March 1, 2011

• Lloyd-Jones 30 years later ~ Thank you, Dr. Lloyd-Jones for preparing the way

   
  Today, March 1, 2011, is the 30th anniversary of Dr. David Martyn Lloyd-Jones' homegoing. Dr. Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981), (a.k.a. - ML-J or the Doctor), has had a huge influence on my Christian pilgrimage, even though I wasn't saved until the year after he died. (For more information about ML-J, please see my post Who is Martyn Lloyd-Jones? | Lloyd-Jones' call to the ministry.)

  The Doctor's Impact on Me

  I first became acquainted with the Doctor through his book "Life in Christ: Studies in I John," as I was looking for a commentary on the book of First John in the summer of 2007. I never could have imagined the implications that came from my reading that book! It began to break open the concept of a true Christianity – a Christianity that is a life – a life that can only be lived through the Holy Spirit who dwells in believers.

  Well, of course, I'd heard the doctrine before, but I didn't really hear.

  From the time I was saved in 1982, I would speak of the Holy Spirit, and heard teaching about Him – and even taught about Him, but I didn't really understand the vital necessity of the work of the Holy Spirit in the believer. At one time I memorized much of John 15, including those words of Jesus: "without Me, ye can do nothing," and I knew Philippians 4:13: "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." But of course, those were all only words to me, only notion. I didn't really understand that without Him I could do nothing! Nothing! Not a thing! That's because I'd not had the experience of having to rely wholly on the Spirit for I didn't understand my utter need of Him to do everything. I had not been humbled, I had not been brought to my knees to see that I was indeed poor and needy and a wretch, a debtor to mercy alone.

  God has used ML-J to impart to me a greater love for the Bible and for doctrine, in particular the doctrines of grace, or Calvinism. There can be no real Christianity apart from doctrine. Do not ever discount doctrine. I know I did for a long time. Too long, I am sad to say.  A true and living and fiery and right passion flows from right doctrine. Don't tell me you have a love and a passion for God if you don't have a love and a passion for His Word and for truth. If you aren't seeking to steep yourself in the Bible and Bible doctrine, your passion is going to be false. False fire, fire without light (truth) is a very, very dangerous thing!

  The type of Christianity ML-J lived and preached was a living, breathing Christianity, a Christianity that included not only solid orthodox reformed doctrine but also the fire of the Holy Spirit, that so rare and oh so necessary, combination of light and fire, of head and heart. He called preaching logic on fire. If you've never listened to him, please, please check out his sermons through Living Grace at oneplace.com.

  I regret to say that much orthodox doctrine is very often taught as mere head knowledge, light apart from fire. The living Gospel has all but become a dead letter. How pathetic we are! No wonder then that people run from doctrine and avoid it in droves, and particularly from Calvinism. I want to be a gracious Calvinist, but I know how often I fail in that.

  I am praying God might give all of you who know Him a love for His Word and a love for doctrine, and I'm praying God might use me to make doctrine come alive for you. In my blogging here I am trying to bridge the gap between doctrine and experience (as in my own life). Dr. Lloyd-Jones was a proponent of what the Puritans spoke of as experimental (or experiential) Calvinism, as am I. Dead, unapplied, irrelevant Calvinism is not the Calvinism of the Bible. I confess I'm only beginning to get a little taste of the living God – but once you've tasted and seen He is good, you cannot help but come back again and again to drink and drink of Him! I remember reading one of ML-J's sermons (from John 17, I think?) and I became angry and said something like, "I cannot have this joy!" O, how wonderfully God perseveres and extends His mercy to such doubtful and defiant souls!

  However, just to be clear here, our experiences of the living God include not only the exuberant joy of the mountain top, but also the chastening in the valley and purifying in the fire. All of them are part of our pilgrimage here. And Christ makes Himself manifest to us in all of them and becomes dearer to us through all of them! BLESSED is the man whom God correcteth; despise thou not the chastening of the Almighty (Job 5:17, KJV). For whom the Lord LOVETH, He chasteneth... (~ Hebrews 12).

  Reading and listening to ML-J has also given me a greater appreciation of Church history and fueled my love for Christian biography (which John Piper had already begun doing) – as well as the great hymns of the Church since ML-J was such a student of Church history and history in general, and he had so many references to the great cloud of witnesses as well as many wonderful hymns sprinkled throughout his preaching!

