J C Ryle
I leave the subject of growth in grace here. Far more might he said about it, if time permitted. But I have said enough, I hope, to convince my readers that the subject is one of vast importance. Let me wind up all with some practical applications.
(1) This book may fall into the hands of some who know nothing whatever about growth in grace.
They have little or no concern about religion. A little proper Sabbath church-going makes up the sum and substance of their Christianity. They are without spiritual life and, of course, they cannot at present grow. Are you one of these people? If you are, you are in a pitiable condition.
Years are slipping away and time is flying. Graveyards are filling up and families are thinning. Death and judgement are getting nearer to us all. And yet you live like one asleep about your soul. What madness! What folly! What suicide can be worse than this?
Awake before it is too late; awake, arise from the dead and live to God. Turn to Him who is sitting at the right hand of God, to be your Saviour and Friend. Turn to Christ, and cry mightily to Him about your soul. There is yet hope. He that called Lazarus from the grave has not changed. He that commanded the widow’s son at Nain to arise from his bier can yet do miracles for your soul. Seek Him at once: seek Christ if you would not be lost for ever. Do not stand still talking and intending and wishing and hoping. Seek Christ so that you may live, and so that living you may grow.
(2) This book may fall into the hands of some who ought to know something of growth in grace, but at present know nothing at all.
They have made little or no progress since they were first converted. They seem to have “settled on their lees” (Zep 1:12). They go on from year to year content with old grace, old experience, old knowledge, old faith, an old measure of attainment, old religious expressions, old set phrases. Like the Gibeonites, their bread is always mouldy, and their shoes are patched and clouted. They never appear to get on. Are you one of these people? If you are, you are living far below your privileges and responsibilities. It is high time to examine yourself.
If you have reason to hope that you are a true believer and yet do not grow in grace, there must be a fault somewhere, a serious fault. It cannot be the will of God that your soul should stand still. “He giveth more grace.” He has “pleasure in the prosperity of His servant” (Jas 4:6; Ps 35:27). It cannot be for your own happiness or usefulness that your soul should stand still. Without growth you will never rejoice in the Lord. (Phil 4:4). Without growth you will never do good to others. Surely this lack of growth is a serious matter. It should raise in you great searchings of heart. There must be some “secret thing” (Job 15:11). There must be some cause.
Take the advice I give you. Resolve this very day that you will find out the reason why you stand still. Probe with a faithful and firm hand every corner of your soul. Search from one end of the camp to the other, till you find out the Achan who is weakening your hands. Begin with an application to the Lord Jesus Christ, the great Physician of souls, and ask Him to heal the secret ailment within you, whatever it may be. Begin as if you had never applied to Him before, and ask for grace to cut off the right hand and pluck out the right eye. But never, never be content if your soul does not grow. For the sake of your peace and your usefulness, and for the honour of your Maker’s cause, resolve to find out the reason why.
(3) This book may fall into the hands of some who are really growing in grace, but are not aware of it and will not accept that it is so.
Their very growth is the reason why they do not see their growth. Their continual increase in humility prevents them feeling that they get on.^2 Like Moses, when he came down from the mount from communing with God, their faces shine. And yet, like Moses, they are not aware of it (Ex 34:29). Such Christians, I grant freely, are not common. But here and there such are to be found. Like angels’ visits, they are few and far between. Happy is the neighbourhood where such growing Christians live! To meet them and see them and be in their company, is like meeting and seeing a bit of “heaven upon the earth”.
^2Christians may be growing when they think they do not grow. “There is that maketh himself poor, yet hath great riches” (Prov 13:7). The sight that Christians have of their defects in grace, and their thirst after greater measures of grace, makes them think they do not grow. He who covets a great estate because he has not so much as he desires thinks himself poor.
Thomas Watson
Souls may be rich in grace and yet not know it nor perceive it. The child is heir to a crown or a great estate, but knows it not. Moses’ face did shine, and others saw it, but he perceived it not. So many a precious soul is rich in grace, and others see it and know it and bless God for it, and yet the poor soul perceives it not. Sometimes this arises from the soul’s strong desires for spiritual riches. The strength of the soul’s desires after spiritual riches doth often take away the very sense of growing spiritually rich. Many covetous men’s desires are so strongly carried forth after earthly riches that, though they do grow rich, yet they cannot perceive it; they cannot believe it. It is just so with many a precious Christian: his desires after spiritual riches are so strong, that they take away the very sense of his growing rich in spiritual things.
Many Christians have much worth within them, but they see it not. It was a good man that said, “The Lord is in this place and I knew it not“. Again, this arises sometimes from men neglecting to make up their accounts. Many men thrive and grow rich and yet, by neglecting to make up their accounts, they cannot tell whether they go forward or backward. It is so with many precious souls.
Again, this arises sometimes from the soul casting up of its accounts too frequently. If a man should cast up his accounts once a week, or once a month, he may not be able to discern that he grows rich, and yet he may grow rich. But let him compare one year with another, and he shall clearly see that he does grow rich.
Again, this sometimes arises from the soul’s mistakes in making up its accounts. The soul many times mistakes: it is in a hurry, and then it puts down ten for a hundred, and a hundred for a thousand. Look, as hypocrites put down their counters for gold, their pence for pounds, and always value themselves above the market, so sincere souls often put down their pounds for pence, their thousands for hundreds, and still value themselves below the market.
