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Reality | J. C. Ryle · Reformed Thinking

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So imagine waking up 1 morning and discovering A terrifying
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truth about your finances. Oh boy, right?
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Like, imagine finding out that your entire life savings, you
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know, every single dollar you have meticulously tucked away in
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your bank account over the last 30 years was actually just
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brilliantly printed Monopoly money.
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That is a total nightmare scenario.
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It really is. You hold it up to the light and
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it looks convincing at a quick glance.
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The colors are bright, the paper has a certain Christmas to it
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and well, for years to give you a massive sense of security.
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But today is the day the auditors have arrived.
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They run it through their machines and they just look at
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you with pity because the currency holds absolutely 0
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purchasing value. Wow.
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And when the actual weight of reality crashes down, you are
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completely bankrupt. Absolutely bankrupt.
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And today on Reformed Thinking, we are applying that precise,
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terrifying scenario to your spiritual life.
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Welcome to this deep dive into the source material.
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We are unpacking some really striking excerpts from JC Ryles
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classic work, Practical Religion, specifically focusing
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on a chapter simply titled Reality.
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It is such a heavy topic. It is.
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The mission for this deep dive is to dissect the absolute
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difference between genuine solid faith and hollow, counterfeit
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religion. And I want to speak directly to
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you, the listener, right from the start.
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Yeah, this is personal. We are not treating this as an
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academic exercise, you know. This is a vital assessment of
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where you stand before God. When you look at your own
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spiritual life, your habits, your private thoughts, are you
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holding solid gold or are you holding painted plaster?
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That is the core question Ryle forces us to confront, and he
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does it with a sense of urgency that you rarely hear in modern
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conversations. He uses the terminology of
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currency throughout his whole argument, like base coin versus
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good money, solid gold versus tinsel.
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Ryle makes the case that we live in an age of base metal and
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alloy, right? If you measure the religion of
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our time by its apparent quantity, well, there's a
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massive amount of it. Churches are on every corner.
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Christian media is everywhere. Books are published by the
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thousands. Oh, absolutely.
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But if you measure it by its quality, by its actual
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substance, there is an alarming deficit.
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We are surrounded by a vast lack of reality.
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And what makes Riles writing so piercing is that he's not
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writing to atheists or scoffers. He is writing to people sitting
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in the pews. He is writing to people who
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already think their accounts are full.
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So let us unpack this illusion of universal sincerity because
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this is where Ryle starts swinging and it challenges
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everything our culture tells us. He argues that society suffers
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from a massive self-imposed delusion regarding sincerity.
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Yeah, that is a great way to put it.
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People look around and assume almost everyone has, as he
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quotes, good hearts at bottom. We look at our neighbors, our Co
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workers, the people sitting next to us on Sunday and we just
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assume that in the main, everyone is sincere and true.
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Right. We want to believe that even if
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someone makes terrible mistakes or, you know, lives in open
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rebellion to God's law, they're still fundamentally good inside.
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And that societal assumption totally destroys the actual
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value of reality, because if we believe everyone possesses a
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good harp by default, then reality requires no action, no
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divine grace, and no truth. It becomes a participation
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trophy for breathing. Spot on.
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The psychology behind this is fascinating, actually.
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Human beings desperately want to believe in universal sincerity
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because it lowers the bar for everyone, including ourselves.
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Oh, for sure. If everyone is basically good,
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then I am basically good, and I do not need to face the
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terrifying prospect of a holy God demanding absolute
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perfection. But if we assume that humanity
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is naturally oriented toward goodness, we completely
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contradict the biblical view of human nature.
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Yes, we do. The scriptural reality is our
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fallen state. We are not born with good hearts
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at bottom. We are born in rebellion against
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our Creator. Our hearts are deceitful above
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all things. So when society says, oh,
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everyone is basically good, it acts as a narcotic.
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It puts the conscience to sleep. It convinces a dying patient
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that a few vitamins will cure their terminal illness.
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I think about the cultural friction point here because
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society labels us as uncharitable, harsh, or
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judgmental if we doubt the goodness of someone's heart, it
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feels impolite to question someone's spiritual reality.
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It really does. Going back to the banking
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analogy, it like a bank teller accepting that monopoly money
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just to be polite. Someone hands you a stack of
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bright pink and yellow paper currency and you do not want to
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offend them. You do not want to cause a scene
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in the lobby. Yeah, you just want to keep the
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peace. Right.
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So you smile, you stamp the deposit slip and you say thank
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you so much. It feels nice in the moment.
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Everyone leaves the interaction smiling and comfortable.
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But that currency holds absolutely no actual value when
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the real audit comes. None at all.
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The central bank will not accept it.
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The reality of the situation will eventually assert itself
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and, well, the politeness will have accomplished nothing but
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cementing the person's ruin. That is a highly accurate
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illustration, because human opinion is a faulty scale for
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measuring reality. We measure by politeness, by
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social friction, by avoiding offense.
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God measures by truth. So if human opinion is useless
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here, what does the definitive scale say?
