Weekly Dose Of Lloyd-Jones

If you want to understand Christianity, do not shut your Bible—open it, read it! Read the books of Moses, the prophets, the Psalms; they all point to Him. Study your Bible. It is ignorance that blinds men and women of this generation and keeps them outside of Christ. So do not have a hurried service at nine o’clock so you can go out and play golf and bathe in the sea—listen for your life! Here is the only message of hope for you.

Then our Lord went on telling His disciples the meaning of His coming. Luke writes: “Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures, and said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24:45–47). There is his own explanation of why He came and why He did all He did. It is the only way anybody can be saved. Every one of us is born in sin. We are born under the wrath of God. We do not know Him, and we are evil by nature. Our greatest need is to be reconciled to God, to have our sins forgiven, to know God as our Father, to be blessed by Him, and to start as a child of God. And Jesus came in order that men and women might know this. This is His message—not that we improve the world but that you and I be redeemed. You may set out with your political program. You may say, “Now, if we can get this onto the statute book this year, then that, then the other …” But you may be dead before tomorrow morning and be in eternity facing God and the judgment.

How can this message be made known? The answer is this: Jesus. In effect He said to the disciples, “I’m going to send you out to preach, and I want you to tell people that repentance and remission of sins is only possible in My name. Preach it among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. I do not care what color, class, or creed people are. The human race is one; humanity is one in sin, one under the wrath of God, one in its destiny in hell. And there is only one Savior. Tell them about Me, and be witnesses to Me.”

Soli Deo Gloria!


*Lloyd-Jones, D. M. (2000). Authentic Christianity (1st U.S. ed.) (14–15). Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books.

Weekly Dose Of Lloyd-Jones

Well, there were a handful of people whom the authorities in Jerusalem regarded as ordinary, simple, unlettered, and ignorant men and women. There were just twelve men essentially, and a number of others with them. They had nothing to recommend them, no great names, no degrees, no money, no means of communication or of advertising. They had nothing at all—they were nobodies. And yet what we know to be a fact is that this handful of ignorant and unlettered people “turned the world upside down,” to use Luke’s phrase in chapter 17:6. Within about two centuries Christianity became the most powerful force in the great Roman Empire. By the beginning of the third century it had become such a powerful force that a Roman emperor named Constantine deemed it a wise move to make the Roman Empire officially Christian.

I am not concerned to consider that fact now. All I want to ask is: How was it that this small group of people ever got into a position in which they could shake the whole Roman Empire so that it became officially Christian within such a short space of time? Was it because they preached politics that these people turned the ancient world upside-down?

Christianity is a phenomenon of history. It is a fact. The Christian church is one of the most vital facts in the total history of the world. We cannot understand that history without bringing in the story of the church. But does this modern idea as to what the church is and what her message is account for what has already happened? My answer is that it does not. So not only do honesty and common sense tell us to come back to Acts, but if we really want to have an understanding of what Christianity means, we are compelled to come back here. Only one thing can account for the phenomenon of the Christian church and this amazing history that has continued through the centuries, in spite of the world, the flesh, and the devil and the malignity of men and of hell, and it is the explanation given in this book of Acts.

Therefore I propose to hold the message of Acts before you. I shall not preach systematically through the book, but I shall pick out certain themes that are put before us here. I feel that the modern world is very much in the position of Theophilus. At any rate, anyone considering these things who is not a Christian is in the position of Theophilus. You have become interested. You want to know what Christianity is. Perhaps you are in trouble in your moral life or in your married life. Perhaps you have some running sore of the soul, something that gets you down. And you say, “I’ve tried this and that—I wonder what the Christian church has to offer.”

All right, Theophilus, you want to know, and fortunately we are able to tell you. I am not here to tell you what I think about Christianity. I am not here to tell you what I think the Christian church should do. I am in the position of Charles Wesley, saying, “O for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer’s praise.” My own personal opinion is that even two services on a Sunday are not enough. How can people be satisfied with but one statement? The world is dying all around us, and it needs to hear the Word of God. These early Christians went everywhere, and they spoke and they preached, and that is the explanation of this tremendous phenomenon of the church.*

Soli Deo Gloria!


*Lloyd-Jones, D. M. (2000). Authentic Christianity (1st U.S. ed.) (8–10). Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books.

