few seem to comprehend how much they need Him every day.  Few seem to feel how simply and like a child they ought to hang their souls on Him.  Few seem to be aware how full of love He is to His poor, weak people, and how ready to help them!  And few therefore seem to know the peace and joy and strength and power to live a godly life, which is to be had in Christ.

"Change your plan, reader, if your conscience tells you are guilty; change your plan, and learn to trust Christ more.  Physicians love to see patients coming to consult them; it is their office to receive the sickly, and if possible to affect cures.  The advocate loves to be employed; it is his calling.  The husband loves his wife to trust him and lean upon him; it is his delight to cherish her and promote her comfort.  And Christ loves His people to lean on Him, to rest in Him, to call on Him, to abide in Him.

"Let us all learn and strive to do so more and more.  Let us live on Christ.  Let us live in Christ.  Let us live with Christ.  Let us live to Christ.  So doing, we shall prove that we fully realize that Christ is all.  So doing, we shall feel great peace, and attain more of that holiness without which no man shall see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14)" (Holiness, J.C. Ryle).

J.C. Ryle on Christ as Our All in All

"Is Christ all?  Then let all His converted people deal with Him as if they really believed it.  Let them lean on Him and trust Him far more than they have ever done yet.  Alas, there are many of the Lord's people who live far below their privileges!  There are many truly Christian souls who rob themselves of their own peace and forsake their own mercies.  There are many who insensibly join their own faith, or the work of the Spirit in their own hearts, to Christ, and so miss the fullness of gospel peace. There are many who make little progress in their pursuit of holiness and shine with a very dim light.  And why is all this?  Simply because in nineteen cases out of twenty men do not make Christ all in all.

"Now I call on every reader of this message who is a believer, I beseech them for his own sake, to make sure that Christ is really and thoroughly his all in all.  Beware of allowing yourself to mingle anything of your own with Christ.

"Have you faith?  It is a priceless blessing.  Happy indeed are they who are willing and ready to trust Jesus.  But take heed you do not make a Christ of your faith.  Rest not on your own faith, but on Christ.

"Is the work of the Spirit in your soul?  Thank God for it.  It is a work that shall never be overthrown.  But oh, beware lest, unawares to yourself, you make a Christ of the work of the Spirit!  Rest not on the work of the Spirit, but on Christ.

"Have you any inward feelings of religion, and experience of grace?  Thank God for it.  Thousands have no more religious feeling than a cat or dog.  But oh, beware lest you make a Christ of your feelings and sensations!  They are poor, uncertain things and sadly dependent on our bodies and outward circumstances.  Rest not a grain of weight on your feelings.  Rest only on Christ.

"Learn, I entreat you, to look more and more at the great object of faith, Jesus Christ and to keep your mind dwelling on Him.  So doing you would find faith and all the other graces grow, though the growth at the time might be imperceptible to yourself.  He that would prove a skillful archer must look not at the arrow, but at the mark" (Holiness, J.C. Ryle).

J.C. Ryle of Joining Anything with Christ

"Is Christ all?  Then learn the enormous folly of joining anything with Christ in the matter of salvation.  There are multitudes of baptized men and women who profess to honor Christ, but in reality do Him great dishonor.  They give Christ a certain place in their system of religion, but not the place which God intended Him to fill.  Christ alone is not all in all to their souls.  No!  It is either Christ and the church, or Christ and the sacraments, or Christ and His ordained ministers, or Christ and their own repentance, or Christ and their own goodness, or Christ and their own prayers, or Christ and their own sincerity and charity, on which they practically rest their souls.

"If any reader of this message is a Christian of this kind, I warn him also plainly, that his religion is an offense to God.  You are changing God's plan of salvation into a plan of your own devising.  You are in effect deposing Christ from His throne, by giving the glory due to Him to another.

"I care not who it is that teaches such religion, and on whose word you build.  Whether they be pope or cardinal, archbishop or bishop, dean or archdeacon, presbyter or deacon, Episcopalian or Presbyterian, Baptist or Independent, Wesleyan or Plymouth brother, whoever adds anything to Christ, teaches you wrong.

"Take heed what you are doing.  Beware of giving to Christ's servants the honor due to none but Christ.  Beware of giving the Lord's ordinances the honor due unto the Lord.  Beware of resting the burden of your soul on anything but Christ, and Christ alone" (Holiness, J.C. Ryle).

