Latest / Reformed Thinking / Happiness | J. C. Ryle

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Happiness | J. C. Ryle · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome to Reformed Thinking. So to kick off this deep dive, I
• 0:04
  want you to picture a man standing in the middle of a
• 0:07
  crowded public square. OK, setting a scene right out of
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  the gate. Yeah, well, his voice is just
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  booming over the noise of the city, right?
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  He is a passionate, articulate speaker, and he is completely
• 0:19
  captivated the audience, right? This man is what the 19th
• 0:22
  century writer JC Ryle calls an outspoken infidel.
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  He is using every rhetorical tool at his disposal to convince
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  this crowd to abandon their faith.
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  Yeah, and he's telling them with absolute conviction that there
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  is no God to fear, no devil to worry about, you know, no heaven
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  to hope for and no future judgement to hold them
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  accountable. He is really going all in.
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  Oh, completely. He is practically begging the
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  crowd to throw away their Bibles, to stop listening to
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  their ministers, and to embrace this supposedly liberated modern
• 0:54
  worldview he is offering. And the crowd is just eating it
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  up. Sure, because discarding old
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  moral constraints, I mean that always draws an eager audience.
• 1:02
  Spot on. You can feel the tension in the
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  air, but right at the climax of his elaborate philosophical
• 1:08
  argument, this old woman starts pushing her way through the
• 1:11
  dense crowd. Oh I love this part.
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  She doesn't look like a scholar or a debater at all.
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  She shoves her way to the very front, stands directly in front
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  of this polished speaker, looks him dead in the eye, and asks
• 1:23
  him one simple, piercing question.
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  In a loud voice. She says, Sir, are you happy?
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  It is such a brilliant, disruptive moment, right,
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  because that single question completely bypasses his entire
• 1:35
  intellectual argument. I mean, he is standing there
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  offering a comprehensive system for how to view the universe,
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  and she ignores the whole theoretical architecture and
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  strikes right at the practical reality of his own lived
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  experience. Yeah, and the speaker tries to
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  brush her off. At first he gives it a scornful
• 1:51
  look and refuses to answer. But this woman refuses to back
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  down. Good.
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  For her. She raises her voice again and
• 1:59
  points out a very basic, undeniable logic.
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  She tells him that he is asking all these people to throw away
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  their Bibles and adopt his new notions.
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  So you know, before they take his advice, they have a right to
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  know what actual good they will get out of.
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  It it makes perfect sense. She demands an answer.
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  Do you yourself really feel happy?
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  Yeah. And the reaction of the speaker
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  is the most telling part of this whole historical anecdote.
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  He falls apart completely, totally.
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  The polished rhetoric just vanishes.
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  He stammers. He shuffles his feet.
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  He tries awkwardly to change the subject by claiming he didn't
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  come there to preach about happiness, but the old woman
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  sticks to her point and the crowd actually turns and takes
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  her side. I mean, they want to know the
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  answer too, obviously. Finally, unable to formulate a
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  reply, the man literally sneaks away from his own rally in total
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  confusion. His internal conscience won't
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  let him lie to her face, and he dare not admit the miserable
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  truth. Which brings us to the mission
• 2:57
  of our deep dive. Today we are looking at a
• 2:59
  fascinating excerpt from a classic text by JC Rile, a piece
• 3:03
  called Happiness, which is part of his larger work, Practical
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  Religion. Our goal today is to figure out
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  what actual functioning human happiness looks like compared
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  against the counterfeit version society constantly sells you,
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  and uncover why true peace requires a completely settled
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  conscience. Yes.
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  I think of that old woman's question like a sudden system
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  diagnostic check on a complex computer network.
• 3:27
  I like that analogy. Thanks.
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  I mean, this speaker had all this elaborate philosophical
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  coding, all these complex algorithms explaining why
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  religion was obsolete, but she bypassed all the complicated
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  software menus, went straight to the core processor and basically
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  asked is the machine actually running properly?
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  That is a highly accurate way to look at it, because human beings
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  aren't just intellects processing cold data, right?
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  We have a conscience. We have internal moral and
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  spiritual needs that go far beyond logical deduction or
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  material survival. If your operating system cannot
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  produce a stable, functioning machine, if your worldview
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  cannot produce a person who is genuinely at peace within
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  themselves, then the coding is fundamentally flawed.
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  I don't care how elegant it looks on the whiteboard.
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  Yeah, the math doesn't work out. Exactly.
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  This is why Ryle argues that the grand test of any man's faith,
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  or lack thereof, is whether it actually makes him happy.
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  You can build the most intricate, sophisticated belief
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  system imaginable. You can have answers for every
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  sociological or scientific question.
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  But if that system leaves the human conscience restless, it
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  fails the only test that matters.
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  Which means we need to figure out what we are actually
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  measuring here. If we're going to run this
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  diagnostic test on ourselves and on the things we chase every
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  day, we have to know what true happiness is.
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  And, perhaps more crucially, we have to establish what it is
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  not. Right, because there are a lot
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  of false positives out there. Oh totally, we have entirely
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  warped definitions of what a good life looks like.
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  Ryle is very careful to define his terms before moving forward.
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  I mean, if you have the wrong definition of happiness, you
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  will spend your entire life chasing a phantom, you know,
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  always frustrated that you never quite catch it.
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  Let's start with the first major misconception.
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  Ryle states clearly that true happiness is not perfect freedom
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  from sorrow or discomfort. Establishing this baseline is
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  critical. We live in a fallen, broken
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  world. It is a world filled with
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  sickness, decay, physical pain, and constant, unpredictable
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  change. Yeah, to expect a flawless,
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  angelic type of joy while living on this earth is a complete
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  delusion. If perfect immunity to pain is
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  your requirement for happiness, you are setting yourself up for
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  perpetual disappointment. I mean you.
