JC Ryle: Standing Alone

Again, I just want to mention that tonight, as we always do, we have a Reformation party. Remember Reformation-themed desserts that will be judged? Don't forget that. Again, let me remind you, I believe... Of course, you all know I'm really a Reformation nut. I love studying it.

I love studying church history and history in general. but I really do think it's profitable for us to take just one Sunday of the year to remember that we haven't gotten where we've gotten without other people blazing the trail, what other people have done, and even people that we don't see eye to eye on everything. Our subject for today, J.C. Ryle, was a clergyman in the Church of England.

Most of us would say, oh my goodness, how shocking. How could you even think about someone like that? Because he was a good, solid man of the gospel. And even though we would disagree on some things, he has much to teach us. And so, again, just one Sunday, it's good to remember that God has built this church over centuries, using men in different places, facing different problems, to teach us today.

Before we look at J.C., I want you to turn in your Bibles to 2 Timothy chapter 4. I'm going to read again what a New Testament reading was. As I've read about J.C. Ryle and thought about him, I think this is the passage that I would pick to, I would choose to describe him and how he connects with the scriptures. I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word.

Be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching. for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths As for you always be sober endure suffering do the work of an evangelist fulfill your ministry. For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come.

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award me on that day, and not only to me, but also to all who have loved his appearing. Let's pray. Father, now as we consider the life of this man, we pray that you would help us to see that there are those who embody the scriptures and that would teach us as well to embody the scriptures in our own life, to make the word of God live and rule in our lives.

Lord, when it seems like our culture, even our religious culture, even that which calls itself Christianity, is set against us, help us to stand. For the glory of your name, the truth of the gospel. Thank you now in Jesus' name. Amen. What does it mean to preach the word of God? well it seems pretty important to the apostle paul as he writes his his son in the faith timothy these are his last words these are the last words he wrote before he was executed and he wants to make something clear he charges timothy and he charges anyone who would pastor shepherd the flock of God.

He charges them to preach the word of God. He charges them in the presence of God and of Christ and in light of his appearing. That sounds pretty serious to me. He says that they ought to do the difficult things. They ought to rebuke and reprove and exhort with complete patience and teaching, doing those things that are difficult, doing them difficult and doing them in the right way and doing them when it's popular and when it's not popular.

That's interesting what he says here He says that you ought to preach in season and out of season when it popular and when it not What you going to say may ruffle some feathers You got to preach it What you going to say may go against everything that going on in the world around us You got to preach it The word of God may disagree with all prevailing opinions. You have to preach it. And then he goes on to say, there are people who have itching ears, and they're gathering teachers around them.

Right? What does that mean? It means they want to hear something that they want to hear, and they can find plenty of teachers. to give them what they want. And he says that you need to preach even when no one wants to hear it. Even when the people you're preaching to don't want to hear it. They would rather hear something else.

Now it seems to me that we live in a culture of itching ears. People only want to hear things from their pastors and teachers that do not make them uncomfortable. The sorts of things that appeal to their desires, the kinds of sermons that go along with what they want to believe. Many people today go to church, in many churches, and they go there because they don't want to hear things they don't believe already.

They want to hear what they want. They want to hear what they already believe, which is whatever the culture around them is telling them, that's what they also want to hear when they come to church. Now, as you study church history, you find that the more things change, the more they remain the same. What Paul describes here, others have experienced. Not just him, not just Timothy, but others.

And if others have experienced this, then we can learn from them. We can learn from them. The story of J.C. Riles is the story of a man who was prepared to stand alone, ready to proclaim the truth of God, when many church leaders around him actually denied the word of God. Church leaders denying the word of God. He preached and he wrote so that God's word would have a hearing.

And he said those things when very few around him believed them anymore. But he remained faithful to the charge given in this text. He said, he did, he preached, he wrote. By the way, he wrote, which is preaching and printing. All right? that's why I think he's still preaching because he wrote now if you're going to understand the life of J Ryle you need to understand something of the Anglican church that is the Church of England because Ryle was a clergyman in that church Now again I always uneasy doing things like this and then I say, no, you need to know this stuff.

