There is nothing more marvelous about one person being saved than another; there is nothing more marvelous about a man who has been a terrible drunkard being saved, than a man who has never had a drop of drink in his life; there is no difference at all, none whatsoever. But, you see, people are interested – ‘Oh, was it not a wonderful testimony?’ they say. ‘Did you hear it?’ My Friend, I could easily prove, if you pressed me, that it is much more difficult to save the person who has not been a drunkard, because he does not know that he is not righteous. The drunkard does know it, he is terribly aware of it, poor fellow. – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 2, p. 200
Category: Heroes
The Doctor: Gospel Responsibility
I say, therefore, that every time you and I hear the gospel our responsibility is increased. The more we have heard the gospel the clearer our understanding of it, the greater is our responsibility. The more we have grown in grace and advanced in the knowledge of the Lord, again the greater is our responsibility… – D. Martyn Lloyd Jones, Romans Vol. 2, p. 109
The Doctor: What Is the Chief End of Preaching?
What is the chief end of preaching? I like to think it is this. It is to give men and women a sense of God and His presence. As I have said already, during this last year I have been ill, and so have had the opportunity and the privilege of listening to others instead of preaching myself. As I have listened in physical weakness this is the thing I have looked for and longed for and desired. I can forgive a man for a bad sermon, I can forgive the preacher almost anything if he gives me a sense of God, if he gives me something for my soul, if he gives me the sense that, though he is inadequate himself, he is handling something which is very great and very glorious, if he gives me some dim glimpse of the majesty and the glory of God, the love of Christ my Saviour, and the magnificence of the Gospel. If he does that I am his debtor, and I am profoundly grateful to him. – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, pp. 97-98
The Doctor: What You Don’t Like Says Nothing About That Which You Don’t Like
You see, any man who thinks that he can examine God, and having done so, dismiss Him, is just saying that he is a fool. May I put that to you in the form of an illustration. You will hear people, saying, sometimes, that they just see nothing in Beethoven’s music, but they think jazz is marvelous. Now in saying that, they tell me nothing about Beethoven, but they do tell me a great deal about themselves! They do not realize it of course; they think they are being clever. But they are really just telling us all about themselves from the standpoint of a knowledge of music. – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 1, p. 388
The Doctor: The Opposite of Works =?
There are some people who seem to regard faith as the opposite of works. Now that, in itself, is not right, because the opposite of works is not faith. The opposite of works is the righteousness of God. That is what the Apostle is contrasting – men who try to save themselves by works, and this other salvation, which is the giving to us of the righteousness of Jesus Christ. …So you see, the opposite of works is not faith. No! it is the righteousness of Jesus Christ which is the opposite of works, and it is righteousness which comes to us through faith. – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 1, p. 311
The Doctor: the Non-Existance of Exhaustiveness
A friend of mine who used to attend here regularly and who has now gone to glory – a very good man – once said to me, rather jocularly but very kindly – “You know, I sometimes think that the Apostle Paul must be amazed when he sees what you get out of his epistles!” Poor man! By now my friend has discovered that the Apostle Paul is amazed how little that most people, and I with them, get out of his great epistles. – D. Martyn Lloyd Jones, Romans Vol. 1, p. 227
For reference as to how much The Doctor got out of Paul’s epistles this comes from a Sermon on Romans 9:10-11, his seventeenth sermon out of Romans at that point.
