Category: D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Our trouble usually is, that we are so deeply concerned about our little problem and our particular difficulty, that we forget everything else, as if our problem was the one thing that mattered in the whole universe.  Pray for the success of God’s kingdom, for the spread of His Kingdom, for the success of His work.  It is always safe to pray for a greater knowledge of God, a greater knowledge of His love, a greater knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, a greater understanding of His love towards you.  You need never hesitate about offering such prayers; they are always acceptable to God, they are always well-pleasing in His sight.  He delights in them, and the more we pray in that way the more God will be pleased with us.  Prayer for greater holiness, greater sanctification, greater strength, and help in the battle against sin, is always right.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans, Vol. 8, p. 152

Anyone who has never felt the need of being taught to pray is really telling us that he never has prayed, and that he does not know what prayer means.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 8, p. 146

Is it not clear, then, for all these reasons, that if the Lord Jesus Christ is not crucial, central, vital, and occupying the very centre of our meditation and our living, our thinking, and our praying, that we really have not right to look for revival?  And yet, what is the position?  If you go and talk to many people, even in the Church, about religion, you will find that they will talk to you at great length, without ever mentioning the Lord Jesus Christ.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Revival, p. 45

We often think of patience as passive; but it is a very active virtue.  Certain people have a reputation for being patient, but  sometimes the real truth about them is that they are just dull.  They are not sensitive, they do not react, and are more or less stupid.  That is not patience.  Patience is an active virtue, for which reason we are constantly exhorted to it.  It is a virtue that has to be developed, so that it becomes strong and firm.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 8, p. 113

The only hope for the creation, for the whole universe as well as man is in the character of God, and in the following way.  God’s glory and God’s honor prohibit His leaving the world as it is.  If God is God, the great Creator, and if God is all powerful, with all rule and authority at His command, then the very character of God makes it quite impossible that He should leave creation as it is at the present time. He cannot leave it in this condition of vanity, and in this condition of ‘groaning’ and ‘travailing’.  It is inconsistent with the character of God that this should be the permanent state of affairs; and of course that is precisely what the Bible tells us.  – D.Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 8, p. 57

If a Christian is suffering, Paul’s teaching does not merely administer to him a general word of comfort and of good cheer, telling him that all is well, that things are not as bad as he thinks they are, and that they must get better after a while, that the clouds cannot persist forever, and there is always a silver lining!  That kind of teaching is often presented in the name of Christianity, a mixture of psychology and suggestion treatment.  But it is not Christianity at all!  ‘I reckon’, says the Apostle; I am drawing this deduction; this is the inevitable logical conclusion that I come to as the result of working my way through the great doctrines of the Faith.  And if we are to know truly Christian comfort in our suffering we must do exactly the same.  In other words, we are entitled to say that any Christian who is unhappy because of suffering, or who is guilty of any of the things I have mentioned under my negative headings, is found in such a condition for one reason only, namely, he has not been thinking clearly.  The business of preaching is not merely to make the hearer feel a little happier while he is listening or while he is singing particular hymns; it is not meant to be a way of producing an atmosphere of comfort.  If I do that I am a quack, and a very false friend indeed.  No, the business of preaching is to teach you what to think.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans vol. 8, p. 24

We are all so morbidly concerned with ourselves and our own problems that we even go to the Bible as a book which is going to help us with our problems. We want some help, we want this and that and we go to the Bible, as if it were some sort of dispensary to deal with the so called ‘mumps and measles of our souls’.  Our very approach to the Bible is so subjective instead of being objective. How often, I wonder, do we go to the Bible saying to ourselves, ‘I am going to read the Bible because I want to see what God has done; I  am going to read my Bible in order  that I can look at God’s acting and intervening in history’? But, the Bible is not just a book that answers my little questions and tells me various things that I may want to know; the Bible is the record of the activity of God, the manifestations of God, God’s mighty acts and deeds.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Revival, p. 96

That is why some of us are not happy about the so-called giving of testimonies in public meetings; they can be very misleading. What matters is that we have ‘life’, and that we know we have life. It matters little as to how you were born, the vital fact is that you are alive and that you are giving evidences of having life.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 7, p. 329

But if we look at the long history of the Christian Church, and pay attention to certain things that are to be seen in individuals, and in groups of churches, and perhaps in a whole country, at times, we shall be given an insight into what we have in this verse.  In other words, if you are in doubt about the meaning of such a verse as this, do not reduce it to something that may be true in your own experience and limit it to that; read the lives of the saints, read the story of certain unusual people who have adorned the Church of God and listen to what they have to say.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 7, pp. 298-299

Surely this other teaching, thought it reminds us that the Holy Spirit is a person, nevertheless seems to forget that fact at this point.  It falls into the error of talking of the Spirit as if He were a liquid that could be poured out, or as if He were like the air which can be breathed in.  But the Holy Spirit is a Person!  He is God, the third Person in the blessed Holy Trinity; and we Christians cannot take Him just as we breathe in the air, whenever we like, and whenever we choose.  What we are taught is that we have to be subject to the Spirit, we have to surrender to the Spirit, and we have to be very careful not to ‘grieve’ or to ‘quench’ the Spirit.  But there is never any suggestion anywhere in Scripture that we can take Him in this simple and almost casual manner.  This teaching seems to me to do violence to the very Person of the Holy Spirit Himself.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 7, p. 253