J.C. Ryle Quotes » Death

The Antidote of Remembering Death

Erik — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 07:00:01 +0000

Death is a great fact that all acknowledge, but very few seem to realize. Most people eat, drink, talk and plan, as if they were going to live upon earth forever. The true Christian must be on his guard against this spirit. “He that would live well,” said a great divine, “should often think of his last day, and make it his company-keeper.” In the state of poverty, be against murmuring, discontent, envy. In the possession of wealth, be against pride, self-sufficiency, arrogance. There are few better antidotes than the remembrance of death. “The beggar died,” and his bodily wants were at an end. “The rich man died,” and his feasting was stopped for evermore.

~ J.C. Ryle

Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Luke volume 2 , [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1986], 213. {Luke 16:19-31}

Filed under: Death

No Regrets on Your Death Bed

Erik — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 07:00:41 +0000

We should endeavor, like John the Baptist, to provide for the future spiritual welfare of those we leave behind when we die. We should often remind those who we cannot always be with them. We should often urge them to beware of the broad way, when we are taken from them, and they are left alone in the world. We should spare no pains to make all, who in any way look up to us, acquainted with Christ. Happy are those ministers and parents, whose consciences can testify on their death-beds, that they have told their hearers and children to go to Jesus and follow Him!

~ J.C. Ryle

Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Luke volume 1, [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1986], 215, 216. {Luke 7:18-23}

Filed under: Death

The Shallowness of Worldly Possessions

Erik — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 07:00:48 +0000

The possession of the whole world, and all that it contains, will never make a person happy. Its pleasures are false and deceptive. Its riches, rank, and honors, have no power to satisfy the heart. So long as we have not got them they glitter, sparkle, and seem desirable. The moment we have them we find that they are empty bubbles, and cannot make us feel content. And, worst of all, when we possess this world’s good things, to the utmost bound of our desire, we cannot keep them. Death comes in and separates us from all our property forever. Naked we came upon earth, and naked we go forth, and of all our possessions we can carry nothing with us. Such is the world, which occupies the whole attention of thousands! Such is the world, for the sake of which millions are every year destroying their souls!

~ J.C. Ryle

Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Luke volume 1, [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1986], 310, 311. {Luke 9:23-27}

Filed under: Death, Worldliness

Rising to Christ at Death

Erik — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 07:00:57 +0000

The death of true Christians is “sleep,” and not annihilation. It is a solemn and miraculous change, no doubt, but not a change to be regarded with alarm. They have nothing to fear for their souls in the change, for their sins are washed away in Christ’s blood. The sharpest sting of death is the sense of unpardoned sin. Christians have nothing to fear for their bodies in the change; they will rise again by and by, refreshed and renewed, after the image of the Lord. The grave itself is a conquered enemy. It must render back its tenants safe and sound, the very moment that Christ calls for them at the last day.

~ J.C. Ryle

Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: John, volume 2, [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1987], 275, 276. {John 11:7-16}

Filed under: Death

Death Does Not Discriminate

Erik — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 07:00:40 +0000

We often think and talk as if the possession of riches was the great antidote to sorrow, and as if money could secure us against sickness and death. But it is the very extreme of blindness to think so. We have only to look around us and see a hundred proofs to the contrary. Death comes to palaces, as well as to cottages–to landlords as well as to tenants–to rich as well as to poor. It tarries no person’s leisure or convenience. It will not be kept out by locks and bars. “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Heb. 9:27). All are going to one place, the grave.

~ J.C. Ryle

Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Mark, [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1985], 104. {Mark 5:35-43}

Filed under: Death, Money

The Hardness of the Human Heart

Erik — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 08:00:52 +0000

Would you know the reason why the state of people is so desperately helpless, if they die in their sins? Would you know why ministers feel so fearful about everyone who is cut off unprepared to meet God? The reason is, the hardness of man’s natural heart. What would a man do in heaven, if he got there, with his heart unchanged? By which of the saints would he sit down? What pleasure could he take in God’s presence and company? Oh no! It is vain to conceal it. There can be no real hope about a man’s condition, if he dies with his heart wrong.

~ J.C. Ryle

Old Paths, “The Heart”, [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1999], 348.

Filed under: Death

The Reality of Death Bed Repentance

Erik — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 08:00:57 +0000

I know well that many do not believe what I am saying, because they think there is an immense quantity of death-bed repentance. They flatter themselves that multitudes who do not live religious lives will yet die religious deaths. They take comfort in the thought that vast numbers of persons turn to God in their last illness and are saved at the eleventh hour. I will only remind such persons that all the experience of ministers is utterly against the theory. People generally die just as they have lived. True repentance is never too late, but repentance deferred to the last hours of life is seldom true. A man’s life is the surest evidence of his spiritual state, and if lives are to be witnesses, then few are likely to be saved.

~ J.C. Ryle

Old Paths, “Few Saved”, [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1999], 84.

Filed under: Death

Be Ready To Glorify God in Death

Erik — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 07:00:06 +0000

We may glorify God in death, by being ready for it whenever it comes. The Christian who is found like a sentinel at his post, like a servant with his loins girded and his lamp burning, with a heart packed up and ready to go, the man to whom sudden death, by the common consent of all who knew him, is sudden glory–this, this is a man whose end brings glory to God. We may glorify God in death, by patiently enduring its pains. The Christian whose spirit has complete victory over the flesh, who quietly feels the pins of his earthly tabernacle plucked up with great bodily agonies, and yet never murmurs or complains, but silently enjoys inward peace–this, this again, is a man whose end brings glory to God.

~ J.C. Ryle

Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: John, volume 3, [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1987], 513.

Filed under: Death

A Comparison of Two Funerals

Erik — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 15:36:45 +0000

Let us take care that we do not regard a magnificent funeral as an atonement for a life wasted in carelessness and sin. We may bury a man in the most expensive style, and spend thousands of dollars in mourning. We may place over his grave a costly marble stone, and inscribe on it a flattering epitaph. But all this will not save our souls or his. The turning point at the last day will not be how we are buried, but whether we were “buried with Christ,” and repented and believed. (Rom. 6:4.) Better a thousand times to die the death of the righteous, have a lowly grave and a pauper’s funeral, than to die graceless, and lie under a marble tomb!

~ J.C. Ryle

Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: John, volume 3, [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1987], 379.

Filed under: Death

The Power of the Cross on Your Death-Bed

Erik — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 07:00:23 +0000

Are you a dying believer? Have you gone to that bed from which something within tells you you will never come down alive? Are you drawing near to that solemn hour when soul and body must part for a season, and you must launch into a world unknown? Oh, look steadily at the cross of Christ, and you shall be kept in peace! Fix the eyes of your mind firmly on Jesus crucified, and He shall deliver you from all your fears. Though you walk through dark places, He will be with you. He will never leave you, and never forsake you. Sit under the shadow of the cross to the very last, and its fruits shall be sweet to your taste. There is but one thing needful on a death-bed, and that is to feel one’s arms around the cross.

~ J.C. Ryle

Tract: Christ Crucified

Filed under: Cross, Death