JC Ryle: The Devil and the Security of the True Church

"The devil may cast some of the members of the true Church into prison.  he may kill and burn and torture and hang.  But after he has killed the body, there is nothing more that he can do.  He cannot hurt the soul.  When the French troops took Rome a few years ago, they found on the walls of a prison cell, under the Inquisition, the words of a prisoner.  Who he was, we know not.  But his words are worthy of remembrance.  'Though dead, he yet speaks.'  He had written on the walls, very likely after an unjust rial, and a still more unjust excommunication, the following striking words ' Blessed Jesus, they cannot cast me out of Your true Church.'  That record is true!  Not all the power of Satan can cast out of Christ's true Church one single believer.

"I trust that no reader of this message will ever allow fear to prevent his beginning to serve Christ.  He to whom you commit your soul has all power in heaven and earth, and He will keep you.  He will never let you be cast away.  Relatives may oppose.  Neighbors may mock.  The world may slander and ridicule and jest and sneer.  Fear not!  Fear not!  The powers of hell shall never prevail against your soul.  Greater is He that is for you, than all they that are against you.

"Fear not for the Church of Christ, when ministers die, and saints are taken away.  Christ can ever maintain His own cause.  He will raise up better servants and brighter stars.  The stars are all in His right hand.  Leave off all anxious thought about the future.  Cease to be cast down by the measures of statesmen, or the plots of wolves in sheep's clothing.  Christ will ever provide for his own Church.  Christ will take care that 'the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.'  All is going on well, though our eyes may not see it.  The kingdoms of this world shall yet become the kingdoms of our God, and of His Christ."

J.C. Ryle: The Security of the True Church

"There is a glorious promise given by the Builder, 'The gates of hell shall not prevail.'

"He who cannot lie has pledged His word, that all the powers of hell shall never overthrow His Church.  It shall continue and stand, in spite of every assault.  It shall never be overcome.  All other created things perish and pass away, but not the Church which is built on the rock.

"Empires have risen and fallen in rapid succession.  Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Tyre, Carthage, Rome, Greece, Venice - where are all these now?  They were all the creations of man's hand, and have passed away.  But the true Church of Christ lives on.

"The mightiest cities have become heaps of ruins.  The broad walls of Babylon have sunk to the ground.  The palaces of Nineveh are covered with mounds of dust.  The hundred gates of Thebes are only matters of history.  Tyre is a place where fishermen hang their nets.  Carthage is a desolation.  Yet all this time the true Church stands.  The gates of hell do not prevail against it.

"Has the true Church been oppressed in one country?  It has fled to another.  Has it been trampled on and oppressed in one soil?  It has taken root and flourished in some other climate.  Fire, sword, prisons, fines, penalties, have never been able to destroy its vitality.  Its persecutors have died and gone to their own place, but the Word of God has lived and grown and multiplied.  Weak as this true Church may appear to the eye of man, it is an anvil which has broken many a hammer in times past, and perhaps will break many more before the end.  He that lays hands on it is touching the apple of His eye (. 2:8)."
Zech