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What does Scripture say about reality?
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Ryle points us straight to the teachings of Jesus Christ, who
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is the ultimate judge of reality.
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Let us look at the divine warning labels.
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Then Ryle examines Christ's parables and his interactions
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with the religious leaders of his day.
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And when you look at the parables, there is a terrifying,
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repetitive theme. Very repetitive.
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The sower, the wheat and the tares, the 10 virgins, the two
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builders, they all share 1 singular point, the striking,
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undeniable difference between genuine believers and nominal
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disciples, and how identical they look from the outside.
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Take the wheat and the tares for example.
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We need to look into the agrarian context to grasp how
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frightening this is. Outwardly, wheat and tares look
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completely identical while they are growing.
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Right, because a tear is a specific weed called Darnell,
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isn't it? Yes, exactly.
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Precisely in its early stages of development, a farmer cannot
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distinguish Darnell from wheat. They share the same soil, they
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receive the same rain, they grow side by side in the exact same
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field. Their root systems even
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intertwine underground. The visual presentation is a
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perfect match. The reality is only revealed at
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the harvest, at the very end of the process, when the wheat
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produces A nutritious grain and the Darnell produces a poisonous
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black seed. That is chilling.
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The difference is not visible until it is too late to pull the
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weed without destroying the wheat, and we see this same
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pattern in the parable of the 10 virgins.
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We do. For those who might not know the
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cultural context, Jewish weddings involve the bridesmaids
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waiting for the groom to arrive in the evening to process to the
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banquet. Christ says there were 10
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virgins. They all had lamps.
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They all went out to meet the bridegroom.
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And they all fell asleep. Right, they all fell asleep
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while waiting. The outward behavior was
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identical across the board. The catastrophic difference was
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the unseen oil in the vessel. 5 had the unseen reality of the
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oil, and five only had the outward visible lamp.
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And when the midnight cry came, the lamps without oil flickered
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and died. We see it again in the Two
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Builders. Christ describes 2 men building
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houses. From the Street View, both
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houses probably looked beautiful.
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They both had walls, a roof and windows.
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The difference was the unseen foundation 1 dug down to the
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rock and the other built on the sand.
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The foundation is entirely underground.
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You cannot see it when the sun is shining.
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No you cannot. The reality of the foundation is
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only exposed when the hurricane hits.
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Christ is repeatedly warning us that outward similarity means
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absolutely nothing in the Kingdom of heaven.
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He then takes that warning and applies it directly to the
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Pharisees. In Matthew 23, Ryle points out
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that Christ denounced the scribes and Pharisees as
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hypocrites 8 times in a single chapter. 8 times that is
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intense. He used language that was
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incredibly severe. Generation of Vipers asking how
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they can escape the damnation of hell.
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He called them whitewashed tombs, looking beautiful on the
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outside but full of dead men's bones on the inside.
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Right. We have to remember these were
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the most decent, moral, law abiding people in the culture.
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They were far more moral than the tax collectors and the
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prostitutes, but Christ's language toward them reveals A
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crucial theological truth. Hypocrisy and outward show are
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infinitely more displeasing to God than even open rebellion.
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Wow. False profession is a direct
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insult to a God of truth. It is an attempt to deceive the
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omniscient Creator. I have to pause here and ask a
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probing question on behalf of you, the listener.
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Why is a fake religious person in more danger than a notorious
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open center? That is a fair question.
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Humanly speaking, we look at the open center like the addict, the
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criminal, the person rooting their life publicly, and we
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think they're the other than real trouble.
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We look at the nominal religious person who goes to church, pays
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their taxes and speaks politely, and we think, well, at least
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they're trying. They're close to the Kingdom.
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It comes down to a dead end conscience.
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Nominal religion inoculates a person against the actual
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gospel. Think about how a vaccine works.
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If you give someone a dead end strain of a virus, their body
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builds immunity so they do not catch the real disease.
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Nominal religion is a dead end strain of Christianity.
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Oh, that is a vivid picture. It gives you just enough of the
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vocabulary, the cultural habits and the moral framework to make
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you totally immune to the actual life altering gospel of grace.
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The open Sinner knows they are sick.
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When the publican in the temple is beating his chest crying out,
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God be merciful to me, a Sinner, He knows he is ruined.
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He has no illusions about his bank account.
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The hypocrite, however, believes they are perfectly healthy while
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they are actively dying of a terminal disease.
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Yeah, they see no need for a physician.
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Because their outward morality convinces them they are well, it
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is almost impossible to save a drowning man who is absolutely
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convinced he is standing on dry land.
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To understand how easily we can be fooled by this deadened
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strain, we need to look at the specific features of a believer
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and how each one can be forged. Here is where Ryle gets highly
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surgical. He really does.
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He states there is hardly a single grace in a true
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Christian's character that does not have a biblical counterfeit.
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He lists 8 specific counterfeits and we need to examine the
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anatomy of these spiritual forgeries.
