Walk in the Old Way

J. C. Ryle:

Reader, the way of which I have been speaking is an old way. It is well nigh 6,000 years old. All that have ever been saved have drawn near to God by this way. From Abel, the first saint that entered Paradise, down to the last infant that died this morning, they have all come to God only by Jesus Christ. “No man cometh unto the Father but by Christ.” (John xiv. 6.)

It is a good way. It is easy for the worldly-wise to sneer at and ridicule it. But all the wit and wisdom of man has never devised a way more perfect, more complete, and that will bear more thoroughly all fair and reasonable investigation. It has been to the Jew a stumbling-block; it has been to the Greek foolishness. But all who have known their hearts, and understood what God demands, have found the way made by Jesus Christ a good way, and a way that stands the fullest examination that can be made as to its wisdom. Therein they find justice and mercy met together, righteousness and peace kissing one another; God a holy God, yet loving, kind, and merciful; man knowing himself a poor, weak sinner, yet drawing near to God with boldness, having access with confidence, looking up into His face without fear, seeing Him in Christ his Father and his Friend.

Not least, it is a tried way. Thousands and tens of thousands have walked in it, and not one of all that number has ever missed heaven. Apostles, prophets, patriarchs, martyrs, early fathers, reformers, puritans, men of God in every age, and of every people and tongue: holy men of our own day,–men like Simeon, Bickersteth, Havelock,–have all walked in this way. They have had their battles to fight, and their enemies to contend with; they have had to carry the cross; they have found lions in their path; they have had to walk through the valley of the shadow of death; they have had to contend with Apollyon. They have had to cross at last the cold dark river; but they have walked safely through to the other side, and entered with joy into the celestial city. And now they are waiting for you and me to walk in their steps, to follow them, and to share in their glory.