INTRODUCTION
The greatest need for the church today is to have faithful men who will proclaim the whole counsel of God. Instead of feeding the sheep, preachers today have simply sought to entertain them. The aim of this paper is to look at the life and preaching ministry of David Martyn Lloyd-Jones. It was said that without question, Martyn Lloyd-Jones was “the finest biblical expositor of the twentieth century.” When “the final chapter of church history is written, the Doctor will stand as one of the greatest preachers of all time.” In this paper, we will answer the following questions: first, who was Martyn Lloyd-Jones? Secondly, what characterized his preaching ministry? Thirdly, what can we learn from his ministry? To answer these questions, this paper will be split into three different parts. To begin, we will first look at a brief biographical sketch of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Then, we will focus on his preaching ministry. Finally, to conclude, we will then draw lessons from the life and ministry of D. M. Lloyd-Jones.
WHO WAS DR. MARTYN LLOYD-JONES?
Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones was considered the “greatest preacher the English-speaking world has seen in the twentieth century.” In a day when biblical preaching was unpopular, Lloyd-Jones expounded the Scriptures, bringing people face to face with God. Through his preaching ministry, lives were changed for the glory of God. Dr. Lloyd-Jones was used mightily by God to recovery Biblical expository preaching in an era when it was almost completely lost. Given such a legacy, I want to ask the first question: who was this man? To answer this question, I will give a brief biographical sketch of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ life, addressing three areas: pre-conversion, conversion, and the call to ministry.
Pre-Conversion Life
To begin, David Martyn Lloyd-Jones was born on December 20th, 1899, in Cardiff, Wales. He was born into a Welsh-speaking home, where they lived a simple, yet hardworking life. In 1906, the Lloyd-Jones family joined a Calvinistic Methodist church, which was founded by Daniel Rowland, an evangelist who was greatly used in the eighteenth-century Welsh revival. In this church, Lloyd-Jones was first introduced to the doctrines of grace, which would later lay a foundation for his future ministry. From a young age Martyn loved to read and learn about history. This love for reading would later develop into a great love for church history, especially the Puritans.
After completing High School, Martyn pursued further education in the study of medicine, with the intent of becoming a physician. At the age of sixteen, Martyn was accepted into the top hospital in the world at its time, St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in England. In his studies, Martyn distinguished himself from all other students in his program. It was clear that Martyn had an outstanding intellect, making him a gifted physician with a bright future in medicine. As time went on at St. Bart’s, Martyn gained the attention of top teachers in the medical field, one being Sir Thomas Horder. Dr. Horder was impressed with Martyn’s abilities to diagnose illnesses, which eventually opened for Martyn to practice under him. One prominent skill that Lloyd-Jones developed during his time in the medical field was to examine the whole man and his symptoms to get to the root of the problem. This way of examination eventually translated into how he would preach the gospel to needy sinners.
Conversion and Calling
Despite the awards and achievements from the world, Martyn was unsatisfied. He began to see those around him as unsatisfied as well. They had everything, yet they were empty. These events in Martyn’s life began to convict him of his own personal sin and his guilt before God. Lloyd-Jones concluded that he had never been a Christian at all. In a lecture given by Martyn Lloyd-Jones, he stated the following: “For many years I thought I was a Christian when in fact I was not… I was a member of a church and attended my church and its services regularly.” He could not recall a single time when one sermon touched his conscience. Most of the preaching assumed that all who came to listen were Christians. Commenting on this situation, Lloyd-Jones would later say: “What I needed was preaching that would convict me of sin and make me see my need and bring me to repentance and tell me something about regeneration.”
After his conversion, Lloyd Jones began to see the need for preachers to always be doing the work of an evangelist in the pulpit since he knew what it was like to be in church, yet unregenerate. In his call to ministry, Lloyd-Jones began to see that the greatest need of his patients is not a physical issue, but a spiritual one. As he began to heal patients, he realized that he was only healing them so that they could go back to a life of sin. Over the next few years, Lloyd-Jones would struggle with his call to ministry. In June 1926, Martyn Lloyd-Jones made the decision to leave the medical field to pursue the calling of God upon his life, namely to preach the Gospel. In a letter written to family, Lloyd-Jones wrote: “I want to preach more than ever and am determined to preach. The precise nature of my future activities remains to be settled, but nothing can or will prevent my going about to tell people of the good news.”
On October 26, 1927, Martyn Lloyd-Jones was ordained into the ministry as a Calvinistic Methodist. Lloyd-Jones began his ministry in South Wales, pastoring a small church in Sandfields, at Aberavon. As Lloyd-Jones began to preach the Word, the church began to grow, and his powerful preaching began to draw attention on a wide scale. In 1938 Lloyd-Jones was asked to join G. Campbel Morgan in his work at Westminster Chapel in London. Lloyd-Jones accepted the call and would then fill its pulpit for the next twenty-five years. On March 1, 1981, the Doctor was promoted to glory. To begin this section, I asked the question: who was this man? After a brief biographical sketch of David Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ life, we have seen that he was a man sovereignly called by God to preach the gospel.
