Alive or Dead by J.
C.
Ryle You hath a quickened who were dead,
Ephesians 2 verse 1.
This question deserves a thousand thoughts.
Look at it carefully and ponder it well.
Search your own hearts and do not lay
down this booklet without solemn self-inquiry.
Are you among the living or the dead?
Listen to me while I try to help
you to an answer and show you what
God has said about it in the Scriptures.
All are spiritually dead.
First, then, let me tell you that we
are all by nature spiritually dead.
Dead is a strong word, but it is
not my own coining and invention.
I did not choose it.
The Holy Ghost taught Paul to write it
down about the Ephesians.
You hath a quickened who were dead, Ephesians
2 verse 1.
The Lord Jesus Christ made use of it
in the parable of the prodigal son.
This my son was dead and is alive
again, Luke 15, 24 and 32.
You will read it also in the first
epistle to Timothy.
She that liveth in pleasure is dead while
she liveth, 1 Timothy 5, 6.
Must I not take heed to speak that
which I find in the Bible, neither less
nor more?
Dead is an awful idea and one that
man is most unwilling to receive.
He does not like to admit the whole
extent of the soul's disease.
He shuts his eyes to the real amount
of his danger.
Many will allow us to say that naturally
most people are not quite what they ought
to be.
They are thoughtless, they are unsteady, they are
gay, they are wild, they are not serious
enough.
But dead?
Oh no, we must not mention it.
It is going too far to say that.
The idea is a stone of stumbling and
a rock of offense.
But what we like in religion is of
very little consequence.
The only question is, what is written?
What saith the Lord?
God's thoughts are not man's thoughts, and God's
words are not man's words.
God says of every living person who is
not a real, thorough, genuine Christian, be he
high or low, rich or poor, old or
young, he is spiritually dead.
In this, as in everything else, God's words
are right.
Nothing could be said more correct, nothing more
faithful, nothing more true.
Let me reason this out with you.
What would you have said if you had
seen Joseph weeping over his father Jacob?
He fell upon his face and wept upon
him, and kissed him, Genesis 50 verse 1.
But there was no reply to his affection.
All about that aged countenance was unmoved, silent,
and still.
Doubtless you would have guessed the reason, Jacob
was dead.
What would you have thought if you had
met the widow's son in the gate of
Nain, lying on a bier, wrapped about with
grave clothes, followed by his weeping mother, carried
slowly towards the tomb, Luke 7.12?
No doubt it would have been all clear
to you.
It would have needed no explanation.
The young man was dead.
Now I say this is just the condition
of every man by nature in the matter
of his soul.
I say this is just the state of
the vast majority of people around us in
spiritual things.
God calls to them continually by mercies, by
afflictions, by ministers, by his word, but they
do not hear his voice.
The Lord Jesus Christ mourns over them, pleads
with them, sends them gracious invitations, knocks at
the door of their hearts, but they do
not regard it.
The crown and glory of their being, that
precious jewel, their immortal soul is being seized,
plundered and taken away, and they are utterly
unconcerned.
The devil is carrying them away day after
day along the broad road that leads to
destruction, and they allow him to make them
his captives without a struggle.
And this is going on everywhere, all around
us, among all classes, throughout the length and
breadth of the land.
You know it in your conscience while you
read these words.
You cannot deny it.
And what then, I ask, can be said
more perfectly true than that which God says,
we are all by nature spiritually dead?
When a man's heart is cold and unconcerned
about religion, when his hands are never employed
in doing God's work, when his feet are
not familiar with God's ways, when his tongue
is seldom or never used in prayer and
praise, when his ears are deaf to the
voice of Christ and the gospel, when his
eyes are blind to the beauty of the
kingdom of heaven, when his mind is full
of the world and has no room for
spiritual things, when these marks are to be
found in a man, the right word to
use about him is the word dead.
We may not like this, perhaps.
We may shut our eyes to facts in
the world and to texts in the word.
But God's truth must be spoken, and to
keep it back does positive harm.
Truth must be spoken, however condemning it may
be.
