Category: Heroes

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

The reconciliation of the apparent contradiction lies in the difference between respect and fear.  When you respect a person you do not fear that person.  What you fear is that you may do something that displease him, and that, not because you feat that he may punish you, but sometimes  even because you may feel that, because he is who and what he is, he will not punish you!  Reverence is ultimately based upon love, it is the recognition of this greatness of the privilege of being allowed to approach God.  There is nothing craven about that; there is not torment in it; there is no bondage in it.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 7, p. 224

He is always ready to receive us, and to listen to us, and to grant us His blessing.  He is more ready to give than we are to receive.  Our Lord says, ‘Your heavenly Father knoweth the things that you desire of him before you even ask him.’  All this is a manifestation of the great Father-heart and love of God towards His children, those who are His sons.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 7, p. 163

The most terrible aspect of falling into sin is not so much that I have failed, or that I have fallen, or that I am miserable, or that I need release, but that I have failed God and misrepresented Him, and that men and women in the world will know nothing about His praise, His glory, His virtues, His excellencies.  They will say that to be a Christian makes no difference, that Christians are like themselves after all.  They will ask, Where is the difference?  So they may dismiss Christianity and Christ.  It is as we realize that we are His representatives, that we are the channels that He has chosen by means of which He will show forth His own glory, His own excellency, His own power and the wonder of His ways, that we shall proceed to deal with the problem of sin.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 7, p. 147

Is our religious life a mechanical effort, or is it there within us and mastering us?  That is how we should think about the matter.  The man who is trying to be a Christian is trying to hold on to something.  The man who is a Christian feels that he is being held by something.  It has been put into him, it is there; it may even seem to be in spite of him, but it is there.  It is not what he is doing that matters to him; it is what has been done to him, it is what he has become, it is the awareness of this power within him – ‘life’.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 7, p. 40

What then are the characteristics of the Christian? May God the Holy Spirit grant us understanding here, not only that we may derive assurance, but that we may see something of the glory of being a Christian, the wonder of it all, the amazing thing that God has done for us in Christ Jesus. What is a Christian? It is obvious that he is the exact opposite of the non-Christian, the man we have already considered. But that is not a good way of describing a Christian, although it is done far too often. The Christian’s position is essentially positive; and we must follow the Apostle as he puts it in positive terms. The Christian is not merely a man who no longer does what he used to do. Of course that is true of him, but that is the very least you say about him; that is introduction, that is preamble. What we have to say about the Christian is essentially positive, gloriously positive. God forbid that we should be giving the world the impression that we are mere negations, that we are simply people who do not drink, who do not go to cinemas, who do not smoke, and do not do this and that. What a travesty of Christianity that is, and especially in the light of all the glorious positives that the New Testament puts before us.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 7, p. 17

On Romans 8:3-4:

Notice that here, as everywhere, the Apostle mentions the names of the Three Persons of the blessed Holy Trinity.  “God sending his own Son’, and the end of the statement is, ‘We walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit’ – Father, Son, Holy Spirit.  The real explanation of the trouble in most Christian lives is the fact that believers start thinking about salvation in terms of themselves, and not in terms of God, the Holy Trinity, and what God has planned and prepared before time.  They start by looking into themselves, and they spend their lives doing so.  If they but looked at Him, looked out and saw it all there, then they would humble themselves and be filled with praise to God for ever having brought them into relationship with his great and glorious plan.  This is the way to look at salvation: ‘God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that…’.  Work that out, I say!  Let us spend our whole lives in looking at that and working that out.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 6, p. 312

We come here to the great 8^th chapter of this Epistle.  There is a general agreement about this chapter, not only from the standpoint of interpretation, but in saying that it is one of the greatest chapters in the Bible.  There is a sense in which it is invidious to draw such distinctions, and yet we must agree that there are certain chapters and passages in the Scriptures which have always meant more to God’s people than others.  There is nothing wrong with in that; it is simply that there are variations.  As the Apostle says of the body that there are some parts which are more comely than others, so it is in the great body of truth which we call the Scripture; and as long as that does not lead us to disparage other chapters and passages there is no harm done in saying that this is an outstanding chapter.  I agree with those who say that it is one of the brightest gems of all.  Someone has said that in the whole of the Scriptures the brightest and most lustrous and flashing stone, or collections of stones, is this Epistle to the Romans, and that of these this is the brightest gem in the cluster.  Personally, if I were pressed for an opinion, I would say that the most important chapter in this Epistle is chapter 5, but in many senses the most moving chapter is this chapter 8.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Volume 6, pp. 258-259