While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, Saying, What think ye of Christ? whose son is he? They say unto him, The Son of David. He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool? If David then call him Lord, how is he his son? And no man was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions. -- Mat 22:41-46 "You say you think that Christ is a great Redeemer. But how can we suppose you feel this, while you appear so careless about the souls which He purchased with His own blood--while you think so lightly of the sins, which could only be atoned for by His death and sufferings upon the cross--while you show so little humiliation, so little sense of your own unworthiness and desperate state without Him--while you do not use every means of strengthening and refreshing your weak spirits, that you may be meet for the inheritance of His saints in light--while you live so much for this perishable world, from the snares of which He died to deliver you? Surely, whatever you may choose to think, when these things are so, He cannot be your Redeemer. You say you think that Christ is a great example. But how can we imagine you believe it, while you do not frame your own lives according to the pattern He has left--while you evidently do not struggle to imitate His faith, His love, His humility, His purity, His self-denial, his meekness, His gentleness, His unwearied zeal for the good of souls? Surely, whatever you may think and say, He cannot be your example. O beloved, this cold, lifeless acknowledgment, this dead belief of truths because you know nothing to the contrary, can never be thinking rightly of Christ! This cannot be that saving faith which works by love, overcomes the world, and purifies the heart. If this is all, you cannot be aware of your own sinfulness, you cannot be aware of the mighty remedy required; you must be dead alike to your own necessities, and the mercy of God who has provided so great salvation. If the plague or the typhus fever were in this church, and there stood amongst you some sure and healing cordial, and none of you did more than look at it, and say you believed it was an infallible cure, but none stretched out a hand to lay hold upon it and use it, could anyone suppose that you either believed the remedy to be certain, or the disease to be a dangerous one? But just such is your case, if you profess to believe in Christ and yet cannot call Him your own; for you may depend upon it, that as far as your salvation is concerned Christ unapplied is no Christ at all. " The Christian Race, J. C. Ryle, p. 142-143.
Posted on: Sat, 10 Aug 2013 22:52:59 +0000
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