Martyn Lloyd-Jones Panel at the 2014 Together for The Gospel

friends we are beginning again please take your seats and I have the joy of introducing to you dr. Martin lloyd-jones grandson Jonathan Catherwood who's with us today Jonathan over my left thank you so much for being here thank you Jonathan can you tell us what we just saw a bit of there yeah we're very excited Matt Robinson a documentary filmmaker is making a biography core film about my grandfather that should be coming out next year interviewing Ian Murray and anothers who had known him filming in England in Cambridge interviewing family members but the the main purpose of it is to understand Martyn lloyd-jones the man behind the sermons we're very excited about it and coming out in 2015 wonderful and Jonathan also the Lord Jones recording trust can you just tell us briefly for people who maybe have seen the Lloyd Jones book but don't know much else about how they can actually listen to Martyn lloyd-jones what his sermons were like yeah can you help us with that yes we have a website called MLJ trust org and on that website we have 1600 sermons by Martyn lloyd-jones they're completely free to download or you can play them on the site it has all his major series on Ephesians on Romans on Acts by the Gospel of John but many many others including lectures to the Medical fellowships and tributes to him by others MOJ trust org it's completely free we we invite you to come back once twice build your own libraries and do as evil with them in so many of the things sorry and then this is Ian Murray right here next to Jonathan Catherwood it's a wonderful to have Ian with us thank you brother for being here so many of us are indebted to the Lord for your books that you've written and even the many more books that you've published with banner of truth thank you so much brother for your work for the Lord's Kingdom okay we're in America we can applaud and say thank you and one of the things that I know from talking to you over the years that you think people misunderstand about Martin lloyd-jones is they misunderstand how much of his ministry really was evangelistic we know him to these great sets these great series that Jonathan just mentioned and those are usually a series he preached at church on Sunday but in fact dr. Lloyd John spent much of his ministry practically preaching evangelistic sermons most of which aren't recorded and haven't been published his practice was to preach evangelistically every every Sunday night but then during the week generally on a Tuesday and a Wednesday night he'd be traveling in different parts of England and Wales and sometimes Scotland and these would nearly always be evangelistic sermons so they were never they were never taken down and circulated those tapes tapes exist here and there some of the American ones were recently published by a cross way and we're delighted that that's happened but by and large most of the published sermons as you know our expository sermons intended for Christians and that has given the impression that he was principally a teacher and an expository as mrs. Lloyd Jones his wife said no one will understand my husband who does not know that he was first of all a man of Prayer and then an evangelist so I know the banner published the Old Testament evangelistic service yes we have published a few you know Jonathan what was he like as a grandfather he was the exact opposite from the book covers that you see exactly that's the we will be getting this book in the $0.00 bookstore biography of Floyd Jones I have had a some something of an argument with Jonathan's mother over these book jackets because it's quite true he hated having his photograph taken he was a very modest and humble man he always looked glowering as a grandfather he was the the sweetest most gentle man endlessly patient and when we used to run around into the vestry to see him at Westminster Chapel after a service people thought we were going in there for instruction from the great theologian actually he's to hide the little minis Cabras chocolates all through his vestry for his grandchildren fine and he was always there for us if we if we needed that help but his primary role in the home was as a father and a grandfather and we loved him for it but I have to add just a brief footnote there's a great line that you put in here in this wonderful book in the last four months of his life you you say he was sitting in his chair but always in his suit which looked like it belonged to someone else yes his cancer was far advanced and clothes were hanging but it was quite amusing really that lady captain wood wasn't at all pleased with these pictures and it's because he was in person so kind and approachable but that's how we saw him in public that was how we remembered him from the public view whereas the family had quite a difference Jim Packer tells the amusing anecdote that I think I've heard you tell to of being at the Westminster fellowship for for ministers and lloyd-jones commenting on the ladies that are coming this was at an early Puritan conference Puritan conference started in 1950 and there were virtually no ladies there there was no rule about it but they just didn't come and at one of the early conferences lloyd-jones said to Packer these two ladies here I don't give you exact words but who are they where they come from and one of them was Jim Packers future wife Jim could speak for her yeah well I say yes I remember I remember Jim telling it Lloyd just says something like wondering wonder what they're doing here probably looking for a husband and and Jim says well in fact I'm engaged to one and a doctor responds right so I was