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Let us look at the 1st 4 #1 Unreal repentance, right?
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Ryle gives the biblical examples of King Saul, Ahab, and Judas
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Iscariot. All three of these men exhibited
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sorrow. King Saul disobeyed God by
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keeping the spoils of war, and when the prophet Samuel
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confronted him, Saul wept and admitted he had sinned.
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He did. Ahab, the wicked king of Israel,
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tore his clothes and put on sackcloth.
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When Elijah pronounced judgment on him, Judas felt intense
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remorse after betraying Christ and even threw the silver coins
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back into the temple. They all had sorrow, but it
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never led to salvation. Why?
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Because it was worldly regret, not godly grief.
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What is the defining difference between worldly regret and godly
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grief? Worldly regret is being sorry
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for the consequences of your sin.
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It is being sorry that you were caught, sorry that your Kingdom
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is being torn away, sorry that your reputation is ruined, or
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sorry that your conscience is tormented.
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It is a focus on self. I see.
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Godly grief is mourning the fact that you have offended a holy
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God. Unreal repentance hates the
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punishment, but it still secretly loves the sin.
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It is the thief who cries in front of the judge to get a
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lighter sentence, but goes right back to stealing the moment he
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is released. That leads directly to the
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second portree, unreal faith. If someone's repentance is just
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worldly regret, it naturally corrupts their faith.
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Next, they end up with a mere intellectual agreement.
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Yes, Ryle mentioned Simon Moggies in Acts chapter 8.
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For those who have not read Acts 8 recently, Simon was a sorcerer
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in Samaria. When Philip came preaching the
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gospel and performing miracles, Simon believed and was baptized.
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But a few days later, he tried to buy the power of the Holy
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Spirit with money so he could perform tricks himself.
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Right. The apostle Peter looked at him
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and said, your heart is not right in the sight of God.
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Simon had an unreal faith. And then Ryle brings up an even
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more extreme example. He points to the book of James
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and says even demons believe and tremble.
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I have to push back here. How can a demon have faith?
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Well, we have to define our terms carefully.
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If faith is defined just as intellectual ascent, like
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agreeing with a set of historical facts, then the
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demons are highly orthodox. Wow, Orthodox demon.
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They know Jesus is the Son of God.
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When Christ approached the demon possessed men in the Gospels,
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the demons immediately cried out, recognizing Him as the Holy
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One of God. They know he died on the cross.
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They know he rose from the dead. They have better theology than
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most humans. They ascent to the facts, and it
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causes them to shudder in absolute terror.
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But true faith is not just intellectual ascent.
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It is resting trust. It is casting your entire weight
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upon Christ as your Savior. That makes total sense.
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Demons know the facts, but they do not trust the Savior.
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A person can send a Pew, agree with every point of the sermon,
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pass a theological exam with flying colors, and still possess
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the exact same unreal faith as a demon.
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Mental agreement without heart submission is a forgery.
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That brings us to the third counterfeit unreal holiness.
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The primary example here is King Joash from the Old Testament.
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To give a quick summary, Joash was hidden as a baby to protect
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him from being murdered. Yes, he was raised in secret by
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the high priest Jehoiad. When Joash became king at 7
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years old, he appeared very holy and good.
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He repaired the temple and followed the laws.
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But he only did this as long as his mentor Jehoiada lived.
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The moment the priest died, Joash's religion died with him.
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He immediately turned to worshipping idols and even
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murdered Jehoiada's son. Joash is the terrifying picture
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of a parasitic faith. He was feeding off the spiritual
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vitality of his mentor. It was a borrowed religion.
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We see this all the time today. You really do.
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People act a certain way because of their parents, their spouse,
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or a charismatic pastor. They conform to the culture of
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their peer group. They know how to act wholly
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because it is the expected norm of their community.
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But there is no internal root system.
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Right when the external support structure is removed, like when
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they go off to college, when they move to a new city, or when
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that influential pastor falls into scandal, the holiness
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vanishes overnight. Judas is another example of
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that. Yes, up until the night of his
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betrayal, his outward life was as correct as any of the other
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apostles. He blended in perfectly.
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He even held the money bag for the group.
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Unreal Holiness is simply behavioral modification without
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heart regeneration. The 4th forgery is unreal love,
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Ryall says. There's an affection that exists
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only in tender words. It is calling people dear
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brethren, speaking with a soft, pious voice, and using all the
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right relational terminology, but it lacks action and truth.
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The Apostle John addresses this directly in his letter, saying
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Let us not love in Word, neither in tongue, but in D and in
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truth. In our modern context, the
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psychology of digital love makes this even more prevalent.
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Absolutely. It is so easy to type a loving
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comment, post a praying hands emoji, or express outrage on
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behalf of the marginalized online.
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It gives us a dopamine hit. We feel like we have done
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something loving, but it is entirely different to sacrifice
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your actual time, your money, and your convenience for a
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difficult brother or sister in your local church.