So long as a man does not serve
God with body, soul, and spirit, he is
not really alive.
So long as he puts the first things
last and the last first, buries his talent
like an unprofitable servant and brings the Lord
no revenue of honor, in God's sight he
is dead.
He is not filling the place in creation
for which he was intended.
He is not using his powers and faculties
as God meant them to be used.
The poet's words are strictly true.
He only lives who lives to God, and
all are dead beside.
This is a true explanation of sin not
felt, and sermons not believed, and good advice
not followed, and the gospel not embraced, and
the world not forsaken, and the cross not
taken up, and self-will not mortified, and
evil habits not laid aside, and the Bible
seldom read, and the knees never bent in
prayer.
Why is all this on every side?
The answer is simple.
Men are dead.
This is a true account of that host
of excuses which so many make with one
consent.
Some have no learning, and some have no
time.
Some are oppressed with business and the care
of money, and some with poverty.
Some have difficulties in their own families, and
some in their own health.
Some have peculiar obstacles in their calling which
others, we are told, cannot understand.
And others have peculiar drawbacks at home, and
they wait to have them removed.
But God has a shorter word in the
Bible which describes all these people.
He says they are dead.
If spiritual life began in these people's hearts,
their excuses would soon vanish away.
This is a true explanation of many things
which ring a faithful minister's heart.
Many around him never attend a place of
worship at all.
Many attend so irregularly that it is clear
they think of it of no importance.
Many attend once a Sunday who might just
as easily attend twice.
Many never come to the Lord's table and
never appear at a weekday means of grace
of any kind.
And why is all this?
Often, far too often, there can only be
one reply about these people.
They are dead.
See now how all professing Christians should examine
themselves and try their own state.
It is not in churchyards alone that the
dead are to be found.
There are only too many inside our churches
and close to our pulpits, too many on
the benches and too many in the pews.
The land is like the valley in Ezekiel's
vision, full of bones, very many and very
dry.
There are dead souls in all our parishes
and dead souls in all our streets.
There is hardly a family in which all
live to God.
There is hardly a house in which there
is not someone dead.
Let us all search and look at home.
Let us prove our own selves.
Are we alive or dead?
How sad is this condition of all who
have gone through no spiritual change, whose hearts
are still the same as in the days
they were born.
There is a mountain of division between them
and heaven.
They have yet to pass from death to
life.
1 John 2.14 O that they did
but see and know their danger!
It is one fearful mark of spiritual death
that, like natural death, it is not felt.
We lay our beloved ones tenderly and gently
in their narrow beds, but they feel nothing
of what we do.
The dead, says the wise man, know not
anything.
Ecclesiastes 9.5 And this is just the
case with dead souls.
See, too, what reason ministers have to be
anxious about their congregations.
We feel that time is short and life
uncertain.
We know that death spiritual is a high
road that leads to death eternal.
We fear lest any of our hearers should
die in their sins, unprepared, unrenewed, impenitent, unchanged.
Marvel not if we often speak strongly and
plead with you warmly.
We dare not give you flattering titles, amuse
you with trifles.
Say smooth things and cry, Peace, peace, when
life and death are at stake, and nothing
less.
The plague is among you.
We feel that we stand between the living
and the dead.
We must and will use great plainness of
speech.
If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who
shall prepare himself for the battle?
2 Corinthians 3.12 1 Corinthians 14.8
Section 2 All need to be made alive.
Let me tell you in the second place
that every man needs to be quickened and
made spiritually alive.
Life is the mightiest of all possessions.
From death to life is the mightiest of
all changes.
And no change short of this will ever
avail to fit man's soul for heaven.
It is not a little mending and alteration,
a little cleansing and purifying, a little painting
and patching, a little turning over a new
leaf and putting on a new outside that
is wanted.
It is a bringing in of something altogether
new, the planting within us of a new
nature, a new being, a new principle, a
new mind.
This alone and nothing less than this will
ever meet the necessities of man's soul.
We need not merely a new skin, but
a new heart.