J.C. Ryle on Mercy Without Christ

"I warn you plainly that all notions and theories about God being merciful without Christ, and excepting through Christ, are belles delusions and empty fancies.  Such theories are as purely an idol of man's invention act he idol of Juggernaut.  They are all of the earth, earthly.  They never came down from heaven.  The God of heaven has sealed and appointed Christ as the one and only Savior and way of life, and all who would be saved must be content to be saved by Him, or they will never be saved at all" (Holiness, J.C. Ryle).

J.C. Ryle on Holiness (Part 2)

J.C. Ryle on Holiness (Part 1)

"Would you be holy?  Then Christ is the manna you must daily eat, like Israel in the wilderness of old.  Would you be holy?  Then Christ must be the rock from which you must daily drink the living water.  Would you be holy?  Then you must be ever looking unto Jesus, looking at His cross, and learning fresh motives for a closer walk with God, looking at His example, and taking Him for your pattern.  Looking at Him, you would be come like Him.  Looking at Him, your face would shine without your knowing it.  Look less at yourself and more at Christ, and you will find besetting sins dropping off and leaving you, and your eyes enlightened more and more every day (Heb. 12:2; 2 Cor. 3:18).

"The true secret of coming up out of the wilderness is to come up leaning on the Beloved (Song 8:5). The true way to be strong is to realize our weakness, and to feel that Christ must be all.  The true way to grow in grace is to make use of Christ as a fountain for every minute's necessities.  We ought to employ Him as the prophet's wife employed the oil - not only to pay our debts, but to live on also.  We should strive to be able to say, 'The life that I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me' (2 Kings 4:7; Gal. 2:20).

"I pity those who try to be holy without Christ!  Your labor is all in vain.  You are putting money in a bag with holes.  You are pouring water into a sieve.  You are rolling a huge round stone uphill.  You are building up a wall with untempered mortar.  Believe me, you are beginning at the wrong end.  You must come to Christ first, and He shall give you His sanctifying Spirit.  You must learn to say with Paul, 'I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me' (Phil. 4:13)" (Holiness, J.C. Ryle).

J.C. Ryle on Holiness (Part 1)

"Christ is not only all in the justification of a true Christian, but He is also all in his sanctification.  I would not have anyone misunderstand me.  I do not mean for a moment to undervalue the work of the Spirit.  But this I say, that no man is ever holy until he comes to Christ and is united to Him.  Until then his works are dead works, and he has no holiness at all.  First you must be joined to Christ, and then you shall be holy.  'Without Him, separate form Him, you can do nothing' (John 15:5).

"And no man can grow in holiness except he abides in Christ.  Christ is the great root from which every believer must draw his strength to go forward.  The Spirit is His special gift, His purchased gift for His people.  A believer must not only 'receive Christ Jesus the Lord' but 'walk in Him, and be rooted and built up in Him' (Col. 2:6, 7)" (Holiness, J.C. Ryle).

J.C. Ryle on the Revelation of the Christ

"There came a time when the world seemed sunk and buried in ignorance of God  After four thousand years the nations of the earth appeared to have clean forgotten the God that made them.  Egyptian, Assyrian, Persian, Grecian, and Roman empires had done nothing but spread superstition and idolatry.  Poets, historians, philosophers had proved that, with all their intellectual powers, they had no right knowledge of God, and that man, left to himself, was utterly corrupt.  'The world, by wisdom, knew not God' (1 Cor. 1:21).  Excepting a few despised Jews in a corner of the earth, the whole world was dead in ignorance and sin.

"And what did Christ do then?

"He left the glory He had had from all eternity with the Father, and came down into the world to provide a salvation.  He took our nature upon Him and was born as a man.  As a man He did the will of God perfectly, which we all had left undone; as a man He suffered on the cross the wrath of God which we ought to have suffered.  He brought in everlasting righteousness for us.  He redeemed us from the curse of a broken law.  He opened a fountain for all sin and uncleanness.  He died for our sins.  He rose again for our justification.  He ascended to God's right hand, and there sat down, waiting until His enemies should be made His footstool.  And there He sits now, offering salvation to all who will come to Him, interceding for all who believe in Him, and managing by God's appointment all that concerns the salvation of souls" (J.C. Ryle, Holiness).

J.C. Ryle on Christ and the Fall

"There came a day when sin entered the world.  Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, and fell.  They lost that holy nature in which they were first formed.  They forfeited the friendship and favor of God, and became guilty, corrupt, helpless, hopeless sinners.  Sin came as a barrier between themselves and their holy Father in heaven.  Had He dealt with them according to their deserts, there had been nothing before them but death, hell, and everlasting ruin.

"And where was Christ then?