WHAT CHARACTERIZED HIS PREACHING MINISTRY?
In this section, we will now consider the preaching ministry of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. To do this, we will answer the following question: what characterized the preaching ministry of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones? Lloyd-Jones stood with the Reformers and Puritans, who for centuries earlier insisted that “preaching is the chief means by which the grace of God is administered to the church.” Lloyd-Jones believed that a resurgence of Puritan convictions was desperately needed in England. In many ways, the preaching ministry of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones modeled that of the Puritans, which focused on the exposition and application of Scripture to the hearer’s heart. Lloyd-Jones believed that “in a faithful exposition of the Word, God Himself is preaching, and that if a man is giving a true exposition of Scripture, God is speaking.”
In the twentieth century, “increasing numbers of people seem[ed] to be depreciating the value of preaching, and they [were] turning more and more to pragmatic means” to win people to Christ. Lloyd-Jones stood against the crowd and believed the people needed to hear straightforward, doctrinal preaching from the Scriptures, which would later be called “logic on fire.” Lloyd-Jones argued that true “preaching is theology coming through a man who is on fire.” It was Peter Lewis who said, “if any preacher exhibited the soul of that definition it was Martyn Lloyd-jones himself… his preaching was uniquely combined with intellect and passion, argument and persuasion.” Lloyd-Jones said after all that “true preaching is God acting. It is not just a man uttering words; it is God using him. He is being used of God.”
To understand Lloyd-Jones’ preaching ministry we will look at three different areas. First, we will see that the preaching ministry of Lloyd-Jones was first marked by a high view of Scripture and a high view of the Spirit’s work through preaching. Secondly, we will see that his preaching was doctrinal and evangelistic. Thirdly, we will see that his preaching was applicatory, where he addressed the whole man in his sermon. To truly understand the preaching ministry of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones one must first begin with his view on Scripture and the role of the Holy Spirit in the preaching of the Word of God.
Authority in Preaching
First, Lloyd-Jones preaching ministry was marked by a high view of Scripture and a high view of the Spirit’s work through the preaching of God’s Word. In the context of Lloyd-Jones’ ministry, the church at large had lost her beliefs “in the authority of the Scriptures, and a diminution in the belief of the truth had led them away from proclamation and ultimatum to suggestion and speculation.” As a result, the church began to partake in pragmatic means to ‘win’ people to Christ. Lloyd-Jones however based his entire pulpit ministry on the Bible. He understood that the Bible is the very Word of God, making it is a timeless and final word to all people. Lloyd-Jones understood that whatever the Bible says, God says. Lloyd-Jones set “clear priorities of Scripture as God’s unchanging pronouncement on the matter.” The Bible was his source of theology since it is God’s revealed truth to man. His entire ministry was yielded from the Bible.
In his preaching, he never cracked jokes, nor used any personal stories. He knew that it was a serious thing to enter the pulpit and open God’s Word. Lloyd-Jones’ view on the authority of Scripture governed how he would preach and what he would preach. He saw himself as an ambassador for Christ. He knew that as he preached the Word of God, it was God speaking and making his appeal to man (2 Cor. 5:20). Therefore, Lloyd-Jones knew that the message does not come from the preacher, but from God.
Additionally, not only did Lloyd-Jones have a high view of Scripture, but he also had a high view of the Spirit’s role in preaching. Dr. Lloyd-Jones knew that if the Word was going to transform lives, it must come “not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction” (1 Thess. 1:5). As the Doctor preached, “he was yearning for the afflatus of the Spirit to fall on him,” which he called ‘unction.’ Lloyd-Jones believed that “unction prompts greater boldness, clarity and power in the preacher. He described it as an ‘accession’ or ‘effusion of power.’ This affects the preacher, lifting him out of himself and giving him abilities which are not naturally his as he discourses.” Lloyd-Jones was a preacher who longed for empowered preaching, knowing that it is the Holy Spirit alone who can supply. Leigh Powell said that as Lloyd-Jones preached, “at times the wind of the Spirit would come and sweep us and him aloft and we would mount with wings like eagles into the awesome and felt presence of God.” Therefore, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ preaching was first marked by a high view of scripture and a high view of the Spirits work through the preaching of God’s Word. He knew what he must proclaim, and he knew where this transforming power came from.