right about one now what about the other so he had a very quick wit I want to add just a note about what you said about his humility and that's just to help drive the men to read this book you have another wonderful line in there that toward the end of his life when you were interviewing him for the original two volume biography you said he talked about his life as if he were an onlooker looking at the life of someone else yeah yes and can I just add on the point of his humility I'm impressed with Professor FF Bruce because Bruce was publicly criticized by Lloyd Jones for association associating with men who were far from evangelical but it was Bruce who paid a very fine tribute to Lloyd Jones the Dean of st. Paul's Cathedral WR Matthews had heard Lloyd Jones speak and said it was extraordinarily bad and it was bad for this reason Matthews was in sin way the man is so arrogant and it was Bruce who stood up and said he's not arrogant his confidence is in the Word of God he's the most humble and coming from Bruce in it as a man who himself been somewhat chastised by lloyd-jones you know what was it like to be his assistant you actually worked in ministry with him in the 1950s I was afraid you to ask me this question I'm often asked it or not and you think I'd be prepared but I never have it's very hard to say you know it's had a Whitefield he was like a lion in the pulpit and a lamb out of it and that was lloyd-jones out of the pulpit he was very approachable very easy to speak to children could easily approach him he treated us with great kindness and patience and sometimes long-suffering it said that when Whitfield grew old he had little time for young men because they'd let him down so much and he didn't spend much time with him Lloyd Jones wasn't like that no he was let down by young people's no doubt about that but he gave himself to them and he did that right up until the end John you said that in your early ministry you were particularly influenced by Lloyd Jones you want to tell us about that you didn't know him personally I did not know him but at the kind invitation of the Lloyd Jones trust grace to you partnered with you for many many many years absolutely and it was a it was a great joy to me because you didn't know at the time all that the doctor meant to me there were probably two things I would say number one was reading the two-volume biography and finding out what a kindred spirit he was to me and I could break that down into categories he had the same view essentially of preaching that I've that I've had and I needed to find a hero that I could follow and that was that exposition had to be relentlessly a doctrinal and you have a statement that Lloyd Jones during his time as it as an expository that r''l emphasis was alone in the okay pretty much yes and that would have been true here in but I was convinced that the whole point of Bible exposition what was so that the doctrine would emerge and in all preaching had to be doctrinal that that was a huge influence to me unscheduled exposition influenced me that that he didn't know how many sermons there would be in Ephesians one or until he finished then there were 38 right he didn't know he took it as it came that that was a model for me to preach Sunday by Sunday by Sunday by Sunday and see what you get when you're finished what else consecutive exposition so John when you go into the pulpit you don't know how far you're gonna get in the chapter I have I have an idea that may work out and it may not work out yeah and the point there is it's leaving room for the Holy Spirit if we really yeah you don't you don't know you may get so much more Liberty and you've got two sermons instead of one yeah and Lord John said he he said the failure of preaching is not because preachers don't know enough about a man and his problems I think that's why you put it failure preaching is they don't know nothing about the word in the Holy Spirit yeah yeah and and just another thing a content he was focused on the sovereignty of God in the glory of God in all of his preaching I felt another thing that his ministry did for me was to show me the path of maintaining biblical Authority in epic confrontations and that really came to the fore not only in the Anglican situation but it was exacerbated in the Billy Graham years from what 54 to 66 and he would not equivocate on Biblical Authority he would not sit on a platform with men who denied Biblical Authority he wouldn't be a part of cooperative evangelism he in fact you you write about the time that he I think it was around 1966 before that Berlin event that the grandma organization asked him to be the chair of that event and he said I'll do it on two grounds one you remove all people from prominent positions who are not faithful to the authority of Scripture and two you take out the invitation of the decision ISM yeah yeah that's right right that's right and there was no deal no I think he knew that when he made the offer but he influenced me on holding that line and and one other immense influence on me was his book on the Sermon on the Mount yeah yeah he rather effectively took shots at dispensationalism old traditional dispensationalism in which i was raised when i started into the ministry I had been taught that the Sermon on the Mount belonged in the future millennium and had nothing to do with the church age which I didn't understand and believe and systematically page by page by page the Lord used lloyd-jones to dismantle that notion and by the time I got preaching through five to seven people on the dispensational side thought I'd abandon the faith I hadn't but I had come to I think a correct understanding of