To hew a block of marble from the
quarry and carve it into a noble statue,
to break up a waste wilderness and turn
it into a garden of flowers, to melt
a lump of finer stone and forge it
into watch springs, all these are mighty changes,
yet they all come short of the change
which every child of Adam requires, for they
are merely the same thing in a new
form, and the same substance in a new
shape.
But man requires a grafting in of that
which he had not before.
He needs a change as great as a
resurrection from the dead.
He must become a new creature.
Old things must pass away and old things
must become new.
He must be born again, born from above,
born of God.
The natural birth is no more necessary to
the life of the body than is the
spiritual birth to the life of the soul.
2 Corinthians 5.17 and John 3.3
I know well this is a hard saying.
I know the children of this world dislike
to hear that they must be born again.
It pricks their consciences.
It makes them feel they are further off
from heaven than they are willing to admit.
It seems like a narrow door which they
have not yet stooped to enter, and they
would gladly make the door wider or climb
in some other way.
But I dare not give way in this
manner.
I will not foster a delusion and tell
people they only need repent a little and
store up a gift they have within them
in order to become real Christians.
I dare not use any other language than
that of the Bible, and I say in
the words which are written for our learning,
we all need to be born again.
We are all naturally dead and must be
made alive.
If we have seen Manasseh, king of Judah,
at one time filling Jerusalem with idols and
murdering his children in honor of false gods,
at another purifying the temple, putting down idolatry,
and living a godly life.
If we have seen Zacchaeus, the publican of
Jericho, at one time cheating, plundering, and covetous,
at another time following Christ and giving half
his goods to the poor.
If we have seen the servants of Nero's
household, at one time conforming to their master's
profligate ways, at another of one heart and
mind with the apostle Paul.
If we have seen the ancient father Augustine,
at one time living in fornication, at another
walking closely with God.
If we have seen our own reformer Latimer,
at one time preaching earnestly against the truth
as it is in Jesus, at another spending
and being spent even to death in Christ's
cause.
If we have seen any of these wonderful
changes, I ask any sensible Christian what we
would have said.
Should we have been content to call them
nothing more than amendments and alterations?
Should we have been satisfied with saying that
Augustine had reformed his ways and that Latimer
had turned over a new leaf?
If we said no more than this, the
very stones would cry out.
I say in all these cases there was
nothing less than a new birth, a resurrection
of human nature, a quickening of the dead.
These are the right words to use.
All other language is weak, poor, and vaguely
unscriptural and short of the truth.
I will not shrink from saying plainly, we
all need the same kind of change if
we are to be saved.
The difference between us and any of those
I have just named is far less than
it appears.
Take off the outward crust and you will
find the same nature beneath, in us and
them, an evil nature requiring a complete change.
The face of the earth is very different
in different climates, but the heart of the
earth, I believe, is everywhere the same.
Go where you will, from one end to
the other, you will always find the granite
or other primitive rocks beneath your feet.
If only you bore down deep enough.
And it is just the same with men's
hearts.
Their customs and their colors, their ways and
their laws may be all utterly unlike, but
the inner man is always the same.
Their hearts are all alike at the bottom,
all stony, all hard, all ungodly, all needing
to be thoroughly renewed.
The Englishman and the heathen stand on the
same level in this matter.
Both are naturally dead, and both need to
be made alive.
Both are children of the same Father, Adam,
who fell by sin, and both need to
be born again and made children of God.
Whatever part of the globe we live in,
our eyes need to be opened.
Naturally, we never see our sinfulness, guilt, and
danger.
Whatever nation we belong to, our understandings need
to be enlightened.
Naturally, we know little or nothing of the
plan of salvation.
Like the Babel builders, we plan to get
to heaven our own way.
Whatever church we may belong to, our wills
need to be bent in the right direction.
Naturally, we should never choose the things which
are for our peace.
We should never come to Christ.
Whatever be our rank in life, our affections
need to be turned to things above.
Naturally, we only set them on things below,
earthly, sensual, short-lived, and vain.
Pride must give place to humility, self-righteousness
to self-abasement, carelessness to seriousness, worldliness to
holiness, unbelief to faith.