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  Can't judge a car's performance by expecting to get to fly.
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  It's a car, right? We are mortal creatures living
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  in a fractured reality, so our happiness here is necessarily
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  going to be a mixed thing. It will exist right alongside
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  tears, bodily weakness and external trials.
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  Precisely. The happiness we are examining
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  today is the kind that a fragile dying creature can actually
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  attain in the midst of a difficult reality.
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  It is a robust piece that survives the storm, not a magic
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  spell that prevents the storm from happening.
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  The second thing he says it is not, and this one hits
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  incredibly close to home for our modern image obsessed society,
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  is that happiness does not consistent laughter and smiles
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  alone. Oh, this is a big one.
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  Ryle uses this great line. A man may smile and smile and be
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  a villain, or a man may smile and be entirely miserable.
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  The face is a terrible index of the inward person.
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  We see this all the time, perhaps now more than ever, with
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  social media. Oh for sure, People can be
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  incredibly merry in public, the absolute life of the party
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  laughing the loudest, projecting an image of total carefree joy,
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  and yet be completely terrified of being alone in silence when
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  the night ends. Yeah, well, mentions the
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  brilliant talker in society who gets all the applause but goes
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  home to a private room and plunges into melancholy.
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  Or the smiling beauty in the ballroom who seems to not have a
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  care in the world but the next day is out of temper with
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  herself and everyone around her. Because it is an animal
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  excitement, it is a temporary elevation of spirits, but it is
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  a hollow show. So it's just masking.
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  Yes, that temporary elevation is often a deliberate masking
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  technique. It is a coping mechanism to
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  drown out internal unrest. If you have to constantly
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  surround yourself with noise, crowds, and laughter just to
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  avoid feeling miserable, you are not experiencing happiness,
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  you're experiencing distraction. Wow, distraction.
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  Calling that distraction happiness is like calling glass
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  a diamond. It might sparkle beautifully
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  under the right ballroom lights, but it has no intrinsic hardness
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  to withstand actual pressure. The moment the music stops, the
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  glass shatters. OK, so if true happiness isn't a
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  pain free life and it isn't just laughing at a party or posting a
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  smiling photo, what is it? Ryle lays out a few core
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  requirements for genuine happiness.
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  First, he says, it requires satisfying the highest wants of
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  a human being. We are not animals.
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  This is a fundamental distinction in understanding
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  human nature. A horse or an ox is perfectly
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  happy as long as it is fed, watered, and kept warm.
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  Its wants are entirely physical and immediate.
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  An infant is somewhat similar. Give a baby food, warmth and a
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  mother's arms, and it is content.
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  But a human being, as they mature, has a curiously wrought
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  constitution. We are intricate.
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  We have a soul, we have a thinking mind and a conscience.
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  Yes, we have this internal voice, the spiritual
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  architecture that recognizes that physical survival is not
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  the entirety of existence. There are soul wants and
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  conscience wants. And if you try to feed a
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  conscience with physical comfort, it will just keep
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  crying out. Give give the void remains open.
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  Exactly. You cannot satisfy an immortal
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  soul with mortal things. It is mathematically impossible.
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  It is like trying to fix a software glitch by buying a
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  nicer computer monitor. You think, well, the screen is
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  bigger now, the colors are sharper, maybe the computer will
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  run better. The hardware.
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  The hardware looks incredibly shiny and maybe you feel good
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  about the purchase for a day, but the operating system is
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  still crashing in the background.
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  That's a great way to put it. But I want to throw this
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  question to you though. Why are we so prone to treating
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  a software problem with a hardware fix?
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  Like, why do we inherently think a better house, a nicer car, or
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  a higher salary will somehow fix a restless conscience?
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  We default to that because the hardware is visible and the
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  software is invisible. It is much easier for us to
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  measure our success and to prove our worth to others by the size
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  of our house or the number in our bank account than by the
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  peace in our soul. That makes a lot of sense.
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  For the more treating the software, actually addressing
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  the conscience requires confronting guilt, mortality and
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  are standing before a holy creator.
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  That is an incredibly uncomfortable process.
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  Yeah. Nobody wants to do that.
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  So we default to the hardware fixes because they offer a
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  quick, tangible dopamine hit. They provide a temporary
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  illusion of progress even though they never resolve the
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  underlying system crash. That leads right into his next
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  requirement for actual happiness.
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  True happiness must be independent of earthly
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  instability. If your joy depends entirely on
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  things that can be taken away, money, status, physical health,
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  or even relationships that death can sever, you are building your
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  house on shifting sand. The word instability is key
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  here. Everything on this earth is
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  stamped with an expiration date or is subject to sudden loss.
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  If your entire foundation for peace rests on your current
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  income, you are standing on the brink of a precipice every
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  single day, right? A sudden economic downturn, a
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  company layoff, or a bad medical diagnosis instantly annihilates
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  that kind of happiness. Genuine peace has to have a root
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  system that goes deeper than the shifting topsoil of earthly
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  circumstances. It must be anchored to something
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  permanent. And the final requirement he
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  mentions is the ability to look in all directions without
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  discomfort. This is the 360° test and it is
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  brutal. It really is.
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  You have to be able to look backward at the past without
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  guilty fears. You have to look around at the
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  present without discontent. And you have to look forward to
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  the future, which inevitably includes death and judgement,
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  without anxious dread. This is the most rigorous part
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  of the diagnostic check. Many people can manage to look
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  at the present and feel somewhat content, provided they are
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  distracted enough by work or entertainment.
