Once more, it is our earnest prayer, dear
God, that Thou wouldst use Thy Word as
a sharp and a new threshing instrument.
That Thou wouldst make us to be a
vessel in Thy hand that would bring great
honour and glory to Thy name.
Lord, encourage the saints of God that are
here tonight.
We pray that Thou wouldst help us to
realise that little is much when God is
in it.
And we pray that we might labour, as
the hymn says, not for wealth or fame.
There is a crown and we can win
it if we go in Jesus' name.
We pray, Thou wilt bless this congregation, that
Thou wouldst increase them with men like a
flock, that Thou wouldst cause Thy face to
shine graciously upon them.
Remember Thy servant and help him in his
ongoing ministry.
We pray, Father, that soon Thou wilt enlarge
the place of their tent and make them
to break forth on the right hand and
on the left.
We pray for sinners that they might be
saved.
Even, Lord, through these messages that are preached,
that not only may Christians be encouraged and
challenged and even convicted, but may those that
know not the Saviour come to know the
God of these great men.
Lord, have mercy upon us.
Help us now as we preach.
May we know that infilling of God, the
Holy Spirit, for service.
To Thee we shall ascribe all the glory
for what Thou dost do.
For we pray in Jesus' name.
Amen and Amen.
1 Corinthians 9 and verse 16 says, For
though I preach the gospel, I have nothing
to glory of, for necessity is laid upon
me.
Yea, woe is unto me if I preach
not the gospel.
In these services we are looking together at
the lives of famous Christians of a past
generation and especially are we looking at their
lives in relation to those verses of Scripture
which held particular significance for them.
If you think of your own life, perhaps
there is a verse or a series of
verses, a passage of Scripture, a portion of
the Word of God that has been a
means of your conversion perhaps or a means
of comfort and blessing to your soul.
Maybe you can think back to a particular
time in your life when one portion of
the Word of God was made very precious
to you because the Lord drew near to
you at that time.
There may be therefore a particular text of
Scripture that you look upon as your life's
verse.
And this series of messages that we've been
gathered to hear, I've actually entitled Favourite Scriptures
of Famous Saints.
And in these studies I'm seeking to weave
the life stories of eminent saints of God
around those texts of Scripture which had an
impact upon their earthly pilgrimage with God.
Tonight I want to consider the life and
ministry of an outstanding preacher of the 19th
century in England.
His name, John Charles Ryle, or more commonly
known to us perhaps as J.C. Ryle
or Bishop Ryle.
A favourite text of his undoubtedly was 1
Corinthians 9 verse 16.
And particularly the words, Woe is unto me
if I preach not the gospel.
And I think as you look at this
verse you find right away that it is
most appropriate for a preacher.
For they were uttered by a preacher.
It was the Apostle Paul who first said,
Woe is unto me if I preach not
the gospel.
But this text which was a motto of
Paul's would serve very well as a motto
for all gospel preachers.
And certainly it seems did serve as a
motto for J.C. Ryle.
As I've read in his life and I've
culled information from various places, I remember being
told in Bible college by Dr. Paisley that
you should milk many cows but always churn
your own butter.
And that's what I've sought to do in
preparing these messages.
I've brought together information from different places but
sought to bring it together.
And it's very difficult to crystallise everything into
one message.
That is a message that everyone waits till
the end to hear.
I could go on all night and I
don't intend to speaking about J.C. Ryle.
But one thing I've found in reading about
him and from his own writings is that
he was constantly and continually challenged by this
text of scripture as he conducted his preaching
ministry.
And what a good motto it is for
a Christian minister and would to God that
all preachers were truly and genuinely guided by
this verse in the exercise of the Holy
Office.
In our Macrafelt Church in Northern Ireland, if
you've ever visited there, you will know that
this text is upon the wall behind the
pulpit.
But not only is it behind the wall,
it's part of the wall.
The bricks are different colours from the regular
brick so that you have this text standing
out.
But it's part of the wall.
So in order to take down that text,
you would have to take down the building.
