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The World | J. C. Ryle · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Imagine for a second breathing in this, this deadly gas that
• 0:04
  has no smell, right? No color and it doesn't even
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  make you cough. It just kind of makes you feel
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  pleasantly sleepy. Right.
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  Yeah, spot on. You do not even realize you are
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  suffocating until it is, well, far too late to step outside for
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  fresh air. Which is terrifying to think
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  about. It really is.
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  And in 1878, a Bishop named JC Ryle looked at the Church of his
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  day and concluded that millions of people were quietly
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  suffocating from this kind of invisible atmosphere.
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  And they were just completely oblivious to the danger.
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  Totally oblivious. Welcome to reform thinking.
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  I am your host and our mission for this deep dive is to step
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  back from the constant noise of the society we live in.
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  And I am so ready to jump into this with you.
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  We are taking a magnifying glass to a highly practical essay from
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  JC Ryles. Classic work.
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  Practical religion. Yeah, specifically we are
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  looking at his chapter on the world.
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  Which is such a heavy top. It is.
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  We really want to figure out what the biblical command from
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  Second Corinthians, you know, the one, to come out and be
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  separate, actually looks like in your daily life on like a random
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  Tuesday. Because it is so easy to agree
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  with a verse like that in theory.
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  Oh, absolutely. But applying it, that is where
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  things get really messy. Yeah, I mean, does it mean you
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  delete all your social media apps?
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  Right. Or does it mean you stop talking
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  to your secular neighbors over the fence?
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  Do you only listen to a specific genre of music?
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  These are the real questions, tackles his head on with a
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  pastoral sharpness that just cuts right through our modern
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  excuses. He really forces us to confront
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  the reality that there is a massive, unbridgeable difference
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  between just calling yourself a Christian and, well, actually
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  living as a new creature in Christ.
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  So we're going to look at the invisible threats around us,
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  dismantle the false ideas of separation that well meaning
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  people fall for, and uncover the true battlegrounds where this
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  spiritual conflict takes place. Setting the theological
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  framework for this discussion is absolutely crucial because Ryle
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  establishes a boundary on his very first page.
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  And it's a boundary that really challenges our modern
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  sensibilities right out of the Git.
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  Right before he even attempts to define what this invisible
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  threat is, he clarifies that his entire argument assumes 2 very
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  distinct categories of people. Converted and unconverted.
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  Yeah, exactly. Well, precisely that in our
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  current cultural moment, we do not like categories.
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  No, we prefer Shades of Grey. We like to think of spirituality
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  as a broad spectrum, you know, where everyone is just at a
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  different stage of enlightenment.
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  Like we are all basically heading up the same mountain.
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  Yes, but Ryle operates from a thoroughly biblical, historic,
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  Protestant perspective. He asserts that true Christians
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  are meant to be a peculiar people.
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  There has to be a visible categorical difference between
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  believers and unbelievers. He makes it clear that if you
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  assume everyone who occasionally attends a worship service or,
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  you know, just tries to be a decent person is automatically.
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  A Christian, then you will care very little about this topic.
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  Right. The command to separate will
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  seem baffling, maybe even offensive to you.
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  But if you are in earnest about your soul, this binary view
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  clarifies everything. It raises the stakes for you,
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  the listener. It forces you to evaluate which
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  category you belong to before you can even begin to apply the
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  practical instructions about separation.
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  I think we need to unpack this concept of the world right away.
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  Yeah, because the phrasing alone causes so much confusion.
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  It really does. When we hear that the world is
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  an enemy, it is incredibly easy to misunderstand what the threat
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  actually is. And Ryle makes a critical
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  distinction. Here he does.
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  When he warns about the world, he is not talking about the
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  physical matter of the earth. No, he points right back to the
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  book of Genesis. He notes that the mountains, the
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  oceans, the stars, the animals. All of this material creation is
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  very good. Right, He actually calls the
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  idea that physical matter is inherently sinful a foolish
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  heresy. It is a very old error actually,
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  this idea that the spirit is good and physical stuff is evil.
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  You can look at a sunset or mountain range and see
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  undeniable lessons of God's wisdom and majesty.
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  The physical creation is not the enemy.
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  The true enemy, as Raoul defines it, is a system of human
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  thought. What's fascinating here is how
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  he describes that collective mindset.
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  It is the mindset of people who prioritize the earth over
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  heaven. Time over eternity.
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  The body over the soul and pleasing men over pleasing God.
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  It is that invisible atmosphere I mentioned earlier.
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  The world isn't some obvious monster with fangs waiting to
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  attack you in an alley. No, it is more like that carbon
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  monoxide. It is an odorless atmospheric
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  pressure that quietly puts your soul to sleep.
