Our Only Hope

What is Your Hope?

J. C. Ryle


Reader, what is your hope about your soul? Have you any, or have you none? Can you tell me in what way you expect to be accounted righteousness before God?:

Depend upon it, these are very serious questions. You and I are dying men. After death comes the judgment. What is your hope of acquittal in that solemn day? What are we going to plead on our behalf before God?

Shall we say that we have done our duty to God? Shall we say that we have done our duty to our neighbor? Shall we bring forward our prayers, our good works, our morality, our church going, our amendments? Shall we ask to be accepted by God for any of these things?

Which of these things will stand God's eye? Which of them will actually justify you and me? Which of them will carry us clear through judgment, and land us safe in glory?

Absolutely none! Take any commandment of the ten, and let us examine ourselves by it. We have broken it repeatedly. We cannot answer God. Take any of us, and look narrowly into our ways—and we are nothing but sinners. There is but one verdict. We are all guilty—we all ought to die—we all deserve hell. How then can we come before God?

We must come in the Name of Jesus, standing on no other ground, pleading no other plea than this, "Christ died on the cross for the ungodly—and I trust in Him."

Oh, believe me, Christ must be all the hope of everyone who would be justified and saved. You must be content to go to heaven as a beggar—saved by free grace alone—simply as a believer in Jesus—or you will never be saved at all. "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast!" Ephesians 2:8-9



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Zula-Powersburg,United States

Glorified by foolishness...

1 corinthians 1:18-31

    18For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19For it is written,    "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart."20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 26For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31so that, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord."

Such a powerful fragment of scripture. Therein lays the glory of God, that He takes all things that are low, meek, base, and foolish and exhalts them. For how much glory does one recieve when they lift up those who are wise? How much honor do you give the one who gives all he has to someone who thinks they have it all? There is hardly any honor and surely the glory is not found.

 But what about the weak one who was brought into strength? What about the wretch that is utterly hopeless until he meets Him who is all hope? What about the foolish, the one who cannot speak and when he does he stumbles; the foolish that was made wise by the One who holds all wisdom?How much more shall He be honored! O' how He shall be glorified!! He took the weak and made him strong, He took the foolish and made them wise! O' how He shall be glorified! He took the one with no hope and no life and gave them a new hope that is rested on faith and a new life that rests in the grip of Jesus! And all for this reason....that He may recieve glory!