Satan's dominion must be put down within us,
and the kingdom of God set up.
Self must be crucified, and Christ must reign.
Till these things come to pass, we are
dead as stones.
When these things begin to take place, and
not till then, we are alive.
I dare say this sounds like foolishness to
some, but many a living man can stand
up this day and testify that it is
true.
Many a man can tell us that he
knows it all by experience, and that he
does indeed feel himself a new man.
He loves the things that once he hated,
and hates the things that once he loved.
He has new habits, new companions, new ways,
new tastes, new feelings, new opinions, new sorrows,
new joys, new anxieties, new pleasures, new hopes,
and new fears.
In short, the whole bias and current of
his being is changed.
Ask his nearest relations and friends, and they
would bear witness to it.
Whether they liked it or not, they would
be obliged to confess he was no longer
the same.
Many a person could tell you that once
he did not think himself such a very
great transgressor.
At any rate, he fancied he was no
worse than others.
Now we would say with the Apostle Paul
that he feels himself the chief of sinners,
1 Timothy 1.15. Once he did not
consider he had a bad heart.
He might have his faults and be led
away by bad company and temptations, but he
had a good heart at the bottom.
Now he would tell you he knows no
heart so bad as his own.
He finds it deceitful above all things, and
desperately wicked, Jeremiah 17.6. Once he did
not purpose it was a very hard matter
to get to heaven.
He thought he had only to repent and
say a few prayers and do what he
could, and Christ would make up what was
wanting.
Now he believes the way is narrow and
few find it.
He is convinced he could never have made
his own peace with God.
He is persuaded that nothing but the blood
of Christ could wash away his sins.
His only hope is to be justified by
faith without the deeds of the law, Romans
3.28. Once he could see no beauty
and excellence in the Lord Jesus Christ, he
could not understand some ministers speaking so much
about him.
Now he would tell you he is the
pearl of great price, the chiefest among ten
thousand, his Redeemer, his Advocate, his Priest, his
King, his Physician, his Shepherd, his Friend, his
All.
Once he thought lightly about sin, he could
not see the necessity of being so particular
about it.
He could not think a man's words and
thoughts and actions were of such importance, and
required such watchfulness.
Now he would tell you that sin is
the abominable thing which he hates, the sorrow
and burden of his life.
He longs to be more holy.
He can enter thoroughly into what feels desire,
I want to go where I shall neither
sin myself nor see other sin anymore.
Once he found no pleasure in the means
of grace, the Bible was neglected, his prayers
if he had any were a mere form.
Sunday was a tiresome day, sermons were a
weariness, and often sent him to sleep.
Now all is altered, these things are the
food, the comfort, the delight of his soul.
Once he disliked earnest-minded Christians, he shunned
them as melancholy, low-spirited, weak people.
Now they are the excellent of the earth,
of whom he cannot see too much.
He is never so happy as he is
in their company.
He feels that if all men and women
were saints, it would be heaven upon earth.
Once he cared only for this world, its
pleasures, its business, its occupations, its rewards.
Now he looks upon it as an empty,
unsatisfying place, an inn, a lodging, a training
school for the life to come.
His treasure is in heaven, his home is
beyond the grave.
I ask once more, what is all this
but new life?
Such a change as I have described is
no vision and fancy.
It is a real, actual thing which not
a few in this world have known or
felt.
It is not a picture of my own
imagining.
It is a true thing which some of
us could find at this moment near at
hand.
But wherever such a change does take place,
there you see the thing of which I
am now speaking.
You see the dead made alive, a new
creature, a soul born again.
I would to God that changes such as
this were more common.
I would to God there were not such
multitudes of whom we must say, even weeping,
that they know nothing about the matter at
all.
But, common or not, one thing I say
plainly, this is the kind of change we
all need.
I do not hold that I must have
exactly the same experience.
I allow most fully that the change is
different in degree, extent, and intensity in different
persons.
Grace may be weak and yet true.
Life may be feeble and yet real.
But I do confidently affirm we must all
go through something of this kind if ever
we are to be saved.