And if you didn't get it in school, you're going to get it here. All right? You need to understand something about the Church of England. The church still exists, by the way. Obviously, it's the Church of England. It's still there.

But what about that church? What is it about that body that sets the tone for our story of J.C. Ryle? Before the Protestant Reformation of 1517, and if any of you have been here for any number of years, you remember every year we talked about Martin Luther for several years. We talked about that day on October 31st when he nailed the 95 theses on the church door in Wittenberg, calling for a debate and how that was printed and spread and how the Protestant Reformation was launched, how the gospel was recovered, and how Western history has never been the same since that day, since Protestantism was born in 1517.

Now before the Protestant Reformation of 1517, the church in England, like all others, was part of the Roman Catholic Church. But in 1534, King Henry VIII declared that the Church of England was free from papal authority, was no longer under the authority of the Pope, and it was independent of the Roman Catholic Church. now by the way this was after he had written well actually sir thomas moore had written and henry signed it a great treatise against luther in the reformation um and the the pope called him awarded him the title the defender of the faith but in 1534 he wasn't getting his way with the Pope. You see, he had married a woman, Catherine of Aragon, and she, after several years, had not produced a male heir.

He was kind of upset about that. And so, in order to find another wife, find another wife, he's no doubt already involved with women, Noah and Henry, but in order to get another wife to produce a male heir, he asked the Pope for an annulment of his marriage. Divorce is completely wrong. No divorce ever. And annulment. I don't know how you can give an annulment when you've been married for as many years as he was, but that's what he wanted.

And the Pope refused to do it. So because of that, he declared that the church in England was free of papal authority. No longer part of the Roman Catholic Church. So the church in England became the Church of England. now he established then the church of England and in this new church the monarch became the supreme governor of the church and the archbishop of Canterbury the leading bishop now what does that mean? that means that means if you didn't know it that Queen Elizabeth is the head of the church of England she is its head okay bishop of the archbishop of canterbury is the is the spiritual leader and so was produced an established church that is a state church such a church would be and still is supported by taxes in england if you're a subject of the queen you pay taxes and part of that goes to pay the church of england's uh priests and and bishops and everything else now all this sounds so strange to your ears having grown up in a in a country that by the way because of that said no longer separation of church and state we can't expect people to support something they don't believe in right so that all sounds strange to you but that's the way it is and this church would be governed by king and parliament by bishops under king and parliament so it used to be they've changed in the last couple decades, but it used to be that any change in the church had to go through Parliament.

You see? Now, Henry was succeeded by his son, Edward VI. Now, don't yawn. This is interesting. This is fascinating. This is fascinating.

There's more than Pam and I who like this stuff. All right? So Edward comes to the throne. Edward is Henry's son. Edward is very young and he has as his regents as his advisors those who are committed to the Protestant Reformation and Edward as king starts promoting the Reformation doctrines within that church Before, those few years before Edward came to the throne, it was essentially looked like any other Catholic church, except it wasn't under papal authority.

But under Edward, it becomes a Protestant church. The influences of the Protestant Reformation of Luther and Calvin have come to England, and it's starting to influence things. And the 39 articles of religion are passed. This is the document, the confession of faith of the Church of England. And when it was passed then, it's a wonderful confession. It clearly states Protestant doctrine of salvation.

Clearly. Right? So the church now is a Protestant church. And the 39 articles are a wonderful summation of Protestant belief. Now, from the beginning, there's always been tension in the Anglican Church. Anglican Church of England, same thing now.

Same reference. On the one side, you had the high church wing of Anglicanism. This is the wing that tended to be more ritualistic and wanted to include much of the old Roman Catholic ways of worship. At least that's how their opponents saw them. They tend to be very ritualistic. In fact, some of them even tended, some of them even wanted to reunite with Rome.

So this is the high church wing. And it also seems that the high church bishops and professors and people tended toward more liberal theology. It tends to land in the high church wing of the Anglican church. And when I say professors, remember, please remember that the universities in England, you know them, Oxford and Cambridge, right? Technically, those are religious institutions. institutions.