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  But ask them to sit quietly and look backward at their omissions
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  and commissions, their failures, their broken relationships and
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  their sins. Or ask them to look forward to
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  the absolute certainty of the grave and facing their Creator.
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  That's where it all falls apart. Yes, if looking in those
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  directions causes a spike of anxiety or a sudden need to turn
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  on the television to stop thinking, then the happiness is
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  counterfeit. It fails the test.
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  Ryle calls that state a White and Seliker.
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  It's a biblical reference to a tomb that looks fair and
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  beautiful on the outside, freshly painted and clean, but
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  inside it is full of dead bones and corruption.
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  Very vivid imagery. Right.
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  If you have a weak side in your condition, a side of your life
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  you refuse to look at because it terrifies you, you are not
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  really happy. You are just successfully
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  avoiding the problem for the moment.
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  The human constitution demands eternal security to be fully at
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  rest. Until the inward person, the
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  conscience, is addressed and cleansed of its guilt.
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  Any external joy is just a temporary bandage over a
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  terminal disease. So we have established the
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  diagnostics. The soul must be satisfied, the
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  foundation must be independent of earthly loss, and the
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  conscience must be clear in all directions.
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  Correct. Since human nature inherently
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  craves this kind of soul satisfaction, where do people
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  usually look for it? Ryle lists out the world's
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  failed experiments, the counterfeit roads that thousands
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  travel every single day. It is a staggering tragedy when
• 12:41
  you look at human history. We constantly seek the right
• 12:43
  thing in the wrong places, and we do it with astonishing
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  persistence, generation after generation.
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  Let's trace these dead end roads because the progression is
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  fascinating. The first one people usually try
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  is rank and greatness. The idea is that if you just
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  have enough authority and influence, if you are the 1:00
• 13:01
  calling the shots, you will be happy.
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  But Ryle brings the historical receipts to prove this is false.
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  He quotes the Roman Emperor Antonine, one of the most
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  authoritative men in human history, who called imperial
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  rule an ocean of miseries. He mentions Queen Elizabeth, who
• 13:18
  apparently heard a milk maid singing happily and wish she'd
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  been born to a simple lot like hers.
• 13:24
  And of course, the famous line. Uneasy lies the head that wears
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  a crown. The irony of high status is that
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  it actually strips away liberty. The kings, presidents and CE OS
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  of the world might seem like they can do whatever they want,
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  but in reality they are slaves working in golden chains.
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  Oh, that's a good way to put it. They carry burdens and
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  responsibilities that weigh constantly on their hearts.
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  They see countless evils they are unable to remedy.
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  High rank isolates a person. It creates a barrier of
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  suspicion between them and everyone else, and it magnifies
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  their anxieties. It certainly does not pacify the
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  conscience. When people realize that high
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  status brings misery, they often pivot to the road of wealth.
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  If I just have enough money, if I can buy my way out of
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  inconvenience, everything will be fine.
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  The. Classic pivot.
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  Right. But Ryan points out the
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  psychological burden of wealth. Affluence brings caring, getting
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  it, care and keeping it, care and using it and care and
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  disposing of it. He notes that the same English
• 14:19
  letters that spell acres also spell cares.
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  It is a clever anagram that highlights a very real truth.
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  Wealth allows you to command almost everything in the
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  physical world except inward peace.
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  It cannot buy a light heart. In fact, it often introduces new
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  layers of paranoia. When you have nothing, you have
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  nothing to lose. When you accumulate massive
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  wealth, you suddenly have to protect it from the market, from
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  taxes, from theft, and even from your own family.
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  The psychological shift from acquiring wealth to protecting
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  wealth is a heavy, anxious burden.
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  Now here is where the progression gets interesting.
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  When intelligent people realize that physical wealth and
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  political influence fail the diagnostic test, they elevate
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  their pursuit. They move to the third Rd.
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  Learning and science. Intellectual pursuit.
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  Exactly. This sounds much more noble.
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  Barrel warns that increasing knowledge often just increases
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  sorrow, because the more you learn about the universe, the
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  more you discover your own ignorance and the brokenness of
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  the world. Yes, he mentions the incredibly
• 15:20
  learned man John Selden, who at the close of his life confessed
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  that all his vast secular learning gave him less comfort
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  than four simple verses from the book of Titus.
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  Secular knowledge ministers to the intellect, but the intellect
• 15:32
  and the conscience are distinct faculties.
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  You can understand the mechanical workings of the
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  entire universe. You can split the atom or map
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  the human genome. But that data will not give you
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  comfort when your conscience accuses you of moral failure or
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  when you are facing the reality of the grave.
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  It's just cold data. Right.
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  You can master the physical laws of the universe, but that
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  mastery does not reconcile you to the Lawgiver.
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  To drive this home, Ryle mentioned Sir Humphrey Davy.
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  He was distinguished inventor, president of the Royal Society.
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  He literally invented the safety lamp, saving thousands of coal
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  miners from explosive gas. A true hero by worldly
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  standards. By any metric, his intellectual
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  pursuits benefited humanity. He won the game of learning and
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  science. Yet in his private journals at
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  the end of his life, he wrote that he was very miserable.
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  Why doesn't intellect that brilliant still hit a wall of
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  despair? Because inventing a safety lamp
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  for a coal mine does not provide a safety lamp for the soul
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  passing into eternity. Davies brilliant mind could
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  solve complex chemical problems, but it could not solve the
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  problem of his own guilt and mortality.
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  The conscience requires a different kind of food than the
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  intellect. When the brilliant mind finally
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  runs out of earthly problems to solve, it turns inward, and if
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  the conscience is not cleansed, that brilliant mind becomes an
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  instrument of self torture. So if work, wealth and intellect
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  fail, what about idleness, the idea of never having to work
• 16:59
  again? The laborer digging a ditch in
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  the coal looks at the affluent man's house and thinks what a
• 17:04
  fine thing to have nothing to do all day but sit by the fire.
