Nothing whatever, whether great or small, can happen to a believer, without God’s ordering and permission. There is no such thing as “chance,” “luck” or “accident” in the Christian’s journey through this world. All is arranged and appointed by God. And all things are “working together” for the believer’s good.
– J. C. Ryle
Providence
We are evidently no friends of Satan. Like the kings of this world, he wars not against his own subjects. The very fact that he assaults us should fill our minds with hope.
– J. C. Ryle
Satan
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.
– J. C. Ryle
Doubt
One single soul saved shall outlive and outweigh all the kingdoms of the world.
– J. C. Ryle
Salvation
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.
– J. C. Ryle
Prayer
Let us watch against pride in every shape – pride of intellect, pride of wealth, pride in our own goodness, pride in our own deserts. Nothing is so likely to keep a man out of heaven, and prevent him seeing Christ, as pride. So long as we think we are something, we shall never be saved.
– J. C. Ryle
Pride
There is a common, worldly kind of Christianity in this day, which many have, and think they have enough – a cheap Christianity which offends nobody, and requires no sacrifice – which costs nothing, and is worth nothing.
– J. C. Ryle
Worldliness
Assurance after all is no more than a full-grown faith; a masculine faith that grasps Christ’s promise with both hands – a faith that argues like the good centurion, if the Lord “speak the word only,” I am healed. Wherefore then should I doubt? (Matt. 8:8).
– J. C. Ryle
Assurance
Men fall in private long before they fall in public.
– J. C. Ryle
Backsliding | Weakness
Children are very quick observers; very quick in seeing through some kinds of hypocrisy, very quick in finding out what you really think and feel, very quick in adopting all your ways and opinions. You will often discover that, as the father is, so is the son.
– J. C. Ryle
Children
We should no more tolerate false doctrine that we would tolerate sin.
– J. C. Ryle
Compromise | Doctrine
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?
– J. C. Ryle
Holiness | Heaven
Abide in Me says Jesus. Cling to Me. Stick fast to Me. Live the life of close and intimate communion with Me. Get nearer to Me. Roll every burden on Me. Cast your whole weight on Me. Never let go your hold on Me for a moment. Be, as it were, rooted and planted in Me. Do this and I will never fail you. I will ever abide in you.
– J. C. Ryle
Obedience | Faith
Doctrine is useless if it is not accompanied by a holy life. It is worse than useless; it does positive harm. Something of ‘the image of Christ’ must be seen and observed by others in our private life, and habits, and character, and doings.
– J. C. Ryle
Doctrine | Character
Unity without the gospel is a worthless unity; it is the very unity of hell.
– J. C. Ryle
Unity
Holiness is the habit of being of one mind with God, according as we find His mind described in Scripture. It is the habit of agreeing in God’s judgment, hating what He hates, loving what He loves, and measuring everything in this world by the standard of His Word.
– J. C. Ryle
Holiness | Scripture
Tell me not of your justification, unless you have also some marks of sanctification. Boast not of Christ’s work for you, unless you can show us the Spirit’s work in you.
– J. C. Ryle
Justification | SanctificationThe Holy Spirit
Think about how much falsehood and deceit there is in the world! How much exaggeration! How many untruths are added to a simple story! How many things are left out, if it does not serve the speaker’s interest to tell them! How few there are around us of whom we can say, that we trust their word without question!
– J. C. Ryle
Lying
He that boasts of being one of God’s elect, while he is willfully and habitually living in sin, is only deceiving himself, and talking wicked blasphemy.
– J. C. Ryle
Sin | Boasting
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”.
– J. C. Ryle
The Trinity
Parents, determine to make your children obey you, though it may cost you a lot of trouble, and cost them many tears. Let there be no questioning, and reasoning, and disputing, and delaying. When you give them a command, let them clearly see that you expect them to do it.
– J. C. Ryle
Parents
We must not count temptation a strange thing. “The disciple is not greater than his master, nor the servant than his lord.” If Satan came to Christ, he will also come to Christians.
– J. C. Ryle
Temptation
Let us, then, have it fixed down in our minds that the sinfulness of man does not begin from without, but from within. It is not the result of bad training in early years. It is not picked up from bad companions and bad examples, as some weak Christians are too fond of saying. No! It is a family disease, which we all inherit from our first parents, Adam and Eve, and with which we are born.
– J. C. Ryle
Sin
Tomorrow is the devil’s day, but today is God’s. Satan does not care how spiritual your intentions are, or how holy your resolutions, if only they are determined to be done tomorrow.