Technically, that's where you would go. If you wanted to be a pastor, you went to Oxford or Cambridge to the university. You remember, universities started in churches. And so the professors in the church tended to be more liberal. They were part of the high wing. And then there was the low church wing of Anglicanism.

These are the folks who dislike the rituals and the beliefs of the high church wing, because in their view, they compromise the gospel of God's free grace in Jesus. And so when you tend to think of low church people you tend to think of those who are intent on defending Reformation truth They the ones who say we are the true people of the Church of England We are the ones fighting for the truth of the Gospel. These would include the Puritans.

When the Puritans started growing in influence, they came out of the low church wing. By the way, you know some low church Anglicans. Did you know that? You ever heard of John Stott? some of you most of you have some of you have not have you ever heard of j.i packer yeah you say no i've been reading this wonderful book by a man who belongs to the church of england yep yep low church guy okay they were also called evangelicals it was another name that was given them and as we shall see ryle became a leader among the evangelicals now there's yet another group it's just everybody all the people who are baptized as infants into the church and think they're okay with god they've been baptized they've been regenerated through that baptism and they're okay with god because there's some confusion because the prayer book comes out and it tends to say that you're regenerated at baptism.

Ryle tried to explain that away, but there it is. So there's this conflict. And so many, many people who are baptized into the Church of England as infants think they're okay with God. They're religious people. Well, what about J.C. Ryle and all this?

Well, John Charles Ryle was born into a privileged family of wealth in Mecklesfield in England on May 10, 1816. So we're talking 300 years after the Reformation. This Protestant church in England has been around now for almost 300 years. He was the fourth of six children, but he was the oldest son. Therefore, all the wealth and property would have gone to him.

His father, John, had inherited a silk mill from his father, and he later established a bank, becoming one of the leading citizens of that town and a member and winning a seat in Parliament. J.C., of course, was baptized into the Church of England and all was well. He had a good childhood. He got the best education. He went to Eton. If you know anything about England Eton is like the Harvard of high schools Eton is where the privileged go And that where he went And from there he went on to Oxford University And he did very well.

He did really well academically, receiving some of Oxford's highest honors. But he also did well athletically. He was a great cricket player. Do you know what cricket is? It's got a flat bat, and you pitch the ball, and you've got to hit the bat and that's all I know. It has something to do with wickets.

But he was really good at it. In fact, at one point he said, in the summer between semesters, I played cricket from 12 until it got dark. I mean, he was crazy devoted to the sport. He was good at it. Life for him consisted of school, cricket, attractive women, dancing parties, card playing and billiards. Of course, when you're rich, you can do all that stuff.

And he did it a lot. Of course, he was a Christian, you know. He'd been baptized as an infant. He'd been confirmed in the faith. He went through confirmation. And as a student at Oxford, he had to go to worship services every day.

Like when I went to a Christian college, we had to go to chapel every day. That's what they did at Oxford and Cambridge. And even at Oxford, he was going to worship services every day as required. But his family, although going to church, was affected by the faith very little. There were no family prayers. There were no discussions.

There was no Bible reading. In fact, he describes a family that just religious, religion was just nonexistent at home. We went to church, and that was about it. He writes in his little autobiography he wrote for his children, he says, The plain truth is that for the first 16 or 17 years of my life, there was no ministry of the gospel at the churches we attended.

The clergymen were wretched high and dry sticks of the old school, and their preaching was not calculated to do good to anybody. We had no real religious friends or relatives, and no real Christian ever visited our house. evangelicals he was told were strange well-meaning clergymen who were fanatics who were taking religion too far and you have to avoid those kinds of people right to sum it all up he writes i wish my children to remember that for about the first 18 years of my life neither at home nor school nor college nor among my relatives or friends i had anything to do to do good to my soul or to teach me anything about jesus christ this is the religious home he lived in. Jesus was not central.

