The following post is from March of 2017:
A few posts back I wrote about my early Christian experiences with books where I came to identify the more valuable books by the little robed man on the spine of the book. A few hours after finishing that post I had a book arrive in the mail that I had ordered a few weeks previous....I opened it up and lo and behold there was that little robed man on the spine of the book. The figure was George Whitefield and the publisher is Banner Of Truth.
I think that I can accurately say I have not only enjoyed but have been thoroughly edified by every word that I have ever read by Iain Murray...and I've read quite a few of his books...and that statement remains true after finishing this his latest....J. C. Ryle, Prepared To Stand Alone.
Great Britain was blessed by two great preachers in the last half of the 19th century. The word 'blessed' may not do justice to what their ministries did for Great Britain and all of Christianity, not only in the last half of the 20th century, but right up until today! England's church was in the initial stages of collapse. The ministries of both of these men, and many others of course, not only kept the church afloat but provided an invaluable warning and prophesy of total collapse that should speak to us in America today....for that collapse did indeed occur. The sermons and the writings of both men, thanks to the 'electric telegraph' as J. C. Ryle described it, enabled their work to compass the world.
J. C. Ryle attended Eton, that famous boys boarding school that has produced 19 British Prime Ministers. You may have heard the phrase...'the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.' There is some doubt as to the veracity of this statement but J. C. Ryle's education gives support to it as his experiences at Eton produced a man who later was uncompromising on the gospel of Jesus Christ....wise....tolerant when appropriate...but uncompromising on the essentials of the faith which are many.
Ryle then matriculated to Oxford where he excelled and would probably have moved on to a service life in Parliament had not he visited a church on a Lord's Day morning where a Bible passage stirred something in him that would agitate until a Christian and hero of the Christian Faith was born. That passage was the second chapter of Ephesians which includes...'By grace are ye saved-through faith-and that not of yourselves-it is the gift of God." It's interesting in that the other great preacher in England, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, had a similar experience of conversion where a disjointed service at a small church chosen because of a snowy day did produce but a single verse of Scripture that would change a young man's life from the moribund to the extraordinary.
J. C. Ryle was raised in a family that he described in this way..."My father's house was respectable, and well-conducted, but there really was not a bit of religion in it." He continued..." 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....we had no real religious friends or relatives and no real Christian ever visited our house" and "for about the first 18 years of my life, neither at home, nor at school, nor college, nor among my relatives or friends, had I anything to do good to my soul, or to teach me anything about Jesus Christ." This in spite of the fact that his family did attend church and actually give occasional homage to God in their home.....so similar to America today.
J. C. Rule became a minister more out of financial necessity than anything else. His father was not happy with his decision...."the consequences of this change were very great indeed...it caused great uncomfortableness in my own family, and made my own position very unpleasant indeed. In fact no one can tell what I had to go through, in hundreds of petty ways....It made an awkwardness, and uncomfortableness, and an insensible kind of estrangement which no one can comprehend but those who have gone through it. I had the constant uncomfortable feeling that on account of my religious opinions I was only a tolerated person in my own family and somewhat alienated and estranged from all my old friendships among my relatives."
It should be noted that these words come from a rather informal autobiography that he wrote primarily for his children. Other than this book J. C. Ryle was not into exalting himself in any way. He experienced many sorrows. His father lost all of his money, necessitating the young man quickly choose employment.... he sacrificed to help his father with his debts....his first wife died young and his second of three spouses died after ten difficult years of illness. Although he doesn't mention it as such, the greatest disappointment may have come after decades of ministry, when as the church was collapsing into much doctrinal error, this stalwart of the faith was criticized ridiculed and isolated for his persevering proclamation of the true gospel of Jesus Christ. He was not a preacher at a small church at the time but the Bishop of Liverpool in the Church of England! So the beginning and end of his ministry was similar to Charles Spurgeon's, for the great Baptist pastor was also isolated, censured and relegated as inconsequential in the modern church of his day.
The American Christian of today would do well to pick up this book and read for (as Christians increasing set aside the good news of Jesus Christ for good economic news) we also may be called to 'stand alone' if necessary. Our church has gone modern, our gospel is diluted, and our nation is suffering as a consequence.
J. C. Ryle, Prepared To Stand Alone by Iain Murray is much more than a biography. It is, just as every tract that Ryle wrote and sermon that he gave, an evangelical call to faith in Jesus Christ. A number of doctrinal issues are explored that pertain to us today, one of which is the relationship of church and state, and Bishop Ryle's opinion on this will definitely surprise and may even edify.
If the reader here is a young person then this is a book you must read! If you are of middle-age it will strengthen your resolve for the days ahead, and if you are really old like me...it will fortify that which hopefully you already know, that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever."....that this life is short and in the words of a famous poem..."Only one life, will soon be past, Only what's done for Christ will last"....and that only reliance upon the words of the captain of our faith will guide us through the increasing storms and unseen shoals to our right and to our left.