The Doctor: Why We Are
We do not become the beloved because of anything that we do. We are what we are because he first loved us. It is His love that initiates the movement that brings us out of that terrible plight and predicament in which we are all are as the result of sin. – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 1, Pg. 159
The Doctor: Revival Not Contingent Upon Me
If you work your way through the Old Testament, this is what you will find. There were dead, lifeless periods when you would think that everything had come to an end – that God’s ways were forgotten. How did these dead periods suddenly give way to something else? Was it that people got together and organized something? Never! Not on a single occasion! Invariably it happened like this: that when they were utterly hopeless, and downcast, and really thought the end had come, God suddenly, unexpectedly, and in the most amazing manner did something. It is God who revives His work. You and I tend to be anxious, over-anxious, about the work, don’t we? Like that poor man Uzzah, we put out our hand to steady the ark, forgetting that he was struck dead for attempting to do so. And there are many people today who seem to think that they must do something to safeguard God’s cause. My dear friend, you need not trouble; God revives His work, but in His time, in His way, and with the person or persons whom He has chosen. The Old Testament history is amazing in that respect. – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans, Vol. 1, p.96
The Doctor: the Understanding of, Not the Doing of Sin Brings the Greatest Joy
An inadequate understanding of our sinfulness is probably the greatest single cause of our failure to rejoice always in the Lord always, and to realize that this message is the greatest good news the world has ever received. …The positive road to joy is always via the depth of sin. …It ought to be impossible for us to use the word ‘gospel’ without bursting forth, as it were, into a hymn of praise and thanksgiving. – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 1, pp. 58, 59
John Owen: Hater of Sin, Lover of God
Here are the quotes, used and unused, from last night’s biographical address on John Owen.
If thou art, as many in this pretending age, a sign or title gazer, and comest into books as Cato into the theatre, to go out again,—thou hast had thy entertainment; farewell! – In The Preface of the Death of Death in the Death of Christ
Heresy is a canker, but it is a spiritual one; let it be prevented by spiritual means: cutting off men’s heads is no proper remedy for it.
May it please your majesty, could I posses the tinker’s abilities for preaching, I would willing relinquish all my learnings. – In reply to Charles II when asked why he would go hear such a tinker a John Bunyan preach
…I am going to him whom my soul has loved, or rather who has loved me with an everlasting love, – which is the whole ground of all my consolation. The passage is very irksome and wearisome, through strong pains of various sorts, which are all issued in an intermitting fever. I am leaving the ship of the church in a storm; but whilst the great Pilot is in it, the loss of a poor under-rower is inconsiderable. – A letter to His friend Charles Fleetwood
I am glad to hear it; but O brother Payne! The long wished-for day is come at last, in which I shall see that glory in another manner than I have ever done or was capable of doing in this world. – To Thomas Payne with arms uplifted and eyes heavenward on the morning of the day of his death.
The vigor, and power, and comfort of our spiritual life depends on the mortification of the deeds of the flesh. – The Mortification of Sin
Do you mortify; do you make it you daily work; be always at it while you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you. – The Mortification of Sin
…sin is never less quite when it seems to be most quite, and its waters most deep when they are still… – The Mortification of Sin
Sin always aims at the utmost; every time it raises up to tempt or entice, might it have its own course, it would go out to the utmost sin of its kind. Every unclean thought or glance would be adultery if it could; every covetous desire would be oppression, every thought of unbelief would be atheism, might it grow to its head. – The Mortification of Sin
He that shall call a man from mending a hole in the wall of his house, to quench a fire that is consuming the whole building is not his enemy. – The Mortification of Sin
Be much in thoughtfulness of the excellency of the majesty of God and thine infinite, inconceivable distance from him. …Think greatly of the greatness of God. – The Mortification of Sin
Let no man, then, pretend to fear sin that doth not fear temptation to it. They are too nearly allied to be separated. Satan hath put them together so that it is very hard for any man to put them asunder. He hates not the fruit who delights in the root. – On Temptation
The ways of our entering temptation are so many, various, and imperceptible, – the means of it so efficacious and powerful, – the entrances of it so deceitful, subtle, insensible, and plausible, – our weaknesses, our unwatchfulness so unspeakable, – that we cannot in the least keep or preserve ourselves from it. We fail in both wisdom and power for this work. – On Temptation