Thomas Brooks
Now what shall I say to such people? What can I say? What ought I to say? Shall I bid them awake to a consciousness of their growth and be pleased with it? I will do nothing of the kind. Shall I tell them to plume themselves on their own attainments and look at their own superiority to others? God forbid! I will do nothing of the kind. To tell them such things would do them no good. To tell them such things, above all, would be a useless waste of time. If there is any one feature about a growing soul which specially marks
him, it is his deep sense of his own unworthiness. He never sees anything to be praised in himself. He only feels that he is an unprofitable servant and the chief of sinners. It is the righteous, in the picture of the Judgement Day, who say, “Lord, when saw we Thee an hungered, and fed Thee?” (Mt 25:37). Extremes do indeed meet strangely sometimes. The conscience-hardened sinner and the eminent saint are in one respect singularly alike. Neither of them fully realises his own condition. The one does not see his own sin, nor the other his own grace.
But shall I say nothing to growing Christians? Is there no word of counsel I can address to them? The sum and substance of all that I can say is to be found in two sentences: Go forward. Go on.
We can never have too much humility, too much faith in Christ, too much holiness, too much spirituality of mind, too much charity, too much zeal in doing good to others. Then let us be continually forgetting the things behind, and reaching forth unto the things before (Phil 3:13). The best of Christians in these matters is infinitely below the perfect pattern of his Lord. Whatever the world may say, we may be sure there is no danger of any of us becoming too good.
Let us cast to the winds as idle talk the common notion that it is possible to go too far in religion. This is a favourite lie of the devil, and one which he circulates with vast industry. No doubt there are enthusiasts and fanatics to be found who bring an evil report upon Christianity by their extravagances and follies. But if anyone means to say that a mortal man can be too humble, too charitable, too holy, or too diligent in doing good, he must either be an infidel or a fool. In serving pleasure and money it is easy to go too far. But in following the things which make up true religion and in serving Christ there can be no extreme.
Let us never measure our religion by that of others, and think we are doing enough if we have gone beyond our neighbours. This is another snare of the devil. Let us mind our own business. “What is that to thee?” said the Master on a certain occasion. “Follow thou Me” (Jn 21:22). Let us follow on, aiming at nothing short of perfection. Let us follow on, making Christ’s life and character our only pattern and example. Let us follow on, remembering daily that at our best we are miserable sinners. Let us follow on, and never forget that it signifies nothing whether we are better than others or not. At our very best we are far worse than we ought to be. There will always be room for improvement in us. We shall be debtors to Christ’s mercy and grace to the very last. Then let us leave off looking at others and comparing ourselves with others. We shall find enough to do if we look at our own hearts.
Last, but not least, if we know anything of growth in grace, and desire to
know more, let us not be surprised if we have to go through much trial and affliction in this world. I firmly believe it is the experience of nearly all the most eminent saints. Like their blessed Master they have been men of sorrows, acquainted with grief, and perfected through sufferings (Is 53:3, Heb 2:10). It is a striking saying of our Lord: “Every branch in Me that beareth fruit, [My Father] purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit” (Jn 15:2).
It is a melancholy fact that constant temporal prosperity, as a general rule, is injurious to a believer’s soul. We cannot stand it. Sickness, losses, crosses, anxieties and disappointments seem absolutely needful to keep us humble, watchful and spiritually-minded. They are as needful as the pruning knife to the vine, and the refiner’s furnace to the gold. They are not pleasant to flesh and blood. We do not like them and often do not see their meaning. “No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless, afterward, it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness” (Heb 12:11). We shall find that all worked for our good when we reach heaven. Let these thoughts abide in our minds, if we love growth in grace. When days of darkness come upon us, let us not count it a strange thing. Rather let us remember that lessons are learned on such days which would never have been learned in sunshine. Let us say to ourselves: This also is for my profit, that I may be a partaker of God’s holiness. It is sent in love. I am in God’s best school. Correction is instruction. This is meant to make me grow.
I leave the subject of growth in grace here. I trust I have said enough to set some readers thinking about it. All things are growing older: the world is growing older; we ourselves are growing older. A few more summers, a few more winters, a few more sicknesses, a few more sorrows, a few more weddings, a few more funerals, a few more meetings, and a few more partings, and then what? Why, the grass will be growing over our graves!
Now would it not be well to look within, and put to our souls a simple question? In religion, in the things that concern our peace, in the great matter of personal holiness, are we making progress? Do we grow?
[God] is within hearing, however weak the cry. A sigh, a groan, if sincere, reaches His ears; nor will he be inattentive to the silent tear, if it comes from a broken heart; He will bottle it and keep it in remembrance; yea, these bitter waters shall ere long be turned into wine, when the marriage of the Lamb is come.
Everything is more tolerable to a true and living faith than sin.
There are two opposite principles in the regenerate soul . . . constantly acting in perfect contrariety to each other . . . In the same mind there is the wisdom of the flesh and the wisdom which is from above; in the same will, a delight in the law of God and also a lusting after sin; and in the same affections, the love of God and the love of other things, the fear of God and the fear of man.
Thomas Charles
^1The final part, with editing, of a chapter from Ryle’s volume, Holiness. The previous part, last month, described “the means those who desire to grow in grace must use”.