Till this sort of change has taken place,
there is no life in us at all.
We may be living churchmen, but we are
not Christians.
Some time or other, between the cradle and
the grave, all who would be saved must
be made alive.
The words which good old Berridge had engraven
on his tombstone are faithful and true.
Reader, art thou born again?
Remember no salvation without a new birth.
See what an amazing gulf there is between
a man who is a Christian in name
and form and the one who is a
Christian in deed and truth.
It is not the difference of one being
a little better and the other a little
worse than his neighbor.
It is the difference between a state of
life and a state of death.
The meanest blade of grass that grows upon
a highland mountain is a more noble object
than the fairest wax flower that was ever
formed.
For it has that which no science of
man can impart.
It has life.
The most splendid marble statue in Greece or
Italy is nothing by the side of the
poor sickly child that crawls over the cottage
floor.
For with all its beauty it is dead.
And the weakest member of the family of
Christ is far higher and more precious in
God's eyes than the most gifted man of
the world.
The one lives under God and shall live
forever.
The other, with all his intellect, is still
dead in sins.
You that have passed from death to life,
you have reason indeed to be thankful.
Remember what you once were by nature.
Think what you are now by grace.
Look at the dry bone thrown up from
the grace.
Such were you, and who has made you
to differ?
Go and fall low before the footstool of
your God.
Bless him for his grace, his free distinguishing
grace.
Say to him often, Who am I, Lord,
that thou hast brought me hitherto?
Why me?
Why hast thou been merciful unto me?
Section 3 How a dead soul is made
alive Let me tell you in the third
place by what means a dead soul can
be made spiritually alive.
Surely if I did not tell you this,
it would be cruelty to write what I
have written.
Surely it would be leading you into a
dreary wilderness and then leaving you without bread
and water.
It would be commanding you to make bricks,
and yet refusing to provide you with straw.
I will not do so.
I will not leave you till I have
pointed out the wicked gate towards which you
must run.
By God's help I will set before you
the full provision there is made for dead
souls.
One thing is very clear.
We cannot work this mighty change ourselves.
It is not in us.
We have no strength or power to do
it.
We may change our sins, but we cannot
change our hearts.
We may take up a new way, but
not a new nature.
We may make considerable reforms and alterations.
We may lay aside many an outward bad
habit and begin to do many outward duties,
but we cannot create a new principle within
us.
We cannot bring something out of nothing.
The Ethiopian cannot change his skin, nor the
leopard his spots.
No more can we put life into our
own souls.
Jeremiah 13.23 Another thing is equally clear.
No man can do it for us.
Ministers may preach to us and pray with
us, receive us at the front in baptism,
admit us to the Lord's table, and give
us a bread and wine, but they cannot
bestow spiritual life.
They may bring in regularity in the place
of disorder and outward decency in the place
of open sin, but they cannot go below
the surface.
They cannot reach our hearts.
Paul may plant in a polis water, but
God alone can give the increase.
1 Corinthians 3.6 Who then can make
a dead soul alive?
No one can do it but God.
He only who formed the world out of
nothing in the day of creation can make
a new creature.
He only who formed man out of the
dust and gave life to his body can
ever give life to his soul.
His is a special office to do it
by His Holy Spirit, and His also is
the power.
The glorious gospel makes provision for this.
The Lord Jesus is the complete Savior.
That mighty living head has no dead members.
His people are not only justified and pardoned,
but quickened together with Him and made partakers
of His resurrection.
To Him the Spirit joins the sinner and
raises him by that union from death to
life.
In Him the sinner lives after he has
believed.
The spring of all his vitality is the
union between Christ and the soul, which the
Spirit begins and keeps up.
Christ is the appointed fountain of all spiritual
life, and the Holy Ghost the appointed agent
who conveys that life to our souls.
Come to the Lord Jesus Christ if you
would have life.
He will not cast you out.
The moment the dead man touched the body
of Elisha, he revived and stood upon his
feet.
2 Kings 13.21 The moment you touch
the Lord Jesus with the hand of faith,
you are alive unto God as well as
forgiven all your trespasses.