  The Doctor's writings on the Holy Spirit and revival have been used by the Spirit of God to help me make sense of some of the experiences I'd been having. Such as the period of time when God took me down and kept taking me down into deep depression and despair, where I came to see the exceeding sinfulness of my sin – and in the midst of that time there were times when I almost doubted I had actually ever been saved in the first place and felt beyond help or hope. And then once again to begin to understand the burden God was putting on me to see revival come to the Church. Thank God for his sweet grace in using ML-J to bring to me the accounts of saints who had similar experiences.

  For some time before I first began reading ML-J, God had been giving me a great uneasiness about the state of the Church and a burden for the Church. In reaction, I initially began to dabble in emergent/missional theology, but then – thank God! – that first ML-J book into my hands – and it all began to break open. But I made the mistake so many of us tend to do: We're not to look to something new and unproven, but rather to turn back to what is old and proven: to the Word of God itself. To the law and to the testimony! Back to the ancient paths! And with that the only remedy for God's Church in times of decline – and the only sure and pure and right rooting for the Church at any time: prayer and ministry of the Word (~Acts 6).

  * * *

  The ML-J Trust has produced a video including some rare footage of ML-J to mark the 30th anniversary of his death.

  * * *

  "It wasn't God's time and this preparatory work had to be done."

  As I was aware the upcoming anniversary of Lloyd-Jones' death, I knew exactly what I wanted to post to honor him and as an encouragement to all the saints (and myself!).

  Here is the account of a conversation he'd had with Iain H. Murray (ML-J's biographer as well as long-time friend and associate) less than a month before he died from Murray's book "D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The Fight of Faith 1939 -1981" (Banner of Truth Trust: Edinburgh, 1990, reprinted 2004).

  I scarcely ever recall ML-J drawing any parallel between his own ministry and that of any Christian figure of a past age. But one parallel which he did draw in conversation on February 5, 1981 is a striking illustration of what was uppermost in his heart. 'I feel in many ways,' he said, 'like Griffith Jones of Llanddowror.' The man to whom he hoped to possess a resemblance was a little-remembered figure, born in Carmarthenshire in 1683 and significant not so much for what he achieved as for what he did in preparing the way for others. Griffith Jones was 'the morning star' of the great awakening of the eighteenth century in Wales, the forerunner of the better known men who were to follow. The comparison tells us a great deal. Dr Lloyd-Jones had yearned for something in his own day which, when he spoke these words, he knew he was not going to be permitted to see. But his mind was not on the question of how posterity would remember him, it was on the success of the gospel. I responded, 'As you have often said, God's calendar is not ours', but, only half-hearing me, he went on: 'I never thought it was going to take so long. I thought I was going to see great revival but I am not complaining. It wasn't God's time and this preparatory work had to be done.' If he could die believing that he had been permitted to do something to prepare the way for better men and greater days, that was enough.

  So there was ML-J who was expecting revival and praying for it and being faithful in the ministry and so wanting to see revival come again, up through his last days. He'd seen God bring revival to his first pastorate in Wales, yet he never saw revival like that again in his almost thirty years of ministry at Westminster Chapel in London.

  And now today, thirty years after his death, I find myself with a similar desire for revival. (Please see my holy ambition.)

  I know that true revival comes in God's time and God's way. We cannot work it up. We cannot ever say, "Let's have a revival," and then expect to have one! By that I don't mean we sit back and twiddle our thumbs and do nothing, for certainly we do work hard by the grace that God provides, we continue in prayer and the ministry of the Word, but God alone can breathe life into the dry bones, He alone can open blind eyes and unstop dead ears. God is sovereign!

  I confess there have been times I have been discouraged and downcast and tempted to resort to my own flesh and rush ahead or wanting to quit while in this valley of dry bones, but God won't let me. Thank God for His persevering grace sent to sustain our faith!

  Though much encouragement has come to me through the Scriptures themselves, some has also come from the words of the great cloud of witnesses, fellow pilgrims, both living and dead, such as Martyn Lloyd-Jones. This is one reason I keep urging you to read Christian biography. And this is one reason I am seeking deeper fellowship with Christians today, fellowship that is concerned with our souls in this land of pilgrimage (Psalm 84).