Doctrinal and Evangelistic Preaching
Secondly, Lloyd-Jones’ preaching was doctrinal and evangelistic. The Doctor knew that preaching is central in the edification of the church and the salvation of souls. Preaching God’s Word is “the most important thing of all.” True preaching must always be theological, since it is God’s primary method of delivering the truth. As a result, Lloyd-Jones was committed to biblical exposition, where he would work through a text, explain its meaning, pull out any major doctrines, and then apply it to the individual. Lloyd-Jones understood that it is only doctrinal preaching that can properly feed Christ’s sheep. “In preaching the message should always arise out of the Scriptures directly.” To be a faithful preaching, the Doctor realized that you must be expository in your preaching. Therefore, Lloyd-Jones understood that his duty was to be a mouthpiece for the text. He was only called to open the Scriptures and apply the given doctrine to the individual.
Alternatively, the Doctors preaching was also evangelistic in nature. Of all the different preaching qualities that characterized the Doctor’s ministry, it was his evangelistic preaching that thrilled, impelled and challenged the hearer. When asked about his own preaching ministry, Lloyd-Jones saw himself primarily as an evangelist. “He knew what the greatest glory of the greatest calling was – the glory of God in the salvation of souls.” The preaching of Lloyd-Jones was not dead and dry doctrinal preaching, rather it was theology on fire. Every moment in the sermon, Lloyd-Jones was determined to “take his hearers with him step by step to the heart of his message and, if possible, into the heart of God himself… He never forgot his hearers even in his zeal for the truth he was expounding, addressing himself to their difficulties”
The main thrust of his pulpit ministry was directed to the unconverted. In his preaching, he always sought to show them their utter helpless apart from Christ, urgently pointing them to the Saviour. The Doctor would first diagnose his patients’ symptoms, determine its cause, and then prescribe the cure. Lloyd-Jones began by pointing out one’s sinful condition, and then showed them the cure in the gospel. The evangelistic preaching of Lloyd-Jones has been commonly summarized under the three main headings: ruin, redemption, and regeneration. These categories address “the fall of man and his consequent helplessness, the cross of Christ and its way of atonement, and the necessity of the new birth, the birth ‘from above’, if men were to live new lives.” Therefore, we have seen that the Doctor was a doctrinal and evangelistic preacher. Whenever he entered the pulpit he expounded the text, pulled out its major doctrines, and called sinners to repentance.
Applicatory Preaching
Thirdly, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ preaching was largely applicatory to his hearers. After arriving at the doctrine of the text, Lloyd-Jones sought to show its relevance to the Christian. Lloyd-Jones stated that “the preacher is a man who is speaking to people who are alive today and confronted by the problems of life… you are to show that this message is vitally important for them.” In other words, if a sermon is not applicatory in nature, then it is a lecture, not a sermon. A sermon must be one that is filled with application to the hearer. The Puritan idea of preaching was concerned with an exact exegesis of a text and its proper application. “The first business is to discover its exact meaning. Then, find the doctrine in that text. Then, apply the doctrine and text to the hearers.”
In many ways, Lloyd-Jones followed Puritans in practical and experiential preaching. Lloyd-Jones stated that “the Word of God is vital in its operation only when applied to hearts and consciences of believers by way of consolation and rebuked. The Doctor understood that true preaching was not merely to give knowledge and information to people. Rather, true preaching is to give the text “more heart, to give life to it, to give power to it, to bring it home to the hearers.” As Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones preached, he was constantly applying Scriptural truth to the lives of his hearers, even in his doctrinal teaching. In his preaching, “he never finished a sermon without applying the doctrine to the hearts and lives of his hearers – indeed in his case, as we saw earlier, the ‘application’ was sustained throughout the sermon from the start.”
This section began with the following question: what characterized Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ preaching ministry? To answer this question, we looked at three different areas of his preaching ministry. First, we saw the foundation of Lloyd-Jones’ ministry, namely, a high view of Scripture and a high view of the Spirit’s work in preaching. Secondly, we saw that his preaching was doctrinal and evangelistic to his hearers. Thirdly, we looked at his applicatory preaching, where he sought to analyze and address the whole man by applying his text to the hearer throughout his sermon. Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones followed the pattern of Richard Baxter; he ‘preached as one that never should preach again, as a dying man to dying men.’
WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM HIS MINISTRY?
In the last section of this paper, we will address the following question: what can we learn from the ministry of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones? To answer this question, we will draw three different conclusions from the life and ministry of the Doctor. First, we will see that his entire ministry flowed out of his communion with God. Therefore, it is essential that the preacher has a strong walk with God before he enters the pulpit. Next, we will see that he was a man who was diligent in his studies. The depth of his private study led to the breadth of his ministry, and not the other way around. Finally, we will see that he was a man who relied entirely upon the power of the Holy Spirit in his preaching. He knew that the transforming power was not in himself, but it was entirely of God.