Come and your soul shall live.
I never despair of anyone becoming a Christian,
whatever he may have been in days gone
by.
I know how great a change is from
death to life.
I know the mountains of division that seem
to stand between some of us and heaven.
I know the hardness of prejudices, the desperate
sinfulness of the natural heart.
But I remember that God the Father made
this beautiful and well-ordered world out of
nothing.
I remember the voice of the Lord Jesus,
that it could reach Lazarus when four days
dead and recall Him even from the grave.
I remember the amazing victories the Spirit of
God has won in every nation under heaven.
I remember all this and feel that I
never need despair.
Those among us who now seem most utterly
dead in sins may be yet raised and
walk before God in newness of life.
The Holy Spirit is a merciful and loving
Spirit.
He turns away from no man because of
his vileness.
He passes by no one because her sins
are black and scarlet.
There was nothing in the Corinthians that He
should come down and quicken them.
Paul says of them that they were fornicators,
idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers,
extortioners.
Such, he says, were some of you.
Yet even them the Spirit made alive.
You are washed, you rise, you are sanctified,
you are justified in the name of the
Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our
God.
1 Corinthians 6, 9-11 There was nothing
in the Colossians that He should visit their
hearts.
Paul tells us that they walked in fornication
and cleanness and ordained in affection, evil concupiscence
and covetousness, which is idolatry.
Yet them also the Spirit quickened.
He made them put off the old man
with his deeds and put on the new
man, which is renewed in knowledge after the
image of him that created him.
Colossians 2, 5-10 There was nothing in
Mary Magdalene that the Spirit should make her
soul alive.
Once she had been possessed with seven devils.
Yet even her the Spirit made a new
creature, separated her from her sins, brought her
to Christ, made her last at the cross
and first at the tomb.
Never, never will the Spirit turn away from
a soul because of its corruption.
He never has done so and He never
will.
It is His glory that He has purified
the minds of the most impure and made
them temples for His own abode.
He may yet take the worst of men
and make them a vessel of grace.
The Spirit is an almighty Spirit.
He can change the stony heart into a
heart of flesh.
He can break up and destroy the strongest
bad habits like toe in the fire.
He can make the most difficult things seem
easy and the mightiest objections melt away like
snow in spring.
He can cut the bars of brass and
throw the gates of prejudice wide open.
He can fill up every valley and make
every rough place smooth.
He has done it often and He can
do it again.
The Spirit can take a Jew, the bitterest
enemy of Christianity, the fiercest persecutor of true
believers, the strongest stickler for pharisaical notions, the
most prejudiced opposer of gospel doctrine, and turn
that man into an earnest preacher of the
very faith he once destroyed.
He has done so already.
He did it with the Apostle Paul.
The Spirit can take a Roman Catholic monk,
brought up in the midst of Roman superstition,
trained from his infancy to believe false doctrine
and obey the Pope, steeped to the eyes
in error, and make that man the clearest
upholder of justification by faith the world ever
saw.
He has done so already.
He did it with Martin Luther.
The Spirit can take an English tinker without
learning patronage or money, a man at one
time notorious for nothing so much as blasphemy
and swearing, and make that man write a
religious book, which shall stand unrivaled and unequaled
by any book since the time of the
Apostles.
He has done so already.
He did it with John Bunyan, the author
of Pilgrim's Progress.
The Spirit can take a sailor drenched in
worldly innocence and sin, a profligate captain of
a slave ship, and make that man a
most successful minister of the gospel, a writer
of letters, which are a storehouse of experimental
religion, and of hymns which are known and
sung whenever English is spoken.
He has done it already.
He did it with John Newton.
All this the Spirit has done, and much
more of which I cannot speak particularly.
And the arm of the Spirit is not
shortened.
His power is not decayed.
He is like the Lord Jesus, the saying
yesterday, today, and forever.
Hebrews 13.8 He is still doing wonders,
and will do to the very end.
Once more I say, I never despair of
any man's soul being made alive.
I should if it depended on man himself.
Some seem so hardened.
I should have no hope.