– J. C. Ryle
Apathy
To be tempted is in itself no sin. It is the yielding to the temptation, and giving it a place in our hearts, which we must fear.
– J. C. Ryle
Temptation
The name Emmanuel takes in the whole mystery. Jesus is “God with us.” He had a nature like our own in all things, sin only excepted. But though Jesus was “with us” in human flesh and blood, He was at the same time very God.
– J. C. Ryle
Jesus
The saddest road to hell is the one that runs under the pulpit, past the Bible, and through the middle of warnings and invitations.
– J. C. Ryle
Hell
Experience tells me that people’s hearts are seldom changed if they are not changed when young. Seldom indeed are men converted when they are old. Habits have deep roots. Once sin is allowed to settle in your heart, it will not be turned out at your bidding. Custom becomes second nature, and its chains are not easily broken.
– J. C. Ryle
Habits
Gradual growth in grace, growth in knowledge, growth in faith, growth in love, growth in holiness, growth in humility, growth in spiritual-mindedness – all this I see clearly taught and urged in Scripture, and clearly exemplified in the lives of many of God’s saints. But sudden, instantaneous leaps from conversion to consecration I fail to see in the Bible.
– J. C. Ryle
Growth | Consecration
To say that reunion with Rome would be an insult to our martyred Reformers is a very light thing; it is far more than this: it would be sin and an offense against God!
– J. C. Ryle
Heresy | Religion
It would have been well for the church of Christ, if the warnings of the Gospel had been as much studied as its promises.
– J. C. Ryle
The Gospel
Our Lord has many weak children in his family, many dull pupils in his school, many raw soldiers in his army, many lame sheep in his flock. Yet he bears with them all, and casts none away. Happy is that Christian who has learned to do likewise with his brethren.
– J. C. Ryle
Weakness
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.
– J. C. Ryle
Hell
Imagination is the hotbed where this sin is too often hatched. Guard your thoughts, and there will be little fear about your actions.
– J. C. Ryle
Choices
Let us remember, there is One who daily records all we do for Him, and sees more beauty in His servants’ work than His servants do themselves… And then shall His faithful witnesses discover, to their wonder and surprise, that there never was a word spoken on their Master’s behalf, which does not receive a reward.
– J. C. Ryle
Service | Faithful | Rewards
Backsliding, generally first begins with neglect of private prayer.
– J. C. Ryle
Backsliding | Prayer
How can we love sin, when we remember that because of our sins Jesus died?
– J. C. Ryle
Sin
Knowledge, not improved and well employed, will only increase our condemnation at the last day.
– J. C. Ryle
Knowledge
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.
– J. C. Ryle
Apathy
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.
– J. C. Ryle
Baptism
Christ is never fully valued, until sin is clearly seen. We must know the depth and malignity of our disease, in order to appreciate the great Physician.
– J. C. Ryle
Sin | Christ
We must wrestle earnestly in prayer, like men contending with a deadly enemy for life.
– J. C. Ryle
Prayer | Enemies
Most true is it that what costs little is worth little! A religion which costs us nothing, and consist in nothing but hearing sermons, will always prove at last to be a useless thing.
– J. C. Ryle
Perseverance
To be born again is, as it were, to enter upon a new existence, to have a new mind, a new heart, new views, new principles, new tastes, new affections, new likings, new dislikings, new fears, new joys, new sorrows, new love to things once hated, new hatred to things once loved, new thoughts of God, and ourselves, and the world, and the life to come, and salvation.
– J. C. Ryle
Conversion
Be very sure of this – people never reject the Bible because they cannot understand it. They understand it too well; they understand that it condemns their own behavior; they understand that it witnesses against their own sins, and summons them to judgment. They try to believe it is false and useless, because they don’t like to believe it is true.
– J. C. Ryle
Rebellion
You were placed here to train for eternity. Your body was only intended to be a house for your immortal spirit. It is flying in the face of God’s purposes to do as many do – to make the soul a servant to the body, and not the body a servant to the soul.
– J. C. Ryle
Life | Eternity
Beware of letting small faults pass unnoticed under the idea it is a little one. There are no little things in training children; all are important. Little weeds need plucking up as much as any. Leaven them alone and they will soon be great.
– J. C. Ryle
Children
Whenever a man takes upon him to make additions to the Scriptures, he is likely to end with valuing his own additions above Scripture itself.
– J. C. Ryle
Scripture
What could an unsanctified man do in Heaven, if by any chance he got there? No man can possibly be happy in a place where he is not in his element, and where all around him is not congenial to his tastes, habits, and character.