This was the typical religious home. You say, wait a minute, how can you not learn about Jesus if you're going to worship services every day while you're at university? Because the sermons, no doubt, were these high moralistic, idealistic things that didn't anchor in the Bible or in Jesus, right? But then something happened to him. Events transpired that brought him to new birth.

A new congregation was established at Mecklesford, or Mecklesfield, an Anglican congregation. And I don't know how they do this, but another church was started. And the rector preached Christ. He must have been one of those crazy evangelicals. And he preached Christ. And his sister Susan was converted.

And it caused a stir in the household because now they had one of those crazy people in their house who would like to talk about Jesus, who would like to read her Bible, who would like to pray and spend time devoted to prayer. They thought she was, we can't have this. This is nutty. These are Christians now, right? But we can't have these kind of fanatic religious people around us.

And it wasn't that she got kicked out or anything, but it caused awkwardness in the family. Now, around the summer of 1837, so now he's about 21, Ryle got very sick. And he was sick for quite a while, and it was right around Christmas, you found him, he's starting to read his Bible, he's starting to pray. He says, I discovered I had a soul. And he writes, nothing I remember to this day appeared to me so clear and distinct as my own sinfulness, Christ's preciousness the value of the Bible the absolute necessity of coming out from the world the need of being born again and the enormous folly of the whole doctrine of baptismal regeneration so he already as he gets converted he saying the stuff that our people believe about being saved at baptism is crazy It's nuts.

It's foolish. All these things seem to flash upon me like a sunbeam in the winter of 1837 and have stuck in my mind from that time down to this. And his trials began then. He writes his children and he says, for three and a half years, it was hard at home. The awkwardness, the restrictions, we don't want you talking about Jesus. We don't want you doing these things.

And then he started doing things like refusing to participate in the dancing parties and not playing cards anymore. And the frivolous waste of time that he thought that so occupied his family. you can see now some of us might say oh come on having a dance or two is not that big of a deal come on you can play cards to which ryle would respond to you you know what i want to pursue holiness and whether or not you agree with me or not this is how i'm going to pursue holiness before god so we ought to grant him that he did it before god he was serious about being a christian he he and susan now were those dreaded evangelicals and they're in the family same happened with their friends they started abandoning them and there was even a cousin who was a clergyman who tried to argue him out of this crazy stuff of believing in Jesus for salvation but he was convinced that holiness was the mark of a true Christian and he was learning to stand when the stand was unpopular after he graduated from Oxford he returned home tried his hand he didn't think I could run for parliament. He tried law, got sick, had to drop that.

Finally, he went to work in his father's bank. And he did find some friends in the faith, and they encouraged him in his walk. But about four years after graduation, the bank failed, and overnight the Ryle family was destitute. They had nothing. The bank went down. Everything was taken.

They lost the silk factory. They lost everything. They were now a destitute family. Everything changed overnight. And that meant a loss of reputation, a loss of societal standing. People would okay we don want anything to do with you You not part of the upper class now We not going to have anything to do with you They lost friends A bad reputation You failed Right But he knew that true conversion moves one not just from one set of beliefs to another but from pride to humility.

From high thoughts of self to low thoughts of self. And he said, this truly showed me. Right? I don't need that stuff. a Christian is humble some have asked what would have happened if the bank had not failed think about the providence of God if the bank had not failed he as the eldest son would have inherited everything the great mansion and property the silk factory the bank he would have gotten everything but all of that was taken away in order to move him it appears in the providence of God to move him in the way of Christian ministry.

And he felt compelled to pursue it. And so he became a clergyman. And he served for 59 years after, served for 59 years. Well, what about his ministry? You know, and this is what's hard. I want, I could tell you the whole story, but I'm just going to kind of run through it all just so we get his character.

All right. He served for two years in the small parish of Exbury. I'm not even going to try to tell you where these places are. They're in England. Exbury. Here he learned the pressure of preparing two sermons and two lectures a week.

