J. C. Ryle Men Quotations

The best of men are only men at their very best. Patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, - martyrs, fathers, reformers, puritans, - all are sinners, who need a Savior: holy, useful, honorable in their place - but sinners after all.

Nothing perhaps affects man's character more than the company he keeps

So long as you do not quarrel with sin, you will never be a truly happy man.

What could an unsanctified man do in Heaven, if by any chance he got there? Let that question be fairly looked in the face and fairly answered. 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.

Any well-read man knows that the moral difference between the condition of the world before Christianity was planted and since Christianity took root is the difference between night and day, the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of the devil.

We must wrestle earnestly in prayer, like men contending with a deadly enemy for life.

The Bible applied to the heart by the Holy Ghost is the chief means by which men are built up and established in the faith, after their conversion. It is able to cleanse them, to sanctify them, to instruct them in righteousness, and to furnish them thoroughly for all good works.

We want more men and women who walk with God and before God, like Enoch and Abraham.

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.

Let us awake to a sense of the perilous state of many professing Christians. 'Without holiness no man shall see the Lord'; without sanctification there is no salvation (Hebrews 12:14). Then what an enormous amount of so-called religion there is which is perfectly useless!

Another real danger to young men is thoughtlessness and lack of consideration. Lack of thought is one simple reason why thousands of souls are cast away forever. Men will not consider,-will not look forward,-will not look around them,-will not reflect on the end of their present course, and the sure consequences of their present ways,-and awake at last to find they are damned for lack of thinking.

Sicknesses, losses, crosses, anxieties and disappointments seem absolutely needful to keep us humble, watchful and spiritual-minde d. They are as needful as the pruning knife to the vine and the refiner’s furnace to the gold.

The last day will prove that some of the holiest men that ever lived are hardly known.

Infidelity and skepticism abound everywhere. In one form or another they are to be found in every rank and class of society. Thousands are not ashamed to say that they regard the Bible as an old obsolete Jewish book, which has no special claim on our faith and obedience, and that it contains many inaccuracies and defects. In a day like this, the true Christian should be able to set his foot down firmly, and to render a reason of his confidence in God's Word. He should be able by sound arguments to show good cause why he thinks the Bible is from heaven, and not of men.

A man may just as soon read the Scripture without eyes, as understand the spirit of it without grace.

Nothing so hardens the heart of man as a barren familiarity with sacred things.

If Christianity is a mere invention of man, and the Bible is not from God, how can infidels explain Jesus Christ? His existence in history they cannot deny. How is it that without force or bribery, without arms or money, He has made such an immensely deep mark on the world as He certainly has?

Young men, I beseech you earnestly, beware of pride. Two things are said to be very rare sights in the world- one is a young man that is humble, and the other is an old man that is content. I fear that this is only too true.

True faith will always show itself by its fruits . . . I suspect that, with rare exceptions, men die just as they have lived.

When I speak of a man growing in grace, I mean simply this - that his sense of sin is becoming deeper, his faith stronger, his hope brighter, his love more extensive, his spiritual mindedness more marked.

He that would be conformed to Christ's image, and become a Christ-like man, must be constantly studying Christ Himself.

The hand of the wicked can't stir one moment before God allows them to begin, and...one moment after God commands them to stop.

The best of men are men at best

To be Christian it will cost a man his love of ease.

A man may commit sin and yet be ignorant of it, and fancy himself innocent when he is guilty... We shall do well to remember that when we make our own miserably imperfect knowledge and consciousness the measure of our sinfulness, we are on very dangerous ground.

A zealous man feels that like a lamp he is made to burn; and if consumed in burning, he has but done the work for which God appointed him. Such a one will always find a sphere for his zeal. If he cannot preach and work and give money, he will cry and sigh and pray.

The brightest saint is the man who has the most heart-searching sense of his own sinfulness, and the liveliest sense of his own complete acceptance in Christ.

In justification the word to be addressed to man is believe - only believe; in sanctification the word must be 'watch, pray, and fight.'

If you show me a man deliberately living an unholy and licentious life, and yet boasting that his sins are forgiven, I answer, 'He is under a ruinous delusion, and is not forgiven at all.' I would not believe he is forgiven if an angel from heaven affirmed it, and I charge you not to believe it too. Pardon of sin and love of sin are like oil and waterthey will never go together. All who are washed in the blood of Christ, are also sanctified by the Spirit of Christ.

Persecution, in short, is like the goldsmith's stamp on real silver and gold - it is one of the marks of a converted man.

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.

The minister who keeps back hell from his people in his sermons is neither a faithful nor a charitable man.

A man's state before God may always be measured by his prayers.

Men fall in private long before they fall in public.

A converted man will not wish to go to heaven alone

When the Lord Jesus Christ gives a man remission of sins, He also gives him repentance.

Troublous times, departures from the faith, evil men waxing worse and worse, love waxing cold, are things distinctly predicted.

The heart of a man can never be satisfied with the things of this world. It is always empty, and hungry, and thirsty, and dissatisfied, till it comes to Christ. It is only they who hear Christ's voice, and follow Him, and feed on Him by faith, who are 'filled.'.

