“But not only are my sins forgiven, I know that I am in this new relationship. I am not only forgiven, I have become a child of god, even as I am; He has adopted me into His family. And if you do not feel that you are happy because of that, then you do not know anything about Christianity. When some great honour comes to you you are full of rejoicing , and you tell everybody, do you not? So then, if you have really believed that in Christ you are in the family of God, you must tell the whole world about it and you must be filled with rejoicing. You are a child of God, you have His Spirit in you- ‘joy in the Holy Ghost.’” -Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Kingdom of God p. 84

“ ‘Peace’---‘righteousness and peace’. It follows inevitably, does it not? How can people be at peace when they are worried about their souls? How can they have peace when they know they are damned? Or when they are afraid of death because they know that it is followed by judgment? How can men and women have peace when they are striving, only to find how unworthy they are? It is impossible. But the moment they believe this blessed truth of the kingdom of God and in Christ as God’s way of righteousness, then everything is changed immediately. ‘being justified by faith, we have peace with God.’ It is an end of all my futile struggles.” -Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Kingdom of God p.81

Know Before Whom You Stand

“Indeed, there are so many people who call themselves Christians, but who have never really faced the question of how do they stand before God. they have assumed, like the Pharisees, that if you do this, that and the other, you are all right. They have never though about God; they have never considered their own relationship to Him. But this is what righteousness makes us do. It does not start wit hus and our behaviour and our ideas and our worships and our rituals and all the paraphernalia. It says, ‘There is God and there are you; and you have got to meet Him. You will have to stand before Him, face Him, and give an account of your life lived in the body.’ So we know nothing about righteousness until we have faced that old quesiotn of Job’s: ‘How should a man be just with God?’ (Job 9:2). You see, we can go though life and never stop to think of that. We live from day to day; we live on our own activities, on our own goodness and we are nice and self-contained and we have never faced this question. ‘it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment’ (Heb 9:27), and God will judge us in a holy , righteous manner, because ‘it is He that hast made us and not we ourselves’ (Ps 100:3); and He has put certain powers into us and He expects certain things from us.” -Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Kingdom of God p.76.

Authority of the Holy Spirit

In the fall of 1957 'the doctor' spoke to a group of students in Ontario Canada on 'Authority' what it means, what it is, and what it comes from. Here he is ending his message on the authority of God the Holy Spirit.

“What conclusion do we arrive at as the result of all this? Let us go on with our practical efforts and let us go on with our study, but God forbid that we should rely upon them. Let equip ourselves as best as we can. We shall never be as able and as learned as the apostle Paul, St. Augustine, Luther or Calvin. They were men of great learning and giant intellects. That is the kind of man God seems to use when He does His greatest things in the history of the Church. Let us go on, however, and seek knowledge and equip ourselves as perfectly as possible. But, in the name of God, let us not stop at that. Let us realize that even that, without the authority and the power of the Spirit, is of no value at all. ‘Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love (a product of the work of the Spirit), I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal’ (1 Corinthians xiii.1). It does not matter who I am or what I may do: it will get me nowhere. It is the authority of the Spirit that alone avails.
Now this is what grieves me. I very rarely hear any Christians today, even Evangelicals, praying for revival. What do they pray for? They pray for their own organized efforts, either at home or in various other lands. In a typical prayer meeting this is what happens. ‘First of all let us have the reports’, says the chairman. Having heard them, he adds, ‘Let us go to prayer about it. You have heard the facts; let us pray about them.’ We pray only for blessing on our own efforts, whether it be a great evangelistic campaign, or work in the foreign field. That is quire right, of course, and we should do that. But the trouble is that we always start with ourselves and our efforts and ask God to bless them. When did you last hear anyone praying for revival, praying that God might open the windows of Heaven and pour out His Spirit? When did you last pray for that yourself? I suggest seriously that we are neglecting this almost entirely. We are guilty of forgetting the authority of the Holy Spirit. We are so interested in ourselves and in our won activities that we have forgotten the one thing that can make us effective. By all means let us continue to pray for the particular efforts, for the minister, and his preaching every Sunday, for all essential organizations and for evangelistic campaigns, if we feel led to have them. But before it all, and after it all, let us pray and plead for revival. When God sends revival He can do more in a single day that in fifty years of all our organization. That is the verdict of sheer history which emerges clearly from the long story of the Church.
This is the greatest need today, indeed it is the only hope. Let us therefore decide that day by day, and many times during the day, we will spend our time before God pleading for revival. But foolish as we are, we will never do so until we have come to the end of ourselves and of our own resources. We will do so only when everything else has failed, and we have realized our utter bankruptcy and impotence, and we have come to see that our Lord spoke the simple truth when He said ‘Without me ye can do nothing’ (John xv. 5).
Let us remind ourselves that God who in the past has come suddenly and unexpectedly upon the dying Church and has raised her to a new period of life and victory can do the same still, that His arm is not shortened, no His power in any sense diminished. Let us wait upon Him, let us plead with Him, let us learn to agonize in prayer and let our one prayer be:

