Practical Religion: Being Plain Papers on the Daily Duties, Experience, Dangers, and Privileges of Professing ChristiansRyle, J. C. (John Charles)
Religion
Practical Religion: Being Plain Papers on the Daily Duties, Experience, Dangers, and Privileges of Professing Christians
Ryle, J. C. (John Charles)
Christian life -- Anglican authors
There is everything to encourage you to do what I tell you _at once_. I
know no reason why your repentance and conversion should not be as
immediate as that of others before you. The Samaritan woman came to the
well an ignorant sinner, and returned to her home a new creature. The
Philippian jailor turned from darkness to light, and became a professed
disciple of Christ in a single day. And why should not others do the
same? Why should not you give up your sins, and lay hold on Christ this
very day?
I know that the advice I have given you is good. The grand question is,
Will you take it?
(3) The last thing I have to say shall be a request to all who have
really entered in at the strait gate. That request is, that you will
_tell others_ of the blessings which you have found.
I want all converted people to be missionaries. I do not want them all
to go out to foreign lands, and preach to the heathen; but I do want all
to be of a missionary spirit, and to strive to do good at home. I want
them to testify to all around them that the strait gate is the way to
happiness, and to persuade them to enter in by it.
When Andrew was converted he found his brother Peter, and said to him,
"We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ. And
he brought him to Jesus." (John i. 41, 42.) When Philip was converted he
found Nathaniel, and said to him, "We have found Him, of whom Moses in
the law, and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of
Joseph. And Nathaniel said unto him, Can there any good thing come out
of Nazareth? Philip said unto him, Come and see." (John i. 45, 46.) When
the Samaritan woman was converted, she "left her waterpot, and went into
the city, and said to the men, Come, see a man which told me all things
that ever I did: is not this the Christ?" (John iv. 28, 29.) When Saul
the Pharisee was converted, "Straightway he preached Christ in the
synagogues, that He is the son of God." (Acts ix. 20.)
I long to see this kind of spirit among Christians in the present day. I
long to see more zeal to commend the strait gate to all who are yet
outside, and more desire to persuade them to enter in and be saved.
Happy indeed is that Church whose members not only desire to reach
heaven themselves, but desire also to take others with them!
The great gate of salvation is yet ready to open, but the hour draws
near when it will be closed for ever. Let us work while it is called
to-day, for "the night cometh when no man can work." (John ix. 4.) Let
us tell our relatives and friends, that we have proved the way of life
and found it pleasant, that we have tasted the bread of life and found
it good.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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