Martyn Lloyd-Jones was an influential minister and medical doctor in the Calvinist wing of the British evangelical movement. He is best known for his writings on theology and philosophy, but he also had a significant impact on apologetics and Christian education. His work has helped to shape the thinking of thousands of Christians around the world.
In addition to his theological writing, Lloyd-Jones was a prolific author, publishing over 60 books throughout his career. Born in 1899 in the picturesque town of Cardiff, Wales, David Martyn Lloyd-Jones was raised in a devoutly Christian family. After studying theology and medicine at Cambridge, he became a Protestant minister in the 1930s. In 1981, after a long and successful career as a minister, Lloyd-Jones died at the age of 82.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones Quotes
Martyn Lloyd-Jones Quotes On The Holy Spirit
“What is Christianity? Christianity is that which brings a man or woman to a knowledge of God. Take our Lord’s own definition of eternal life: “This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” That is Christianity—knowing God, not just believing a few things about God and living a nice little life. That is not Christianity. That is often nothing but morality or mere religion. The essence of this is entering into this realm into which you begin to know and have communion with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”
Martyn Lloyd-Jones
“Let me tell you one story to illustrate what I mean. I remember a woman who was a spiritist, and even a medium, a paid medium employed by a spiritist society. She used to go every Sunday evening to a spiritist meeting and was paid three guineas for acting as a medium.
This was during the thirties, and that was quite a large sum of money for a lloyd-jones-quotes/” title=”The Best of Martyn Lloyd-Jones: 16 Inspiring Quotes”>lower middle-class woman. She was ill one Sunday and could not go to keep her appointment. She was sitting in her house and she saw people passing by on their way to the church where I happened to be ministering in South Wales. Something made her feel a desire to know what those people had, and so she decided to go to the service, and did.
She came ever afterwards until she died, and became a very fine Christian. One day I asked her what she had felt on that first visit, and this is what she said to me; and this is the point I am illustrating. She said, ‘The moment I entered your chapel and sat down on a seat amongst the people I was conscious of a power. I was conscious of the same sort of power as I was accustomed to in our spiritist meetings, but there was one big difference; I had a feeling that the power in your chapel was a clean power.’
The point I am making is simply this, that she was aware of a power. This is this mysterious element. It is the presence of the Spirit in the heart of God’s children, God’s people, and an outsider becomes aware of this. This is something you can never get if you just sit and read a book on your own. The Spirit can use a book, I know, but because of the very constitution of man’s nature -our gregarious character, and the way in which we lean on one another, and are helped by one another even unconsciously- this is a most important factor.
That is so in a natural sense, but when the Spirit is present, it is still more so. I am not advocating a mob or a mass psychology which I regard as extremely dangerous, particularly when it is worked up. All I am contending for is that when you enter a church, a society, a company of God’ s people, there is a factor which immediately comes into operation, which is reinforced still more by the preacher expounding the Word in the pulpit; and that is why preaching can never be replaced by either reading or by watching television or anyone of these other activities.”
Martyn Lloyd-Jones
“The chief thing is the love of God, the love of souls, a knowledge of the Truth, and the Holy Spirit within you.”
Martyn Lloyd-Jones
“We have to be poor in spirit before we can be filled with the Holy Spirit.”
Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Martyn Lloyd-Jones Quotes On Faith
“Faith means that I deliberately shut myself down to this Book, the Bible. I refuse to philosophize. I refuse to ask certain questions. People are always asking them. They want to understand the doctrine of the Trinity. You cannot. You will never understand it. It is too great. So you accept it; and you stop asking questions.”
Martyn Lloyd-Jones
“So there is nothing more vital for us to realize than this very thing: the Christian life, the Christian faith, is not something that we add on to what we have; it is something that is done to us.”
Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Martyn Lloyd-Jones Quotes On Prayer
“Prayer is beyond any question the highest activity of the human soul. Man is at his greatest and highest when upon his knees he comes face to face with God.”
Martyn Lloyd-Jones
“Some people, even in worship, seem to think that they must say their ‘Amen’ in a particular way, or must say it often. Thinking that this is a sign of spirituality, they make themselves a nuisance at times to others and so get into trouble about that. That is not commended in Scripture; it is a false notion of worship.”