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Performative love cost nothing, which is why it is completely
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unreal. Let us move into the second-half
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of this list, starting with the 5th Counterfeit unreal humility.
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Ryall Sites Colossians, Chapter 2 Speaking of a voluntary
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humility. What does that look like
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practically? This is a pretended lowliness of
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demeanor that actually covers over a massive amount of
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spiritual pride. It is the humble brag.
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It is the person who constantly talks about how terrible they
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are, how unworthy they are, and how much they struggle.
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Right. But they do it specifically so
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that others will notice how humble and self aware they are.
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If you were to agree with them and say yes, you actually are
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quite selfish. They would become furious.
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That is so true. True humility does not obsess
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over itself. It forgets itself.
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It focuses on Christ and others. Unreal humility is just pride
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wearing a different, more socially acceptable mask.
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Number six is unreal praying. Christ denounced the Pharisees
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because for a pretense they made long prayers.
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The sin was not the length of the prayer.
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You can pray all night if your heart is engaged before God.
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Yeah, length is not the issue. The sin was the lack of genuine
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petition they were performing. They're reusing prayer to
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broadcast their piety to the audience standing around them,
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rather than actually speaking to the Creator of the universe.
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We see the modern equivalent of this in small groups or prayer
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meetings all the time. Oh totally, it is the person who
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uses their prayer to preach a mini sermon to the group, or
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worse, uses a prayer request to drop gossip about someone else.
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Like Lord, please be with Sarah as she struggles with her
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massive credit card debt and her failing marriage.
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Yeah, that is not prayer, that is broadcasting. #7 is closely
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related unreal worship. Ryle quotes Christ quoting the
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prophet Isaiah in Matthew 15. This people draw nigh to me with
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their mouths, and honor me with their lips, but their heart is
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far from me. The Israelites had plenty of
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formal services, synagogues and rituals.
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They were physically present. They knew the songs.
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They recited the liturgy. Florida State.
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But their heart was entirely absent.
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Proximity is not affection. Absolutely not.
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You can be standing in the front row of a worship service singing
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a hymn with your eyes closed while your mind is 1000 miles
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away. You are thinking about your
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business strategy for Monday, what you are having for lunch,
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or nursing a grievance against the person standing 3 rows back.
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You are just going through the motions.
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And finally #8 unreal talking. Ezekiel 33 describes people who
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talk and speak like God's people.
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They converse fluently about religion, but their hearts chase
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after covetousness. God tells Ezekiel They come to
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you as people, come and sit before you as my people, and
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hear your words, but they will not do them.
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You are to them like a lovely song.
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Paul echoes this in First Corinthians when he says you can
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speak with the tongue of men and angels, but without love you are
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just a clanging cymbal. You can have the Christianese
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dialect down pat. Right, You know exactly what
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theological buzzwords to drop in a conversation to sound mature.
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You have fluency without feeling.
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When you look at all eight of these counterfeits, repentance,
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faith, holiness, love, humility, praying, worship, and talking,
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you see a comprehensive system of forgery.
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It covers everything. It does.
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The enemy of our souls does not usually try to convince
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religious people to become outright atheists.
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That is too difficult to leap for someone raised in the
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church. Instead, he simply provides them
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with a counterfeit version of every single Christian virtue.
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He gives them a fake coin that looks just shiny enough to quiet
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their conscience. Think about the mechanics of AI
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generated images. When you scroll past an AI photo
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of a crowd on your phone, at first glance everything looks
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absolutely correct. The lighting is there, the faces
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are smiling, the clothes look normal.
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Yeah, it registers in your brain as a real photograph.
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But if on closer inspection the details reveal A lifeless
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mathematical imitation, you zoom in and someone has 6 fingers,
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the background melts into a weird blur.
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A shadow is falling in the wrong direction.
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That is such a good analogy. Right.
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Why does the AI mess up the hands?
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Because it does not understand the anatomy, the bone structure,
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or the purpose of a hand. It only knows the statistical
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probability of where pixels should go based on millions of
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other pictures. And that is precisely what these
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spiritual counterfeits are. A counterfeit Christian does not
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understand the heart of grace. They only replicate the
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statistical probability of Christian behaviors.
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They know where the pixels of holiness are supposed to go, but
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there is no actual breathing divine life behind it.
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That is just terrifying. The outward shape is there, but
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the life is absent, and these individual counterfeits often
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grouped together to form entire systems of false religion.
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Raul does not just leave this at the individual microscopic
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level. He zooms out to expose
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institutional illusions. He identifies 5 specific slavers
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of unreal religion prevalent in his day.
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What is striking is how perfectly they map onto our
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modern ecclesiastical structures.
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Human nature has not changed one bit since the 19th century.
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Let's break them down. He divides them into two
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identities and three isms. We will start with the
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identities. The first is Churchianity.
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This is relying entirely on the established church system.
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You are cradle to grave institutionalist.
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You are baptized at the font as an infant, married at the altar
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rails, and eventually buried in the churchyard.
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You hear the sermons on Sunday. You take the sacraments.