that great greatest really of all New Testament evangelistic sermon yes so unload John's books I might just say much as I'd like to push a banner of truth book it see it's InterVarsity IVP studies in the Sermon on the Mount if you haven't started reading lloyd-jones that's an excellent that's the best starting point that's where on the mouth it's in the bookstore yeah is it good and then I could just throw in the book knowing the times which is a book of his addresses not sermons but addresses in which he does talk about the church and the situation and our evangelical policy that's that's a very good starting point can I say one other thing about La Jones that I learned from you that when he as a medical doctor was invited to speak to the Welsh people yeah he went in and he cried the degraded state of Welsh preaching right did he not tell them that the problems in the country you know were because of the decline of the church and the decline of the church was related to the decline in preaching yes yes there was a tradition of preaching that had just become traditional and professional and it wasn't doctrinal and it didn't disturb anyone did it he people were easily made church members in the church but but at that time when he first started saying that he was still a lemon yes yes I'm back with you I was curious for 1925 he's talking about that was pretty but I wasn't there but no that's right he spoke in South Wales and the newspapers caught up on what he was saying and they thought this was very arrogant again I suppose just for the audio sermons I did have two recommendations to pick up on John's point about not sending out a syllabus for preaching with living room for the Holy Spirit the the very first sermon if you go to the website and go to the book of Romans the very first sermon is a semuc or a man called Paul and there are a couple of things that are very helpful and to understand his ministry one is a full-throated defense of the much-maligned Apostle Paul the second thing is his whole approach to doing expositional series the the other one which every sermon is in it's a relationship between yourself and God and affects people differently but in Ephesians 2 there is a Cemil called but God where having described a problem of man and the state of sin and the utter hopelessness that we find ourselves in their words but God and what that meant for us which i think is but by any measure pretty powerful you've never listened to a lloyd-jones sermon go look up that one on but God and listen to that very powerful and as far as reading in what about the plight of man and the power of God yes these were addresses he gave in Edinburgh 1939-40 from Romans chapter 1 it was the first published work on Romans I think they're a good summary of the Gospels Gregg Gilbert's what is the gospel only lloyd-jones 19 yes 40 yes very very short powerful and another short book which banner do it's on in the book room on authority authority of Scripture authority of Christ authority of the Holy Spirit ya know in what was it like to listen to him preach but you heard him preach at Westminster Chapel yeah a couple hundred times maybe I suppose so yeah well I think with all good preaching if it really is good preaching the biblical sense of good preaching you very quickly forget the man who's preaching and that's what happened with the Lord Jones you God was speaking to you and yeah I think that is a mark of real preaching you you forget about the man himself the great deficiency that we suffer from is that way back in the 1950s nobody thought of gatherings like this and the result is we don't have Jonathan may correct me but as far as I know we don't have a single recording of a full service at Westminster Chapel and that is a real loss because the service led to the sermon and they were united and he led the whole service and you didn't notice him doing it I believe it's the work of the Holy Spirit as with Spurgeon people didn't say when Spurgeon was preaching why doesn't he let other people do things when the Holy Spirit is speaking you you you the man himself is in the background but that is a real loss that we don't have do we have any recorded service or a typical Sunday at Westminster tell them tell us what a typical Sunday service would be like well he would come quietly into the pulpit bow his head from mum to the desk then the doxology would be sung without it without information and then he would lead in a brief prayer and then the first hymn which he would announce and it would be a hymn leading into worship and perhaps especially for the Lord's Day and then the morning service would always include one metrical son but there before sermons there would be what we call the long prayer faster prayer and then brief notices by the church secretary who had been at Princeton in 1906 and and in the 1950s he was still attired as though it was Princeton in 1906 and then so him before the sermon and then the sermon but by the time the sermon came generally you were gripped there's no question of the preacher having to get the attention of the people and tell him a little story to interest them so we're losing the service we've really lost something but he would have probably said you can't put that on tape he didn't like to have his sermons he wouldn't have cared to have all his prayers and things he wouldn't have wouldn't have you wouldn't have cared for that maybe that's why we don't have any tapes of no I think it's because I mean the taping really began before he had you know it was kind of a little sort of tisha Slee done he not know he was being taken out there were two elderly ladies in Shropshire and the plea was they