  

  We need to be drinking of the living Water and then to be giving our brothers and sisters in Christ cups of cold water in the dry, thirsty and weeping Valley of Baca or else we will be sure to grow faint and weary!

  How can we make our calling and election sure without our clasping hands with one another? Here is a hymn I wasn't familiar with, but another brother in the pilgrim band recently shared it with me, and so I pass it along to you for your encouragement so we might press on together through the night of doubt and sorrow.

  Through the Night of Doubt and Sorrow
   lyrics Bernhardt Severin Ingemann, 1825;
  trans. Sabine Baring-Gould, 1867
  
  Through the night of doubt and sorrow
  Onward goes the pilgrim band,
  Singing songs of expectation,
  Marching to the Promised Land.
  Clear before us, through the darkness,
  Gleams and burns the guiding light.
  Brother clasps the hand of brother,
  Stepping fearless through the night.
     
  One the light of God's own presence,
  O'er His ransomed people shed,
  Chasing far the gloom and terror,
  Brightening all the path we tread;
  One the object of our journey,
  One the faith which never tires.
  One the earnest looking forward,
  One the hope our God inspires.
     
  One the strain the lips of thousands
  Lift as from the heart of one;
  One the conflict, one the peril,
  One their march in God begun;
  One the gladness of rejoicing
  On the far eternal shore,
  Where the one almighty Father
  Reigns in love forevermore.
     
  Onward, therefore, pilgrim brothers!
  Onward, with the cross our aid!
  Bear its shame and fight its battle
  Till we rest beneath its shade.
  Soon shall come the great awaking,
  Soon the rending of the tomb,
  Then the scattering of all shadows,
  And the end of toil and gloom.

  * * *

  Thank you, Dr. Lloyd-Jones for preparing the way.

  I'm aware that there are places in the world outside the United States where genuine revival is breaking out and coming down from above, but right now, for the most part, the bones are dry here in the United States, very dry. Many of the Doctor's words have encouraged me in the past few years, but the account of this conversation from his last days provides me with strong encouragement to press on and to be engaged in whatever preparatory work to which God calls me, to wait on God and to trust God's sovereign timing, to know He is not only gracious, but very gracious (Isaiah 30:18-19) and to remember and rest in God's promises – as well as to turn to Him and pray those promises to Him.

  Isaiah 44:21  Remember these things, O Jacob,
  and Israel, for you are my servant;
  I formed you; you are my servant;
  O Israel, you will not be forgotten by me.
  22  I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud
  and your sins like mist;
  return to me, for I have redeemed you.
  23  Sing, O heavens, for the LORD has done it;
  shout, O depths of the earth;
  break forth into singing, O mountains,
  O forest, and every tree in it!
  For the LORD has redeemed Jacob,
  and will be glorified in Israel.

  O Israel, you will not be forgotten by me! ... For the LORD has redeemed Jacob, and will be glorified in Israel.

  Hallelujah! The God who has redeemed us will not forget us! He will be glorified in His Church – in spite of our sinfulness, in spite of our stubbornness, in spite of the ruins we see today! We will not be forgotten by Him! After all, we are His people, the sheep of His pasture! We are His very own children, united to His Son by the one Spirit! May the living God once again breathe life into the dry bones and draw us back to Him in repentance and rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might flow at His presence! But in the meantime let us remember! And let us ask Him to grant us grace to sing – even in the desert places, even in the barrenness!

  I am continuing to pray that God would strengthen me to persevere and to do so with joy. There are no guarantees I will see revival in my life time, but there IS the guarantee that God will never forget His people and He will be glorified in us! O, that His grace would abound so I would not waste my life or waste my ministry complaining – but to keep pressing on and being joyful to decrease as Christ increases, to labor harder by His grace with me so I might prepare the way for better men and better days!

  I am praying that if I get to the end of my days and I've not seen revival come like the Doctor, I might have God's grace to say:

  'I never thought it was going to take so long. I thought I was going to see great revival but I am not complaining. It wasn't God's time and this preparatory work had to be done.'