Weekly Dose Of Lloyd-Jones

There is, beyond any question, a very definite order in these Beatitudes. Our Lord does not place them in their respective positions haphazardly or accidentally; there is what we may describe as a spiritual logical sequence to be found here. This, of necessity, is the one which must come at the beginning for the good reason that there is no entry into the kingdom of heaven, or the kingdom of God, apart from it. There is no-one in the kingdom of God who is not poor in spirit. It is the fundamental characteristic of the Christian and of the citizen of the kingdom of heaven, and all the other characteristics are in a sense the result of this one. As we go on to expound it, we shall see that it really means an emptying, while the others are a manifestation of a fullness.

 We cannot be filled until we are first empty. You cannot fill with new wine a vessel which is partly filled already with old wine, until the old wine has been poured out. This, then, is one of those statements which remind us that there has to be a kind of emptying before there can be a filling. There are always these two sides to the gospel; there is a pulling down and a raising up. You remember the words of the ancient Simeon concerning our Lord and Saviour when he held Him as an Infant in his arms. He said, `this child is set for the fall and rising again of many.' The fall comes before the rising again. It is an essential part of the gospel that conviction must always precede conversion; the gospel of Christ condemns before it releases. Now that is obviously something which is fundamental. If you prefer me to put it in a more theological and doctrinal form, I would say that there is no more perfect statement of the doctrine of justification by faith only than this Beatitude: `Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs (and theirs only) is the kingdom of heaven.' Very well then, this is the foundation of everything else.*

Soli Deo Gloria!



Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Studies in the Sermon on the Mount (Kindle Locations 539-551). Kindle Edition.

Weekly Dose Of Lloyd-Jones

Now we often forget, I fear, that in a sense, the great business of the Old Testament is to reveal the holiness of God. We have been far too influenced, many of us, by the false teaching of the past century, which would have us believe that Old Testament history is just the history of man’s search for God. It is not. The Old Testament is primarily a revelation of the holiness of God, and of what God has done as a result of that, and, therefore, you find this teaching everywhere. What was the purpose of the giving of the law if not to reveal and to teach the children of Israel about the holiness of God? There He separated a people unto Himself, and He wanted them to know what sort of people they were. They could only know that as they realised and appreciated His holiness: so the giving of the law was primarily to that end.

Then take all the various instructions about the making of the tabernacle—the division into the outer court and the holy place, and the holiest of all, into which the high priest alone was allowed to enter once a year, and that not without blood. The tabernacle was simply designed to represent, as it were in actual practice, this great teaching about the holiness of God. Then, take all that you read about the ceremonial law and about the clean and unclean animals. Why all this? Well, the reason given is: you are a holy people and I am a holy God; you are not to eat what everybody else eats. There was to be this division, this separation, between clean and unclean. All that long list of rules and regulations is also a part of the teaching of the holiness of God.

Then, of course, the prophets constantly taught about God’s holiness. This was their great burden and message. It is summed up perfectly in the book of Habakkuk, where we are told, ‘Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity’ (Hab. 1:13).

And, again, you get the same emphasis in the New Testament. Our Lord, for instance, addressed God as ‘Holy Father’ (John 17:11). That is the supreme teaching about the holiness of God. Even He, who was equal with God, and had come out of the eternal bosom, even He addressed Him as ‘Holy Father’. And there is a definition of this in 1 John: ‘God is light, and in him is no darkness at all’ (1 John 1:5). So the Bible is full of this teaching. It refers to God the Father as the ‘Holy One of Israel’ (Ps. 71:22; etc.). The Lord Jesus Christ is referred to as ‘thy holy child Jesus’ (Acts 4:27), and the ‘Holy One’ (Acts 3:14). Then we speak of the ‘Holy Spirit’, thus the three Persons in the glorious Trinity are constantly referred to and described in terms of this quality of holiness.

But I suppose if you were to be asked to say where the Bible teaches the holiness of God most powerfully of all you have to go to Calvary. God is so holy, so utterly holy, that nothing but that awful death could make it possible for Him to forgive us. The cross is the supreme and the sublimest declaration and revelation of the holiness of God.*

Soli Deo Gloria!

For His Glory,
Fernando


*Lloyd-Jones, D. M. (1996). God the Father, God the Son (70–71). Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books.