There were two lectures he gave in the midweek and two sermons every Sunday. He learned how to communicate with working people. He said, it's much easier to preach to go and preach at Oxford. It's much more difficult to preach to the people that I minister to. I've got to communicate in such a way that everyone will understand. And so he worked hard at that.

He even wrote a little track some years later called Simplicity in Preaching. He almost exhausted himself in his parish duties. He would visit all the homes. He would talk to everybody. He got to know them. He got to know the working man.

What's interesting about Ryle is he now became attracted to those kind of people, not the upper echelon people that he grew up with and that he was exposed to. He began to love the working men. He went to one parish one time and he said to the pastor of that parish as he got done shaking hands he said I note that about 90 of your people are working people I can tell by their hands By the way, later when he becomes a bishop in Liverpool, when you become a bishop, you're not a pastor now, you're over all the pastors in your diocese, right?

And so the bishop has to choose a church to go to. now can you imagine the competition in the clergy who gets the bishop he went to the church that had that was the lowest in his diocese that had all working people those are the people he loved those are the people and those are the people he thought needed the gospel so anyway he served two years in expiry he learned how to communicate he almost exhausted themselves and then and then after those two years he took up labors in the city of winchester where he served a pair of the parish of saint thomas now the clergy of the city cared little for people see you know in in this kind of a system you get a position you know what they call it getting a living right you get a position and you have tax money or patrons like somebody with lots of money He's the patron of the church. Guess who calls the shots? That's the way it all works in that system.

I haven't figured out all the titles. What's a curate as opposed to a vicar as opposed to something else? I don't know all that, but it's all there. Anyway, so he went to Winchester. And the clergy, you know, they had their living. They didn't have to go visit people.

He was shocked. And in his little parish, he would go and visit the people. He would get to know his people and he would preach the word of God, unlike any of the other ones in that diocese. And he preached it to desperate souls. He desperately wanted people to hear about Christ. He remembered how he grew up and he knew there were so many people who thought they're OK with God because of their baptism.

And so he desperately wanted to preach the gospel. And so he did. But he was only there for a little while, because within months he was offered a position of St. Mary's in Helmingham, and with some reluctance he took that parish. And now, again, exposed to the powerlessness of the Anglican religion, he started speaking up. This is what he said about his time in Winchester.

The story of my life has been such that I really cared nothing for anyone's opinion and resolved not to consider one jot who was offended and who was not offended by anything I did. I love that. Right? He's saying the establishment, right, the Anglican people who everything's okay, you know, let's just be our religious things. He's starting to get the heat now.

He's starting to get heat. He's preaching the gospel. The heat's coming in. And he says, I don't consider one jot who I've offended and who's not been offended by anything I did, but just to do what I thought the Lord Jesus Christ would like and not care on one jot for the face of man. See, he took seriously what it says in 2 Corinthians 4. What does it say?

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word. He says, I don't care what anybody thinks. I don't care what their opinion is. I don't care if I've offended them. I must preach the word of God. And that's what he did when he served as the parish priest.

His Bible was his constant companion as he ministered daily to the people in his parish. Something no one ever did. Listen, this should sound a lot like today. Many of you said, I've gone to churches where we never get the Bible out. I've gone to churches where the pastor doesn't even seem to know the Bible. He was unusual because he carried his Bible wherever he went.

And when he went into a home, he had his Bible with him. The fact that he ever went into a home was really weird because he cared for people. The fact that he had a Bible was especially weird. What a fanatic. Now again, this sounds so strange to you. But that's the way it was.

That is dead religion. Now he married a woman named Matilda. And she gave him a daughter. but within about two years she died. It was sad. And he says, this was an occasion for me to drive my roots deeper into Scripture and to prayer. And here is where we really started to learn to pray and the importance of prayer.

Two years later, he married Jessie Walker. She gave him four children, but she died in ten years. Now, it's here. It in this parish in Winchester that he begins to write tracts I sorry not at Winchester he at Helmingham St Mary He starts to write tracts. It started with a train accident that happened nearby, and so he wrote a tract anonymously that would address that, and that was distributed. and so he started writing tracts now listen tracts by their definition would be anything up to about 100 pages that's a tract okay that's not even a book yet that's a tract when you go see our tracts by the way after this sermon I want you to start taking tracts he's writing tracts and this begins one of the most important parts of his ministry his writing.

