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In this sermon on John 1:12-13 titled “Leading with the Spirit,” Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones explains one of the finest tests of faith known in the Scriptures: is the Christian led by the Holy Spirit? If one is led by the Spirit, they are unmistakably a child of God. Dr. Lloyd-Jones teaches how knowledge of the Trinity affects one’s knowledge of assurance. He explains that the Spirit came to glorify the Son. Therefore, if led by the Spirit of God, His leading will always be toward Christ, the Messiah. If the Christian is being led to believe, follow, submit, and glory in Christ, they are undoubtedly led by the Spirit of God. From regenerating hearts to inspiring Scripture, the Spirit’s work always points toward Christ. Dr. Lloyd-Jones elaborates on doctrines including the Trinity, the inspiration of Scripture, and the spiritual gifts. Those weary in heart who question their salvation can listen along as Dr. Lloyd-Jones brings hope to the heart of Christians and clarity of the doctrine of assurance.
The words of Scripture allow a glimpse into the eternal plan of the Trinity. Theologians have called this the Covenant of Redemption where humanity can be redeemed from their sin and reconciled to God. In this sermon on Ephesians 1:3 titled “The Everlasting Covenant,” this central theme of Ephesians comes alive as Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones warns, laments, and challenges Christians to understand the great theme of redemption. The believer’s greatest need is to understand doctrine. What is at stake is not intellectual curiosity, but worship. The truth about redemption, argues Dr. Lloyd-Jones, leads to adoration, worship, and praise. When one dwells upon the redemptive work of each person, they grow in their worship of God. When a Christian understands more, the more worship they experience. For the Christian, worship is always Trinitarian. One must not only praise the Father, but also the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Christian must not stop at worshiping only the Son, but also the Father and the Holy Spirit. They cannot focus exclusively on the Holy Spirit to the neglect of the Father and Son but must adore the blessed Trinity.
In this sermon on Ephesians 2:18 titled “Access to the Father,” Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones speaks of the solution to the struggle to understand the love of God. It could be because people don’t understand that the three persons of the Trinity have acted in time, each to pursue the Christian’s salvation who must feel the weight of that truth. The Father planned salvation, the Son was sent by the Father to give of Himself to accomplish salvation, and the Holy Spirit has been sent by the Father and the Son to apply redemption. Also, this shows the wretchedness of sin. “Sin is as great a problem as this: that it necessitated the three person of the Trinity to deal with it,” Dr. Lloyd-Jones states. However, removing enmity with God was not the ultimate reason, but God’s “objective” was to bring His people to Himself. As Dr. Lloyd-Jones notes, this is the “whole object and purpose of salvation.” He made His people to enjoy Him and that is His end goal. Therefore, the questions must be asked: “Do you enjoy God? Do you enter into His presence? Do you go before Him with confidence because of what Jesus has done on your behalf? Do you come before Him by His Spirit?”
What is the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian? Many Christians do not have a very high view of the third person of the Trinity. In this sermon on John 1:12–13, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones preaches on the role of the Holy Spirit in giving Christians assurance of their new life in Christ. It is the Holy Spirit that transforms the lifeless old man into a glorious new creation made for God. It is the Holy Spirit that opens believers’ eyes to see the truths of Scripture and its meaning for their lives. It is also the Holy Spirit that guides believers into the knowledge of the salvation of God. All Christians can and should have the knowledge that they are loved by God and called to be His children. This sermon tells the glorious truth that all who believe in Jesus can be saved and forgiven of all their sins, and they can know that they are forgiven by the working of the Holy Spirit in their lives.
What is the gospel? It is certainly good news. It moved the apostle Paul every time he spoke of it. It is not law and neither is the gospel merely a list of moral commands. It is not simply an announcement that God will forgive sins. The gospel is not an appeal to do something nor a teaching on how to live better. In this sermon titled “The Gospel of God” on Romans 1:1, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones explains what the gospel is not and explores what the gospel is. The gospel is a proclamation of what God has done. Some emphasize the Father’s work alone in the gospel and ignore the work of the Son. Others focus on Christ, nearly posturing His work of redemption against the Father’s will. Still some focus solely on the work of the Holy Spirit. Paul calls the gospel “the gospel of God.” This is to say, the whole of the Trinity is at work. The good news is a proclamation of what the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have done. Listen as Dr. Lloyd-Jones proclaims this good news and puts the gospel of God before the listener.