• 17:07
  We see this today with the obsession around retiring early,
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  the dream of just sitting on a beach for 40 years.
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  That is a terrible, destructive illusion.
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  Work is absolutely essential to the human design.
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  Without it, the mind turns inward and feeds upon itself.
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  Oh yes, the internal machinery of the human psyche is designed
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  to be engaged in labor. If it lacks an external object
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  to work upon, it will grind its own gears to pieces.
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  Ryle rightly points out that even in Eden, before the fall of
• 17:35
  man, there was work to do. Adam was put in the garden to
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  dress it and keep it. Idleness breeds a very specific,
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  suffocating kind of misery. It rots the soul.
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  Which leaves us with the most crowded Rd. of all pleasure and
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  amusement. Feasting, dancing, racing,
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  gaming, endless entertainment. Raoul says expecting an immortal
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  soul to find happiness in these things is like trying to make an
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  elephant happy by feeding him 1 grain of sand a day.
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  It is a matter of massive disproportion.
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  The soul has an infinite appetite for eternity and
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  meaning. Feeding it a temporary thrill
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  from a card game, a night of drinking or a weekend vacation
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  is so laughably inadequate. A grain of sand.
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  It is, as Raoul says, enough to make the devil laugh and the
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  angels weep. Grown adults, using constant
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  amusement to avoid their internal reality are actually
• 18:19
  sinking below the level of a child playing with toys.
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  At least the child is acting according to its nature.
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  The adult is suppressing theirs. To prove this isn't just
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  theoretical preaching, Ryall calls to the witness stand some
• 18:30
  of history's most successful people.
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  These are the people who reach the absolute pinnacle of these
• 18:35
  false roads. We have King Solomon, who had
• 18:38
  unprecedented wealth, absolute control, and matchless wisdom.
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  He wrote an entire book, Ecclesiastes, to declare his
• 18:45
  verdict. All is vanity and vexation of
• 18:48
  spirit. Then we have Madame de
• 18:50
  Pompadour, the favorite of the French king, Louis the 50th.
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  She lived in absolute luxury, holding massive political
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  influence, surrounded by constant entertainment.
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  Yet, she confessed, my life is a continual death.
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  Our testimony is particularly striking.
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  She had everything our modern society claims will make you
• 19:07
  happy. Royal favor, magnificent houses,
• 19:09
  endless wealth and constant distraction.
• 19:12
  Yet she was entirely numb. Yeah, she noted that the things
• 19:15
  that pleased her only lasted for a couple of days.
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  That is the true half life of worldly pleasure.
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  It requires constant escalation to achieve the same minor
• 19:24
  thrill, until eventually even the grandest entertainments
• 19:27
  leave you feeling dead inside. Then we have the great German
• 19:29
  writer Gerta, idolized around the world.
• 19:32
  Considered a towering genius, he confessed at age 80 that looking
• 19:36
  back on his life, he couldn't remember being in a really happy
• 19:39
  state of mind even for a few weeks together.
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  He explicitly said that to feel happy he had to veil his self
• 19:46
  consciousness. Which is the exact definition of
• 19:49
  the psychological masking we discussed earlier.
• 19:51
  If you have to deliberately blind yourself to your own
• 19:54
  reality, to your own conscience, just to feel OK, you are not
• 19:58
  well. You are living in a state of
• 20:00
  willful ignorance because the truth is too painful to bear.
• 20:03
  We see the same with Lord Byron, the English poet.
• 20:05
  He had high status, wealth, brilliant abilities and massive
• 20:09
  fame. Women threw themselves at him.
• 20:11
  Men wanted to be him by the world standard.
• 20:14
  He won every prize. Yet his letters and poems ooze
• 20:17
  with weariness, disgust and misery.
• 20:21
  And perhaps my favorite quote comes from Lord Chesterfield, a
• 20:23
  man of wit and pleasure. He lived the ultimate high life,
• 20:27
  the fashionable society life, and looking back, he said he had
• 20:30
  been behind the scenes. He saw the course pulleys and
• 20:33
  dirty ropes which move the gaudy machine of high society.
• 20:37
  He said he smelled the tallow candles that dazzled the
• 20:40
  ignorant audience. It is a devastating critique of
• 20:42
  worldly glamour. When you are sitting in the
• 20:44
  audience, the theater looks magical, the actors look
• 20:47
  perfect. But when you spend your life
• 20:49
  backstage, you see the dirt, the manipulation, the envy and the
• 20:52
  cheap mechanics that create the illusion.
• 20:55
  Chesterfield realized the whole thing was a hollow show.
• 20:57
  It looked beautiful from a distance, but up close it was
• 21:00
  empty and ugly. Ryle says you can see the same
• 21:03
  reality today. Look at the wealthy bankers
• 21:05
  leaving the financial district with deep furrows in their
• 21:08
  brows. Look at the politicians holding
• 21:10
  massive influence but wearing care worn, anxious faces.
• 21:14
  Go to the most fashionable, affluent streets and look at the
• 21:16
  faces in the expensive cars. You will read Weariness and
• 21:20
  Discontent. He even strips away the romantic
• 21:23
  illusion of the quiet Country Life.
• 21:25
  People often think if I just move away from the noise of the
• 21:28
  city to a quiet rural village, I will finally find peace.
• 21:31
  Oh, I thought that. We all have, but Ryle points out
• 21:34
  that human nature travels with you the same backbiting envy,
• 21:39
  jealousy and pride that murder happiness in a high rise
• 21:43
  apartment will murder it in a picturesque country cottage.