He starts to write tracts. Now listen, 25 years later, you would list 100 titles that he had written. 100 tracts and eight and a half million were published. Okay, so those 100 tracts, eight and a half million printings. Okay, near the end of his life, two years before his death, the counts between 200 and 300 and up to 12 million published. Now listen.

Preaching and writing. He was serious about it. And his influence grows. Well, after 20 years of ministry at Helmingham, Ryle becomes the vicar at Stradbrook in 1861. Now he's responsible for three services. This is a big parish.

He's responsible for three services, supervising three weekly meetings and a flourishing Sunday school, as well as the school. He's responsible for the school. He's also remarried. He marries Henrietta Clowes, and she's his wife and companion for 38 years. She was a wonderful wife to him. And he begins evangelistic services.

He and a couple of friends of his decide we need to get the gospel out. And so they start preaching evangelistic services. five, six days in a row. And working people are getting converted. And he loves to share the gospel. In fact, what he starts doing is something that's scandalous. You know what he does?

He says to these normal everyday people you talk to other people about the gospel Scandalous because only the clergy were supposed to preach the gospel That's all. And he's encouraging people to share the gospel. He's telling them, no, tell other people. This is radical. Again, it gets them in hot water. He starts gaining reputation as a preacher.

He starts, and so he's traveling and addressing many conferences, many gatherings of clergy, many societies. And as stated in 2 Timothy 4, he was ready to preach whether in season or not. No matter who asked him to come and preach, he'd go preach. If it was to a group, and he often did this, to a group of the clergymen that were against him, but they wanted to hear him, he would go preach.

Even if they didn't want to hear what he had to say, he would do it. He said, I'm ready to go anywhere or any distance to speak or preach for Christ. It was here that he gained a reputation as a leader and a spokesman for those dreaded, fanatical evangelicals. Now here, another thing starts. Now instead of tracts, he's starting to write books. Okay?

He's starting to write books. Here are some of them. Expository thoughts on the gospel. Some of you have those. If you don't, those are good. Holiness.

It's Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties, and Roots. I've got that book on my shelf. It's a good book on holiness. Christian Leaders of the 18th Century. Someone gave me that book several years ago. And it's a phenomenal book about how pastors pastored.

He put that together. Thoughts for Young Men. Everybody in the older youth group has heard that. Even the younger youth group, you've heard it. We've been through it. I just picked up a book a couple weeks ago, and I can't remember the title. it's about how to parent.

He wrote a book on how to parent and it's a wonderful book. He has a way of saying things that's it. He served here at Stadbrook for almost 20 years and then finally in 1880 he was appointed as Bishop of Liverpool. Now this is weird because it's an evangelical appointed as a bishop. You don't appoint those nuts, but they did. Now part of it, again, this is a state church, right?

The prime minister is leaving office, the next prime minister is coming in he wants to get an evangelical bishop in there before the new prime minister comes in and gets his guy in so it kind of a political move but he gets there and now he a bishop you know what you know how old he was when he took that 63 years old 63 it'd be like me right now starting a whole new ministry he faithfully served the cause of the gospel in that city seeking to call the church back to the gospel. And he also did something that was weird. You know what he did?

He started working with people outside of the Church of England, like Baptists and Presbyterians, as they would join forces in helping with the poor and with the sailors of that city. I read somewhere that thousands of sailors would die other places, right? They would die when they were gone, die on board ship or die in a foreign land, leaving destitute widows and orphans.

And he and his wife were, we've got to help these folks. And he would join with other people. But his test was this, do they believe the gospel? Do they preach the gospel? That was his test. And if you did, he'd work with you.