– J. C. Ryle
Heaven
Too many are apt to look at nothing but the surface of things in religion, and regard nice distinctions in theology as questions of “words and names,” which are of little real value.
– J. C. Ryle
Theology
The chief weapon we ought to use in resisting Satan is the Bible. Three times the great enemy offered temptations to our Lord. Three times his offer was refused, with a text of Scripture as the reason, “it is written” (Mt. 3:4, 7, 10).
– J. C. Ryle
Temptation | The Bible
The ways, and fashions, and amusements, and recreations of the world have a continually decreasing place in the heart of a growing Christian. He does not condemn them as downright sinful, nor say that those who have anything to do with them are going to hell. He only feels they have a constantly diminishing hold on his own affections and gradually seem smaller and more trifling in his eyes.
– J. C. Ryle
Growth
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.
– J. C. Ryle
Self-righteousness
Faith is to the soul what life is to the body. Prayer is to faith what breath is to the body. How a person can live and not breathe is past my comprehension, and how a person can believe and not pray is past my comprehension too.
– J. C. Ryle
Faith | Prayer
Amidst the flood of dangerous reading, I plead for my Master’s book; I call upon you not to forget the book of the soul. Do not let newspapers, novels, and romances be read, while the prophets and Apostles be despised. Do not let the exciting and sensual swallow up your attention, while the edifying and the sanctifying can find no place in your mind.
– J. C. Ryle
Books | Scripture
It is not that doing nothing is of itself so wicked; it is the opportunity it affords to evil and empty thoughts; it is the wide door it opens for Satan to throw in the seeds of bad things; it is this which is mainly to be feared.
– J. C. Ryle
Idleness
The Bible in the pulpit must never supersede the Bible at home.
– J. C. Ryle
The Bible
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.
– J. C. Ryle
Humility | Love | Doctrine
Pride comes from not knowing yourself and the world. The older you grow, and the more you see, the less reason you will find for being proud. Ignorance and inexperience are the pedestal of pride; once the pedestal is removed – pride will soon come down.
– J. C. Ryle
Pride | Ignorance
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.
– J. C. Ryle
Holiness | Business | Diligence
The beginning of the way to heaven, is to feel that we are on the way to hell.
– J. C. Ryle
Heaven
Saving faith and real converting grace will always produce some conformity to the image of Jesus.
– J. C. Ryle
Salvation | Faith
But depend on it, bad company in this life, is the sure way to procure worse company in the life to come.
– J. C. Ryle
Relationships
To maintain pure truth in the church, we should be ready to make any sacrifice, to hazard peace, to risk dissention and run the chance of division.
– J. C. Ryle
Truth
Never let us be guilty of sacrificing any portion of truth on the altar of peace.
– J. C. Ryle
Truth | Peace
The whole extent of hell, the present suffering, the bitter recollection of the past, the hopeless prospect of the future, will never be thoroughly known except by those who go there.
– J. C. Ryle
Hell
True repentance is no light matter. It is a thorough change of heart about sin, a change showing itself in godly sorrow and humiliation – in heartfelt confession before the throne of grace – in a complete breaking off from sinful habits, and an abiding hatred of all sin. Such repentance is the inseparable companion of saving faith in Christ.
– J. C. Ryle
Repentance
No time is so well spent in every day as that which we spend upon our knees.
– J. C. Ryle
Prayer
To be prayerless is to be without God, without Christ, without grace, without hope, and without heaven.
– J. C. Ryle
Prayer
Sin must indeed be exceeding sinful, when the Father must needs give His only Son to be the sinner’s Friend!
– J. C. Ryle
Sin | The Cross
There are very few errors and false doctrines of which the beginning may not be traced up to unsound views about the corruption of human nature. Wrong views of the disease will always bring with them wrong views of the remedy. Wrong views of the corruption of human nature will always carry with them wrong views of the grand antidote and cure of that corruption.
– J. C. Ryle
Deception
If there is any point on which God’s holiest saints agree it is this: that they see more, and know more, and feel more, and do more, and repent more, and believe more, as they get on in spiritual life, and in proportion to the closeness of their walk with God.
– J. C. Ryle
Holiness
When an eagle is happy in an iron cage, when a sheep is happy in water, when an owl is happy in the blaze of the noonday sun, when a fish is happy on dry land – then, and not till then, will I admit that the unsanctified man could be happy in heaven.
– J. C. Ryle
Heaven
Give me the plenary, verbal theory of biblical inspiration with all its difficulties, rather than the doubt. I accept the difficulties and humbly wait for their solution. But while I wait, I am standing on the rock.