I think that's a very good thing.
Woe is unto me if I preach not
the gospel.
This was J.C. Ryle's favourite text, it
would seem.
And I want us to look at it
together and seek to weave around it the
life of this man of God.
In this text, I see three major thoughts.
In the first place, there is here a
great commission to be fulfilled by the minister.
A great commission to be fulfilled by the
minister.
And what is it?
It is the commission to preach the gospel.
Not every man who stands behind the secret
desk can truthfully say with Paul, I preach
the gospel.
For we all know that there are many
who do not preach the gospel.
There are those who are preaching another gospel,
a false gospel.
But God's true ministers, like the Apostle Paul,
preach the gospel.
For that is what they are sent to
do.
Bishop J.C. Ryle of the Church of
England was a gospel preacher.
He became a gospel minister in the Anglican
Church, the Church of England.
He was born in the county of Cheshire
in the year 1816.
We are told that his father was a
wealthy landowner and a parliamentary member.
He was an MP, a member of parliament.
Young John Charles was educated at the famous
Eton College, where Prince William went to school,
and at Oxford University with the intention that
he would follow his father into a political
life.
He would be a wealthy landowner with a
career in politics.
That was the plan.
But as an ungodly poet once said, there
are the best laid plans of mason men,
and those plans are blown to smithereens when
God is at work.
And God had another plan for J.C.
Ryle.
In 1838, during his final, his senior year
at Oxford, he was converted by the grace
of God.
The Lord touched his heart.
The gospel conquered his soul.
And in 1841, feeling the call of God
to preach that word, Ryle entered the Christian
ministry.
He knew the commission of God in his
own soul, the call of God to be
a preacher of the gospel.
And we know from our reading of scripture
that preachers are not made, they are sent
by God.
Preachers are sent by the Lord, otherwise they're
not men of God at all.
The Apostle Paul himself, who wrote these words,
Woe is unto me if I preach not
the gospel, could talk about his own call
to the ministry.
Let me read to you from 2nd Timothy
chapter 1 verses 10 and 11.
This is what Paul said, that at the
end of that verse, the Lord has abolished
death, hath brought life and immortality to light
through the gospel.
Woe unto I am appointed.
Notice he didn't say I appointed myself, but
I am appointed a preacher and an apostle
and a teacher of the Gentiles.
A man sent from God.
That was the commission that Paul felt in
his soul throughout his ministry.
He said necessity is laid upon me.
Yea, woe is unto me if I preach
not the gospel, because there was a commission
from God in his soul.
And Bishop J.C. Ryle knew before he
was a bishop of the Church of England,
that he had a call from God and
thus a commission to fulfill.
Ryle once said, we ought to strive to
feel like men commissioned to speak for God
and on his behalf.
That was the commission that he felt throughout
his entire life.
Again, I'm reminded of the words of Paul,
this time to the Colossians chapter 4 and
verse 17, where Paul wrote to Archippus, take
heed to the ministry which thou hast received
in the Lord, that thou fulfill it.
There is a commission.
There is ascending of the true preacher.
And J.C. Ryle believed firmly that he
had received a ministry from the Lord and
that he must fulfill it.
And so for three years, first of all,
he labored in the county of Hampshire before
laboring in two rural parishes, both in the
county of Suffolk, first at a place called
Helmingham and then at Stradbrook.
Some years ago, I had the joy and
privilege of visiting both of those places.
And the sad thing is that neither one
of them, to my knowledge, is a gospel
preaching church today.
However, in the Helmingham church, when you go
in through the door, the thing that hits
you is the multitude of gospel texts that
are painted on the walls.
I couldn't believe it.
I thought, is this a Church of England
church?
And of course, the only reason that they're
preserved, I think, is because of their aesthetic
quality and because of the history and because
of the fact that they are of some
historical value being paintings on the wall.
But the texts are wonderful texts.
And I remember standing in that pulpit and
just seeing text after text on the beams
of the church, on the walls of the
church, all painted in beautiful bright colors.