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But the actual doctrines hold absolutely no place in your
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heart and have no influence on your private life.
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You do not think, feel or care about them from Monday to
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Saturday, Ryle says. This is not the Christianity of
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Peter and Paul. It is just base metal.
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It is Churchianity relying on the sheer weight of the
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institution to save you. Then he swings the pendulum
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entirely to the other side and targets dissentientity.
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These are the people who pride themselves on rejecting the
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established church. They are the anti
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institutionalists. Oh.
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Yes, they glory in having no liturgy, no formal prayers, no
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bishops, no traditional structures.
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They elevate their private judgement and boast about the
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absence of ceremonial elements in their worship.
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They think the rebellion against structure makes them pure.
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But, Ryle notes, all the while they lack any actual grace,
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fruit or holiness in their daily conduct.
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They have stripped away the outward forms, but they have not
21:52
replaced them with inward life. Their entire spiritual identity
21:55
is based on what they are against, rather than a living
21:58
union with Christ. He uses a devastating phrase
22:00
here, right? He does.
22:01
He calls their religion as sapless and fruitless as a dead
22:05
tree, and as dry and meriless as an old bone.
22:09
It is brilliant how he hits both ends of the spectrum.
22:13
You can be dead in a highly structured cathedral and you can
22:16
be equally dead in a stripped down rebellious house church.
22:20
Then we move into the isms first ritualistic religion.
22:24
You see people boiling over with zeal for aesthetics.
22:27
They care intensely about the vestments the pastor wears, the
22:30
gestures, the postures, the architecture, the church
22:33
decorations. They are passionate about daily
22:36
services and the proper administration of the
22:38
sacraments. But while they are obsessing
22:40
over the outward beauty and the smells and bells of the service,
22:44
they're completely ignorant of the holy ghosts in Word work.
22:47
They know nothing of living faith, personal delight in the
22:49
Bible, or separation from worldly follies.
22:52
They love the theater of religion, but they do not know
22:54
the author. Next is evangelical religion.
22:57
This one hits very close to home for many of us who value sound
22:59
doctrine. Ryle describes men and women who
23:02
profess massive affection for the pure gospel.
23:05
Yeah, they talk loudly about soundness in the faith.
23:08
They have a keen nose for heresy.
23:10
They hunt down any slight deviation in doctrine online.
23:14
They eagerly run after popular preachers, buy all the
23:17
systematic theology books, and applaud the speakers at public
23:20
conferences. They are familiar with all the
23:22
right phrases and can converse fluently about justification,
23:26
election and the atonement. To hear them talk, you would
23:29
think they were eminently godly. I have to interject because this
23:33
describes an entire subculture of the Internet.
23:35
Today we see the phenomenon of online theological debates.
23:38
You know how someone can be an absolute bulldog for
23:41
justification by faith alone on a social media platform but
23:45
completely toxic offline? Absolutely.
23:47
And that is where Ryle drops the hammer.
23:49
He says in private, these exact same doctrine policing people
23:53
will do things of which even unbelievers would be ashamed.
23:56
They are not truthful, straightforward, honest or
23:58
honorable. They are not good tempered,
24:01
unselfish, merciful, or kind. They defend the doctrines of
24:04
grace while acting like tyrants in their own homes.
24:07
They use their theological precision as a shield to deflect
24:11
from their behavioral cruelty. Ryle calls this a miserable
24:15
imposture, a base cheat, and a caricature of true religion.
24:19
Intellectualizing faith gives a false dopamine hit of holiness,
24:24
allowing the person to feel spiritually superior without
24:26
having to do the hard, humbling work of actually loving their
24:29
neighbor. And finally, he addresses
24:31
revivalist religion. This is the crowd seeking the
24:35
thrill of sudden conviction and joyous ecstasy when the Holy
24:39
Spirit is genuinely moving. In a community, there's always a
24:42
mixed multitude that tags along. They profess to find sudden
24:46
peace in Jesus and are overwhelmed with emotional
24:48
highs. They cry.
24:49
They raise their hands. They testify to radical changes.
24:52
But they have no root. Right like the Stony ground
24:55
hears in Christ's parable, as soon as the first excitement
24:58
passes, or as soon as temptation or persecution arises, they fall
25:02
away entirely. They return to their old ways
25:04
and their former sins. Ryle compares their religion to
25:06
Jonas Gourd, right? Yes, in the Old Testament, God
25:10
caused a plant to grow up in a single night to give Jonah
25:13
shade, but then he sent a worm to destroy it the very next
25:17
night. It had no lasting root system.
25:21
These individuals crave the emotional high at the camp,
25:24
experience the ecstatic weeping, but they do not actually crave
25:27
the holy God. When the emotion fades, the
25:30
religion evaporates. The equal opportunity critique
25:32
here is stunning. Ryle spares no theological camp.
25:35
He spares no worship style. High church, low church,
25:39
liturgical, charismatic, Reformed, evangelical strike.