– J. C. Ryle
Scripture
Disbelieve hell, and you unscrew, unsettle, and unpin everything in Scripture.
– J. C. Ryle
Hell | Scripture
The one true Church is composed of all believers in the Lord Jesus. It is made up of all God’s elect – of all converted men and women – of all true Christians. In whomever we can discern the election of God the Father, the sprinkling of the blood of God the Son, the sanctifying work of God the Spirit, in that person we see a member of Christ’s true church.
– J. C. Ryle
Christianity
I am convinced that the first step towards attaining a higher standard of holiness is to realize more fully the amazing sinfulness of sin.
– J. C. Ryle
Holiness | Sin
The servant of Christ must never be surprised if he has to drink of the same cup with His Lord.
– J. C. Ryle
Suffering
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.
– J. C. Ryle
The Cross
All portions of Scripture ought to be approached with deep humility and earnest prayer for the teaching of the Spirit. On no point have good people so entirely disagreed as on the interpretation of prophecy; on no point have the prejudices of one group, the dogmatism of a second and the extravagance of a third done so much to rob the church of truths which God intended to be a blessing.
– J. C. Ryle
Scripture | The Holy Spirit | Prophecy
I declare I know of no state of soul more dangerous than to imagine we are born again and sanctified by the Holy Ghost, because we have picked up a few religious feelings.
– J. C. Ryle
Religion
We corrupt the Word of God most dangerously, when we throw any doubt on the plenary inspiration of any part of Holy Scripture.
– J. C. Ryle
Scripture | Truth | Doubt
Many, I fear, would like glory, who have no wish for grace. They would [want to] have the wages, but not the work; the harvest, but not the labor; the reaping, but not the sowing; the reward, but not the battle. But it may not be.
– J. C. Ryle
Laziness | Service | Rewards
Sound doctrine and holy living are the marks of true prophets. Let us remember this. [A] minister’s mistakes will not excuse our own.
– J. C. Ryle
Doctrine | Holiness
Once let us see that sin is far viler, and far nearer to us, and sticks more closely to us than we supposed, and we shall be led, I trust and believe, to get nearer to Christ.
– J. C. Ryle
Sin
We must be holy, because this is the only sound evidence that we have a saving faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
– J. C. Ryle
Holiness
Idleness is the devil’s best friend. It is the surest way to give him an opportunity of doing us some harm. An idle mind is like an open door, and if Satan does not come through it himself, it is certain he will throw something in to arouse bad thoughts in us.
– J. C. Ryle
Idleness
No prayers can be heard which do not come from a forgiving heart.
– J. C. Ryle
Prayer | Forgiveness | The Heart
Take away the cross of Christ, and the Bible is a dark book.
– J. C. Ryle
The Cross
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, and pleasant, and desirable,” at the time of commission.
– J. C. Ryle
Deception | Sin
Stop being so sure that you are always right, and others wrong. Don’t trust your own opinion, when you find it contrary to that of older men, and especially to that of your own parents. Age gives experience, and therefore deserves respect.
– J. C. Ryle
Self-righteousness
Fathers and mothers, do not forget that children learn more by the eye than they do by the ear… Imitation is a far stronger principle with children than memory. What they see has a much stronger effect on their minds than what they are told.
– J. C. Ryle
Parents | Examples
A good conscience will save no man, wash away no sin, not lift us one hair’s breadth towards heaven. Yet a good conscience will be found a pleasant visitor at our bedside in a dying hour.
– J. C. Ryle
Conscience | Death
The storms of winter often bring out the defects in a man’s dwelling, and sickness often exposes the gracelessness of a man’s soul. Surely anything that makes us find out the real character of our faith is good.
– J. C. Ryle
Character
We should never desert a great principle in theology any more than in science, because of apparent difficulties which we are not able at present to remove.
– J. C. Ryle
Theology
Obedience is the only reality. It is faith visible, faith acting, and faith manifest. It is the test of real discipleship among the Lord’s people.
– J. C. Ryle
Obedience
The faith which has not a sanctifying influence on the character is no better than the faith of devils. It is a “dead faith, because it is alone.”
– J. C. Ryle
Faith | Sanctification
A man’s state before God may always be measured by his prayers.
– J. C. Ryle
Prayer
A religion which did not flatter the rich, the great, and the learned – a religion which offered no license to the carnal inclinations of man’s heart – a religion whose first teachers were poor fishermen, without wealth, rank, or power – a religion could never have turned the world upside down, if it had not been of God.
– J. C. Ryle
Religion
Sin forsaken is one of the best evidences of sin forgiven.
– J. C. Ryle
Sin | Forgiveness