• 21:47
  Geography cannot fix a corrupted heart.
• 21:50
  If you are listening to this, you have probably experienced
• 21:52
  this dynamic in some form. You have touched that hot stove.
• 21:56
  You have thought if I just get that promotion, if I just buy
• 21:58
  that house, if I just find the right relationship, I will be
• 22:01
  fine, right? Which brings me to a massive
• 22:04
  logical question. If history's most successful
• 22:07
  people, kings, geniuses, billionaires, have explicitly
• 22:10
  left records warning us that these paths are dead ends, why
• 22:13
  do we keep trying them? It is like watching 100 people
• 22:16
  touch a hot stove, watching their hands get terribly burned,
• 22:19
  hearing them scream DO not touch the stove, and then walking up
• 22:22
  and thinking, well my hand is different, I will not get
• 22:24
  burned. Why do we do this?
• 22:26
  It is a symptom of human corruption.
• 22:28
  The natural human heart has a deep seated, stubborn bias
• 22:32
  against the truth of its own condition.
• 22:35
  Ryle compares it to an optical delusion in the African desert.
• 22:38
  A mirage? Yes, a tired, thirsty traveler
• 22:41
  sees a mirage of a cooling lake. Despite all rational evidence,
• 22:45
  despite the fact that mirages are a known phenomenon, his
• 22:48
  desperate thirst makes him believe the illusion is real.
• 22:52
  He runs toward it only to find burning sands.
• 22:55
  The blindness is internal. We desperately want to believe
• 22:58
  we can achieve peace on our own terms without having to submit
• 23:01
  to God. So we convince ourselves that
• 23:03
  the people who failed before us just lacked our specific
• 23:06
  intelligence or didn't manage their wealth correctly.
• 23:09
  We. Inherently think we are the
• 23:10
  exception to the rule of human nature.
• 23:12
  Yes, the arrogance of the human heart convinces us that we can
• 23:15
  succeed where Solomon failed. But century after century, the
• 23:18
  results are identical. The Mirage always fades.
• 23:21
  OK, let's pivot. If the greatest worldly
• 23:24
  successes yield misery, if The Mirage always fades into burning
• 23:29
  sand, what is the single working alternative?
• 23:32
  Ryle does not just leave us in the desert to despair.
• 23:35
  He points directly to the only path that actually satisfies the
• 23:38
  conscience. What is the solution?
• 23:41
  Ryall states it plainly. The true Christian is the only
• 23:44
  truly happy person. Now we need to qualify that
• 23:47
  immediately, because he does. He is not talking about a
• 23:49
  nominal churchgoer. He's not talking about someone
• 23:52
  who just nods at a creed, gets baptized as a baby and puts on a
• 23:55
  Sunday coat of religion to look respectable in the community.
• 23:58
  Right. A formal ceremonial religion is
• 24:01
  just another course pulley and dirty rope.
• 24:03
  It is just another human attempt to manage the conscience through
• 24:06
  external actions, which is no different than trying to buy
• 24:08
  peace with money. Yeah, the person Ryle is
• 24:11
  describing as someone who genuinely feels the weight of
• 24:13
  their sin rests entirely on the Atonement of Jesus Christ and
• 24:17
  lives a life governed by that reality.
• 24:19
  It is a vital living union with the Savior, not a social club
• 24:22
  membership. And he reiterates that this does
• 24:25
  not mean the true believer lacks tears, bodily weakness or
• 24:28
  anxiety. They live in the same changeful,
• 24:31
  broken world as everyone else, but deep down, far below the
• 24:36
  surface weather of life, they have an unexhausted mind of
• 24:40
  solid peace. Let's break down the mechanics
• 24:43
  of this piece. How does it actually work?
• 24:45
  Why does this specific faith satisfy the conscience when
• 24:49
  everything else fails? It goes right back to the
• 24:51
  diagnostic test. The conscience is the core issue
• 24:54
  for the true believer. The conscience is finally at
• 24:57
  peace because it sees its guilt completely cleansed by the blood
• 25:00
  of Christ. That internal voice that
• 25:02
  constantly accuses, the voice that says you are guilty, you
• 25:06
  are inadequate, you have broken the moral law and you are facing
• 25:08
  a just judgement is finally answered.
• 25:10
  The debt is actually paid, it's not just ignored.
• 25:13
  That is the key. The conscience is a legal
• 25:15
  mechanism. It demands justice.
• 25:17
  You cannot pacify A functional conscience by just telling it to
• 25:20
  ignore the crimes. The true Christian sees a
• 25:23
  complete, objective answer to all their fears.
• 25:25
  In the mediation of Christ, the legal requirement of the soul is
• 25:28
  met by an external substitute. Because Christ bore the penalty,
• 25:32
  God is no longer viewed as a terrifying judge waiting to
• 25:35
  condemn, but as a reconciled Father.
• 25:38
  The conscience stops biting and stinging, and it actually
• 25:41
  becomes a friend. When the legal demands are
• 25:44
  satisfied, the internal war ends.
• 25:46
  It is also a matter of right position, Ryle says.
• 25:50
  The believers affections are set on things above, not below.
• 25:54
  Self will submits to God's will. I love the analogy he uses here
• 25:57
  about a house. Imagine an unconverted heart is
• 26:00
  like a house where the furniture is nailed to the ceiling, the
• 26:03
  kitchen appliances are in the bathtub, and the beds are in the
• 26:06
  driveway. Sounds awful.
• 26:08
  Nothing functions. It is a miserable, chaotic place
• 26:11
  to live. Grace does not just come in and
• 26:13
  dust the upside down furniture. It puts gravity back in the
• 26:15
  room. It puts the things of the soul
• 26:17
  1st and the things of the world second.