And I thought to myself, well, if the
preacher is a boring old apostate, at least
when the people look around them, they're looking
at the word of God.
And I wouldn't be a bit surprised if
even to this day, people are saved when
they go into that church because they're surrounded
by scripture.
Of course, that was Ryle's doing.
Ryle was an evangelist.
He was a gospel preacher.
He loved to preach Christ.
He loved to preach the gospel.
And that was just indicative of that man
of God.
But anyway, I had the privilege of visiting
both of those churches where Ryle ministered in
Suffolk.
He was there for 36 years altogether.
That might surprise you because Ryle is usually
associated with Liverpool.
And of course, he did go to Liverpool,
becoming the first bishop of the Church of
England in Liverpool in the year 1880.
But actually, the majority of his ministry was
spent in Suffolk, 36 years, for he was
only in Liverpool for 10 years, as far
as his preaching was concerned, until his retirement
in March 1900.
Or I should say 1890, where a few
months later, he went home to be with
Christ.
Bishop Ryle, as he became known, was a
faithful minister of Christ.
He took very, very seriously his commission.
It was a commission to declare the gospel.
I haven't time to read extracts from his
many writings, but I can assure you that
if you get comments by Ryle, books by
Ryle, you will find them eminently readable.
You will find them enjoyable to read.
You will also find that he faithfully and
earnestly declared the great truths of the Bible.
Skillfully and zealously, he urged men to close
with Christ, freely offered in the gospel.
He was always setting Christ before men.
It may again be a surprise to you
that J.C. Ryle wrote somewhere between 200
and 300 gospel tracts, which were distributed and
circulated all over the world and, in fact,
still are being circulated today.
Ryle was one who not only wrote tracts,
but who distributed tracts himself.
Just before the service, I was telling Mr.
Cranston that it was a quaint habit of
Ryle, when he was riding along in his
carriage, to throw bundles of tracts out the
windows of the carriage onto the street.
You might say, well, what a terrible waste
of paper and tracts that was.
Well, not really, because in the day in
which he lived, people didn't have TVs and
VCRs and ball games and all kinds of
things to take their attention, and anything that
fell on the street, they lifted it.
If it was free, they lifted it.
And so, if you went along today through
Port Hope or any other town and threw
bunches of tracts out the window, you'd probably
see the blue light in your rear view
mirror, because you'd be littering the place and
nobody would be interested, or at least few
would be interested in lifting the tracts.
But not in Ryle's day.
Children, older people, they would rush to lift
this free literature off the street, and I'm
sure that many came to Christ through that
ministry.
So he was one who believed in not
only preaching and in printing or publishing tracts,
but in spreading the gospel himself on his
travels.
He was one who took seriously the commission
to declare the gospel, but it also was
something that he took seriously, and he believed
the commission of the Lord to include the
necessary duty to defend the gospel.
Again, he was like the Apostle Paul.
We read what Paul says in Philippians chapter
1 verse 17.
I am set for the defense of the
gospel.
Not just the preaching of the gospel, not
just the declaration of the gospel, but the
defense of the gospel.
He felt it to be his sacred duty
to expose false doctrine and to earnestly contend
for the faith.
Among the books of Ryle is an aptly
titled series of papers called Warnings to the
Churches.
If you can get a hold of that
book, you'll find it to be something that
will be a challenge to you.
For Ryle realized as a preacher of God's
flock that he had a responsibility before God
to guard the sheep of Christ and to
warn the Lord's people whenever he saw approaching
dangers.
Ryle and his exposure of apostasy is legendary.
Ryle was one who wrote actually almost prophetically
about the things that would happen in Great
Britain as far as the downgrade and the
apostasy was concerned.
And his exposure of Romanism, his exposure of
even the early ecumenical trends and the subtle
counter-reformation movement was bold and fearless.
I was looking through some things that I
have that Ryle wrote.
There is a book that he wrote called
Light from Old Times.
And in that particular book he was speaking
about the reformers.