Revive Thy work, O Lord,
Thy mighty arm make bare;
Speak wit the voice that wakes the dead,
And make Thy people hear.

‘O Lord, I have heard thy speech, and was afraid: O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy’ (Habakkuk iii. 2).” -D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Sin...Who wants to talk about it?

The beloved MLJ(Martin Lloyd-Jones) gives us a clear cut, not legalistic, anti-religious, view of sin in its reality. The brevity of this statement should gut you like a hunters fresh catch. Can you feel the blood flow?

"Nothing is quite so fallacious as to think of sin only in terms of actions; and as long as we think of sin only in terms of things actually done, we fail to understand it. The essence of biblical teaching on sin is that it is essentially a disposition. It is a state of heart. I suppose we can sum it up by saying that sin is ultimately self-worship and self-adulation; and our Lord shows (what to me is an alarming and terrifying thing) that this tendency on our part to self-adulation is something that follows us even into the very presence of God. It sometimes produces this result; that even when we try to persuade ourselves that we are worshiping God, we are actually worshipping ourselves and doing nothing more." -D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Sermon on the Mount, p301.

He is pretty much saying that even in your best times, when you are praying your best, on a mission trip, serving the Lord, you are in the greatest danger of becoming prideful. Keep watch on yourself lest you be strong and forget the Lord

Grace is not a feeling?

“Grace is never haphazard in its method. Grace is in no sense contingent upon or dependent upon what man does. It is essential that we should emphasize that…We often tend to think of grace in a somewhat sentimental manner. We persist in setting it in contrast with Law in a manner that is not true. Grace, as we have seen, is not weak; because it is righteous it is strong. Grace neither breaks the Law nor abrogates(cancels) it. It must not be thought of in terms of sentiment or feeling. That is an entirely wrong way of thinking of grace. The very term that Paul uses here, ‘the reign of grace’, should rid us at once and for ever of all sentimental notions with respect to grace, and should enable us to see its strength and its power.”–Martyn Lloyd-Jones preaching on Romans 5:20,21; taken from: Romans 5: Assurance, p327.

Essentially grace is a kingdom that cannot be shaken. A mental conglomeration of heart moving forensic truths that constantly throw us back to the cross and into the fires of risk for the glory of God.

Assurance Not Based On How It Makes Me Feel?

Here the Doctor is explaining how we get assurance of our salvation. How when the winds of plague come in trials to try and erode our faith away, what keeps our anchor held, or fights the rust of sin? The assurance of what Christ forensically accomplished on the cross for all who confess His name:

“…if you want to have assurance of salvation, the place to start is not with your feelings, but with your understanding; then feelings follow. The way to get assurance is not to try and feel something, but it is to grasp this objective truth. Look at yourself in Adam; though you had done nothing you were declared a sinner. Look at yourself in Christ; and see that, though you have done nothing, you are declared to be righteous. That is the parallel. We must get rid of all thoughts of our actions there is no boasting. We do nothing; all we are and have results from the obedience of the One – our Lord.” –Martyn Lloyd-Jones preaching on Romans 5:18,19, taken from: Romans 5: Assurance, p274.

The Doctor on Romans 4:23-25

"That is the final word-Abraham did not stagger at the greatness of the promise. The devil will come to you, and voices within you will say, 'How can I possibly say a thing like that? Look at this life which I am entering as seen in the Sermon on the Mount, the lives of saints, and the life of Jesus Christ. I am so weak, I am constantly falling- how can I?' You must just say, 'I believe this word of the resurrection, I believe the old word spoken unto Abraham. That man was dead, as it were, physically, and so was Sarah's womb. But God told him that they would have a child. He believed God, and I believe God. I believe that though I am weak and helpless and hopeless and vile and without strength, I believe this God of the resurrection, this God who can "bring to life" the things that are not, "who quickeneth the dead and calleth those things which be not as though they were". I believe He can call into life within me a new man and a new nature and give me strength and power.' That is Christian faith That is justifying faith. It is faith that enables the believer to dare to believe on the bare word of God, that one day
he will be 'faultless and blameless, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing'. Though this faith he can believe 'that which hath begun a good work in us will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ'(Philippians 1:6), and can stand confidently and defy everybody and everything Possessing it he not longer fears death and the grave. Indeed, he no longer fears the final judgment because he knows that he has 'passed from judgment into life' in Christ Jesus." -D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans 3:20-4:25, p249.