• 26:19
  Anarchy ceases. That is a.
• 26:21
  Brilliant illustration of what Ryle calls the misery of
• 26:24
  disorder. When a person is trying to make
• 26:26
  earthly things like a career, a romance, or wealth bear the
• 26:29
  weight of a God. It is like trying to cook dinner
• 26:31
  in the bathtub. It goes completely against the
• 26:34
  design. You are asking finite things to
• 26:36
  satisfy an infinite hunger which ruins both you and the things
• 26:40
  you are idolizing. When Christ reigns over the
• 26:43
  whole person, each part does its proper work.
• 26:45
  The affections are placed on eternal things which can
• 26:48
  actually bear the weight of those affections.
• 26:50
  The new heart is light because it is finally in order.
• 26:53
  It has found its proper place in the universe.
• 26:56
  And Ryle gives us some highly detailed examples from the text
• 26:59
  to show what this ordered house looks like under extreme stress.
• 27:03
  Because it is easy to talk about peace when things are going
• 27:05
  well. He talks about a poor believer
• 27:07
  who might have nothing in the bank, who struggles to pay rent,
• 27:10
  but is happy because he has riches in reversion.
• 27:14
  Let's unpack that phrase. Riches in reversion.
• 27:17
  What does that mean? In legal terms, a reversion is a
• 27:20
  future interest in the state that you will inevitably
• 27:22
  possess. Ryle is talking about the
• 27:24
  Christians inheritance. The poor believer can look at
• 27:27
  their current lack of earthly resources and remain at peace
• 27:30
  because they know their ultimate estate is secure, incorruptible
• 27:33
  and kept in heaven. For them, the poverty is
• 27:36
  temporary, the wealth is eternal.
• 27:38
  He also mentions the sick young woman.
• 27:40
  This is a very moving, very raw account.
• 27:43
  A young woman, hopelessly I'll for years, with a severe spine
• 27:47
  disease. She is lying in a freezing
• 27:49
  Garret, a tiny attic room with a straw roof just two feet above
• 27:53
  her face. No hope of physical recovery.
• 27:56
  By all worldly metrics, she should be in the absolute depths
• 28:00
  of despair. Yet Riles says she was always
• 28:03
  rejoicing because the spirit triumphed over the flesh.
• 28:05
  Her peace was entirely independent of her bodily
• 28:08
  circumstance. She was resting on the finished
• 28:11
  work of Christ, and that was enough.
• 28:13
  Then there's the old Scotch minister living through the
• 28:16
  chaos of the French Revolution. Governments are falling, blood
• 28:19
  is running in the streets, society is turning upside down,
• 28:22
  and the threat of war is everywhere.
• 28:24
  And his response when people are panicking is it is all right.
• 28:27
  It shall be well with the righteous.
• 28:29
  That represents the ability to look around at the present
• 28:32
  without discontent or panic. When your anchor is fastened to
• 28:35
  a Kingdom that cannot be shaken. The political turmoil of the
• 28:38
  earthly Kingdom, while deeply troubling, cannot destroy your
• 28:41
  baseline peace. Ryle mentions a concept that
• 28:44
  ties all of this together. He talks about a prisoner in
• 28:46
  solitary confinement. The prisoner had warmth, food,
• 28:50
  clothes and work to do in his cell, but he was utterly
• 28:53
  miserable. When asked why, the prisoner
• 28:56
  said he was obliged to think. Wow.
• 28:59
  The ultimate test of happiness is being alone in a silent room
• 29:02
  with your own thoughts. French philosopher Blaise Pascal
• 29:05
  said. All of humanity's problems stem
• 29:08
  from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.
• 29:12
  The unconverted person dreads that silence because without the
• 29:15
  noise of the world, the conscience starts making
• 29:17
  demands. It brings up the past, it points
• 29:19
  out the emptiness of the present, and it warns of the
• 29:22
  future. But the true Christian is the
• 29:24
  only person who can sit alone, think about their immortal soul,
• 29:27
  review their past sins with full honesty, consider the present
• 29:30
  reality, anticipate the Judgement day, and say with
• 29:32
  complete peace all as well. The silence is no longer a
• 29:35
  threat because the conscience has been washed.
• 29:37
  The internal courtroom has already declared them justified
• 29:40
  through Christ. Let's unpack this a little more
• 29:42
  because I can hear the objections forming in the
• 29:44
  listeners mind and Ryle anticipates these hurdles and
• 29:49
  addresses them head on, which is refreshing.
• 29:51
  He doesn't pretend the Christian experience is a constant,
• 29:54
  flawless emotional high. No, he is incredibly realistic.
• 29:59
  The the first objection he tackles is the most obvious one.
• 30:02
  Someone might say. I know religious people who
• 30:04
  aren't happy at all. In fact, they are some of the
• 30:06
  most miserable people I know. We've all met people who are at
• 30:09
  church every time the doors are open, who never miss a
• 30:12
  sacrament, who know all the theology.
• 30:14
  But they seem bitter, cynical or constantly anxious.
• 30:17
  How does Raul reconcile that reality with his claim that
• 30:21
  Christians are the only happy people?
• 30:23
  He points right back to the vital difference between nominal
• 30:26
  religion and genuine faith. He asks, Are you sure these
• 30:30
  people are actually converted? Doing religious acts does not
• 30:33
  equal possessing saving faith. A formal ceremonial Christianity
• 30:37
  cannot produce peace because it relies on the person's own
• 30:40
  efforts to soothe the conscience.