And he was referring in particular to even
Wycliffe who was a reformer before his time.
And he says this concerning the ministry of
John Wycliffe.
Let us gratefully remember that Wycliffe was one
of the first Englishmen who attacked and denounced
the errors of the Church of Rome.
The sacrifice of the mass and transubstantiation, the
ignorance and immorality of the priesthood, the tyranny
of the See of Rome, the uselessness of
trusting to other mediators than Christ, the dangerous
tendency of the confessional, all these and other
kindred doctrines will be found unsparingly exposed in
his writings, that is the writings of Wycliffe.
On all these points he was a thorough
Protestant reformer a century and a half before
the Reformation.
Well would it be for England if men
saw this subject in the present day as
clearly as Wycliffe did.
Unhappily nowadays the edge of the old British
feeling about Protestantism seems blunted and dull.
Some profess to be tired of all religious
controversy and are ready to sacrifice God's truth
for the sake of peace.
Some look on Romanism as simply one among
many English forms of religion and neither worse
nor better than others.
Some try to persuade us that Romanism is
changed and is not nearly so bad as
it used to be.
Some boldly point to the faults of Protestants
and loudly cry that Romanists are quite as
good as ourselves.
Some think it fine and liberal to maintain
that we have no right to think anyone
wrong who is in earnest about his creed.
And yet the two great historical facts, a,
that ignorance, immorality and superstition reigned supreme in
England 400 years ago under Popery, and b,
that the Reformation was the greatest blessing God
ever gave to this land.
Both these are facts which no one but
a Papist ever thought of disputing 50 years
ago.
And he closes that section with this prophetic
comment.
In short, at the rate we are going
at, I shall not be surprised if it
is soon proposed to repeal the act of
settlement and to allow the crown of England
to be worn by a Papist.
And that, of course, is happening in the
day in which we live.
Ryle was fearless in defending the Gospel.
His writings regarding the Romeward trend were in
a very real sense prophetic.
In the introduction to his piece on the
five English martyrs, Ryle said, it is solemn
to note, sorry I've got the wrong section,
it says here that Ryle wrote, a sapping
and mining process has long been going on
under our feet of which we are beginning
at last to see a little.
We shall see a good deal more by
and by.
And then he gives this comment that he
didn't think that it would be a surprise
if within 50 years the crown of England
were no longer on a Protestant head and
High Mass were once more celebrated in Westminster
Abbey and St Paul's.
Well actually, in 1960 a service of Requiem
Mass was actually held for the late Earl
of Halifax in Westminster Abbey.
So Ryle was a fearless contender.
He felt that he had a commission from
the Lord to preach the Gospel, to declare
the Gospel and to defend the Gospel even
as the great Apostle Paul had done before
him.
But in our text we not only see
that there is a great commission to be
fulfilled by the minister, there's also a great
condemnation to be feared by the minister.
And what is that great condemnation that is
to be feared?
Woe is unto me if I preach not
the Gospel.
I love this story from the life of
Ryle because some years ago it became very
real to me.
I had read this story a number of
times in books but when I saw the
evidence of its truth before me when I
visited the south of England I was greatly
encouraged.
During his pastorate at Stradbroke Church in Suffolk,
England, Ryle had a brand new pulpit placed
in his church.
I have arranged by Ryle to have a
scripture text carved into the top of that
pulpit.
You know the shape of the pulpit.
It's kind of a sectional little pulpit like
this.
It almost is like some of the coins.
There's a coin in Great Britain, a 50
pence coin and I think it's hexagonal.
I can't remember but anyhow, the pulpit comes
in sections like this and so he had
this text written part of it here and
then part of it there, part of it
on the front, part of it over here
and around here so that the text surrounded
him when he was preaching.
And he wanted that text carved into the
wood on the top of the pulpit so
that it would ever be before the eye
of the minister even if the wasn't him.
So if he would be followed by another
pastor or a visiting pastor would come that
same text would be before him.