25:43
Every single ecclesiastical structure has its own unique
25:46
flavor of counterfeit. It really does.
25:48
The issue is not the style of the building.
25:50
The issue is not the format of the service.
25:52
The issue is the hollow chest cavity of the worshipper.
25:55
You can be thoroughly deceived while singing a Latin chant in a
25:58
cathedral, and you could be equally deceived while debating
26:01
theology in a coffee shop. Since anyone in any church
26:04
environment can be deceived, you cannot rely on your church
26:06
attendance or your theological affiliation to prove you are
26:09
real. The fact that you adhere to
26:11
historic confessions or attend a Bible believing church is not
26:14
the definitive proof of your soul safety.
26:16
Right, You need a way to diagnose your own personal
26:19
internal condition. And that is why Ryle pivots to
26:23
his definitive testing toolkit. He lays out five specific tests
26:28
for reality. You must turn the Searchlight
26:30
inward and examine the hidden workings of your soul.
26:33
Let us pull out that toolkit and look at Test 1, The inner man.
26:37
Ryle argues that true religion cannot just live in the head.
26:40
You can assent to the truth, have flawless theology, and
26:43
still be wrong in God's sight. It cannot just live on the lips.
26:46
You can repeat the creeds daily and have nothing more than an
26:49
outward religion. It cannot just live in the
26:51
feelings. You might weep under a powerful
26:53
sermon one day and be entirely dead to God the next.
26:56
If your faith is real, it must occupy the citadel of the heart.
27:00
The terminology he uses here is militant and authoritative.
27:03
It must hold the reins. It must sway the affections.
27:06
It must lead the will. It must direct the tastes.
27:09
It must influence your choices and decisions.
27:12
It must fill the deepest, lowest, inmost seat in your
27:15
soul. Real religion is a governing,
27:18
conquering force. It is not an accessory you wear
27:22
when it is convenient. It is the engine driving the
27:25
entire machine of your life. To give a picture of this true
27:29
faith is not like a potted plant you place on your front porch to
27:33
make the house look nice. It is an invasive root system
27:35
that you plant in the yard. I like that it grows
27:38
underground, It cracks the concrete of your driveway, wraps
27:41
around the plumbing, and it completely reshapes the
27:44
landscape of your property. It takes over, right?
27:46
If your faith does not dictate how you spend your money, how
27:49
you speak to your spouse, house in the middle of an argument,
27:51
what you watch on a Tuesday night when no one is around, and
27:54
how you conduct your business deals, then it is not an
27:57
invasive root system. It is not holding the reins.
28:00
And if it's not holding the reins, it is a forgery.
28:03
Which leads directly into test 2 feelings towards sin.
28:07
This is a massive diagnostic tool, perhaps the most revealing
28:11
one of all. Nominal religion views sin as a
28:13
minor blemish. Right, like a misfortune.
28:16
Exactly. It is something that makes men
28:18
and women objects of pity rather than objects of wrath.
28:21
Nominal religion says, oh, nobody's perfect, we all make
28:24
mistakes. God understands my heart.
28:25
But real religion produced by the Holy Spirit sees sin as the
28:29
abominable thing God hates. Ryall says real religion looks
28:33
on sin as the root cause of all sorrow and unhappiness, all
28:37
strife and wars, all sickness and death.
28:41
It is the blight that has cursed God's fair creation.
28:44
It is the poison that will ruin a soul eternally unless a
28:47
massive ransom is found. When you look at how modern
28:51
culture operates, we are constantly trying to rebrand
28:54
sin. We want to call it psychological
28:55
trauma. We want to call it bad habits.
28:57
We want to blame it on societal conditioning, our upbringing, or
29:01
our personality type. We use clinical sterile language
29:04
to soften the blow. And while trauma and
29:06
conditioning are actual factors in human behavior that require
29:09
compassionate care, true religion shatters that
29:11
rebranding when it comes to our legal and spiritual standing
29:14
before God. It really does.
29:16
It strips away the clinical language and calls sin what it
29:19
actually is, cosmic treason against the Creator.
29:23
It is an attempt to unseat God from His throne.
29:26
If you are listening right now and you're getting defensive, if
29:29
your mind is currently racing to justify why your anger is
29:32
different, why your lack of prayer is just a season, or why
29:35
your particular habit is not that bad compared to others,
29:39
Ryle would argue that defensiveness is what the
29:41
counterfeit virus looks like. If you do not feel a sense of
29:44
horror at your own sin, if you do not see it as the poison that
29:48
required the brutal death of the Son of God to cure, your
29:51
religion is superficial. Recognizing the fatal,
29:54
horrifying disease of sin naturally forces a desperate
29:57
reaction toward the only cure. You cannot test positive for a
30:01
terminal illness and remain indifferent toward the physician
30:03
holding the antidote. This brings us to the next three
30:06
tests in the Diagnostic Toolkit. Test 3 Feelings toward Christ
30:11
Nominal faith respects Christ. It acknowledges him as a
30:14
historical benefactor, a great moral teacher, a revolutionary
30:17
figure. It might even bow the head at
30:19
his name out of cultural tradition.