Communion with God
Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones knew that the “highest and the greatest and the most glorious calling to which anyone can be ever called” is to preach God’s word. However, he knew that there was more to the Christian life than just preaching. Martyn Lloyd-Jones knew that the sum and great joy of the Christian life is to have communion with the living God. It was said by Lloyd-Jones that “a life spent in communion with God is the only life worth living. To be reconciled to God, to live in his presence, is a far higher thing than simply working for him.” A preacher may be busy all his life in ministry and still not know God. Therefore, we call learn that it is vitally import for the preacher to know and experience God personally before he preaches to others.
Additionally, we can learn that there is more to preaching than simply learning how to preach. Lloyd-Jones teaches us that there is a spiritual aspect that is tied to ‘effective’ or ‘spirit-empowered’ preaching. True biblical preaching goes deeper and further than simply theological knowledge. The ministry of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones shows us that true biblical preaching stems from a life that is lived in communion with God. The preacher must be a man who pursues personal holiness. Robert Murray McCheyne said, “my people’s greatest need is my personal holiness.” Before the minister opens his mouth to preach, his life has already preached a sermon. Therefore, we see that effectiveness in the pulpit is directly related to the preacher’s spiritual health. Dr. Lloyd-Jones said, that “the preacher must be a man who is characterized by spirituality in an unusual degree… The preacher’s first, and most important task is to prepare himself, not his sermon.”
Therefore, the first lesson that can be drawn for the life and ministry of the Doctor is that the preacher must first experience God himself before he preaches to others. In many cases, young preachers today spend more time preparing their sermons than preparing their hearts. When asked about her husband, Bethan Lloyd-Jones said, “no-one will ever understand my husband unless they first realize that he was a man of prayer and then an evangelist.” Dr. Lloyd-Jones first met with God before he ministered and evangelized others.
Diligent in the Study
Another area that can be learned from the ministry of the Doctor is his diligence in the study. Before he would preach on a given text he would spend hours in the study, devoting himself to the ministry of the Word. His text and sermon came to him after these long hours of private study. An important lesson that can be drawn from Lloyd-Jones diligent study is this: the effectiveness of the sermon is closely related to the form in which it has been planned. In other words, the sermon does not just ‘come together’ in delivery when he enters the pulpit. The hard work must begin in the study. As one looks at Lloyd-Jones’ preaching, it is obvious that he is rational, logical, and well structured. It is important to note that this was birthed out of his own personal study. If the sermon is “not clear, logical, and rational, it will rarely be compelling.” Therefore, the delivery of his sermon is directly tied to the work done in his private study. To be simple and clear in the pulpit, one must begin this process in the study. The depth of one’s study will impact the breadth of one’s ministry. Therefore, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones sets a good example for others to follow. There is a call for the preacher to be diligent in the study of the Word.
The Necessity of the Spirit of God
Finally, the last lesson we can learn from Lloyd-Jones’ preaching is the necessity of the Holy Spirit working through the preaching of the Word. Lloyd-Jones knew that if his preaching was going to transform lives, it must come by the Holy Spirit, with much power and conviction (1 Thess. 1:5). It is clear that it is the work of the Holy Spirit which makes preaching powerful. This truth gives great hope for the preacher since it is nothing in himself that makes preaching powerful, rather it is the Spirit of God working through his preaching. Lloyd-Jones claimed that the “greatest need in the church today is to restore authority to the pulpit.” True gospel preaching cannot be sustained without the power of the Holy Spirit. “Nothing but a return of this power of the Spirit in our preaching is going to avail us anything.” Therefore, Lloyd-Jones exhorts preachers to actively seek God for his Spirit in preaching, but also to expect him to come in power. Lloyd-Jones goes on to say that “the one who raises up preachers has an inexhaustible supply of the Spirit to give.” Thus, whenever a man steps up to preach, he must seek the favour of God and beg him to come in power with His Spirit, so that God may receive all glory.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, as one looks at the life and ministry of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, it becomes quite clear that his reasoning and urgent passion was an outflow of his own personal walk with God. In this paper, we asked three questions: First, who was Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones? Secondly, what characterized his preaching ministry? Thirdly, what can we learn from his ministry? First, we saw that Martyn Lloyd-Jones was a man who was sovereignly called by God to preach the everlasting gospel. All the events leading up to his call to ministry prepared him for this divine call. Then, we looked at the characteristics of the Doctors preaching. We saw that his preaching was authoritative, doctrinal and evangelistic, and applicatory. Finally, to conclude the paper we drew three lessons from the Doctors ministry. First, we saw that one’s entire ministry flows out of their communion with God. Secondly, we saw that the hard work of preaching begins in one’s private study. Thirdly, we saw that it is vitally important for the Spirit to accompany the preaching of the Word. The crying need of our day is for God to raise up another generation of Lloyd-Jones’. The church needs ‘theology coming through a man who is on fire.’
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