would like to hear they can't get out to church and they would like to hear these and he knew about that but there was the gift there's a rather more going on from he knew the church hasn't really changed that much and that is something I learned with him if you wanted to do something which you thought he wouldn't approve you've just had to do it and then afterwards take whatever came but thank you for teaching staff that yeah so John as a man with a lot of experience preaching what do you make of Lloyd Jones as a preacher do you when you listen to him preach are you thinking that's something I could never do are you thinking that's what I do every Sunday that's what every preacher does every Sunday are you thinking oh I wish he didn't do that but what do you think of him when you listen to I don't think I don't think I dissect the event I don't think I take apart what he's doing he's always been so compelling to me you know just one little illustration of that is he believed in law work in evangelism that you had to preach the law confront sin and and he he not only believed you needed to tell the sinner he was a sinner but you needed to prove it to him and so there was all of this argument that was going on this logical argument he was pinning the sinner down and that's what you get with Lloyd Jones when you listen to him preach you're swept up and you can't you you can't see the skeleton you this thing is fleshed out yeah yeah thank you for saying that John that's so important he meant to disturb people people complained but this man talks to us as though were sinners and when Lloyd Jones heard that he was encouraged [Laughter] and sometimes people left Westminster Chapel vowing they'd never come here again but they did they did come again so he did speak very plainly to people and again it was the sense that it wasn't simply lloyd-jones speaking to them there was something more happening and conviction that's true even with the things he said to Christians I listened to the series on Romans 11 the benediction just you're so overwhelmed with the flow of thought and the grasp that he has and the the intensity and the energy and the strength of this argument and this unpacking that you really you really are the Lord is speaking through this instrument yeah he talked about preaching as a kind of diagnostic fare sort of it with his medical background where he would try to understand the nature of the problem ask questions press sounds also a little bit like a lawyer arguing trying to do more than I think we often do with our sermons today we often today may presume less of our congregations than he seemed to yes he did put questions and got your attention and there was an argument there often and you weren't quite sure where it was leading but that tinia where it was leading and the script he was cause based on the scripture isn't it true Jonathan that his mother said he would have he would have made of the three brothers he would have been the lawyer yes his brother became a judge but his his own mother saw that he'd be a better judge because of prosecutorial style um when when you're starting to look at lloyd-jones and listen to his preaching or we'll read his books do you really need to start with theology well he would say yeah yes I know it depends on screen by theology but his you know everybody arrived say everybody a lot of people know his definition of preaching preaching is theology coming through a man who is on fire well a lot of the commentators concentrate on the man and the fire but his con he began its theology but by theology he meant speaking about God yeah and we start with God sinner has to start with God and if we don't stick gospel doesn't start with Jesus doesn't start with the love of Jesus starts with God and that's where we have to stand and this is um this is where he was out of step with British evangelicalism when he came on the scene evangelicalism had become narrowed into a beginning at once with Christ and conversion and a decision and he came in from a different direction he came in from the direction of Romans 1 2 and most of three before you then get to Christ appreciation and all his ministry that's what he was doing and that was quite contrary to the prevailing evangelical view and some made some people say this man isn't an evangelist is he can't be talking like this some some preachers seem to begin their preaching with all of their theology assembled and they preach for 20 30 40 years and their theology has really not changed at all yeah not been refined much it's still the same things they thought when they began yeah Lloyd Jones more than most and I'm taking this partly from reading his own messages you know in being aware of when they were preached but also from your books brother he seemed to develop a lot theologically for somebody who to whom theology was so important yes his understanding of justification yeah seemed to be much clearer in 1950 than it would have been say even when he first started preaching yes is that fair yes it is he did mature when he first started preaching he was very strong on regeneration the new birth the Christian is a new creation if you're not that you're not a Christian and the unjust offical and the atonement were rather assumed and in the background and late 1920s this came to him with much greater clarity and force and then in 1932 when he was in Toronto and started to read Warfield the view of the majesty of God and the wonder of the plan of salvation became clearer to him yes yet we all develop and because of that development are there any of his early sermons that people often read that you're saying well actually they're not