In this sermon on 2 Corinthians 4:5 titled “The Nature of the Christian Ministry,” Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones passionately proclaims the real character of the Christian preacher and the true Christian message. Look at the example of Paul. Why did Paul not preach himself? What makes someone or something a fit subject for preaching about? The task of the gospel is not easy, but it is clear. The Christian is preaching to a world that is outside. Learn about earthen vessels and the state of the condition of the natural person. The gospel of Christ is not only preaching on morality and conduct; the natural person is ignorant of the issue of their own soul. People were meant to be companions of God who communed with Him. Why is this not seen? The world is under the control of the devil. Learn how to fight the spiritual forces of evil in this world. Glory in the Trinity, in God through His creation, and in the Son who died and rose again. The Christian preacher ought to be one who is prepared to be nothing so that God can be everything.
In this sermon on Psalm 8:3–4 titled “What is Man…?” spoken at Trinity Road Chapel Centenary in 1970, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones responds to the accusations of the world that Christians are stuck in the past and unaware of what is happening in the modern world. The Christian gospel is necessary to consider the past and to face the future. Dr. Lloyd-Jones says that the only people truly thinking in this world are the Christians. Governed entirely by the Bible, this is a new way of thinking and “considering” things. Christians are not anti-scientific. In fact, true Christianity has been the greatest stimulus for scientific discovery. Learn how the Protestant Reformation liberated people from Greek philosophy and encouraged the scientific revolution. The mind of God alone offers an adequate explanation for the intricacies of creation. Listen to the majesty of humanity, the companion of God, the mark of the divine stamp, the tragedy of humanity, and the great contradiction of humanity. People are hero worshippers with marred faculties. This life determines eternity, there are no second chances—enter in and be eternally safe.
What does it mean that the Son of God became a man? This great doctrine is what has traditionally been called the incarnation. It is God taking on a true human nature in order to save His people. In this sermon on the incarnation, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones preaches on the great importance of this doctrine, not only for theology, but also for the Christian life. He warns of two main errors in thinking about the incarnation. The first is the misconception that Jesus merely appeared to be a man. But this is false, because Jesus was both man and God as the savior. The other error is to believe that the second person of the Trinity was changed in the incarnation, that the very nature of God changed. This is false because there was no mixing of the natures, so that the divine nature remains fully divine and distinct from His human nature. God in the incarnation was not only both God and man, but this fact is declared in the virgin birth. There was a miraculous conception in accordance with the miraculous person born. This doctrine of the incarnation as found in the Bible is the teaching that God has come down to humanity as a man to save all those that believe in Him.
What separates humanity from God? In this sermon on Isaiah 40:25–28 titled “The Character of God,” Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones responds that the answer is God’s holiness. Because all of humanity is sinful and fallen, they are alienated from God. Sinners cannot approach God or stand before Him because they are unclean and unholy. How then can anyone come before God? The answer is found not in what humanity can do, but in what God does. For God is both the just and the justifier in the salvation of humanity by sending His Son into the world to die in the place of sinners. Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, was born of a virgin and died in the place of sinners, bearing their sins upon Himself. All who believe in Christ receive the great benefits of salvation and are made right before God. How can anyone stand before a holy God? The answer is that they stand before God by standing in the righteousness of Christ Jesus and are found by God to be in Christ. The great truth of the gospel is that although people are sinful and vile, God makes them clean by sending His Son to die in their place on order that they might have life everlasting.
Within certain streams of popular Bible teaching, the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit is significantly diminished. Some have emphasized the responsibility to “take” the Holy Spirit by faith. In other words, God wants to give the Spirit, one just needs to “lay hold of” Him. In this sermon on Romans 8:15 titled “Knowing You Have Received,” Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones finds this teaching unbiblical and troubling. In order to refute this defective teaching, he patiently works through all the New Testament references to the word “receive” and draws proper theological conclusions about the Holy Spirit and faith. Dr. Lloyd-Jones reminds that as the blessed third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is a sovereign Lord. One must never talk as if they control Him. Nor should they, he warns, think they can simply use “faith” to “lay hold of” or “take” the Spirit. As Paul teaches in Romans 8:15, the Christian merely “receives” the Spirit of adoption. This is the consensus of the Scriptural witness. Watch how Dr. Lloyd-Jones models the proper way to handle Christian doctrine and engage those who teach heterodox views. Moreover, listen to Dr. Lloyd-Jones teach the true nature of the Spirit’s sovereignty and how He comes to the believer.