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  You do not even realize you are breathing it in until you're
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  completely numb to spiritual realities.
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  So how exactly does a person detect the slow fade in their
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  own life when the threat is so subtle and, well, pervasive?
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  Detecting that slow fade requires a constant, rigorous
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  comparison of your own mind against the testimony of
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  Scripture. Which is why Ryle brings in an
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  overwhelming amount of biblical evidence to prove his point.
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  He really wants to show that this specific mindset, this
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  prioritize of the temporal over the eternal, is a lethal danger
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  to the soul. He references the historic
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  Church catechism. Right.
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  Yeah, which is a traditional question and answer format used
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  for centuries to instruct believers in basic doctrines.
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  And that catechism identifies the flesh, the devil, and the
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  world as the three terrible foes of baptized Christian must
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  fight. But he goes straight to the text
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  of the Bible to unleash just a barrage of warnings.
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  From the Apostle Paul we hear direct commands not to be
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  conformed to this world. Paul also gives us the tragic
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  example of Demas. Oh Demas, that one is rough.
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  It is Demas was a companion of Paul, a man who saw miracles and
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  heard the greatest preacher of the early church.
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  Yet Paul writes that Demas forsook him because he loved
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  this present world. And from James, the brother of
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  Jesus, we hear the blunt reality that friendship with the world
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  is absolute enmity with God. John tells us that all that is
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  in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and
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  the pride of life, is passing away.
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  And Jesus himself, in the parable of the sower, warns that
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  the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke
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  the word. They make it completely
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  unfruitful. Ryle provides over 20 distinct
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  texts that all point to the same staggering conclusion.
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  That the world is a mortal enemy to the Christian soul.
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  The reason open rebellion isn't the primary cause of people
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  losing their faith is precisely because of the subtle nature of
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  this enemy. Right.
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  People do not usually wake up 1 morning, shake their fist at the
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  sky, and decide to loudly rebel against God.
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  Instead, they try to hold on to both.
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  They want to get to heaven eventually, but they also want
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  the approval, the wealth and the comfort of the present age right
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  now. That desire to hold on to both
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  is what causes the slow drift. Yeah, and it brings up a really
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  tragic image that Ryle uses to illustrate this point.
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  He talks about people who start out so well in their faith.
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  He compares them to figures like Abraham and Moses and their
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  youth. These people bid fair for
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  heaven. They leave the harbor of their
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  childhood home with bright prospects, perhaps carrying a
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  father's blessing and mother's sincere prayers.
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  They are launched out onto the ocean of adult life and looking
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  at them, you think they are absolutely going to make.
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  It they have all the right answers.
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  But they do not shipwreck on some massive obvious rock of
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  blatant atheism or violent crime.
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  No, they end their voyage in shallows and misery purely
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  because of the seductions of the world.
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  They slowly drift off course, one tiny compromise at a time.
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  They end up like Lott's wife. She was physically rescued from
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  Sodom but looked back because her heart was still tied to the
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  comfort of the city. Where they end up like Demas,
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  who just loved the present world too much to stay the course with
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  Paul in a cold prison cell. The tragedy is the utter
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  quietness of the ruin. No alarms go off.
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  So if we understand that the physical creation isn't the
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  problem, but this invisible system of worldly thinking is so
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  toxic. What happens when sincere
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  believers realize this danger, panic, and mistakenly try to run
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  away from physical society to stay pure?
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  It seems like the natural human instinct is to flee.
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  If the world is a toxic gas, the instinct is to hold your breath
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  and lock yourself in a hermetically sealed room.
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  How does Ryle address this instinct to just hide from
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  everyone? Well, the instinct to isolate is
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  incredibly strong, especially for a new believer who suddenly
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  realizes the danger. But Ryle dismantles this
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  monastic urge methodically. He lists 6 specific points about
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  what separation is, not, establishing that running away
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  is a false solution. His first point addresses our
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  daily occupations. He argues that the command to
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  come out and be separate does not mean Christians should
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  abandoned lawful callings, trades, professions or
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  businesses. There is absolutely no biblical
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  warrant for a believer to refuse to be a soldier, a sailor, a
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  lawyer, a doctor, a merchant, or a tradesman.
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  He provides clear New Testament examples to prove this to.
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  Cornelius was a Roman centurion, Luke was a physician, and Zenus
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  was a lawyer. In fact, Ryle argues that
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  idleness itself is a sin. Right.
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  He quotes the Apostle Paul's letter to the Thessalonians
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  which states that if a man will not work, neither shall he eat.
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  Work was instituted by God in the Garden of Eden before sin
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  ever entered the picture. It is a good thing.