• 30:42
  It is essentially a religious version of the course pulleys
• 30:45
  and dirty ropes. You are just trying to manage
• 30:48
  your guilt through church attendance instead of trusting
• 30:51
  Christ to remove it. Unless there is a real vital
• 30:54
  union with the Savior where the heart is fundamentally changed,
• 30:57
  going through the motions of church will not make anyone
• 30:59
  happy. It just makes them tired and
• 31:01
  self-righteous. The second objection is a bit
• 31:04
  more nuanced. Someone might say.
• 31:06
  What about true believers who are constantly groaning over
• 31:09
  their own corruption? They seem full of doubts and
• 31:11
  anxieties. If they have this UN exhausted
• 31:13
  mind of solid peace, why are they groaning?
• 31:16
  It is a fair question, and Ryle admits that there are many
• 31:19
  genuine believers who live below their privileges.
• 31:22
  Their faith is weak, their understanding of grace is
• 31:24
  clouded, and they struggle heavily with doubt.
• 31:27
  But he offers a brilliant litmus test for these specific
• 31:30
  individuals. Go to the weakest, most doubting
• 31:33
  believer you know, the one who feels like they barely have a
• 31:36
  grip on their faith, and ask them a specific question.
• 31:40
  Ask them if they would trade their tiny scrap of hope in
• 31:43
  Christ for the whole world. Yes, ask them, would you give up
• 31:47
  your small, trembling faith to go back to the world and have
• 31:51
  all the wealth, all the status and all the pleasures we
• 31:53
  discussed earlier? And the answer is unequivocally
• 31:56
  no. Even in their darkest moment of
• 31:59
  doubt, they would say, my faith is weak, my joy is small, and
• 32:03
  I'm struggling, but I cannot give up what I have.
• 32:05
  I would rather cling to Christ in the dark than have the whole
• 32:09
  world without Him. That proves that the root of
• 32:11
  happiness is planted deep in their heart, even if at that
• 32:14
  moment there are no leaves or blossoms visible on the
• 32:17
  branches. The internal shift has occurred.
• 32:20
  The anchor is holding firm to the ocean floor, even if the
• 32:23
  ship is tossing violently on the waves above.
• 32:26
  The third objection is about outward appearances.
• 32:28
  People say believers look so grave and serious.
• 32:31
  You know their countenances don't show joy.
• 32:33
  And Ryle turns this objection right back on the skeptic.
• 32:36
  He says if you are an unconverted person looking at a
• 32:38
  believer, of course they look grave because they are looking
• 32:41
  at you. They see someone hurrying toward
• 32:43
  endless woe. Yes, they see the reality of
• 32:47
  your spiritual condition. Their gravity is not a lack of
• 32:50
  internal peace, it is deep grief for the impending destruction of
• 32:54
  others. I want to push back on that
• 32:55
  logic for a second, though. If a believer is truly secure in
• 32:58
  their own salvation, they have this immense, unexhausted mind
• 33:02
  of peace, shouldn't their joy overflow visibly to the point of
• 33:06
  overpowering their sorrow for others?
• 33:09
  Why does the gravity often win out in their outward appearance?
• 33:12
  That is a very perceptive question.
• 33:14
  It has to do with the nature of a highly functioning awakened
• 33:17
  conscience. When you are converted, your
• 33:19
  heart is aligned with God's heart, and the Scriptures tell
• 33:22
  us that God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.
• 33:25
  Genuine peace actually creates the capacity to mourn for others
• 33:29
  before conversion. A person is too absorbed in
• 33:31
  their own misery, their own anxieties, and their own
• 33:34
  selfishness to truly care about the eternal state of their
• 33:37
  neighbor after conversion. Because their own soul is
• 33:40
  secure, they finally have the emotional and spiritual
• 33:44
  bandwidth to feel genuine empathy.
• 33:46
  So the gravity you see is not a symptom of their own unrest.
• 33:49
  It is a symptom of a highly functioning outward looking
• 33:52
  love. Think of a doctor.
• 33:54
  A doctor might be perfectly healthy themselves, but they
• 33:57
  will still look grave when walking through a ward of
• 34:00
  terminally ill patients. That is a staggering analogy.
• 34:04
  The doctor's personal health is what allows them to be present
• 34:06
  in the ward, but it does not make them laugh at the sickness
• 34:09
  around them. Their health gives them the
• 34:10
  capacity to care. So, having established where
• 34:13
  true peace lies, and having answered the skeptics, how does
• 34:16
  a person, specifically a believer, maximize this peace in
• 34:19
  their daily life? Because Raul gives us some very
• 34:22
  practical application hints. He does, but before he speaks to
• 34:25
  believers, he issues a stark, compassionate warning to the
• 34:28
  unconverted. He warns those who are trifling
• 34:31
  their lives away in levity, fashion or business.
• 34:34
  He says they are hewing out broken cisterns.
• 34:37
  He uses this vivid image. You cannot feel the sunshine on
• 34:41
  your face if you turn your back to it.
• 34:43
  You are standing outside complaining that you are cold
• 34:46
  and in the dark, but you are deliberately facing the wrong
• 34:48
  direction. The only solution is to turn
• 34:51
  around. He says to come to Christ
• 34:53
  unreservedly. Tell him you are weary, that you
• 34:55
  have no power to make yourself holy or happy, and implore His
• 34:59
  mercy. It is an invitation to stop
• 35:01
  digging in the dry sand and come to the living water.
• 35:04
  But for those who have already come to the water, for the
• 35:06
  believers, Ryle offers 3 practical hints for increasing
• 35:10
  their happiness and maintaining that peace.
• 35:12
  The first hint is growing grace. Do not stand still, search the
• 35:16
  scriptures, mortify self will, and keep the conscience clear of
• 35:20
  little sins. I think of spiritual growth like
• 35:22
  riding a bicycle. If you stop pedaling, if you
• 35:24
  cease doing good and trying to grow, you lose your balance.