Does the gospel change from person to person? In this sermon on 2 Timothy 2:8 titled “The Only Gospel,” Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones dives deeper into what the gospel is. In 2 Timothy 2:8, Paul instructs believers to follow “my gospel.” Some have interpreted this to mean that each have their own individual gospel that is based on individual experiences. Yet, as Dr. Lloyd-Jones shows, this cannot be further from the truth — Paul is exhorting Timothy to hold tightly to the unchanging, true gospel that Paul was preaching. What else is he saying in this passage? First, that it is the only gospel. Second, this gospel is to be remembered because it is the meaning of the story of Christ. While some say that claiming to have exclusive truth is “narrow-minded,” Dr. Lloyd-Jones provides some reasons why Christians can rightly claim that this gospel is true. First, if there was any other gospel, the events that occurred in the life of Jesus would not have happened because they would not have been necessary. Second, Jesus is the only one to fulfill the prophecies from the Old Testament about the promised Savior. Third, Jesus is the only one who can really teach about God since He is a person of the Trinity. Fourth, only Jesus could perform the task to accomplish what is needed — salvation, the defeat of enemies, and a guide through life.
When we think of Christmas, we usually tend to associate it with Scripture passages from the books of Luke or Matthew, but are there other passages in the Bible that shed more light on what happened that day when Jesus Christ became a man born in Bethlehem? Preached just a few days before Christmas, this sermon by Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones draws truths from Galatians 4:4-6 that are crucial to our understanding of the celebration of Christmas. First, all three members of the Trinity—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit— are involved in our salvation. Second, the focal point of all of this is the coming of Jesus into the world, the reason behind the celebration of Christmas. Paul says that Jesus was “sent forth”— a phrase that has caused many questions throughout the centuries among New Testament scholars, but Dr. Lloyd-Jones provides answers to help us understand what this means. Third, what does Paul’s statement of “the fullness of time” mean? Is it in an evolutionary sense that the present is better than the past? No! Dr. Lloyd-Jones emphatically demonstrates that it means God is in control of time and that God has predetermined all of the major events having to do with our salvation. How does this apply to us as we think of Christ’s coming? Dr. Lloyd-Jones reminds us that ultimately, because of God’s sovereignty, our worst time is his best time, and we can rest in that.
Is Christianity based on nothing more than myths? In this sermon on Luke 12:54–57 titled “The Blindness of Modern Man,” Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones confronts this false claim, showing that the message of Christianity is based on the historical facts of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity. The Holy Scriptures attest to this as the inspired revelation of God the Creator Himself. God testified to His existence and attributes in the very creation of the world and providence. Despite all this, humanity rejects Christianity. They claim that it is intellectually shallow, lacks evidence, and that only those who sacrifice their mind can assent to it. However, Dr. Lloyd-Jones teaches that those who reject Christianity do not do so because of intellectual objections, but because of the effects of sin. For while people may be capable of extraordinary feats of science, technology, art, and medicine, they are unable to comprehend spiritual truths unless God opens their hearts and minds to understand the gospel. They are not dumb but blinded by sin. They know that if they come to Christ, they must leave behind their sinful ways and give all to Christ. No one is capable of leaving behind a life of sin and rebellion unless God in His grace enlightens their hearts and minds so that they can see the truth of the gospel.
God has every right to immediately and eternally punish sin. Humanity has been warned for centuries to turn from sin and submit to Christ. While God restrains His wrath, He will not allow His voice to be ignored forever. In this sermon on Roman 9:19–24 titled “God’s Glory Revealed (1),” Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones lays out a four-fold case to explain God’s patience with sinful people. That case includes (1) the compassion of God that does not take pleasure in punishment; (2) the fact that humanity is utterly inexcusable because of the opportunities God has given; (3) the reality that when God’s wrath is revealed, it will be all the more striking; and (4) the patience and wrath of God reveal His character in ways nothing else can. The wrath of God protects His holiness, but it was His wrath that was poured out on Jesus Christ when He took humanity’s punishment for sin. That gift of salvation makes known the riches of His glory and is the most magnificent thing God does. Even the miracle of creation pales in comparison to the miracle of salvation. The fact that God would even choose to associate with humanity is staggering to Dr. Lloyd-Jones as he explains how the entire Trinity is involved in the salvation plan: it is the Father’s will to save, the Son who was executed and rose from the grave, and the Spirit who seals salvation and continues to apply the work of sanctification to the Christian’s life. This is the work God delights to do, yet it is also the work from which humanity runs. Today is the day of salvation, to stop running from God and turn to Him in humble confession of sin, believing in the finished work of Jesus Christ.
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