And Ryle stood by while the carpenter, who
was a craftsman, carved those words into the
wood with his chisel.
And you've guessed it, the text was, Woe
is unto me if I preach not the
gospel.
And when the craftsman was finished carving that
text into the top of that pulpit, Ryle
jumped up and just very suddenly and impulsively
he reached for one of the carpenter's tools,
a chisel or something like that, a sharp
implement, and he proceeded to go to the
pulpit and he gouged a deep groove into
the wood beneath the word not.
Of course the carpenter was horrified that he
had carved this beautiful text and then Ryle
had just gouged a big ignorant piece of
wood out from underneath it.
But the reason that Ryle did that was
that he wanted this word to be emphatic.
Woe is unto me if I preach not
the gospel.
And men and women I remember visiting that
church in Stradbrook and I'd read this in
books before and I wanted to make a
beeline straight for that pulpit to see if
it was true.
Because you see you read things a lot
of times that are not true.
And I remember someone saying that Spurgeon was
attributed with a comment and someone said well
I've never read that anywhere that Spurgeon ever
said that.
And the man said well if he didn't
say it he ought to have said it.
And there's a lot of that kind of
thing.
So I wanted to know did Ryle really
do this?
So I went to that pulpit and I
just about wept when I saw that.
I could see that groove underneath the word
not.
It just looked out of place with the
rest of the carving.
That had been done by the great preacher
because he wanted this to be emphatic.
If I preach not the gospel.
The Apostle Paul had feared it and so
Ryle feared it as well.
That he would fail to preach the gospel
of Christ.
That he would preach something other than the
true gospel of Christ.
You see there are pastors there are preachers
who do not preach the gospel of redeeming
grace.
The Bible tells us in Jeremiah 23 verse
1 that there is a woe that is
pronounced by God upon such preachers.
Let me read it to you.
Jeremiah 23 verse 1.
Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and
scatter the sheep of my pasture saith the
Lord.
There is a woe that has been pronounced
by God upon those who do not preach
faithfully his gospel.
The Lord Jesus pronounced a similar woe did
he not.
A series of woes in Matthew chapter 23.
Let me read verse 13.
Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites for
you shut up the kingdom of heaven against
men.
For you neither go in yourselves neither suffer
ye them that are entering to go in.
And that could be levied at many today
who call themselves preachers.
They shut up the kingdom of heaven against
their hearers.
They don't tell men and women of their
need to be saved.
I recall the reverend Jim Harton giving his
testimony and telling how when he was a
young man he was under great conviction and
he was told by his own clergyman his
own minister that he should forget about all
this nonsense about being born again and being
saved that it wasn't true.
But thank the Lord he didn't listen to
that man and came to know Christ as
his savior.
But what a condemnation there is upon those
who will neither go into the kingdom of
heaven themselves and they will not allow others
that are entering to go in because they
do not preach the gospel.
Every minister should fear this.
A ministry devoid of true gospel content and
application because he ministers in the prospect of
the judgment seat.
The Lord's people are told in Hebrews 13
verse 17 that they are to obey them
that have the rule over them.
And the reason is for they watch for
your souls as they that must give account.
They will stand before God and give an
account for their ministry.
That is why when Paul was speaking to
young Timothy he said I charge thee before
God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall
judge the quick and the dead of his
appearing and his kingdom preach the word.
God's man must be faithful to the souls
of his hearers.
Again like Paul read Acts chapter 20 and
you'll see there from verses 20 to 27
how faithful the man of God was.
How he said I kept nothing back that
was profitable unto you.
He said I went everywhere preaching and warning
everyone night and day with tears preaching the
gospel.
What a condemnation awaits ungodly unconverted ministers who
lead their flocks into darkness.
I wouldn't be in their shoes for diamonds
for the Bible tells us if any man
preach any other gospel than that which the
Apostle Paul preached let him be accursed.
Let him be damned in the lowest hell.
That was true again of the Apostle Paul
who penned these words for he said if
I yet please men I should not be
the servant of Christ.