• 35:27
  You cannot just sit still on a bicycle.
• 35:29
  Action and forward momentum are required to maintain the
• 35:31
  equilibrium of peace. That is absolutely correct.
• 35:34
  Stagnation in the Christian life leads directly to misery.
• 35:38
  If you rest on past experiences and stop seeking daily communion
• 35:41
  with God, your peace will begin to erode.
• 35:44
  Keeping the conscience clear of little sins is crucial because a
• 35:48
  Pebble in your shoe will eventually make you stop
• 35:50
  walking. You cannot harbor known sin and
• 35:53
  expect to maintain a joyful, peaceful conscience.
• 35:56
  The second hit is to be more thankful.
• 35:58
  He says to stop complaining, stop murmuring, and stop pouring
• 36:02
  over the things you lack. We have a terrible tendency to
• 36:05
  take an inventory of all the things going wrong in our lives
• 36:08
  and completely ignore the mass of grace we have been given.
• 36:11
  Gratitude is the oxygen of joy. When a believer focuses on their
• 36:15
  own wretched sinfulness and realizes what they have actually
• 36:18
  been saved from, complaints about earthly inconveniences
• 36:21
  start to look ridiculous. Fostering a spirit of praise
• 36:24
  actively changes the internal climate of the heart.
• 36:26
  It forces you to look at the giver instead of obsessing over
• 36:29
  the gifts you think you deserve. The third hint, and this might
• 36:32
  be the most challenging one for our modern in therapeutic
• 36:35
  culture, is to do more good. Ryle says.
• 36:38
  That selfishness, sitting by the fire, nursing our own spiritual
• 36:41
  diseases, kills joy. This is a striking insight into
• 36:45
  human psychology. We tend to think that if we are
• 36:47
  feeling down or anxious, we need to focus entirely on ourselves,
• 36:51
  analyze our feelings, withdraw from the world and pamper our
• 36:55
  emotions. Right. self-care, yeah.
• 36:57
  But Ryle says the exact opposite.
• 36:59
  Get up and be useful. Look around your circle.
• 37:01
  Is there someone you can read to, speak to, write to?
• 37:04
  Is there someone sick you can visit?
• 37:05
  He connects it directly to the character of God.
• 37:08
  God is not only good, but He doeth good.
• 37:11
  If we are meant to reflect His character, then outward action
• 37:14
  is required. How does outward action destroy
• 37:17
  inward melancholy? Melancholy thrives in a vacuum
• 37:20
  of self absorption. When you are entirely focused on
• 37:23
  your own heart, you will always find something to be anxious
• 37:26
  about because the human heart is complex, prone to wandering, and
• 37:29
  full of shifting emotions. But when you engage your will in
• 37:33
  a tangible act of service to another person, you force your
• 37:36
  perspective outward. You break the toxic feedback
• 37:39
  loop of endless self analysis. You step into the flow of God's
• 37:42
  active love for the world, and in doing so, you experience the
• 37:45
  joy of alignment with His purposes.
• 37:47
  The bold, working Christians are always the happiest.
• 37:50
  As Ryle concludes, the compromising, lingering
• 37:53
  Christian must never expect to taste perfect peace.
• 37:56
  The most decided Christian will always be the happiest person.
• 37:59
  So let's bring all these threads together.
• 38:01
  True happiness is not the absence of trouble.
• 38:04
  It is not found in the world's cheap substitutes of wealth,
• 38:07
  fame, or amusement. Those paths have been proven
• 38:10
  dead ends by the very people who walk them to the absolute limit.
• 38:15
  True happiness is an ordered soul.
• 38:17
  It is a clean conscience that is resting entirely on the
• 38:19
  completed work of Christ. It is a piece that can sit in a
• 38:22
  silent room, look at the past, present and future and say all
• 38:26
  is well. And it is maintained not by
• 38:28
  selfish isolation, but by growing in grace, cultivating
• 38:31
  gratitude, and actively doing good in the world.
• 38:33
  Which leaves us with a final thought to Mull over as we
• 38:36
  close. Our modern society is absolutely
• 38:39
  obsessed with the concept of self forgiveness.
• 38:41
  We are constantly told that to find peace we just need to
• 38:44
  forgive ourselves, to let ourselves off the hook for our
• 38:46
  past mistakes. But if true happiness, as Ryle
• 38:49
  argues, comes from having a conscience perfectly at rest
• 38:53
  because of an outside mediator, a substitute who pays the actual
• 38:56
  moral debt, what does that say about self forgiveness?
• 38:59
  Can a human being ever truly forgive themselves and find
• 39:02
  lasting peace? Or does the very structure of
• 39:05
  the human conscience that internal courtroom we discussed
• 39:08
  demand a pardon from outside the system?
• 39:10
  Can the judge, the jury, and the defendant all be the same
• 39:13
  person? It is a question that strikes at
• 39:16
  the very root of modern psychology versus historic
• 39:18
  theology. If the conscience requires
• 39:20
  objective satisfaction for a broken law, subjective self talk
• 39:24
  will always fall short. You cannot acquit yourself if
• 39:27
  you are the one on trial. It is like trying to clear a
• 39:29
  system diagnostic error by just unplugging the warning light.
• 39:34
  The machine knows it is still broken.
• 39:36
  Only the manufacturer can run the patch that actually clears
• 39:39
  the code. Thank you for joining us on this
• 39:42
  deep dive into the true nature of happiness.
• 39:44
  We hope it gives you something substantial to think about the
• 39:46
  next time you are sitting in a quiet room.
• 39:49
  We will see you next time.