Writing of his conversion, J. C. Ryle states, Nothing I can remember to this day appeared to me so clear and distinct as my own sinfulness Christ's preciousness, the value of Scripture, the need of being born again, and the absolute necessity of coming out of the world. All these things seem to flash upon me like a sunbeam in the winter of 1837 and have stuck in my mind from that time to the present moment.

Others may account for such a change as they like. My own belief is that it was what the Bible calls regeneration or the new birth. Before that time, I was dead in sins and on the high road to hell. From that time, I am spiritually alive, converted from a slave of sin and Satan to a willing slave of the adorable Savior with an assured hope of heaven.

Nothing to my mind can account for this but the free and sovereign grace of God to a hell-deserving sinner. By the grace of God, I am what I am. 1 Corinthians 15 9-10