"In that very day He was revealed to our trembling parents as the only hope of salvation.  The very day they fell, they were told that the seed of the woman should yet bruise the serpent's head, that a Savior born of a woman should overcome the devil, and win for sinful man an entrance to eternal life (Gen. 3:15).  Christ was held up as the true light of the world, in the very day of the Fall; and never has any name been made known from that day by which souls could be saved, excepting His By Him all saved souls have entered heaven, from Adam downwards; and without Him none have ever escaped hell" (J.C. Ryle, Holiness).

J.C. Ryle on Christ and Creation

"Christ is all" (Col. 3:11).

"There came a time when this earth was created in its present order.  Sun, moon and stars, sea, land, and all their inhabitants were called into being, and made out of chaos and confusion.  And, last of all, man was formed out of the dust of the ground.

"And where was Christ then?

"Hear what the Scripture says: 'All things were made by Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made' (John 1:3).  'By Him were all things created, that are in heaven and that are in the earth' (Col. 1:16).  'And You, Lord, in the beginning have laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of your hands' (Heb. 1:10).  'When He prepared the heavens, I was there; when He set a compass upon the face of he depth; when He established the clouds above; when He strengthened the foundations of the deep; when He gave the sea His decree, that the waters should not pass His commandment; when He appointed the foundations of the earth, then I was by Him, as one brought up with Him' (Prov. 8:27-30).  Can we wonder that the Lord Jesus, in His preaching, should continually draw lessons from the book of nature?  When He spoke of the sheep, the fish, the ravens, the corn, the lilies, the fig tree, the vine, He spoke of things which He Himself had made" (Holiness, J.C. Ryle)

J.C. Ryle on Christ Before Creation

"Christ is all" (Col. 3:11)

"There was a time when this earth had no being.  Solid as the mountains look, boundless as the sea appears, high as the stars in heaven look, they once did not exist.  And man, with all the high thoughts he now has of himself, was a creature unknown.

"And where was Christ then?

"Even then Christ was 'with God' and 'was God' and was 'equal with God' (John 1:1; Phil. 2:6).  Even then He was the beloved Son of the Father.  'You loved me,' He says, 'before the foundation of the world.'  'I had glory with You before the world began.'  'I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was' (John 17:5, 24; Prov. 8:23).  Even then He was the Savior if 'foreordained before the foundation of the world' (1 Pet. 1:20), and believers were 'chosen in Him' (Eph. 1:4)" (Holiness, J.C. Ryle).

J.C. Ryle on the Effects of Evangelism

"Do you want to understand what the times require of all Christians in reference to the souls of others?  Listen, and I will tell you.  You live in times of great liberty and abounding opportunities of doing good.  Never were there so many open doors of usefulness, so many fields white to the harvest.  Mind that you use those open doors, and try to reap those fields.  Try to do a little good before you die.  Strive to be useful.  Determine that by God's help you will leave the world a better world in the day of your burial than it was in the day you were born.  Remember the souls of relatives, friends and companions; remember that God often works by weak instruments, and try with holy ingenuity to lead them to Christ.  The time is short, the sand is running out of the glass of this old world; then redeem the time, and endeavor not to go to heaven alone.  No doubt you cannot command success.  It is not certain that your efforts to do good will always do good to others but it is quite certain that they will always do good to yourself.  Exercise, exercise, is one grand secret of health, both for body and soul. 'He that waters shall be watered himself' (Prov. 11:25).  It is a deep and golden saying of our Master's, but seldom understood in its full meaning, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive' (Acts 20:35)" (Holiness, J.C. Ryle).

J.C. Ryle on the Narrow Way

"Do you want to understand what the times require of you in reference to your own soul?  Listen, and I will tell you.  You live in times of peculiar spiritual danger.  Never perhaps were there more traps and pitfalls in the way to heaven; never certainly were those traps so skillfully baited, and those pitfalls so ingeniously made.  Mind what you are about.  Look well to your goings.  Ponder the paths of your feet.  Take heed lest you come to eternal grief, and ruin your own soul.  Beware of practical infidelity under the specious name of free thought.  Beware of a helpless state of indecision about doctrinal truth under the plausible idea of not being party-spirited, and under the baneful influence of so-called liberality and charity.  Beware of frittering away life in wishing and meaning and hoping for the day of decision, until the door is shut, and you are given over to a dead conscience, and die without hope.  Awake to a sense of your danger.  Arise and give diligence to make your calling and election sure, whatever else you leave uncertain.  The kingdom of God is very near.  Christ the almighty Savior, Christ the sinner's Friend, Christ and eternal life, are ready for you if you will only come to Christ.  Arise and cast away excuses; this very day Christ calls you.  Wait not for company if you cannot have it; wait for nobody.  The times, I repeat, are desperately dangerous.  If only few are in the narrow way of life, resolve that by God's help you at any rate will be among the few" (Holiness, J.C. Ryle).

