This is a article about Martyn Lloyd-Jones' view of preaching. The author discusses the office of the preacher, his task in preaching, and the Holy Spirit and preaching.

Source: The Monthly Record, 2006. 4 pages.

Preaching: a Matter of Life and Death A Tribute to the Memory of a Friend

On the 25th anniversary of the death of Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Dr Tony Sargent, Principal of the International Christian College in Glasgow, reflects on his impact as a preacher.

A delightful story circulates about Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Reputed to be a fast driver (or so his church treasurer told me) he was stopped by the police on his way to a preaching engagement. Checking his license and seeing he was a medic the question was put ‘is it a matter of life and death doctor?’ His reply carried his Welsh intonation: ‘Indeed it is officer’! Whether the story is apocryphal or not it captures what was a lifelong conviction of Lloyd-Jones. Preaching is a matter of life and death.

Twenty five years have elapsed since the man known throughout the evangelical world as ‘The Doctor’ passed away. Proud of his Welshness and perhaps never understanding the English — so he told me! — it seemed right that he should go home on St David’s day. Emil Brunner reckoned him to be the greatest preacher of the reformed faith in the 20th century. I certainly have never heard his equal.

Westminster Chapel is roughly equidistant with Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament. Often as a younger man he would sit in the visitors’ gallery in the latter and listen to great speeches fascinated by oratory and robust argument. He might well have been a politician (his brother became a high court judge). But a higher calling was in view. Arguably it would bring with it greater influence. Later he was favoured to enter the Palace and be greeted by the Queen but he considered his greatest privilege was to kneel in the presence of God and bring his message to one of London’s largest congregations.

Here are some of my abiding recollections of a man who taught me more about expository preaching than anyone.

He Made No Concessions to Modernity🔗

It is a moot point whether he would have recognised the term postmodern especially if used as a key to understanding contemporary mind-set. For him the explanation for man’s contradictory nature is easily traced. The Apostle Paul’s analysis could not be more apposite.

We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. Paul is driven to confess his personal dilemma the good that I would I do not and the evil that I would not that I do.

Acknowledgement of such bias pushes one into the arms of a loving God. And awaiting us is not condemnation but compassion, not punishment but pardon. Our sin is removed by the cross work of Christ. Modernity — post or ordinary! — does not alter, explain nor excuse man. Modernity materially offers much — even mobile phones and power point projection — but it cannot deliver the peace of God, nor peace with God. And man remains thus an enigma.

He Believed the Office of a Preacher is the Most Prestigious in the World🔗

Wealth and fame were in the reach of Lloyd-Jones in his early years. Even in his thirties he made his mark as a heart specialist. But all medical practice has limitations. The restored patient will die — then what? A greater ministry than a physician to the body is a physician to the soul. So convinced of this was Lloyd-Jones he was dismissive of any suggestion that in entering the ministry he had made a personal sacrifice. Rather than giving up, he had taken in! He was not impoverished he was enriched! And in a curious way he found that his professional expertise helped him to self train as a theologian. In analyzing his sermons I coined the term ‘diagnostic preaching’. His approach was essentially analytical — probing the texts, discarding what it could not be saying, underlining what it was affirming and presenting the whole not in the format of supposition but dogmatic assertion. He used questions and highlighted negatives and positives. And at the end of a sermon he would often employ short, staccato style sentences to hammer home the point and convince the ‘patient’ that he was sick and what he must do about it.

It Followed that the Act of Preaching is of the Greatest Importance🔗

For the Welshman occupying one of the premier pulpits in the UK, there were no clever gimmicks, no dilution of the message, no mass choirs, no choice celebrities, no one else in the pulpit (bar the church secretary albeit for a few moments!) and no modern hymns. He had looked across the United Kingdom and observed a barrenness of expository preaching. He was driven to a comment found a century earlier in a lecture at Yale University,

Depend upon it that there is but little preaching in the world, and it is a mystery of grace and of divine power that God’s cause is not ruined in the world when we consider the qualifications of many of its professed ministers to preach it.