That was the sentiment of Bishop Ryle.
He was a man who was bold fearless
in preaching to men because he was the
servant of Almighty God.
In one address to a group of ministers
in 1859 Ryle said this may we never
care what men say of us master when
he said woe unto you when all men
shall speak well of you and the words
of Saint Paul if I yet pleased men
I should not be the servant of Christ.
I mentioned earlier that he had another Suffolk
pastorate at a place called Helmingham.
In Helmingham Ryle encountered quite a bit of
opposition to his ministry and that opposition was
stirred up by a wealthy landowner who was
a member of his church but it didn't
faze the preacher.
He was a fearless man.
He continued to preach the gospel with great
boldness.
Ryle wouldn't trim his message down for anybody
wouldn't pair off the sharp point of the
gospel for anybody rich or poor and I
well remember the impression left upon me by
my visit to that Helmingham church.
As I've said already the walls and the
beams of that church are covered in beautifully
painted texts of scripture but here's the thing
about those texts of scripture every single one
of them was chosen carefully by Ryle himself
and they're so strategically placed for example on
the way into the church as I remember
there was a verse that said something about
take heed how you hear and then on
the way out there was something about what
you have heard about thinking about what you
have heard he chose every text extremely carefully
and above the pulpit not only on the
pulpit which was the case in Stradbrooke but
in Helmingham above the pulpit on the wall
is the text woe is unto me if
I preach not the gospel.
When I visited the Helmingham church a friend
of mine was pointing out to me in
one side of that huge building there is
a tomb of what I later learned was
Ryle's wealthy critic the man who raised opposition
against him in that church he's buried in
that church in a marked vault in the
wall and I was very amused to see
that J.C. Ryle had specially selected verses
surrounding that rich man's tomb painted on the
walls on the left it says if we
say that we have no sin we deceive
ourselves to the right of that tomb it
says all have sinned and come short of
the glory of God and above the man's
tomb are the words the heart is deceitful
above all things and desperately wicked Ryle did
not fear any man but he feared God
and therefore he preached the gospel but there's
something else in this text and I think
it's relevant to Ryle and that is there
is here a great compulsion to be felt
by the minister woe is unto me if
I preach not the gospel but those words
are preceded by these necessity is laid upon
me yea woe is unto me if I
preach not the gospel I think that implicit
in that is not only the thought that
it will not be good for me if
I don't preach the gospel because of the
Lord's punishment upon me but also within my
own soul there is this burden there is
this compulsion that I must and I cannot
do anything else but preach the gospel of
Christ I must preach Spurgeon used to advise
his prospective ministerial students only enter the gospel
ministry if you cannot be content doing something
else and he was right but that's good
advice if I'm not a preacher by divine
constraint I ought not to be a preacher
at all this this must be my compulsion
and Paul's attitude was I must preach the
gospel my own minister Dr. Paisley once wrote
a letter to me and it was even
before the time when I had stated to
anyone that the Lord was calling me to
preach and yet he had written at the
bottom of that letter live to preach don't
just preach to live and what good advice
that is and Bishop JC Ryle was a
preacher he was not a time server the
ministry to him wasn't like a nine-to
-five job he was compelled by the divine
burden of constraint preaching really was his life
that was his life preaching woe is unto
me if I preach not the gospel now
while in Suffolk for 36 years he obviously
exercised his ministry in the pulpit and we
have many examples of his faithful preaching in
his books and his notes which were taken
by others I have a set of volumes
which are just basically thoughts on the gospels
they're called expository thoughts on the four gospels
and they are precious tremendous literature tremendous practical
preaching and teaching that will do your heart
good to read and Ryle was a preacher
above all other things he was compelled to
preach his preaching was solid and you might
say well what kind of things did he
preach on well he preached most certainly the
sovereignty of our God he was a man
who believed in studying the literature of the
reformers and the Puritans and Ryle was like
a Puritan in his own style he was
compelled to preach God's sovereignty the truth of
depravity and sovereign election and the perseverance of
the saints and the necessity of the spirit's