they're not really is useful as his later sermons well some of the old testament evangelistic sermons at bana has free have printed they're all good to read some of them I don't think he wouldn't have preached in that way in later years but they're they're worth reading because they show how he's getting through to people and disturbing people certainly leading them to the Lord Jesus Christ why do you think he disturbed people so much I mean he is often associated with controversy well the great David Brainerd said no one can speak to people's consciences without being filled with the Holy Spirit and I'm sure that comes into it it's you it's not something you get out of books but if a man is anointed with the Holy Spirit he is speaking to people's hearts and consciences so Lloyd Jones although he had such a powerful mind he was speaking very much to the conscience and that that's New Testament wasn't it manifests 80 manifesting the truth to every man's conscience in the sight of God and that I'm on that point he would have disagreed with people who say we've got a great problem today that there's such a gap between the church and the world there's no point of communication not at all they've all got consciences there's a witness on God's side in every person's heart and we've got to speak to that that's that's another thing from his life that that I saw that I found a parallel you have an ally in the unregenerate heart and the conscience and the law of God written their heart you run at that he knew that you don't have that's why he he felt so strongly against psychology psychologists were saying you have to know yourself and boy Jones was saying you have to know God that's right and and he knew he had it he had to go at the conscience at the law of God written in the heart down yeah very helpful early on in what's come of that emphasis that was so clear in his preaching on revival first of all what did Lloyd Jones mean by revival Lloyd Jones believed that the work of the kingdom of God does not progress through history at an even level it's not always some summer time sometimes it's like winter God doesn't leave the church ever but there are times of decay times even of apostasy and he was a great reader of church history and he knew from church history that there were periods when the same men were endued with the spirit in a new way and they saw consequences in their ministry that they hadn't seen in preaching through 20 years they were preaching the same sermons but God gave them additional aid and so he believed a revival was an unusual outpouring or effusion of the Holy Spirit and that it was to be seen by deeper hunger for the word of God closer eagerness to hear the word of God so the sort of tests that Jonathan Edwards gave it's a revival isn't to be judged by the excitement or whether people fall down or laugh or cry that's nothing revival produces moral change and can affect whole communities and in real revivals we know that's happened that people make restitution thieving is stopped police run out of work in some parts of the country that's the kind of awakening we haven't seen in Britain for many years he believed that it's possible and in the 1960s preached a good deal on that and a lot of people thought well we're quite near and real revival he didn't actually believe that when he was asked the question do you think revival is near no he said I don't oh they said why not because we're too health that he said we don't we're not really in a position of crying to God out of need so but there were then those who joined on a bandwagon revival as the message and they preached revival but when when it didn't appear well then another message came and then the charismatic movement came and so you know God tests men and our belief doesn't even doesn't end so a real awakening is what is needed in Britain today and in America today while we thank God for lumbers and the books and the tapes the sign of God's working but we need more if if you've not read Ian Murray's book evangelicalism divided I would encourage you to get a copy of that and read it he he recounts a lot about Lord John's ministry in context at a time also pointing out some helpful points about revival and about controversy and I think ends up although some people know the book is a kind of divisive book I think by that last chapter ends up very charitably in a way I'm guessing you pretty well captured boy John's spirit in that just from what I've read of Lloyd Jones I tried to I hope so I mean Lloyd Jones very strongly believed that we should maintain friendship and kindness to people with whom we disagreed and who did that know jump in on that one at one point I think that's a very true statement that he believed passionately that you should stand up all you believe is right and he thought that was the example set by the Apostle Paul that as individuals we're sinners and we're frail and personal relations are very important so with a number of the people around who some of the controversy occurred in the 60s and the 70s whose names I won't mention that I think it's right they would come to the house and he would talk to them and they would maintain very good personal relations even if they had disagreement which is he believed to be the Christian standard John in his book on preaching preaching and preachers he has a lot of very strong and clear instructions to the preacher and opinions on preaching is this a book you encourage young preachers to read I do that's where I first picked up on the fact that he didn't think sermons should be recorded because he he he believed that this he really believed that that that preaching was a Holy Spirit