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  A lawful calling actually acts as a remedy against temptation
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  because it keeps the mind occupied and useful.
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  Giving up a regular business and leaving the marketplace entirely
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  to the wicked under the pretense that the business environment
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  might harm your religion. Ryle describes that as lazy and
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  cowardly conduct. The true calling is to bring
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  your religion into your business.
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  To work with absolute integrity and honesty in the secular
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  sphere. Rather than using your faith as
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  an excuse to retreat from the heavy responsibilities of adult.
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  Life. I know that keeping your job
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  makes sense, but I want to push back on how far this integration
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  goes. OK, let's hear.
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  Ryle second and third points say we shouldn't decline all
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  interaction with unconverted people or refuse to go into
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  their society. He points out that Jesus and his
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  disciples went to marriage feasts and sat at the tables of
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  Pharisees. Paul gave instructions on how to
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  behave if an unbeliever invites you to a feast, which implies
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  you are fully allowed to accept the invitation.
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  But wait, if I'm supposed to avoid the worldly mindset, why
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  am I going to a secular dinner party?
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  Doesn't that expose me to the exact carbon monoxide we are
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  talking about? The balance here seems
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  incredibly precarious. If you cut yourself off from
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  everyone who doesn't believe what you believe, you lose every
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  single opportunity to do good. You lose the chance to bring the
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  light of the gospel into dark places.
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  But even beyond dinner parties, Ryle talks about not ignoring
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  politics, art, science and literature.
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  There is a real tendency among some very sincere believers to
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  think that if they read a newspaper, care about government
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  legislation or study biology, they are being worldly.
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  But Paul knew the value of good government.
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  He urged prayers for leaders so that Christians could live quiet
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  and peaceable lives. Paul even quoted heathen writers
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  and secular poets in his own speeches.
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  Ignorance of secular realities actually breeds contempt for the
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  faith. Ryle tells this brilliant story
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  of a blacksmith who absolutely refused to listen to a local
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  clergyman preached the gospel. Oh I love this story.
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  The blacksmith wanted nothing to do with him, assuming the
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  minister was just a guy with his head in the clouds.
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  But then the blacksmith found out that the clergyman actually
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  understood the physical properties of iron.
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  Once the blacksmith realized the minister understood the real,
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  tangible world, he finally agreed to listen to the
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  spiritual message. That story alone shows how
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  foolish it is to pride yourself on your ignorance of secular
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  things. It perfectly illustrates why
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  artificial boundaries fail to accomplish true spiritual goals.
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  And why understanding the physical world actually builds a
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  bridge for the gospel. This brings us to Ryle's 4th and
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  5th points on false separation, which deal directly with the
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  external display of holiness and the physical retreat from
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  society. Ryle warns heavily against being
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  singular, eccentric or peculiar in your dress, your manners or
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  your voice. If you wear strange clothes or
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  speak in an unnatural, whining, overly religious tone of voice
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  just to draw attention to how separate you are, you are making
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  a massive error. He meets that Jesus and the
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  apostles dressed and behaved like normal people in their
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  respective ranks of life. They did not wear bizarre
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  uniforms. It was the Pharisees who made
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  their phalacteries broad. For the listener, A phylactery
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  was a small leather box containing scripture verses that
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  a Jewish man would wear on his forehead or arm during prayer.
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  The Pharisees intentionally made these boxes huge, and they
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  enlarge the borders of their garments purely to be seen by
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  men and appear hyper spiritual. True sanctity and artificial
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  sanctimoniousness are vastly different things.
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  Trying to look holy by wearing conspicuously ugly clothes or
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  acting unnaturally grave only gives the enemies of the faith
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  an easy target to mock. Taking this a step further, Ryle
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  attacks the hermit fallacy directly.
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  He states that separation does not mean retiring from mankind
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  to shut yourself up in a monastery, a convent or a cave.
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  This physically violates the explicit prayer of Christ in
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  John chapter 17. Where Jesus prayed for his
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  disciples. I pray not that thou should just
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  take them out of the world, but that thou should just keep them
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  from the evil. True believers are meant to mix
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  in the world, stand their ground manfully, and show the grace of
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  God in their daily positions. Through patience, meekness, and
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  purity. You cannot keep the world and
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  the devil out of your heart by hiding in holes and corners.
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  Because you carry your own sinful nature right into The
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  Cave with you. That is a vital theological
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  reality that so many people miss.
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  You bring your own corrupt nature with you wherever you
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  run. Your location changes, but your
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  heart remains the same. And that leads right into the
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  final and perhaps most controversial point Ryle makes
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  about what separation is not. He says it does not mean
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  withdrawing from every church assembly just because there are
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  unconverted members present in the pews.
