After eighteen hundred years, human nature is still the same. Selfishness, oppression, cruelty, robbery, and even murder are still to be found in every quarter of the globe. The slave trade of Africa, which goes on even now on the east coast and in the Sudan; the massacres of the Indian Mutiny and recently in Egypt; the treatment of women, children, the sick, and the poor in almost every heathen country; the social disorders that disgrace some parts of Christendom; the robberies, murders, and deeds of violence. The plain truth is that the suffering and the downtrodden, the victims of oppression and robbery and violence are everywhere.
Political and social reforms labor in vain because they ignore the fall of Adam and original sin. These are great stubborn facts that ruin all their calculations. Without acknowledging the reality and consequences of sin, the great problems of human nature can never be solved. How much we ought to long and strive to promote the progress of the gospel of Christ! This, after all, is the only true reformer of mankind. Just in proportion as men are brought under the influence of the despised old gospel will be the increase of peace on earth and goodwill among men!
The more Christ is known and loved and the more the Bible is read, the more will the inhabitants of the earth love one another. If pure and undefiled religion prevailed everywhere, then such plagues and pests and nuisances as quarreling, robbing, murder, drunkenness, immorality, swindling, gambling, idleness, lying, and cheating would be comparatively unknown. Half the prisons and workhouses would soon be shut. Lawyers and policemen would have little to do. Taxes would be cut in half. He is the truest friend to human happiness who does the most to spread the Knowledge of Christ and evangelize the world. Men may laugh and mock at missions if they will. But the despised evangelical missionary, at home and abroad, the preacher of Christ and justification by faith, the preacher of the Holy Spirit and sanctification is the best friend of mankind!
Adapted from Our Great Redeemer: 365 Days with J. C. Ryle