lead Holy Spirit empowered me event guys rule all and that too to record that somehow and pull that out of the context of what it was was to strip it of the divine element divine intention and and I think while I didn't agree with that at the time I understand how you can can information and distribute it yeah and it could be void that's why that's why Yein is saying that he misses so much about not having the service yeah because that was all apart that's what lloyd-jones saw is that that event that spirit here is an event you put your finger on it he was afraid that tapes would just be taken and while you're washing the car or scrubbing the floor you could listen to tapes well we know that can be done in the right spirit but there is a danger that that the tape becomes separate from worship and he believed if you were listening to a sermon you should give you a whole being to it it's part of the worship of God it's not something to be done off and on and and interrupted with phone calls and so like that because that's to take it too casually that's a high view of the Word of God it is a Word of God speaking to us one of the things I remember Jim Packer saying about going to Westminster Chapel and hearing lloyd-jones preached in the 50s yeah was that there was a profound sense of the presence of God yeah yeah it was it was in no way a casual yeah but that there was just even before he would begin to speak and he would just be in the pulpit there would be such a sense of anticipation of what God's Spirit would do because he's so regularly and faithfully did that preaching right that there was a heavy Covel a heavy sense yeah I think you you you talked about the fact that one of the books I don't know maybe in the newer one that he always selected worship hymns that were objective propositional declarations of the nature of God yes that's how it all began yes the first part of the service yes that's right and then Invitational hymns at the conclusion and and and also he was so his view of worship was such that occasionally he would stop in the middle of a hymn and tell the congregation you're not really singing these words they were singing the children enjoying the children and he would stop them and someone might say well how did he know that well I think you you know you get a sense when a large audience is just enjoying the music yeah wait he I don't know if I can express this but he he believed that the glory of God was absolutely everything and so he didn't do what typical American contemporary preachers might do and that's welcome people to the church even if the Queen had come he wouldn't have welcomed he would have taken the view of this is a great privilege to come to but you weren't coming to the church you were coming that's right but that's why he actually never said good morning or anything like that he said if it was my home I would welcome you but this isn't my home I don't say good morning to people when they they've not come just to meet me if you've not listened to Lloyd Jones preach I remember John Piper I remember saying this in a phone call a few years ago we were telling some problem and John just pipes up and he out of the blue we hadn't taught Lloyd jokes at all and he said if they just ever heard Lloyd Jones preach we wouldn't be having this problem remember that no gentlemen we need to stop so people would have time for dinner Jonathan any final thing you think you want to encourage people to know or remember or think of no I would I would say the end of his life was the same as the living of his life that one other like when he couldn't speak anymore and it was his final day and they wanted to keep giving him pills the note that he wrote was don't hold me back and so as he departed was as he lived and it was a great comfort to his family as well as all those who had enjoyed his service yeah and I'm impressed by the quotes with Lloyd Jones again near the end of his life and somebody came to see him no longer able to preach they wanted to sort of encourage him a bit and they said must be a big disappointment to you dr. Lloyd Jones that you can't preach anymore no he said no I never lived for preaching and the other thing is on prayer people asked him do you prepare your prayers no he said but I prepare myself and that's a very vine by that really he was saying I do pray in private I prepare myself and isn't that the most difficult thing about preaching well he did one thing to prepare a sermon but to prepare ourselves isn't John would you lead us in prayer for us to be faithful in the ministry God commits to us father we thank you for the life of this noble servant faithful servant David Martyn lloyd-jones we thank you for the legacy he being dead yet speaks thank you for for extending his influence through our dear friend Ian Murray we thank you for Jonathan and the testimony coming from a grandson to the integrity of a man who was what he preached and and loved the Lord that he professed thank you for the fact that we have his legacy now even available to us to listen to him as well as to read and see what you've done in the past these are important things for us to know the tendency today is to disdain the past and exalt the present and this is to miss the wonder of redemptive history and how you have used faithful men and may there be some even here in this place about whom we will speak not in this generation but the church will speak in generations yet to come for the way that you've used them fill us with your Holy Spirit as we serve you we pray in Christ's name

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Length: 41min 6sec (2466 seconds)

Published: Mon May 05 2014