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  This is a trap so many zealous people fall into today.
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  They get a taste of true spiritual ice.
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  They look around their local congregation and they see people
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  who are clearly just going through the motions.
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  They see hypocrites, so they leave.
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  They refuse to take communion if ungodly people are at the table.
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  Ryle calls this a grievous mistake and a pure invention of
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  man. He points out a staggering fact.
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  Jesus deliberately allowed Judas Iscariot to be an apostle for
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  three years. Knowing exactly who he was and
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  even gave him the Lord's Supper. Jesus taught in the parable of
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  the wheat and the tares that the converted and unconverted will
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  grow together in the visible church until the final harvest.
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  And we cannot perfectly divide them now.
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  If you are waiting for a perfectly pure church, a
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  flawless congregation where everyone is fully sanctified.
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  You will be waiting until the marriage supper of the Lamb in
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  heaven. To separate yourself from
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  Christian ordinances because others use them unworthily is an
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  unscriptural position. So, having dismantled all these
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  false ideas, we cannot run away to a cave, we cannot dress
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  weirdly to show off, we cannot abandoned our jobs and we cannot
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  demand a flawless local church. We have to pivot.
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  We are out of the monastery and back in the messy battlefield of
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  everyday life. What does true separation
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  actually look like in action when you are sitting in a
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  cubicle or attending a neighborhood BBQ?
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  True separation, as Ryle articulates it, begins entirely
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  in the mind, with a fundamental shift in the standard by which
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  you judge reality. His first defining marker of
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  true separation is steadily and habitually refusing to be guided
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  by the world standard of right and wrong.
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  The consensus of the crowd, the idea that everybody does it, or
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  everybody thinks so, or everybody will be there.
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  That means absolutely nothing to the true Christian.
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  The only valid standard is what saith the scripture.
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  This requires immense internal resolve, because it means you
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  cannot think lightly of sins just because society has
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  completely normalized them. If society says that swindling
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  in business, breaking marriage vows or gambling are just minor
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  human flaws or normal behaviors. The believer must reject that
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  consensus completely if God calls it sin.
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  You must be willing to stand entirely alone in your town,
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  your family, or your workplace rather than go against the
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  Bible. This intellectual and moral
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  independence is the absolute bedrock of genuine separation.
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  Once that internal standard is in place, Ryle moves to the
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  application of it in daily life, and he zeroes in on something
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  surprisingly mundane. But incredibly relevant how you
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  spend your loser time. He argues that honorable
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  occupation and lawful business are actually massive safeguards
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  for the soul. The devil finds it very hard to
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  get a hearing from a busy person whose hands and mind are fully
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  occupied. But we have to look closely at
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  our daily rhythms to understand the danger zones.
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  Why does Ryle identify the evening hours, when the day's
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  labor ends, as the absolute greatest point of vulnerability
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  for a person's soul? This raises an important
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  question. I love that he focuses on the
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  evenings because his psychological insight here is
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  just spot on. Think about how you feel when
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  the day's work is finally over. You naturally unbend you blacks.
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  You take the armor. Off during the day, your mind is
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  engaged in your tasks, meeting deadlines, keeping the machinery
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  of your life running. You are alert.
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  But in the evening you let your guard down, and that is exactly
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  when temptation strikes. Ryle talks about the 19th
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  century equivalence of this the poor man going to the public
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  house for a pint, the tradesman sitting in the inn parlor for
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  hours, swapping stories. Higher classes throwing late
• 17:50
  night card parties. But I know for me, and for
• 17:53
  almost everyone listening, the the modern equivalents hit so
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  close to home. Here's where it gets really
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  interesting. When 8:00 PM rolls around and my
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  brain is completely fried from work, the instinct to just melt
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  into the couch is overwhelmingly strong.
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  The evening is when we engage in late night doom scrolling.
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  Mindlessly swiping through social media feeds or binge
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  watching hours of media. Media that slowly saturates our
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  minds with exactly the worldly standards we are supposed to be
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  rejecting. We.
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  Feed ourselves the carbon monoxide on a glowing screen.
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  It is so easy to justify this behavior.
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  We say I worked hard all day. I'm exhausted, My willpower is
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  depleted. I just need to turn my brain
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  off. But Ryle asks if exhaustion is a
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  valid excuse for dropping our guard.
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  He advises making a settled rule to never waste your evenings.
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  He says we must make time for calm thought, Bible reading and
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  prayer. Even if people think you are
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  unsocial or overly strict for turning down an invitation to a
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  late night event. It's better to have a good
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  conscience. And he connects this directly to
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  his next point. You have to prevent even lawful
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  business from consuming your soul.