The Last Days of the Doctor

To see a saint not fade out early into the twilight hours of his faith, is something beyond incredible to say the least. How many of us have currently travailed to heed the call to, "stand fast" against this world even to the last of our Days. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones was this man. He preached up until he could not physically do it. His mind was sharper than the most, never loosing his memory even to the last. He spoke the following words at the end of his life, in the last of his sermons, dying...he worshiped.

Here is a quote from a sermon from Psalm 2:
“Do you still believe in the wrath of God? There are people in England-evangelicals- who think modern man needs entertainment. There is a mania for singing, for drama, for mime. ‘People cannot take preaching,’ it is said, ‘Give them singing. Teach them how to dance…’ In the name of God I say that is to do violence to Scripture. The church is not here to entertain. It is here to call people to ‘be wise’, to ‘be instructed’ (v10). It is not just an appeal to ‘come to Jesus’ – they are to be ‘instructed’, taught. People are dying through lack of knowledge. We are not here to be popular, but to tell the naked truth: ‘Serve the Lord with fear, rejoice with trembling…’ (v11).”

and

“Our greatest trouble is that we really don’t believe the Bible and exactly what it says. We think we know it but do we really appropriate it and actually believe it is true for us? That is Christianity to me. ‘Our short, uncertain life’ is the most difficult thing to realize. We do not put the emphasis as the New Testament does. We are not mean to despise this life but we are certainly mean to keep it in proportion –‘our light affliction, which is but a moment’ (2 Cor 4:17). We have to take these statements literally. They are facts, not merely ideas. That is what I feel you people have got to emphasize more and more…”

Be strong oh beloved of the Lord, lift up your eyes, your redemption draws nigh. Praise him in this world while ye still can. Be not left unto silence for the longer we live, the more Glory He is due.

"But the most impressive statement of all, the perfect summary of this entire argument, is provided by the Apostle Paul in the Epistle to the Romans, beginning at verse eighteen and going on to the end of the first chapter. He says that as nations and peoples in supposed ‘wisdom’ have turned their backs upon God the Creator, they have always become fools - ‘Imagining themselves to be wise, they became fools’. Then he proceeds to give an account of their terrible moral degradation, the perversions and obscenities into which they fell. ‘Ah,’ says our modern lecturer, ‘the Church must speak specifically about sex . . .’ Very well, the Church does so! If you want to know what she has to say, read the second half of the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, and you will find an account of all the modern perversions, all the foulnesses that are disgracing life at the present time. They have occurred many times before. But when has that happened? It is always when man in his supposed wisdom has turned from the Creator and has given his worship to the creature. The whole history of the human race substantiates what the Apostle claims. Before Christ ever came into the world everything else had had its opportunity. The Greek philosophers had flourished, the greatest of them had already taught their beliefs. But they could not deal with the problem of sin; their teaching was not adequate and had already failed. There was also the great Roman Empire with its system of law; but there was a canker at the very heart of the Empire; and it finally collapsed, not because of the superior prowess of the Goths and the Vandals and the Barbarians, but because of the moral rot at its very heart. That was the cause of the ‘Decline and Fall’ of the great Roman Empire, as is admitted by all. In other words, history substantiates the Apostle’s teaching." -D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Only Way, Sermon on Ephesians 6:10,11.

The Specific Will of God for Our Lives.

Times of absolute turmoil assail our minds when we are on the cusp of the fork in the road for our lives. In knowing that we are, 'not our own, but we were bought at a price' (1 Cor 7:23) we must take into consideration the will of another, namely that of the Lord we profess. For if he is Lord, then he is to be obeyed (Luke 6:46). So we are under divine mandate to 'consider him who endured so much' (Heb 12:3) when we are at the crossroads of our lives.