30:21
But it goes no further than polite respect.
30:23
Right. Real religion, however, glories
30:26
in him. It glories in him as the
30:27
Redeemer, the Deliverer, the priest, the friend.
30:30
The Christian sees that without Christ there is 0 hope.
30:33
It produces a living confidence in him, a warm love toward him,
30:37
a genuine delight in his character.
30:39
He becomes the mediator, the food, the light, the life, the
30:42
peace of the soul. The exclusivity of this trust is
30:45
paramount, isn't it? Yes, real faith does not say
30:48
Christ plus my good works. It does not say Christ plus my
30:51
church attendance. It says Christ alone.
30:54
If your heart does not possess an affectionate, desperate trust
30:57
in Jesus Christ as a living, present person, you are failing
31:02
the test of reality. Test 4 looks at the external
31:05
evidence, fruit and heart and life.
31:07
Christianity from above always produces tangible, visible
31:10
outcomes. Repentance, faith, charity,
31:13
temperance, truthfulness, patience, brotherly kindness.
31:17
Now, Ryle makes a very helpful pastoral distinction here.
31:19
He notes that the degree in which these graces appear may
31:22
vary wildly in different believers.
31:23
We are not talking about sinless perfection.
31:25
That is a vital caveat, because otherwise this test would crush
31:29
tender consciences. A new believer might have a very
31:33
small measure of patience compared to someone who has
31:36
walked with the Lord through trials for 40 years.
31:39
Right. The quantity of the fruit can
31:40
vary, but the seeds of them must exist in all God's children.
31:45
There must be a directional change in the life.
31:48
You cannot claim to be a newly planted apple tree if you are
31:50
consistently producing poisonous thorns.
31:54
If a person claims to be a Christian but is habitually
31:56
characterized by malice, deceit, drunkenness, or cruelty, with no
32:00
internal conviction or repentance over those actions,
32:04
the fruit betrays the root. Christ said, By their fruits you
32:08
shall know them. Test 5 deals with our habits
32:10
regarding the means of grace. How do you treat Sundays, public
32:14
worship, private Bible reading, and secret prayer?
32:16
Are they an irksome constraint? Do you look at your watch during
32:19
the service? Just waiting for the preacher to
32:20
finish so you can get to lunch. Right.
32:22
Or are they as sweet foretaste of heaven?
32:24
Now let me pause and ask a practical question on behalf of
32:27
the listener here. What if someone works a grueling
32:29
job? They are doing 60 hours of
32:32
manual labor or working double shifts at a hospital.
32:36
Sunday morning rolls around and they physically feel exhausted.
32:40
The sermon feels long because their body is aching and their
32:43
eyelids are heavy. Does that physical tiredness
32:46
mean their faith is fake? Not at all, and Ryle gives us an
32:49
excellent analogy to resolve this tension.
32:52
He compares the means of grace to meet and drink for the
32:56
physical body. You might come home from a
32:59
grueling 12 hour shift completely exhausted.
33:02
You might be too tired to cook a fancy meal.
33:04
You might literally fall asleep at the table while chewing your
33:07
food. But you still fundamentally
33:09
hunger for the food to survive. Your body demands the
33:12
nourishment even in its exhaustion.
33:14
In the same way, a genuine believer might be physically
33:17
tired. They might struggle to focus
33:19
during prayer because their mind is scattered.
33:21
But there is a fundamental underlying hunger for God's Word
33:24
and His presence. That makes perfect sense.
33:26
If public and private worship are not as necessary to your
33:29
soul as water is to your body, if you can gladly go with
33:33
without opening your Bible, without speaking to God in
33:36
prayer, and feel perfectly fine with that absence, the reality
33:39
of the faith is highly doubtful. The issue is not the physical
33:42
fatigue, the issue is the spiritual appetite.
33:46
With these five tests laid out the inner dominion of the root
33:49
system, the hatred of sin is cosmic treason, the exclusive
33:52
love for Christ, the visible directional change in fruit, and
33:56
the undeniable appetite for the means of grace.
34:00
Ryle corners the reader. The time for theoretical
34:02
analysis is over. We have looked at the societal
34:05
delusion of universal sincerity, the severe warnings of Christ's
34:08
parables, the anatomy of the 8 counterfeits, the institutional
34:12
illusions, and a diagnostic tests.
34:15
It is time for a personal audit. Segment 7 is where the abstract
34:18
theology becomes intensely personal.
34:21
Ryle offers 4 direct words of application, inquiry, warning,
34:24
advice, and encouragement. He starts with the inquiry.
34:27
He says. I do not ask what you think
34:28
about others. You might be able to point to a
34:30
dozen hypocrites in your local congregation.
34:32
You might be absolutely right in your assessment of their
34:34
behavior. But that is not the question on
34:37
the table. The question is about yourself.
