“The whole business of preaching and of the gospel is to bring men and women face-to-face with the living God.”
I couldn’t get enough of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’s preaching. He preached 366 sermons on Romans and 233 sermons on Ephesians, especially on God’s armor from Ephesians 6:10-18, which is one of the greatest lessons on the schemes, strategies, and deceits of the devil. Those sermons, along with 1,600 others available online, could set any lukewarm Christian on fire for God. If he were preaching today, he would throw out the political junkies, from left and right, sitting in front of a TV, worshipping politicians — and make them burn their television — then lead his parishioners into a true experience of the Word of God, so they could become true disciples of Jesus Christ.
The following is an excerpt from one of his sermons:
God has done everything for you to live a Christian life; it is very simple. God has taken you out of a life of sin and joined you to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. You have received all that pertains to godliness. You do not need another experience; you do not need a new gift. You have been given everything in Christ. You have been in Christ from the very beginning of your Christian faith. Christ in you is the hope of glory.
If you are unable to live that deeply rooted life in Christ, you are just a slacker — lazy, indolent (having a strong disposition to avoid physical and mental exertion). Dr. Lloyd-Jones goes on to say: you are a liar if you are not living the Christian life — the gospel that Jesus Christ hung on a cross to redeem you and me, so that we might live a life with Christ in us, the hope of our glory.
When God our Savior revealed His kindness and love, He saved us — not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit. He generously poured out the Spirit upon us through Jesus Christ our Savior. Because of His grace, He made us right in His sight and gave us confidence that we will inherit eternal life. (Titus 3:4-7)
You could listen to all 1,600 sermons and you will seldom hear his personal stories — not one word about politics, not even his wife’s name or his daughter’s name. Nor will you hear that he was once one of the most outstanding physicians in London. He was full of God’s living Word; his bread and water was the Bible.
His constant message was: “Do you have a new nature? Are you really converted, or is one foot in the world and the other in the things of God? If so, you are an absolute miserable creature!”
Superficial Christianity has little or no impact on the Christian life.
The best marriage should be a true Christian marriage. The best home should be a true Christian home. The best parent should be a true Christian parent. The best child should be a true Christian child. The best workers are always true Christians — best in knowledge and understanding, best in experience, best in life, and most filled with the Holy Spirit.
So, all the political obsession, the fame chased on social media, the prosperity gospel, the “your best life now” mentality, the obsession with wealth and power — when Jesus talked about what to do when your eye causes you to stumble, He was not talking about gouging out your eyes, but about people wallowing in the sewage flowing from TVs and social media feeds, absorbing it every waking minute, and behaving like those they watch and listen to on those feeds.
Saying you are a Christian, then wallowing in all that junk twenty-four hours a day through TVs and social media — Dr. Lloyd-Jones would call that being a slacker, lazy, and indolent (having a strong disposition to avoid physical and mental exertion). Lloyd-Jones goes on to tell us that when our lives are lukewarm, we are liars — if we are not living the Christian life that Jesus hung on a cross to give us, being made more and more into the image and character of our Lord and Savior, then our Christian lives are just pretension. As Peter warned us: “Conduct yourselves with such honor among the nations, that though they may slander you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God.” (1 Peter 2:12)
I can’t get enough of that man of God’s preaching. I, for one, need to be called some of those names he called lukewarm Christians, to shake me out of my own stupor at times. He constantly reminds me that Jesus Christ was not joking when He said: “But I tell you that men will give an account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken.” (Matthew 12:36)
The sermons he preached during forty years of his ministry — all 1,600 of them — are available online. If Jesus Christ does not return a hundred years from now, we will all be gone from here; but God-hungry people living in that time will find Dr. Lloyd-Jones’s timeless sermons soul-nourishing, keeping them walking closer with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in their own time.