work to originate faith and repentance in the
heart of man these are things that he
preached but he also proclaimed the simplicity of
the gospel and men and women the gospel
is simple it's not simplistic but it's simple
it's so simple that even a child by
the grace of God can understand what it
is to be saved and away with this
nonsense that you have to be of a
certain intellectual level that you have to have
studied a certain amount of theology in order
to be a Christian let us not confuse
growing in grace with being a Christian and
I believe with all my heart that when
I tell a sinner what Paul told the
jailer believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and
thou shalt be saved that's that's good preaching
that's the kind of preaching that the Lord
blesses Ryle preached like that he was busy
in ministry buying the pen as well as
in the pulpit I've mentioned already his his
tracts he was a prolific writer of tracts
and pamphlets as well as books and you
know the Lord is still using the gospel
tracts of Bishop Ryle a few years back
I got a call from the Reverend John
Greer when I was still preaching in Scotland
and he told me a story which brought
tears to my eyes some of the men
from Malvern were down in the city center
in Philadelphia giving out some tracts and literature
and obviously someone there had received a gospel
tract and that person she was actually a
black woman she called Mr. Greer's home and
this was some time afterwards and she asked
when she heard the the phone when she
heard that the the person was replying she
asked if she could speak to JC Ryle
and the reason she asked if she could
speak to JC Ryle is because on that
tract at the bottom of the tract it
just simply said JC Ryle he was the
writer of the of the tract and she
thought when she phoned that number at the
bottom that she was going to get to
talk to JC Ryle Mr. Greer at first
was amused by that and said well actually
JC Ryle has been gone for about a
hundred years or more but he got to
talking to this woman and that woman had
come to know Christ through reading that tract
and wanted to tell JC Ryle that she
had come to know the Savior through what
he had written well perhaps the Lord has
told JC Ryle about that in heaven I
don't know what they know and what they
don't know in heaven but I have a
notion that those kinds of things are known
by the saints of the Lord in glory
even now but I know that many have
profited by reading his books one of the
first books I ever read myself as a
young man was was the book entitled holiness
by JC Ryle he also wrote other wonderful
books and series of papers called old paths
and knots untied and the upper room and
practical religion his books on five christian leaders
and especially his book on five english reformers
are priceless especially the section in that particular
book which is called why were our reformers
burned that ought to be read by every
protestant man woman and child why were our
reformers burned you know Ryle was a man
before his time he wrote for instance I
desire to raise a warning voice against the
growing disposition to sacrifice dogma on the altar
of so-called unity and to give up
distinct doctrine for the of peace and cooperation
the tide is running strongly in this direction
Ryle was nicknamed by his contemporaries Mr Protestant
kind of like a Mr Paisley of his
day it's not surprising that that's what they
called him he was a fearless contender he
was not afraid of opposition in 1896 not
that long before he died I think I
said earlier he died in 1890 it was
actually 1900 that's when he died but at
a conference in Liverpool Bishop Ryle said can
there ever be any reunion between the Church
of England and the Church of Rome I
answer without hesitation that the very idea is
monstrous and reflects no credit on the common
sense of those who have launched it in
these latter days well my comment on that
is I wonder what he would say now
in Liverpool the godly bishop was nicknamed Mr
Protestant and for good reason how sad that
even in the city of Liverpool today the
Anglican Cathedral has been used and has been
its name has been besmirched by the presence
of Roman Catholic priests and ecumenical services oh
for men like Ryle today we should pray
that the Lord would raise up men that
would be bold and fearless in their stand
for truth men who will be preachers of
the gospel men who will be defenders of
the gospel men who will say I don't
care who it offends necessity is laid upon
me woe is unto me if I preach
not the gospel may the Lord help us
preachers and people to be to click to
be declarers of the gospel to be those
who will by lip and by life set
before men the fact that there's only one
savior that there's only one who can redeem
and his name is Jesus may the Lord
use us in the spreading of his gospel
for his name's sake amen