J.C. Ryle on Private Communion with Christ

"Let us cultivate the habit of keeping up more private meditation and communion with Christ.  Let us resolutely make time for getting alone occasionally, for talking with our own souls like David, for pouring out our hearts to our great High Priest, Advocate, and Confessor at the right hand of God.  We want more auricular confession - but not to man.  The confessional we want is not in a box in the vestry, but the throne of grace.  I see some professing Christians always running about after spiritual food, always in public, and always out of breath and in a hurry, and never allowing themselves leisure to sit down quietly to digest, and take stock of their spiritual condition.  I am never surprised if such Christians have a dwarfish, stunted religion and do not grow and if, like Pharaoh's lean kin, they look no better for their public religious feasting, but rather worse.  Spiritual prosperity depends immensely on our private religion, and private religion cannot flourish unless we determine that by God's help we will make time, whatever trouble it may cost us, for thought, for prayer, for the Bible, and for private communion with Christ.  Alas!  That saying of our Master is sadly overlooked: 'Enter into your closet and shut the door' (Matt. 6:6)" (Holiness, J.C. Ryle).

J.C. Ryle on Private Reading of Scripture

"Let us read our Bibles in private more, and with more pains and diligence.  Ignorance of Scripture is the root of all error, and makes a man helpless in the hand of the devil.  There is less private Bible reading, I suspect, than there was fifty years ago.  I never can believe that so many English men and women would have been 'tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine,' some falling into skepticism, some rushing into the wildest and narrowest fanaticism, and some going over to Rome, if there had not grown up a habit of lazy, superficial, careless, [hasty] reading of God's Word.  'You do err not knowing the Scriptures' (Matt. 22:29).  The Bible in the pulpit must never supersede the Bible at home" (Holiness, J.C. Ryle).

J.C. Ryle on Private Prayer

"Let us pray more heartily in private, and throw our whole souls more into our prayers.  There are live prayers and there are dead prayers; prayers that cost us nothing, and prayers which often cost us strong crying and tears.  What are yours?  When great professors backslide in public, and the church is surprised and shocked, the truth is that they had long ago backslidden on their knees.  They had neglected the throne of grace" (J.C. Ryle, Holiness).

J.C. Ryle on Public and Private Religion

At the time J.C. Ryle wrote these words there had been an increase in the number of public services and those attending.  Though he was excited by the multiplication of what he called "public religion" he gave a word of caution:

"While we are thankful for the increase of public religion, we must never forget that, unless it is accompanied by private religion, it is of no real solid value, and may even produce most mischievous effects.  Incessant running after sensational preachers, incessant attendance at hot crowded meetings, [prolonged] to late hours, incessant craving after fresh excitement and highly spiced pulpit novelties - all this kind of thing is calculated to produce a very unhealthy style of Christianity and, in many cases I am afraid, the end is utter ruin of soul.  For, unhappily, those who make public religion everything are often led away by mere temporary emotions, after some grand display of ecclesiastical oratory, into professing far more than they really feel.  After this, they can only be kept up to the mark, which they imagine they have reached, by a constant succession of religious excitements.  By and by, as with opium-eaters and dram-drinkers, there comes a time when their dose loses its power, and a feeling of exhaustion and discontent begins to creep over their minds.  Too often, I fear, the conclusion of the whole matter is a relapse into utter deadness and unbelief, and a complete return to the world.  And all results from having nothing but a public religion!  Oh, that people would remember that it was not the wind, or the fire, or the earthquake, which showed Elijah the presence of God, but 'the still small voice' (1 Kings 19:12).

"Now I desire to lift up a warning voice on this subject.  I want to see no decrease of public religion, remember; but I do want to promote an increase of that religion which is private - private between each man and his God.  The root of a plant or tree makes no show above ground.  If you dig down to it and examine it, it is a poor, dirty, coarse-looking thing and not nearly so beautiful to the eye as the fruit or leaf or flower.  But that despised root, nevertheless, is the true source of all the life, health, vigor and fertility which your eyes see, and without it the plant or tree would soon die.  Now private religion is the root of all vital Christianity.  Without it we may make a brave show in the meeting or on the platform, and sing loud, and shed many tears, and have a name to live and the praise of man.  But without it we have no wedding garment, and are 'dead before God.'  I tell my readers plainly that the times require of us all more attention to our private religion" (J.C. Ryle, Holiness).