Let it be a settled principle ...that men's salvation, if saved, is wholly of God; and that man's ruin, if lost, is wholly of himself.

But if there is one thing clearly and plainly laid down about election, it is this: that elect men and women may be known and distinguished by holy lives.

Without a thorough conviction of sin, men may seem to come to Jesus and follow Him for a season, but they will soon fall away and return to the world.

No doubt a man may be saved, like the penitent thief, without having received the Lord's Supper. It is not a matter of absolute and indispensable necessity, like repentance, faith, and conversion. But it is impossible to say that any professing Christian is in a safe, healthy, or satisfactory condition of soul, who habitually refuses to obey Christ and attend the Lord's Table.

There is but one fountain of comfort for a man drawing near to his end, and that is the Bible. ...All comfort from any other source is a house built upon sand.

Those who confine God's love exclusively to the elect appear to me to take a narrow and contracted view of God's character and attributes....I have long come to the conclusion that men may be more systematic in their statements than the Bible, and may be led into grave error by idolatrous veneration of a system

Lastly, we must be holy, because without holiness on earth - we will never be prepared to enjoy Heaven. ...I do not know what others may think - but to me it does seem clear that Heaven would be a miserable place to an unholy man. It cannot be otherwise. People may say in a vague way, that they "hope to go to Heaven, but they do not consider what they say. There must be a certain "fitness for the inheritance of the saints in light.

Just as the first sign of life in an infant when born into the world is the act of breathing, so the first act of men and women when they are born again is praying.

He that has trained his children for heaven, rather than for earth- for God rather than for man- he is the parent who will be called wise at the last.

According to the men of the world, few are going to hell; According to the Bible, few are going to heaven.

If the Bible is not the Word of God and inspired, the whole of Christendom for 1800 years has been under an immense delusion; half the human race has been cheated and deceived, and churches are monuments of folly. If the Bible is the Word of God and inspired, all who refuse to believe it are in fearful danger; they are living on the brink of eternal misery. No man, in his sober senses, can fail to see that the whole subject demands most serious attention.

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.

If men come among you who do NOT preach all the counsel of God, who do NOT preach of Christ, sin, holiness, of ruin, redemption, and regeneration, and do NOT preach of these things in a Scriptural way, you ought to cease to hear them.

Be very sure of this,-people never reject the Bible because they cannot understand it. They understand it only too well; they understand that it condemns their own behavior; they understand that it witnesses against their own sins, and summons them to judgment.

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".

The fear of punishment, the desire of reward, the sense of duty, are all useful arguments, in their way, to persuade people to holiness. But they are all weak and powerless, until a person loves Christ.

People may refuse to see the truth of our arguments, but they cannot evade the evidence of a holy life.

A saved soul has many sorrows. They have their share of bereavements, deaths, disappointments , crosses. What shall enable a believer to bear all this? Nothing but the consolation there is in Christ.

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.

Conversion is not putting a man in an armchair and taking him easily to heaven. It is the beginning of a mighty conflict, in which it costs much to win the victory.

Better to confess Christ 1000 times now and be despised by men, than be disowned by Christ before God on the day of Judgment.

We must read our Bibles like men digging for hidden treasure.

In Christ alone God’s rich provision of salvation for sinners is treasured up: by Christ alone God’s abundant mercies come down from heaven to earth. Christ’s blood alone can cleanse us; Christ’s righteousness alone can cleanse us; Christ’s merit alone can give us a title to heaven. Jews and Gentiles, learned and unlearned, kings and poor men--all alike must either be saved by the Lord Jesus, or lost forever.

Except a man be born again, he will wish one day he had never been born at all.

The highest form of selfishness is that of the man who is content to go to heaven alone.

If we are true Christians, we must not expect everything smooth in our journey to heaven. We must count it no strange thing, if we have to endure sicknesses, losses, bereavements, and disappointments, just like other people. Free pardon and full forgiveness, grace by the way and glory to the end – all this our Savior has promised to give. But He has never promised that we shall have no afflictions. He loves us too well to promise that.

All men ought to think of Christ, because of what Christ will yet do to all men. He shall come again one day to this earth with power and glory, and raise the dead from their graves. All shall come forth at His bidding. Those who would not move when they heard the church-going bell, shall obey the voice of the Archangel and the trump of God.

All men ought to think of Christ because of the office Christ fills between God and man. He is the eternal Son of God through whom alone the Father can be known, approached, and served. He is the appointed Mediator between God and man through whom alone we can be reconciled with God, pardoned, justified, and saved.

There are many things which swallow up men's thoughts while they live, which they will think little of when they are dying. Hundreds are wholly absorbed in political schemes and seem to care for nothing but the advancement of their own party. Myriads are buried in business and money matters and seem to neglect everything else but this world.

The true Christian is called to be a soldier and must behave as such from the day of his conversion to the day of his death. He is not meant to live a life of religious ease, indolence and security. He must never imagine for a moment that he can sleep and doze along the way to heaven, like one traveling in an easy carriage.