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  You cannot let your job eat up your Sundays or destroy your
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  private communion with God. You have to be able to say to
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  your career, stand back, there is a limit.
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  The historical examples Ryle uses to support that point about
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  holding the world at arm's length are quite striking.
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  He points to figures like Daniel from the Old Testament, who is
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  essentially the Prime Minister of Babylon.
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  And General Havelock, a highly respected British military
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  leader in the 19th century. These were men who carried
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  massive governmental and military burdens.
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  They were not monks living in silence.
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  They were actively managing empires, logistics and armies.
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  Yet they firmly prioritize their private prayers and scriptural
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  study, no matter the cost to their schedule.
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  They chose to risk present loss, the mockery of their peers, or
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  even and career advancement rather than let their souls
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  wither under the crushing weight of secular responsibilities.
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  This requires a level of self denial that goes far beyond
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  merely avoiding bad things. Right, it means placing strict
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  limits on good things. This principle applies directly
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  to Rile's teaching on innocent recreations.
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  He does not condemn exercise, sports or games of skill like
• 20:04
  chess. He acknowledges that we are
• 20:05
  fearfully and wonderfully made and that the human body and mind
• 20:09
  require relaxation and diversion to function properly.
• 20:13
  But the severe danger lies in excess.
• 20:16
  The Christian must know how to, say, hold enough to lawful
• 20:19
  recreations before they morph into poisons.
• 20:22
  If a harmless hobby starts secularizing your soul, pulling
• 20:25
  your thoughts constantly down to earth.
• 20:27
  Training your bank account or interfering with your private
• 20:30
  devotion. It has crossed the line from
• 20:32
  recreation to idle. You have to possess the firmness
• 20:35
  to stop, even if your friends ridicule you for not knowing how
• 20:38
  to just relax and enjoy yourself.
• 20:40
  The idea of saying hold enough to something that isn't even a
• 20:44
  sin in itself is so countercultural.
• 20:47
  We live in a Society of gluttony where more is always considered
• 20:51
  better. It is one thing to manage your
• 20:53
  own schedule and your own hobbies with that kind of
• 20:55
  strictness. You can control how much time
• 20:57
  you spend on the golf course or how many hours you spend
• 20:59
  watching sports. You can set a timer on your
• 21:02
  phone. But what happens when this
• 21:04
  standard clashes with your closest relationships?
• 21:06
  That brings us to a massive difficult area in Ryles
• 21:09
  argument, the law of contagion. We move from managing our time
• 21:14
  to managing our friendships, our marriages and our public
• 21:16
  amusements. Ryle strongly warns against
• 21:19
  cultivating intimate friendships with those who completely
• 21:22
  disregard God. He is very careful to say we
• 21:24
  must treat everyone with courtesy and kindness.
• 21:27
  We do business with them. We love our neighbors.
• 21:29
  We help them in a crisis. But intimate friendship, the
• 21:32
  sharing of your deepest heart, is entirely different.
• 21:35
  You cannot be closely tied to someone without their character
• 21:38
  affecting yours. If you choose friends who do not
• 21:41
  care about the Bible or holiness, you will soon find
• 21:44
  their tastes and your tastes are completely incompatible.
• 21:48
  You will either have to give up the intimacy or you will
• 21:51
  compromise your own faith just to keep the peace and avoid
• 21:54
  awkwardness. And if that is true for casual
• 21:56
  friendships, it is infinitely more true for marriage.
• 22:00
  Ryle strictly, almost severely, commands unmarried Christians
• 22:04
  never to marry an unbeliever. The theological reality behind
• 22:07
  Ryle's severe warning about marriage is staggering, and he
• 22:10
  explains it with a very simple medical axiom.
• 22:13
  Health is not infectious, but disease is.
• 22:16
  If you put a sick person in A room with a healthy person, the
• 22:19
  healthy person does not magically cure the sick one by
• 22:21
  proximity. Rather, the healthy person
• 22:24
  catches the disease. When you bind a praying, God
• 22:27
  fearing Christian to someone who takes no interest in serious
• 22:30
  religion, the result is almost universally tragic.
• 22:34
  Because of the natural human inclination towards sin, what
• 22:36
  reformed theology understands as total depravity, gravity always
• 22:41
  pulls downward. For the listener who hears total
• 22:43
  depravity and thinks it means everyone is a serial killer, let
• 22:47
  me clarify. It does not mean humans are as
• 22:50
  evil as they could possibly be. It means that sin has infected
• 22:53
  every faculty of our nature, our mind, our will, our emotions.
