Category: Heroes

I spend half my time telling Christians to study doctrine and the other half telling them that doctrine is not enough.  – From Lloyd-Jones: Messenger of Grace by Iain Murray

You may know that an attack come from the devil and not from yourself, (a) if it appears to come from outside; (b) if you hate the suggestion made; (c) if it leads to anxiety, depression, doubts, over-concentration on self.  Therefore ‘resist the devil’.  – From Lloyd-Jones: Messenger of Grace by Iain Murray

‘What then is the Bible about?’ asks someone.  Surely there can be no hesitation about answering that question; the Bible, in its essence, is the grand story of redemption.  It is the history of what God has done about men and women as the result of their sin, and everything else that we find in the Bible is, in reality, incidental to that.  The Bible is concerned with presenting to us the message of redemption by God, and from God, in a way that we can understand and see and believe.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Great Doctrines of the Bible Vol. 1, p. 2

Can you say quite honestly that you have a deeper affection for, and a deeper understanding of, you fellow Christians that you have for your natural relatives who are not Christians?  That is a very good test of our position as Christian people.  It is a proof of your regeneration, and it is also a proof that you have paid heed to this exhortation and are putting it into practice.  A Christian should feel a closer bond with another Christian than he feels with a relative who is not a Christian.  This is true of necessity.  The new nature is in us.  We are all children of God and belong to the family of God.  And this is a relationship that will not only last while we are in this world of time, but will last throughout eternity.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 12, p. 352

One of the greatest dangers, it always seems to me, is to interpret the Scriptures in the light of our experience, instead of testing our experience by the teaching of Scripture.  So often this happens at the present time.  People lay down as the norm what they have and what they are familiar with, and test everything by that.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 12, p. 227

The unity that the apostle speaks of is a unity that can never be produced by human beings – never!  ‘So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members of one another.’  This, again, is something that follows of necessity from the illustration of the body.  As we have seen, the human body starts with one cell, which becomes impregnated and grows and develops.  The proliferations come out and form neck and arms and feet and trunk and so on.  And it is exactly the same with the church.  This is something supernatural; it is miraculous; it is the divine ‘something’.  And so the illustration proves to us that men and women can never produce this unity, and, of course, the Bible never exhorts us to.  What Paul does exhort us to do, is to maintain the unity – which is entirely different.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 12, pp. 188-189

The Christian gospel is unique.  It tells us: Be what you are; realize what you are; and proceed to show that you are what you are.  Nowhere else in the world do we find such a message.  And as we have seen, that is why we must always realize that no one can live the Christian life without being regenerate.  Indeed, to tell anybody who is not a Christian to life the Christian life in any part or form is to teach heresy.  It is the Pelagian heresy.  Pelagius thought that you simply had to teach people the principles of Christian living for them to carry them out.  That is false teaching which has been condemned, and always should be condemned by the Christian church.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 12, p. 113

In other words, in Christianity it is always the inward state that matters, the spirit of the mind, this transformation, this shining forth of the inner being.  The conduct of Christian men and women is not something that they add on to their lives, it is not like putting on a suit.  As we have seen it is the outward expression of something that is within.  This can be illustrated by something which we see at Christmastime.  Before Christmas, people buy their Christmas trees and on the branches they often hang silver and gold apples and pears.  They tie this artificial fruit on to the tree with thin pieces of string or wire.  The artificial is that which is put on the tree.  When you go into an orchard you also see apples and pears, but they are real, and have grown from the inner life of the tree – now that is Christianity.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 12, pp. 109-110

The doctrine of sanctification has nothing to say to those who are not Christians, but it is vital for those who are.  It means the kind of life we are to live because we are Chrsitians.  D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 12, p. 99

People who give the impression that theology is as dry as dust show either that they do not know their theology or that they are very bad teachers.  There is no such thing as dry-as-dust theology.  True theology always moves the heart…  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 12, p. 31