J.C. Ryle on the Unsearchable Riches of Christ

"Set down in your minds that there are unsearchable riches in the characteristic qualities, attributes, and dispositions and intentions of Christ's mind towards man, as we find them revealed in the New Testament.  In Him there are riches of mercy, love and compassion for sinners; riches of power to cleanse, pardon, forgive, and to save to the uttermost; riches of willingness to receive all who come to Him repenting and believing; riches of ability to change by His Spirit the hardest hearts and worst characters; riches of tender patience to bear with the weakest believer; riches of strength to help His people to the end, notwithstanding every foe without and within; riches of sympathy for all who are cast down and bring their troubles to Him and, last but not least, riches of glory to reward, when He comes again to raise the dead and gather His people to be with Him in His kingdom.  Who can estimate these riches?  The children of this world may regard them with indifference, or turn away from them with disdain; but those who feel the value of their souls know better.  They will say with one voice, 'There are no riches like those which are laid up in Christ for His people'"  (J.C. Ryle, Holiness).

J.C. Ryle: Obliged to Hear the Great Awakening

"If anyones thirsty, let him come to me and drink.  Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow form within him."

John 7:37-38

"Do you know anything of spiritual thirst?  Have you ever felt anything of genuine deep concern about  your soul?  I fear that many know nothing about it.  I have learned, by the painful experience of the third of a century, that people may go on for years attending God's house, and yet never feel their sins, or desire to be saved.  The cares of this world, the love of pleasure, the 'lust of other things' choke the good seed every Sunday, and make it unfruitful.  They come to church with hearts as cold as the stone pavement on which they walk.  The go away as thoughtless and moved as the old marble busts which look down on them from the monuments on the walls.  Well, it may be so; but I do not yet despair of anyone, so long as he is alive.  That grand old bell in Paul's Cathedral, London, which has struck the hours for so many years, is seldom heard by many during the business hours of the day.  The roar and din of traffic in the streets have a strange power to deaden its sound, and prevent men hearing it.  But when the daily work is over, and desks are locked, and doors are closed, and books are put away, and quiet reigns in the great city, the case is altered.  As the old bell at night strikes eleven and twelve and one and two and three, thousands hear it who never heard it during the day.  And so I hope it will be with many a one in the matter of his soul.  Now, in the plenitude of health and strength, in the hurry and whirl of business, I fear the voice of your conscience is often stifled, and you cannot hear it.  But the day may come when the great bell of conscience will make itself heard, whether you like it or not.  The time may come when, laid aside in quietness, and obliged by illness to sit still you may be forced to look within, and consider your soul's concerns.  And then, when the great bell of awakened conscience is sounding in your ears, I trust the many a man who reads this message may hear the voice of God and repent, may learn to thrust, and learn to come to Christ for relief.  Yes, I pray God you may yet be taught to feed before it be too late!"  (J.C. Ryle, Holiness)

Set Apart for a Godly Task

Recently my brother-in-law and I replaced a window in my house which was not doing it’s job.  The purpose of a window is to keep the weather out and let the sunshine in, but this window was failing to do one while accomplishing the other.  As we removed the old window the true extent of the problems became obvious.  Much of the wood around the window was rotten due to the window’s lack of ability to keep the weather outside.  To fix this issue we replaced the rotten wood with new, treated wood before replacing the entire window. 

There are times when the church is not accomplishing the good work that God has called it to undertake.  It has allowed rot to set in and some major renovation needs to take place.  The rot must be removed.  Or to use the words of the Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy 2:21, the church is in need of a good cleansing.

The church of God is called to be set apart, to be holy, for Godly work.  How can the rot within the church be recognized and dealt with quickly?  How does this truth affect the church as a whole and each individual within the church of God?  What renovations need to be done within the church so that it can accomplish it’s call?

Join us this week at ElmCreek Community Church as we study 2 Timothy 2:20-21 and discover God’s desire for us as His people.

Striving to know Christ and make him known!

J.C. Ryle: Seek Christ Without Delay

"If you have lived without Christ hitherto, I invite you in all affection to change your course without delay.  Seek the Lord Jesus while He can be found.  Call upon Him while He is near.  He is sitting at God's right hand, able to save to the uttermost everyone who comes to Him, however sinful and careless he may have been.  He is sitting at God's right hand, willing to hear the prayer of everyone who feels that his past life has been all wrong, and wants to be set right.  Seek Christ, seek Christ without delay.  Acquaint yourself with Him.  Do not be ashamed to apply to Him.  Only become one of Christ's friends this year, and you will say one day, it was the happiest year that you ever had" (J.C. Ryle, Holiness).