• 22:57
  Because of this internal infection, it is always easier
• 23:01
  for us to sink than to rise. The good person usually sinks to
• 23:05
  the level of the bad, or at least has their spiritual
• 23:08
  vitality severely stunted. Rather than pulling the
• 23:11
  unconverted person up. To hope that you will convert a
• 23:14
  spouse after marriage by compromising a clear biblical
• 23:17
  command beforehand is a massive delusion.
• 23:20
  Ryle is so emphatic here that he says you had better die than
• 23:22
  marry an unbeliever. If you depart from this
• 23:25
  resolution, you are essentially destroying your own peace and
• 23:28
  comfort for the rest of your life.
• 23:30
  You are tying A heavyweight to yourself in the spiritual race.
• 23:32
  This strict adherence to spiritual health over social or
• 23:36
  romantic convenience extends directly into his views on
• 23:39
  public amusements. Which he addresses in detail
• 23:41
  regarding theaters, horse races, and in his appendix, balls,
• 23:45
  cards and field. Sports.
• 23:46
  I really want to focus on that weight analogy because it is so
• 23:49
  vivid. Marrying an unbeliever is like
• 23:51
  tying a heavy millstone around your neck while trying to run a
• 23:54
  marathon. You might finish the race, you
• 23:57
  might be saved in the end, but it will be so as by fire, and
• 24:01
  every single step of your life will be agonizing.
• 24:04
  You will never be able to share your deepest joys or your
• 24:06
  deepest feels about eternity with the person sleeping next to
• 24:09
  you. So what does this all mean for
• 24:11
  you if you are single and seeking a partner right now?
• 24:14
  It means that physical attraction, financial stability
• 24:17
  and shared secular interests like hiking or movies are
• 24:21
  absolutely secondary to the question of whether this person
• 24:24
  has a renewed heart. It requires immense faith to
• 24:26
  trust God with your singleness rather than settle for an
• 24:30
  unequal yoke out of loneliness. That same principle of assessing
• 24:33
  the hidden dangers applies to amusements.
• 24:36
  In the appendix, Ryle looks at things like dancing, card
• 24:39
  playing and field sports. He is honest enough to admit
• 24:42
  that jumping around to music, the physical act of dancing, is
• 24:45
  not a sin. A horse running fast on a track
• 24:48
  is not a sin. A game of cards might even be a
• 24:50
  useful mental exercise to keep an elderly, lethargic person
• 24:54
  await on a winter evening. But Ryle evaluates these
• 24:57
  activities by their tendencies and accompaniments.
• 25:00
  Modern ball going in his day and certainly clubbing or similar
• 25:03
  nightlife environments today involve late hours, vanity,
• 25:07
  jealousy, extravagant dressing and vain conversation.
• 25:11
  Horse races in theaters are almost invariably tied to
• 25:14
  gambling, bedding and other vices.
• 25:16
  You cannot just look at the core activity in a vacuum and ignore
• 25:19
  the atmosphere it brings with it.
• 25:21
  If the activity acts as a gateway to sin or places you in
• 25:24
  an environment where the world standard is celebrated.
• 25:27
  It is a severe hazard to your soul.
• 25:29
  Evaluating the tendencies and accompaniments is a highly
• 25:32
  mature way of viewing Christian liberty.
• 25:34
  It moves the believer past the childish legalistic question of
• 25:38
  is there a specific Bible verse that explicitly says I cannot
• 25:41
  play the specific? Card game to the much wiser
• 25:44
  spiritually mature question Does this activity in this
• 25:47
  environment war against my soul? Ryle acknowledges that men must
• 25:51
  judge for themselves and use their liberty, but he warns that
• 25:54
  we have no right to shut our eyes to the obvious facts.
• 25:57
  If an amusement is inextricably bound up with things that God
• 26:00
  will judge, how can a person who claims to be separate from the
• 26:04
  world participate in it simply for a few hours of
• 26:07
  entertainment? But listening to this level of
• 26:09
  strictness, the careful monitoring of our evening hours,
• 26:13
  the strict limitation of lawful hobbies, the severing of
• 26:17
  intimate worldly friendships, the absolute refusal to
• 26:20
  compromise on marriage, and the abstinence from popular
• 26:23
  amusements. It sounds incredibly heavy.
• 26:25
  It sounds exhausting to maintain.
• 26:27
  How can anyone sustain this kind of relentless self denial and
• 26:31
  social friction without burning out or worse, becoming a bitter,
• 26:34
  sour, judgmental Pharisee? This brings us to the most
• 26:37
  crucial part of Ryle's treatise the mechanics of victory.
• 26:41
  How is this actually accomplished in the human heart?