  And so my prayer for myself as well as those who are also yearning for revival is Paul's prayer in Colossians 1 (I've adapted the pronouns here) is

  ... that we may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. May we be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

  Over and over again throughout the Scripture, we see the people of God battling, and the Christian life likened to a battle, and for good reason – because it is a battle! (e.g. - I Cor. 10:1-6, Ephesians 6:10-20, I Peter 2:11, Hebrews 12:4, I Peter 5:8ff) We have a great adversary in the devil, but a greater Savior in Jesus Christ! We are given sufficient grace from above to fight! As I recently reverted to battling in my flesh, I sorely needed the reminder that this is a battle we can never fight in our own strength:

  Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.

  Even if revival continues to tarry, may I continue to rejoice in this: that I am His child and He has granted me the high privilege to prepare the way for better men and greater days!

  I love the title Murray chose for this second book in Dr. Lloyd-Jones' biography. The verse from which it comes aptly describes the Doctor's life:
  
  

  I Timothy 6:12 (KJV) Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses.

  Dr. Lloyd-Jones did fight the good fight of faith, lay hold of eternal life and profess a good profession before many witnesses. And even today he continues to profess that good profession! He being dead yet speaketh!

  Revelation 14:12  Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus.
  
  13  And I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Blessed indeed,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!”

  By the grace of God, may we endure, keep His commandments and our faith in Jesus.

  By the grace of God, may we fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life so we might profess a good profession before many witnesses!

  Lord God, thank You for the great cloud of witnesses, past and present, who have fought and are fighting the good fight and have encouraged us to run the race set before us. Thank you, Lord God, for sending Lloyd-Jones in particular to prepare the way for many, including me. Our Father, be merciful and gracious to us for Jesus' sake, send Your Holy Spirit to each of Your children to equip and strengthen us to fight so we might lay hold of eternal life, to which we are called. May we profess a good profession before many witnesses like our brother Martyn Lloyd-Jones. May Your Name be hallowed in Your Church. Unto You be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.

  ---

  Please Note: If God has been giving you a similar desire to see the church revived, please see my other sites, tent_of_meeting (prayer for revival) and deerlife (ministry encouragement on our pilgrimage), comment below and/or message me. I would also encourage you to read my holy ambition as well as these three posts which express some of my heart for revival, including how ML-J was instrumental in that.
  

  • Naphtali News: the Ministry of the Word & Prayer (see the second portion on prayer)
  • postcards from England: "The Burden for Revival" (ML-J)
  • postcards from England: are we excited over a dead fish and a car wreck?

  More from and about Dr. Martyn-Lloyd Jones:
  

  • Updated August 2012... Thanks to the Martyn Lloyd-Jones Recordings Trust (http://www.mlj-usa.com/home - for U.S. & Canada, and http://www.mlj.org.uk/home - for elsewhere), you can access for free over 1600 sermons of the late Dr. Lloyd-Jones at the Martyn Lloyd-Jones Audio Library here: http://www.mlj-usa.com/audiolibrary. You'll need to establish a login with password to access the library.

  • Who is Martyn Lloyd-Jones? | Lloyd-Jones' call to the ministry
  • How do you feel about the Gospel today? (ML-J)
  • update w/ excerpt: Lloyd-Jones' sermons on the role of experience in Christianity
  • at death and in life "there is only one thing that matters" (Lloyd-Jones' last days)
  • "Do not hold me back from the glory!" (the Christian's attitude toward death & life)
  • Are you preparing to face death? Or are you a fool?
  • true repentance leads to joy (Letter 37 on assurance & fighting for joy)
  • The ML-J Recordings Trust website
  • Living Grace with Martyn Lloyd-Jones (free sermons of ML-J available here to listen to and/or download)
  • John Piper's biographical message on ML-J: "A Passion for Christ-exalting Power"

  
  More about revival:

  • From The Gospel Coalition Blog:
  • Tim Keller's articles "Revival (Even) on Broadway" and Revival: Ways and Means
  • Myth: Calvinists Take a Dim View of Revival and Awakening
  • Revival resources, etc.

  My posts related to Christian biography
  John Piper's biographical messages

  Scripture quotations unless otherwise indicated are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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