Martyn Lloyd-Jones
“You show me a man who does not pray very much and I will tell you the real problem of that man. It is that he does not know God, he does not know God as his Father. That is the trouble.”
Martyn Lloyd-Jones
“Now the word ‘abiding’ makes people become sentimental. They think of abiding as something passive and clinging, but to abide in Christ is to do what He tells you, positively, and to pray without ceasing. Abiding is a tremendously active thing.”
Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Martyn Lloyd-Jones Quotes On The Gospel
“To make it quite practical I have a very simple test. After I have explained the way of Christ to somebody I say “Now, are you ready to say that you are a Christian?” And they hesitate. And then I say, “What’s the matter? Why are you hesitating?” And so often people say, “I don’t feel like I’m good enough yet. I don’t think I’m ready to say I’m a Christian now.” And at once I know that I have been wasting my breath. They are still thinking in terms of themselves. They have to do it. It sounds very modest to say, “Well, I don’t think I’ good enough,” but it’s a very denial of the faith.
The very essence of the Christian faith is to say that He is good enough and I am in Him. As long as you go on thinking about yourself like that and saying, “I’m not good enough; Oh, I’m not good enough,” you are denying God – you are denying the gospel – you are denying the very essence of the faith and you will never be happy. You think you’re better at times and then again you will find you are not as good at other times than you thought you were. You will be up and down forever. How can I put it plainly? It doesn’t matter if you have almost entered into the depths of hell. It does not matter if you are guilty of murder as well as every other vile sin. It does not matter from the standpoint of being justified before God at all.
You are no more hopeless than the most moral and respectable person in the world.”
Martyn Lloyd-Jones
“We can put it this way: the man who has faith is the man who is no longer looking at himself and no longer looking to himself. He no longer looks at anything he once was. He does not look at what he is now. He does not even look at what he hopes to be as the result of his own efforts. He looks entirely to the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work, and rests on that alone. He has ceased to say, “Ah yes, I used to commit terrible sins but I have done this and that.” He stops saying that. If he goes on saying that, he has not got faith. Faith speaks in an entirely different manner and makes a man say, “Yes I have sinned grievously, I have lived a life of sin, yet I know that I am a child of God because I am not resting on any righteousness of my own; my righteousness is in Jesus Christ and God has put that to my account.”
Martyn Lloyd-Jones
“If your preaching of the gospel of God’s free grace in Jesus Christ does not provoke the charge from some of antinomianism, you’re not preaching the gospel of the free grace of God in Jesus Christ.”
Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Martyn Lloyd-Jones On Grace
“we must never look at any sin in our past life in any way except that which leads us to praise God and to magnify His grace in Christ Jesus.”
Martyn Lloyd-Jones
“[The] term ‘decide’ has always seemed to me to be quite wrong…A sinner does not ‘decide’ for Christ; the sinner ‘flies’ to Christ in utter helplessness and despair saying —
Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Foul, I to the fountain fly,
Wash me, Saviour, or I die.
No man truly comes to Christ unless he flies to Him as his only refuge and hope, his only way of escape from the accusations of conscience and the condemnation of God’s holy law. Nothing else is satisfactory. If a man says that having thought about the matter and having considered all sides he has on the whole decided for Christ, and if he has done so without any emotion or feeling, I cannot regard him as a man who has been regenerated. The convicted sinner no more ‘decides’ for Christ than the poor drowning man ‘decides’ to take hold of that rope that is thrown to him and suddenly provides him with the only means of escape. The term is entirely inappropriate.”
“We tend to have a wrong view of law and to think of it as something that is opposed to grace. But it is not. Law is only opposed to grace in the sense that there was once a covenant of law, and we are now under the covenant of grace.”
Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Conclusion
In conclusion, Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ quotes are insightful and thought-provoking. His words remind us that Christianity is not a religion of rules and regulations, but a relationship with God that should be based on love and grace. We should prayerfully consider his words as we navigate our own lives and relationships. Thank you for joining me today as we explored the wisdom of Martyn Lloyd-Jones.