• 26:44
  Because sheer willpower is clearly not enough.
• 26:46
  If you try to do all of this in your own strength, you will fail
• 26:49
  and you will become a miserable Pharisee in the process.
• 26:52
  You will be one of those people Ryle describes who has too much
• 26:55
  religion to be happy in the world and too much of the world
• 26:58
  to be happy in their religion. You will just be stuck in a
• 27:02
  state of constant resentful deprivation.
• 27:05
  So Ryle reveals the Arsenal of grace, the three secrets to
• 27:10
  actually overcoming the world. The first secret is a right
• 27:13
  heart, and he specifies that this means a heart renewed,
• 27:16
  changed, and sanctified by the Holy Ghost.
• 27:19
  It has to be a heart where Christ himself dwells.
• 27:21
  This isn't about forced behavior modification, it is about a
• 27:24
  fundamental change in your internal appetites.
• 27:27
  Ryle uses this brilliant analogy of the beach hedge.
• 27:30
  In the winter, the dead brown leaves cling stubbornly to the
• 27:33
  branches of the beach hedge, rattling in the wind.
• 27:36
  You could go out in the freezing cold and try to pull every
• 27:38
  single dead leaf off by hand 1 by 1.
• 27:40
  It would be tedious, painful, and honestly useless.
• 27:44
  But you don't have to do that. When the spring comes, the new
• 27:47
  buds begin to grow from the inside out.
• 27:50
  The new rising life naturally pushes the old dead leaves off
• 27:54
  the branch, and they quietly fall to the ground.
• 27:56
  That is exactly how a new heart works.
• 27:59
  It invariably alters a person's tastes and likings.
• 28:02
  You drop the old habits, the worldly amusements, and the
• 28:05
  toxic friendships not because you're forcing yourself to be
• 28:08
  miserable. But because you simply do not
• 28:10
  love them anymore. The expulsive force of a new
• 28:12
  affection naturally pushes out the old desires.
• 28:16
  If we connect this to the bigger picture, this biological imagery
• 28:19
  to the theology of regeneration shows us that outward behavioral
• 28:23
  changes are completely impossible and hypocritical
• 28:26
  without internal spiritual life. The Holy Spirit must alter the
• 28:29
  bias of the affections. If the affections are not right,
• 28:33
  the actions never will be. You can force compliance for a
• 28:36
  while, but your heart will eventually drag you back to what
• 28:39
  it truly loves. Once that new heart is present,
• 28:41
  the second secret to victory becomes possible, a lively
• 28:44
  practical faith and unseen realities.
• 28:46
  Ryle points to the First Epistle of John, which says that faith
• 28:50
  is the victory that overcomes the world.
• 28:52
  This means attaining a habit of looking steadily at invisible
• 28:55
  things, God, Heaven, Hell, final judgement, eternity, as if they
• 28:59
  were right in front of your physical eyes.
• 29:01
  You have to cherish the abiding conviction that what you do not
• 29:05
  see is 10,000 times more real and weighty than the physical
• 29:10
  world you do see. This is how the Saints described
• 29:13
  in Hebrews Chapter 11 live their lives.
• 29:15
  Moses was able to forsake the incredible wealth, pleasure and
• 29:19
  power of Egypt because he was looking through the telescope of
• 29:22
  faith. He could see a future reward
• 29:24
  that made the glittering treasures of Egypt look like
• 29:27
  absolute dust. If you regard this world as a
• 29:30
  mere passing shadow compared to the solid substance of the world
• 29:34
  to come, the praise or the blame of secular society completely
• 29:38
  loses its grip on you. You no longer care if people
• 29:40
  mock your strictness, your limits on your schedule, or your
• 29:43
  dating choices. Because you are playing for an
• 29:45
  entirely different audience, you are seeking the approval of God
• 29:48
  alone. That telescope of faith changes
• 29:50
  everything. When you are looking at
• 29:52
  eternity, the temporary awkwardness of standing up for
• 29:55
  your faith at a dinner party or turning down a lucrative but
• 29:58
  shady business deal feels very small.
• 30:01
  Which leads perfectly into the third secret of victory,
• 30:04
  cultivating the habit of boldly confessing Christ on all proper
• 30:07
  occasions. Ryle is careful to say he
• 30:10
  doesn't want people blowing a trumpet and being obnoxious.
• 30:13
  Right. Thrusting their religion on
• 30:14
  others inappropriately just to cause a scene.
• 30:17
  But he does want Christians to show their colors plainly.
• 30:20
  He talks about the concept of grasping the nettle firmly.
