Dr D Martyn Lloyd-Jones

May I urge all Christians who want to deepen their understanding of the nature of the Christian Church and of the Christian Gospel, to read Dr D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ six volumes of Authentic Christianity, published by the Banner of Truth.  I have just finished reading, and studying, these volumes, and they are a treat.  The beloved Doctor, as he was affectionately known, expounds the first eight chapters of the book of Acts, and does so in such an expert way that readers are enabled to see what the Christian church really is, what she ought to be, and how different what now passes for the Christian church is from that described in Acts.

This is not for the faint-hearted; when you come to understand what the church is, and you then compare that with what you see in your church, you could be excused for concluding that you do not belong to a true Christian church at all.  The problem this poses is this: but where else can you go to?  This was the response I got from a very active worker within one of our ‘purest’ churches, when we spoke how pathetic organised religion is in Northern Ireland.  When I suggested to him that if he was so annoyed at the state of his own ‘pure’ church/denomination, why doesn’t he leave.  His response to this was, “But where could I go to?”  A fair point!

These six volumes will teach you what you need to know about the church; but it will also teach you how one highly revered servant of Christ, the man who was probably the best preacher in the UK last century, understood the Gospel, and what he saw its central content was.  Unless one is totally blinded by theological prejudice, the honest reader will come to see that the Doctor believed the same about the Gospel as Calvin did.  What was that, you might ask?  That Christ died for all men; that he died for the whole world, for mankind, and for the human race; that he was the Redeemer of the whole universe, and that all are summoned to come to Him and trust Him as their Lord and Saviour.

This was the mighty Gospel that ‘rocked’ Aberavan when Lloyd-Jones arrived as minister of that Welsh Presbyterian congregation in 1927.  His preaching was with authority, and addressed the issues that faced the common man at that time.  His preaching was direct, and allowed no one to hide from the all-seeing eye of the Almighty.  The search-light of the Word was focused on the members there, and under the blessing of God, many were savingly converted to Christ.

Why did his ministry know the seal of God upon it?  Because he knew from the Scriptures what the church was, what the Gospel was, and that this was the message that was so vitally and urgently needed in the church of that time.  And God blessed that ministry.  And if we are to see a similar measure of the divine favour on our labours today, we, too, must return to the Scriptural principles that God has given us.  When His people live in obedient submission to Christ the Lord of the church, we will then experience the blessing that He is waiting to shower upon us.  When the life of the church is ordered according to God’s revealed will in Scripture, God will own its work.  But if the church refuses to bow to the Lordship of Christ over His Church, then she can expect God to turn away from her, and allow her to continue without Him, and few will realise that He has left!