109SermonsbyJCRyle (continued)
Christ to return, to live like a pilgrim and stranger, to live ever looking unto Jesus and leaning on Jesus, to live like a good servant with his loins girded and his lamp burning, to live like one whose treasure is in heaven and best things yet to come, with his heart packed up and ready to be gone. Now, is this too much to ask? I say decidedly that it is not.
Now, are you ready in this way? If not, I would like to know what good your religion does you. A religion that does not make a man ready for anything is a religion that may well be looked on with suspicion. If your religion does not make you ready, its source is not derived from the Bible.
2. My second word of application shall be an INVITATION. I address it to everyone who feels in his conscience that he has no grace in his heart—to everyone who feels that the character of the foolish virgin is his own. To all such I give an invitation this day: I invite you to "awake."
You know, many of you, that your hearts are not right in the sight of God. In the broadest, fullest sense you are asleep—not merely asleep about the doctrine of Christ's second coming—but asleep about everything that concerns your souls. You are wide-awake perhaps about temporal things; you read the newspapers, it may be, and have your head stored with earthly wisdom and useful knowledge. But you have no heart-felt sense of sin, no peace and friendship with God, no experimental acquaintance with Christ, no delight in the Bible and prayer; and what is all this but being asleep?
How long is this to go on? When do you mean to arise and live as if you had a soul? When will you cease to hear as those who hear not? When will you give up running after shadows and seek something substantial? When will you throw up the mockery of a religion that cannot satisfy, cannot comfort, cannot sanctify, cannot save, and will not bear a calm honest examination? When will you give up having a faith which does not influence your practice—having a book which