All right. lastly what does it mean to stand like he did why would we even consider a man like this you know why here's what i found in my reading as i got interested in this he's fighting the same battles that we're fighting today he's biting fighting the same battles that we fight today and he can encourage us to stand as god commands in second timothy four and be in season and out whether you're popular or not here's what was going on if you know anything about church history when you get to the middle of the 1800s liberal theology is growing all right here's the big here's the first big canon shot it comes out of the universities in germany and here's what it says you know the pentateuch those first five books those really weren't written by Moses. There's five different sources for those books. And someone put them all together.

Moses did not write them. Now, I want you to think about that. And they said, but that's okay. That shouldn't change our piety at all. Well, what happens? is what do you do with Jesus who said that Moses wrote those books? Well, Jesus had the same limitations as any other human being.

He was wrong. All right? Now, listen to me. You've come to a church like this who believes in the Bible. This stuff probably sounds like this is coming from Mars. This, my friends, is normal in most churches today. most churches today do not believe that Jesus is the Son of God there are many many churches today who do not believe in the resurrection of Jesus I could point you to many of the mainline Protestant denominations we're all upset, we're all fired up about the whole homosexual thing, right? how can you possibly ordain a homosexual? listen, they lost the battle decade century ago they're already saying things like The Bible is not inspired by God.

Jesus did not die a death as a substitute for sinners. Now this is in the church. We're not talking about some scientists out there saying, we're talking about church leaders saying these things. This is happening in Ryle's day, and it continues to this day. And I could point you to many, many, many church leaders today, Church of England, who don't believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God. some bishops who don't believe that Jesus was actually raised from the dead.

How can you call yourself a Christian if you don't believe in the resurrection of Jesus? I don't know. But they're still allowed in the church. And this was beginning. This was gaining steam in Ryle's day. And he hated it, as he should have.

Hell. No. No. There's no eternal punishment for those who don't believe. Ryle would preach and write when it was out of season, when people had itching ears and did not want to know the truth. Now, in those days, what were the leaders saying?

They're saying, you evangelicals are what? You are intolerant. Here's what he says. We are, referring to the evangelicals, we are too often regarded as mischievous, intolerant, persecuting body. does that ring any bells with you do you ever watch the nightly news shows and things and even the comedy shows What are we We a bunch of bigoted intolerant people I hear such charges with perfect indifference.

I remember that poachers do not like gamekeepers and burglars do not like watchdogs and thieves do not like police, and I do not expect them to like us. Okay? Perfect indifference. That's the way it's going to be. At one point he said, there's so much I could have written down, I'm just remembering this. There's one point at which he said, if a person gets serious about God and picks up a Bible and believes in Jesus and starts living a holy life, everyone will be against you.

The world will be against you, but have fun, go to parties, do nothing, and go to hell. no one cares. That's the way it works. Many had, listen, many had hatred of dogma, or the word that we use today, doctrine. We don't want doctrine. Does that sound familiar? We don't want doctrine.

Stop talking to us about doctrine. We just want piety. We want love. Here's what he said. Oh my goodness, he could write. Here's what he says.

This produces jellyfish Christianity. jellyfish Christianity without bone or muscle or power. We have hundreds of jellyfish clergymen who seem not to have a single bone in their body of divinity. We have thousands of jellyfish sermons preached every year, sermons without an edge or a point or a corner, smooth as billiard balls, awakening no sinner and edifying no saint.

He said this, beware of manufacturing a God of your own. Now listen to him. This is, we're talking the 1870s when he's saying this. Beware of manufacturing a God of your own, a God who is all mercy, but not just. A God who is all love, but not holy. A God who has a heaven for everybody, but a hell for no one.

A God who can allow good and bad to be side by side in time, but will make no distinction between good and bad in eternity. Now, I don't know about you, it's like, has he been here? Right Now here one that he wrote and again this speaks to us He raised the alarm against the thinking that you can insist on truth Listen to the words of this man from the 1870s It is not the system which says nothing is true, so much as the system which says everything is true.

It is the system which is so liberal that it dares not say anything is false. It is a system which is so charitable that it will allow everything to be true. It is a system which is so scrupulous about the feelings of others that we are never to say they are wrong. What is it all but a sacrificing of truth upon the altar of a caricature of love? Beware of it if you believe the Bible.