34:39
Look inward. Is your own Christianity real
34:42
and true, or nominal and base? I posed that direct question to
34:46
you, the listener. Do not turn away from this.
34:49
We can talk about these concepts for an hour, but you are the one
34:52
who has to answer the audit. If you find yourself holding a
34:55
stack of counterfeit currency, what are the stakes?
34:59
What happens if someone ignores this inquiry and just keeps
35:02
going with the flow? The stakes are eternal.
35:06
The approaching judgement day will expose everything.
35:08
The parable of the wedding garment will be fulfilled.
35:11
In that parable, a man tries to sneak into the King's wedding
35:13
feast wearing his own clothes instead of the required garment,
35:16
and he is thrown into outer darkness.
35:18
You cannot sneak into the Kingdom of heaven on false
35:21
pretenses. God is the God of truth, and He
35:23
abhors the counterfeit. Yes, he does.
35:25
Furthermore, even before the final Judgement Day arrives, a
35:29
fake religion will completely collapse under the weight of
35:32
real affliction. In this life, when tragedy
35:34
strikes, when a child dies, when financial ruin comes, or when
35:38
you are lying on your own deathbed facing eternity, A
35:42
nominal intellectual religion offers 0 comfort.
35:45
It is hollow. Ryle says it will leave you
35:47
stranded like a wreck on a sandbank, high and dry and
35:51
forsaken by the tide. A fake religion cannot support
35:54
you in the hour when comfort is most needed because it has no
35:57
solid foundation to anchor on to.
35:59
That is the warning. It is stark and terrifying.
36:03
But then he shifts to advice. If you were listening to this
36:06
and your conscience is pricked, if you realize you have been
36:08
holding Monopoly money this whole time, relying on your
36:11
church attendance, your outward morality, or your intellectual
36:14
theology, what should you do? Ryle advises you to stop
36:17
trifling. Stop playing games with
36:19
religion. Come directly to Jesus Christ,
36:20
who can cleanse any quantity of sin.
36:22
I love that phrasing. Any quantity of sin.
36:24
It does not matter how long you've been faking it.
36:27
It does not matter how deep the hypocrisy runs.
36:30
He asks only one thing. Are you that you?
36:33
Be real, honest and true. Do not hide behind a cloak
36:37
anymore. Come to Him with your feeble
36:39
repentance, your weak faith, your messy life.
36:42
But let it be real. Bring the bankruptcy to the
36:44
cross. And for those who are honest
36:46
followers, those who passed the test not perfectly but
36:49
genuinely, he offers encouragement.
36:52
If you decide to make your soul salvation the chief business of
36:56
your daily life, you will face opposition.
36:58
Ryall warns that you will often find few with you and many
37:02
against you. People will say hard things
37:04
about you. They will tell you that you go
37:05
too far, that you are too serious, that you are extreme.
37:09
It is a strange phenomenon, but when you start taking holiness
37:12
seriously, the nominal Christians around you get very
37:14
uncomfortable. They will be the first ones to
37:16
tell you to tone it down. They do, because your reality
37:18
exposes their unreality. Your genuine pursuit of Christ
37:22
shines a light on their base metal.
37:24
But Ryall's comfort to the true believer is this Never be
37:27
ashamed of being wholehearted. Turn a deaf ear to the critics.
37:30
He says you should be ashamed of sin, of worldliness, of
37:33
trifling, of time wasting, of bad temper, of pride.
37:36
You have plenty of actual sins to be ashamed of, but you have
37:40
no 'cause to be ashamed of living for your soul, caring for
37:43
your soul, and pursuing Christ with everything you have.
37:46
Whatever you do in religion, do it well.
37:48
The years are flying by, who knows, but this year may be the
37:52
last of your life. The fire is coming that will
37:54
melt away all the base metal. Only real repentance, real faith
37:59
and real holiness will pass current at the last day.
38:02
Do not settle for a counterfeit. It all circles back to that
38:05
terrifying phrase of Christ in Matthew Chapter 7.
38:09
Many will say to him in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not
38:12
prophecy in your name and cast out demons in your name, and do
38:15
many mighty works in your name? He'll declare to them, I never
38:18
knew you'd depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.
38:21
Intimacy is the dividing line between the real and the fake.
38:25
It is not about the mighty works.
38:26
It is about whether you actually knew the kings.
38:28
Which brings us to our final thought.
38:30
I want to leave you, the listener, with a closing
38:33
challenge them all over. We rely on so much external
38:36
support to keep our spiritual lives looking proper.
38:39
But when the external scaffolding of your life is
38:41
entirely stripped away? When your church building is
38:44
closed? When your Christian friend group
38:46
moves away to another state? When your favorite theological
38:49
podcast goes silent, When there is no one left around you to
38:52
perform for what is the actual irreducible substance left in
38:56
your private thoughts and your hidden choices?
38:58
When no one is watching? Who were you before God?
39:01
Does your private reality match your public profile?
39:04
Weigh your spiritual treasury on the scale of Scripture.
39:07
Take care.