I have struggled immensely in my life in trying to discern the specific will of God for me. Looking back to entire epochs of my life, under the urging of the Spirit, through the new illumination of the Word of God, I was cut unto repenting for years of serving him in arrogant ignorance. I realized that in the things concerning God I had been, '...brutish and ignorant;' (Ps 73:22) because I had used the word of God to justify my own actions. I was calling myself a Christian, but doing what I wanted, and defining 'ministry' in my own terms, not those of God(Matt 16:18). I picked and choose the passages of scripture that I fancied, like picking good and bad fruit from a tree, while ignoring Gods way of the Christian life (Rom 12:1,2; Eph 6:6; 1 Thes 4:3, 5:18). I did not, 'turn my feet to your testimonies;'(Ps 119:59) and thus fully and completely live for his glory.
This view upon the past valleys that I have trekked comes clear when I consider 'how' I have gone about trying to understand the will of God for my life. To this error I give the following advice by Martin Lloyd-Jones. If you struggle with trying to find out his will. If know nothing of the light and easy yoke of our so merciful savior, then heed the following words by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. They will be a comfort to your soul as God comes into the dark night of your life and illuminates His own worth.
Some would say, "We dont need the words of man, we have the words of God. Dont elevate this mans word to the position of God. And to this I respond: I dont elevate MLJ to this position in my heart, but I know that I am week and need the guidance of others to the path of Christ. I want to feast upon the wisdom of the ages so as to cease from wandering in the desert of my own ambition. Do what he says, not what I have done. Follow not yourself but the kind merciful shepherd. Follow him as he follows Christ.

“The one vital, all-important thing is to know the will of God. It is not as easy as it sometimes sounds. I was for over two years in a state of uncertainty and indecision before leaving medicine for the pulpit. But in the end it was made perfectly clear and mainly by means of things which God did.
These are the rules which I would advice you to observe:
1. Never speak to anyone about it. Don’t tell people what you are feeling and discuss it and ask for advice. That always leads to still more uncertainty and confusion. Make an absolute rule of this at all costs. Say nothing until you are absolutely certain, because we are all subject to self suggestion.
2. Do not even think about it and discuss the pros and cons with yourself. Once more this leads to auto suggestion and confusion.
3. In meetings, ect. do not start with the thought in your mind, ‘I wonder whether this is going to throw light on my questions or help in any way?’
4. In other words, you must not try to anticipate God’s leading. Believing as I do that God does ‘call’ very definitely, and in a distinct and definite doctrine of a call, and a vocation is distinct from ‘the need is the call’ idea, I believe that God will always make His will and His way plain and clear. With reverence, therefore I say leave it to God entirely as regards purpose, time and all else.
All you have to do is to tell God that you are content to do His will whatever it may be and, more, that you will rejoice to do His will. Surrender yourself, your life, your future entirely to Him and leave it at that…You must not go on asking God to show you His way. Leave it to Him and refuse to consider it until He makes it impossible for you not to do so.” –Murray, Iain, The Fight of Faith, Banner of Truth, Edinburgh, p. 177.

"I am not advocating that people spend all their time reading, but there is a great need of more familiarity with the Scriptures and their teaching in order that we may be crushed to our knees with a sense of humility and be made to cry to God that He would visit us again." -D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Fight of Faith, by Iain Murray, p.353.

"We are meant to talk to people about the Lord Jesus Christ and to tell them he is the Son of God and that he has come into this world in order to save men and women... We are meant to tell men exactly why the world is as it is; we are meanet to tell them about sin in the human heart and that nobody and nothing can deal with it save the Son of God... We are ready to talk about our doctors, and to praise the man who cured us when so many failed; we talk about some business which is better than others, or about films and plays and actors and actresses, and a thousand and one other things. We are always glorifying people, the world is full of it, and the Christian is meant to be praising and glorifying the Lord Jesus Christ" -D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones.

“Dr. Lloyd-Jones told them… ‘While I am a great advocate of looking to the past, I would warn anybody against living in the past. The only justification for looking to the past is that we may learn great lessons from it and apply them.’ Arguing that, ‘the gospel is literally the only hope for the world today’, he showed how the gospel always makes a powerful effect upon the world after there has first been a distinct quickening in the life of the church. The modern church was bypassing her primary need. She was adopting ‘methods of big business and advertising’ instead of praying for a visitation of God. As the Belfast press reported his words: ‘The Church has never tried so hard to deal with the situation as she has tried in this century. We have never had so many organizations, we have never worked so hard, but we are not touching the situation.’ –D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Fight of Faith, Iain Murray, p. 371

"There is nothing more tragic or short-sighted or lacking in insight than the assumption, made by so many, that the Church herself is all right and all she has to do is to evangelize the world outside." -D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Awake oh postmodernist from your anti-historical sleep and Christ will shine on you.