Should you go into an hospital, and see many persons lying sick and weak, sore and wounded, with many filthy diseases and distempers, and should inquire of them how they fell into this condition, and they shall all agree to tell you of such or such a thing was the occasion of it, “By that I got my wound,” says one, “And my disease,” says another, – would it not make you a little careful how or what you had to do with that thing or place? Should you go into a dungeon, and see many miserable creatures bound in chains for an approaching day of execution, and inquire the way and means whereby they were brought into that condition, and they should all fix on one and the same thing, would you not take care to avoid it? – On Temptation
It will never be exhausted; it is not wasted by men’s spending on it; yea the more they draw out this treasure, the more it grows and abounds! – Indwelling Sin
Fix you affections on heavenly things: this will enable you to mortify sin; fill them with the things that are above, let them be exercised with them, and so enjoy the cheifest place in them. They are above blessed and suitable objects, meet for and answering unto our affections; – God himself, in his beauty and glory; the Lord Jesus Christ who is “altogether lovely, the cheifest of ten thousand;” grace and glory; the mysteries revealed in the gospel; the blessed promises thereby. Were our affections filled up, taken up, and possessed with these things, as it is our duty that they be, – it is our happiness when they are, – what access could sin, with its painted pleasures, with its sugared poisons, with its envenomed baits, have unto our souls. – Indwelling Sin
The Danger of men’s souls lieth not in a disability to attain a comprehension of longer or more subtle confessions of faith, but in embracing things contrary unto, or inconsistent with this foundation thereof. – The Person of Christ
Nothing renders us so like unto God as our love unto Jesus Christ for he is the principle object of His love; – in him doth his soul rest – in him is he always well pleased. Wherever this is wanting, whatever there may be besides, there is nothing of the image of God. – The Person of Christ
There is no greater discovery of the depravation of our natures by sin and degeneracy of our wills from their original rectitude, than that – whereas we are so prone to the love of other things, and therein do seek for satisfaction unto our souls where it is not to be obtained – it is so hard and difficult to raise our hearts unto the love of God. Were it not for that depravation, he would always appear as the only suitable and satisfactory object of our love. – The Person of Christ
An imaginary Christ will effect nothing in the minds of men but imaginary grace. – The Person of Christ
A God-man was necessary for our atonement because…required that there should be an obedience yielded unto God, bringing more glory unto him than dishonor did arise and accrue from the disobedience of man. – The Person of Christ
And although the life of faith and vision differ in degrees – or, as some think, in kind – yet have they both the same object, and the same operations, and there is a great cognation between them. – The Person of Christ
This, therefore, deserves the severest of our thoughts, the best of our meditations, and our utmost diligence in them. For if our future blessedness shall consist in being where he is, and beholding of his glory, what better preparation can there be for it that in a constant previous contemplation of that glory in the revelation that is made in the Gospel, unto this very end, that by a view of it we may be gradually transformed into the same glory? – The Glory of Christ
For they all grow on this root of an over-valuation of temporal things… One real view of the glory of Christ and our concernment therein will give us full relief in this matter…When we have due apprehensions hereof, – when our minds are possessed with thoughts of it, – when our affections reach out after its enjoyments, – let pain, and sickness, and sorrows, and fears, and dangers, and death, say what they will, we shall have in readiness wherewith to combat with them and overcome them; and that on this consideration, that they are all outward, transitory, and passing away, whereas our minds are fixed on those things which are eternal, and filled with incomprehensible glory. – The Glory of Christ
No man shall ever behold the glory of Christ by sight hereafter, who doth not on some measure behold it by faith here in this world. …No man ought to look for anything in heaven, but what one way or other he hath some experience in this life. – The Glory of Christ
There is more glory given to God by coming to Christ in believing, than in keeping the whole law; inasmuch as he has more eminently manifested the holy properties of his nature in the way of salvation by Christ, than in the giving of the law. – The Glory of Christ
There is not anything that Jesus Christ is more delighted with, than that his saints should always hold communion with him as to this business of giving and receiving. For,-…1.This exceedingly honors him, and gives him the glory that is his due. …2. This exceedingly endears the souls of the saints to him, and constrains them to put a due valuation upon him, his love, his righteousness, and grace. – Communion with God
The best biography I read of John Owen was Andrew Thomson’s Prince of the Puritans. I have an extra copy that I will give away for free (to SLBC readers only). Just leave a comment and state why you would like to learn about John Owen. If by some miracle there is more than one reply if any I will choose the one I think best.
No Other Boast 