I should despair if it depended on the
work of ministers.
The very best of us are poor, weak
creatures.
But I cannot despair when I remember that
God the Spirit is the agent who conveys
life to the soul.
For I know and am persuaded that with
Him nothing is impossible.
I should not be surprised to hear, even
in this life, that the hardest man in
the list of my acquaintances has become softened,
and the proudest has taken his place at
the feet of Jesus as a weaned child.
I shall not be surprised to meet many
on the right hand in the day of
judgment, whom I shall leave when I die,
traveling in the broad way.
I shall not start and say, What?
You here?
I shall only remind them, Was not this
my word when I was yet among you?
Nothing is impossible with Him that quickens the
dead.
Does any of us desire to help the
church of Christ?
Then let him pray for a great outpouring
of the Spirit.
He alone can give edge to sermons and
point to advice and power to rebukes, and
can cast down the high walls of sinful
hearts.
It is not better preaching and finer writing
that is lacking in this day, but more
of the presence of the Holy Ghost.
Does anyone feel the slightest drawing towards God,
the smallest concern about his immortal soul?
Then flee to that open fountain of living
waters, O Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall
receive the Holy Ghost.
John 7.39 Begin at once to pray
for the Holy Spirit.
Do not think that you are shut up
and cut off from hope.
The Holy Ghost is promised to them that
ask Him.
Luke 11.13 His very name is the
Spirit of promise and the Spirit of life.
Give Him no rest till He comes down
and makes you a new heart.
Cry mightily unto the Lord.
Say unto Him, Bless me, even me also.
Quicken me and make me alive.
Section 4.
Are You Alive?
And now let me wind up all I
have said with a few words of application.
Number 1.
First let me put this question to every
reader.
Are you dead or are you alive?
Permit me as an ambassador for Christ to
press the inquiry on every conscience.
There are only two ways to walk in,
the narrow and the broad, two companions in
the day of judgment, those on the right
hand and those on the left, two classes
of people in the professing church of Christ,
and to one of them you must belong.
Where are you?
Are you among the living or among the
dead?
I speak to you yourself and to none
else, not to your neighbor but to you,
not to Africans or New Zealanders but to
you.
I do not ask whether you are an
angel or whether you have the mind of
David or Paul, but I do ask whether
you have a well-founded hope that you
are a new creature in Christ Jesus.
I do ask whether you have reason to
believe you have put off the old man
and put on the new, whether you are
conscious of ever having gone through a real
spiritual change of heart, whether in one word
you are dead or alive.
Do not reply that you do not know.
You agree it is a matter of importance.
You hope to know sometime before you die.
You mean to give your mind to it
when you have a convenient season, but at
present you do not know.
You do not know, yet heaven or hell
is wrapped up in this question.
An eternity of happiness or misery hinges upon
your answer.
You do not leave your worldly affairs so
unsettled.
You do not manage your earthly business so
loosely.
You look far forward.
You provide against every possible contingency.
You ensure life and property.
Why not deal in the same way with
your immortal soul?
You do not know, yet all around you
is uncertainty.
You are a poor, frail worm, your body
fearfully and wonderfully made, your health liable to
be put out of order in a thousand
ways.
The next time the daisies bloom, it may
be over your grave.
All before you is dark.
You know not what a day may bring
forth, much less a year.
Why not bring your soul's business to a
point without delay?
Let every reader begin the great business of
self-examination.
Rest not till you know the length and
breadth of your own state in God's sight.
Backwardness in this manner is an evil sign.
It springs from an uneasy conscience.
It shows that a man thinks ill of
his own cause.
He feels like a dishonest tradesman, that his
accounts will not bear inquiry.
He dreads the light.
In spiritual things, as in everything else, it
is the highest wisdom to make sure.
Take nothing for granted.
Do not measure your condition by that of
others.
Bring everything to the measure of God's word.
A mistake about your soul is a mistake
for eternity.
Surely, says Leighton, those that are not born
again shall one day wish that they had
never been born.
Sit down this day and think.
Commune with your own heart and be still.
Go to your own room and consider.