• 30:23
  If you know anything about a stinging nettle plant, if you
• 30:27
  brush against it lightly with a trembling, hesitant hand, it
• 30:30
  stings you terribly and leaves a rash.
• 30:32
  But if you reach out and crush it firmly in your grip, it
• 30:35
  actually doesn't hurt you. Ryle is saying that taking a
• 30:38
  bold, polite but firm stand early on actually prevents the
• 30:43
  pain of prolonged compromise. If you calmly and courteously
• 30:47
  assert your standards in a company of people, it might be
• 30:50
  hard the first time. Your heart might beat fast.
• 30:53
  But a steady assertion forms a habit.
• 30:56
  A habit forms a character. And once your character is fully
• 30:59
  known by the world, they will actually leave you alone.
• 31:02
  If you show your colors boldly from the first moment at a new
• 31:05
  job or with a new friend group, people will know what to expect
• 31:08
  from you. They won't keep dragging you
• 31:10
  into compromising situations or mocking your choices because
• 31:13
  they already know your answer is going to be no.
• 31:15
  The boundary is set and the pressure.
• 31:17
  Stops. The psychology of grasping the
• 31:19
  nettle is profoundly accurate. Wavering and hesitation invite
• 31:24
  social pressure. Calm, steady resolve shuts it
• 31:27
  down. With the mechanics of victory
• 31:30
  clearly laid out, internal regeneration by the Spirit,
• 31:33
  active faith in the unseen, and bold confession, Ryle shifts
• 31:38
  away from teaching and directly addresses the reader's current
• 31:41
  spiritual state. He forces a final application of
• 31:44
  all these theoretical points. He asks A piercing question that
• 31:48
  every single person must answer. Are you overcoming the world or
• 31:52
  are you overcome? By it, if you are still
• 31:54
  entangled, still constantly conforming to the opinions, the
• 31:57
  fashions, and the habits of those around you, he issues an
• 32:00
  affectionate but severe warning that your soul is in grave
• 32:03
  danger. He reminds the reader that the
• 32:05
  time is short, the shadows of life are lengthening, and the
• 32:07
  great white throne of Judgment will soon be set.
• 32:10
  However, for those who are actively trying to live this
• 32:13
  out, who have learned by bitter experience what it means to
• 32:16
  separate but feel exhausted by the constant friction.
• 32:20
  He offers tremendous comfort. He assures them that they should
• 32:23
  take heart and persevere. You may have had many fierce
• 32:27
  battles, you may have made false steps and poor decisions, and in
• 32:30
  moments of weakness you may have even felt half disposed to go
• 32:33
  back to the world. But Christ has never left you,
• 32:36
  and He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear
• 32:40
  by His grace. Ryle makes a magnificent final
• 32:43
  observation to encourage the weary fighter.
• 32:46
  No one at the very end of their life, lying on their deathbed,
• 32:50
  ever looked back and regretted that they had lived too close to
• 32:52
  God. That puts everything into
• 32:54
  perspective. Nobody ever gets to their
• 32:56
  deathbed and says I wish I'd compromised more.
• 32:58
  I wish I had spent more hours doom scrolling on my phone, or
• 33:01
  watch more garbage television, or cared more about what my
• 33:04
  secular friends thought of my outfit.
• 33:06
  It just doesn't happen. The temporary sacrifices, the
• 33:10
  lost promotions, the awkward conversations, they look
• 33:12
  entirely different from the perspective of the finish line.
• 33:15
  We have covered an immense amount of ground today looking
• 33:18
  at the invisible carbon monoxide threat of worldly thinking.
• 33:22
  We tore down the false ideas of physical isolation and hiding in
• 33:26
  monasteries. We examine the real
• 33:28
  battlegrounds of our daily schedules, our evening
• 33:31
  exhaustion, and our relationships.
• 33:33
  And we identify the internal grace needed to actually
• 33:36
  overcome this system. It all points to the reality
• 33:38
  that following Christ requires A distinct observable break from
• 33:42
  the normal patterns of human society.
• 33:45
  So as we close this deep dive, I want to leave you with one final
• 33:49
  lingering question to Mull over on your own.
• 33:52
  It builds on everything we've discussed about the danger of a
• 33:55
  divided heart. Consider the tragic condition of
• 33:58
  a person who tries to have it both ways.
• 34:00
  The person who has too much religion to be happy in the
• 34:02
  world, and too much of the world to be happy in their religion.
• 34:05
  They are miserable in both spaces when the final judgement
• 34:08
  arrives and all the getting and spending of money, the business
• 34:11
  deals, the dressing up, the social events and the late night
• 34:14
  amusements pass away forever. What will you do in a heaven
• 34:17
  where worldliness has absolutely no place?