Now why do I bring that up? I say this because we sometimes get so blue. Oh, I see what's happening with the LGBTQ movement. Oh, I see what's happening. We're going to, everybody hates us. Nobody loves us.

Yeah, that's the way it is. Jesus told us it would be. But we cry big tears as if no one's ever gone through this. Here's a man who went through it. Here's a man who was ostracized by church leadership. even as a bishop, the Archbishop of Canterbury got on his case because he wouldn't agree with all the others about what they should be doing. And yet he was faithful to the charge given by Paul.

If he was asked to preach, he would preach, no matter who it was. Even if they didn't believe what he was saying, he would do it. He would preach in season and out, popular or not. he said this to the pastors under his authority at Liverpool, you cannot convert men and give them eyes to see or hearts to feel. The Holy Spirit alone can do that. But you can be witnesses.

Stand fast, both in public and in private, even if you stand alone. stand fast in the belief that the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation was given by inspiration of God and that it is credible and true J.C. Ryle became increasingly isolated in his influence with the bishops of the Church of England, with the leaders, with the, what will we call them today? The ones who set, the ones who are setting the beliefs of the day. but his influence in the Christian world has grown to unbelievable proportions he continues to speak in his writings today continues to speak long after he's dead he continues to speak speaking to the same culture the same disbelief the same hardships that we face you know what I was just talking to someone before the service started You know what she said to me?

I love reading J.C. Ryle. It's like sitting at the feet of my grandpa as he teaches us. That's J.C. Ryle. You see?

And God remains faithful to this word preached by his faithful servants. Preached in writing, but preached nonetheless. Why preach? Why should we preach? Because God charges us to preach. before his son and before his coming kingdom how do you preach you preach in season and out of season you reprove you rebuke and you exhort that's what god calls pastors to do when do you preach when it's popular and even when no one wants to hear it you still preach what happens when you preach.

Here's what the Apostle Paul says. He says, as for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. And that's what he did. He fulfilled that ministry. John Charles Ryle died on June 10, 1984. One of his friends said this at the funeral.

He was a man of granite with the heart of a child. Boy, wouldn't it be great to have someone say that about you? And you know what? Here's what he did. Here's what he did. It was poured out as a drink offering when he died.

That was his final act of worship. He fought the good fight. He finished the race. And he kept the faith. Even when opposition to him was overwhelming. Lastly, there's laid up for him the crown of righteousness.

You know what that verse is saying? Look at verse 8. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Henceforth, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but also to all who have loved his appearing. A crown of righteousness is laid up for those who are faithful.

It's not a crown that says, given to you because of your righteousness. That's not what Paul is saying. You know what he's saying there? He's saying the righteous judge will vindicate me on that day and give me the victor's crown. and when you look at someone like paul 30 years of serving christ where did it get him he's alone right now as he writes these words he's alone in a prison no one coming to him waiting to die what would you call him 30 years of dedicated service only to be alone in a dark cell ready to die what would you call him what would the world call him you know they call him a failure but he says no there going to be a victor crown given me and Jesus is going to vindicate me and say no no he wasn a failure he was a success You know who else was like that He had an incredible ministry for three years Tremendous ministry.

Thousands of people following him. And you know what happened to him? He ended up all alone. Completely alone. Crucified as a criminal on a cross. Whoa.

What? if you'd have been standing there that day what would you have said success or failure god declared him a success by raising him in glory jc ryle fanatic foolish right why would you want to listen to someone like that the world looked at him the religious world looked at him and said a fool on that day Jesus is going to say a hero these are the men like J.C. Ryle I think that tell us what it means to be faithful Father thank you for your word and thank you for the life of this man even as he speaks today we pray that we would listen Lord I pray that we would be sensitive to those who've gone before us and the wisdom that they have. We thank you for men like John Charles Ryle.

We ask that you would help us to emulate examples like him that we might be faithful for you. In Jesus' name, amen.