Contrive to be alone with God.
Look the question fairly, fully, honestly in the
face.
How does it touch you?
Are you among the living or among the
dead?
In the second place, let me speak in
all affection to those who are dead.
What shall I say to you?
What can I say?
What words of mine are likely to have
any effect on your hearts?
This I will say.
I mourn over your souls.
I do most unfaintedly mourn.
You may be thoughtless and unconcerned.
You may care little for what I am
saying.
You most scarcely run your eye over my
words, and after reading them you may despise
them and return to the world.
But you cannot prevent my feeling for you,
however little you may feel for yourselves.
Do I mourn when I see a young
man sapping the foundations of his bodily health
by indulging his lusts and passions, sowing bitterness
for himself in his old age?
Much more than will I mourn over your
souls.
Do I mourn when I see men squandering
away their inheritance and wasting their property on
trifles and follies?
Much more than will I mourn over your
souls.
Do I mourn when I see men squandering
away their inheritance and wasting their property on
trifles and follies?
Much more than will I mourn over your
souls.
I mourn to think of golden opportunity thrown
away, of Christ rejected, of the blood of
atonement trampled underfoot, of the spirit resisted, the
Bible neglected, heaven despised, and the world put
in the place of God.
I mourn to think of the present happiness
you are missing, the peace and consolation you
are thrusting from you, the misery you are
laying up in store for yourselves, and the
bitter waking up which is yet to come.
I must mourn.
I cannot help it.
Others may think it enough to mourn over
dead bodies.
For my part, I think there is far
more cause to mourn over dead souls.
The children of this world find fault with
us sometimes for being so serious and grave.
Truly, when I look at the world, I
marvel we can never smile at all.
To everyone who is dead in sins, I
say this day, why will you die?
Are the wages of sin so sweet and
good that you cannot give them up?
Is the world so satisfying that you cannot
forsake it?
Is the service of Satan so pleasant that
you and he are never to be parted?
Is heaven so poor a thing that it
is not worth seeking?
Is your soul of so little consequence that
it is not worth the struggle to have
it saved?
Oh, turn, turn, before it is too late.
God is not willing that you should perish.
As I live, he says, I have no
pleasure in the death of him that dieth.
Jesus loves you and grieves to see your
folly.
He wept over wicked Jerusalem, saying, I would
have gathered thee, but thou wouldest not be
gathered.
Surely, if lost, your blood will be upon
your own head.
Awake and arise from the dead, and Christ
shall give you light.
Ezekiel 18.32 Matthew 23.37 Ephesians 5
.14 Believe me, true repentance is that one
step that no man ever regretted.
Thousands have said at their latter end they
had served God too little.
No child of Adam ever said as he
left this world that he cared for his
soul too much.
The way of life is a narrow path,
but the footsteps in it are all in
one direction.
Not one child of Adam has ever come
back and said it was a delusion.
The way of the world is a broad
way, but millions have forsaken it and borne
their testimony that it was a way of
sorrow and disappointment.
Number three.
Let me in the third place speak to
those who are living.
Are you indeed alive unto God?
Can you say with truth, I was dead,
and am alive again?
I was blind, but now I see.
Then see that you prove it by your
actions.
Be a consistent witness.
Let your words and works and ways and
tempers all tell the same story.
Let not your life be a poor, torpid
life like that of a tortoise or a
sloth.
Let it rather be an energetic, stirring life
like that of a deer or bird.
Let your graces shine forth that those who
live near you may see that the Spirit
is abiding in your hearts.
Let your light not be a dim, flickering,
uncertain flame.
Let it burn steadily like the eternal fire
on the altar and never become low.
Let your Christianity be so unmistakable, your eyes
so single, your heart so whole, your walk
so straightforward, that all who see you may
have no doubt whose you are and whom
you serve.
If we are quickened by the Spirit, no
one ought to be able to doubt it.
It ought not to be necessary to tell
people as in the case of a badly
painted picture, this is a Christian.
We ought not to be so sluggish and
still that men shall be obliged to come
close and look hard and say, Is he
dead or alive?