So during WWII Lloyd-Jones had many foreigners there ffor the war. and so westminster had tons of visitors. when preaching on Christian fellowship about 20 years later, because by that time the congregation had no idea of this unique fellowship with all the foreigners he preached:

"There were troops, you remember, in this country; they came from Canada, from America, from Holland, from Norway-they came from almost every part of the world Here they were for a while in London and they would come to the service and at the end of the service they would come to see me. I had never seen them before but I knew them and they knew me. We had never spoken before but you recognize a brother, you know at once, you belong together immediately. It does no matter what the colour is, you are speaking the same language, you are bretheren!"

Let us love and live like this.

Lloyd-Jones, comments on his first sermon

In one of D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones first major sermons entitled, "The Tragedy of Modern Wales” he was severely criticized for being overly harsh and untrue in his recommendation of the situation that had led in 20 years from a massive revival to utter licentiousness covering the small country in England. He was asked later to repeat the message at a conference for pastors and he followed up the criticisms by the following comments:

In prelude to this quote they accused him of being unfaithful to Wales due to the harsh nature of his criticism:
“It is because I love Wales passionately and devotedly, it is because I am proud of her glorious past and jealous for her future, that I talk about the tragedy of Modern Wales”

Could we not also all have the same jealous zeal for the purity of our own country found only the healing that only the gospel of penal substitutionary atonement of Christ can bring? Do we see this highly of the gospel that we see how lowly we are and the desperate need of repentance? How high is our view of God that we can accurately describe the horrors of men rejecting all that is most assuredly and highly majesctic, namely God in his holiness.

Following the complaint that he is ‘too negative’ he responds:

“It is a criticism which I can understand and with which I have a certain amount of sympathy. Indeed it appealed to me to this extent, that I hesitated and pondered over the question for some time before I decided or realized that it also was based on a fallacy. Now what is the fallacy? It is, that people who hold to the view no longer remember that conviction of sin is the essential prelude to salvation…It is not sufficient merely to tell a man that he is a sinner – you must prove it too him – give him examples and make him think, then there may be some hope for him.”

If you think that preachers are too harsh, hard, or rough, then you don’t understand the depth of sin (Isaiah 1:5,6) and its total corruption within your body (Matt 12:34). And second, you do not fully grasp the ministry of Gods word, which is that of sword which devastatingly pierces you and then radically brings out and exposes all that is within you. All your entrails come into full view before your eyes. The hidden and essential elements of your life become exposed and useless at the preaching of Gods word. He comes to cut down, destroy, create, rebuild, and lead home to glory (Hosea 6:1-3, 6; Hebrews 4:12,13).

And speaking then of the hope of the future he adds,

“But I regret so deeply that I have come here in the hope that I may kindle into flame a smoldering prejudice for truth in some young heart, and that as young people may we go onwards believing in our cause and fighting with resolution all the forces of sin and corruption that are arrayed against us, until we shall guaranteed that the Wales of the future will be worthy of the Wales of the past.”

Christians of America let us fight harder to kill sin, take greater risks of faith in light and sigh of the love of God, that we may be guaranteed a future in glory that will be worthy of the glory of the saints of the past.

Quotes taken from D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, "The First Forty Years" by Iain Murray, p.86-88.

"Many people come to listen to the gospel who have been brought up in a religious atmostphere, in religious homes, who have always gone to church and Sunday School, Never missed meetings; yet they may be unregenerate. They need the same salvation as the man who may have come to listen, who has never been inside a House of god before. He may have come out of some moral gutter; it does not matter. It is the same way, the same gospel for both, the both must come in the same way. Religiosity is of no value; morality does not count; nothing matters. We are all reduced to the same level because it is, "by faith", because it is, "by grace" '. D. Martyn LLoyd-Jones, speaking about the reality of his conversion close to the year of 1925. Quote taken from D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, "The First Forty Years" by Iain Murray, p.78.

i feel like i got saved today when i read this, when i contemplated Gods sovereign grace. this quote flys in the face of post-modern Christianity's worldly OCD unbiblical concern for the underprivileged. salvation is for all. thankfully, because if it was not, it would not of come to me. i am truly better than i deserve today.