Our Footsteps: Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Friday, July 18, 2008

Martyn Lloyd-Jones

When I get to heaven, one of the people I want to have conversations with would be Martyn Lloyd-Jones. He went to heaven on March 1, 1981. I was finishing up eleventh grade at that time and had no clue who this man was back then. In the last six or seven years though, I have grown to love this man who has written many books and commentaries that have impacted my life profoundly. He was a master using the right words to convey the message that was intended in the scriptures. In some cases, he'd spend hundreds of pages expositing just one verse, mining deep and pulling out those great spiritual nuggets of gold. I try to read at least two of his commentaries every year - there are many volumes to Romans, eight on Ephesians, two on Philippians, two on the Sermon on the Mount, several on Acts and others. There is no shortage of reading material from this great Bible teacher. Below are some of my favorite quotes out of one of my recent readings from Romans 1.

What a denial of Scripture it is to say it does not matter very much what you believe as long as you call yourself a Christian in general, or to say that you need not hold on to these doctrines as absolutes.

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.

The Bible is authoritative. It is the only authority. It is our only rule and standard, and we must abide by its teaching in every respect. I must not believe anything unless it is plainly stated in the Scriptures or else can be ultimately deduced from the Scriptures.

[Believing in the Lord Jesus Christ] means a surrender of ourselves, a committal of ourselves, the involvement of our whole personality. No one can be regarded as having believed the gospel who has not repented and turned from a life of sin to a life of obedience to God in Christ Jesus.

Who are the unstable? The unstable are always the unlearned. The spiritual butterflies are the people who do not know doctrine. It is the unlearned who are always unstable, and every single New Testament epistle was written in order to stabilize people, to establish them, to ground them, to root them! And it is by the doctrines, the teaching, and the exposition that it is done. It is not entertainment we need. It is truth. It is knowledge. There are no shortcuts in the spiritual life. You cannot gallop through these epistles. You cannot rush through them a chapter at a time. It is only a deep and thorough knowledge of the Word that will give us true stability.

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I Believe...

1). I believe that there is one God. I believe God consists of three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
2). I believe that God is holy, righteous, loving, and just.
3). I believe that mankind is separated from God by sin; that sin entered the world through Adam and death through sin.
4). I believe that, because of sin, man is condemned. Because of God’s utter hatred for sin, there is an eternal conscious punishment in hell for all those who do not come to God on His terms, dealing with their sin.
5). I believe that confessing our sins and confessing Jesus Christ as Lord is the only way to properly deal with the sin that has infected everyone. Jesus Christ paid our sin debt on the cross; reconciliation by substitution. There is nothing we can do to add to the finished work of Christ.
6). I believe in the security of the believer, that once he is truly born-again, there is nothing that would cause him to lose his salvation.
7). I believe that upon the death of a true believer in Christ, that he is ushered immediately into the presence of the Lord, where he will live in everlasting joy in Heaven, experiencing eternal fellowship with God.
8). I believe in believer’s baptism by immersion. I don’t believe baptism is necessary for salvation, but it is a beautiful outward profession of an inward possession.
9). I believe in a literal 6-day creation where God created the heavens and the earth and then rested on the seventh day.
10). I believe that the words written in the Bible are truth. I believe that the Bible is inerrant in its parts and in its whole. I believe that the 66 books that make up the canon of scripture make the Bible complete and that God inspired the words written therein. The things that were written down in the Bible are sufficient for every need we have. Not only is God’s Word sufficient, but it is far superior to any other method of handling the problems that man faces, since He has given us all things pertaining to life and godliness.