Lloyd-Jones wanted to push the tide back and encourage the church to teach the Bible. He followed John Calvin in his conviction that preaching the word of God is the word of God. And by that they both meant that when the Bible is expounded and applied to a congregation, this is the word of God specifically applying to them on that occasion. Thus at the beginning of his sermon Lloyd-Jones’ opening gambit was virtually always the same ‘the passage to which I draw your attention to today is…..’ Then for fifty minutes to an hour he would unpack the passage, expound it, explain it and most importantly apply it.

This Means that the Preacher has Awesome Responsibilities🔗

During the course of his Ephesian expositions he states ‘to be a preacher, an expositor of God’s Book is one of the most dangerous things in the world’. To this we might well twin a comment from his Roman series,

the privileges of the preacher are very great and his responsibility is very great. He is handling truth.

Preaching is not lecturing. It is not giving a talk! It is declaring the word of the living God. The Bible is God’s word inscripturated and to be taken as a whole.

I tremble to think he says movingly, of the position of men who have been called to be stewards of the mysteries, men to whom God has entrusted His oracles, who themselves have attacked it, and undermined it, and shaken the faith of other people in it! There is nothing more terrible than that.

At the bar of God’s judgment preachers are called to give account.

True Preaching is More than Right Theology and Clever Homiletics🔗

According to Lloyd-Jones right theology is not enough. You can have correct doctrine and workable homiletics. But more is needed — far, far more. Here he leaned heavily, though not exclusively, on Paul. When the Apostle wrote to the Thessalonians he nostalgically recalled his first visit.

He confessed, our preaching was not in word only, it was in the power and demonstration of the Holy Spirit.

This for Lloyd-Jones was a very significant statement balanced by a number of other verses in Corinthians. It is a cause and consequence scenario. Amos puts it in a different manner but the same principle underlines the reasoning: ‘the lion has roared who can but prophesy?’ And the somewhat timid Jeremiah who determined to quit as a preacher because he had had enough, describes the inner fire which he could not douse. It is this dynamic, this plus that is so vital. The God of the Word authenticates the Word of God. It is experiential, it is tangible, it can be phenomenal.

Therefore Preaching with Power has as its Stimulus the Overwhelming of the Spirit🔗

Technically expressed this is Lloyd-Jones’ pneumatology (his theology of the Spirit) which is basic to his grasp of preaching. Indeed if you start with his homiletics (he did not like homiletics!) you can never come to grips with what was unusual about him. The unction, the anointing of the Holy Spirit was pivotal to his understanding of successful preaching. A man must be endued with power from on high. At times he seemed to take the argument to an extreme. But the ministry of the Spirit had been largely side-railed when Lloyd-Jones came to London. The pendulum needed to swing back. He leaned heavily on Thomas Goodwin as he urged preachers (and congregants) to seek this overflow. He did not hesitate to label this the Baptism or the Sealing of the Spirit (for him these are interchangeable terms). All this was well before the advent of the Charismatic Movement. (Indeed some of the detractors and critics of Lloyd-Jones see him as the main player in its launch!) In truth his terminology regarding the Spirit was more akin to that of the old Pentecostals particularly as articulated by George Jefferies (also a Welshman).

Finally the Goal of the Preacher is to Know the Smile of God🔗

God smiles when he gives unction. The preacher’s nightmare is this smile withdrawn. To preach persuasively demands the ignition of reason. ‘Logic on fire’ is Lloyd-Jones’ universally acknowledged definition for preaching at its best. A man borne along in the power of the Spirit enters in limited form into the same experience as those who were given Holy Scripture, their minds were illuminated. They were borne along. Doubtless their writing took place in private. But with the preacher the act is of necessity public. It was this element in his preaching that gripped those who heard him. When he was airborne there was no stopping him. He could use the whole pulpit. One could ‘see’ the forces of righteousness on the right hand and the forces of darkness on the other. You felt the interfacing, the struggle, the opposition. You too were involved in the battle. You did not just hear — you felt! It was a numinous experience bringing a holy awe, a solemn hush. You knew you were in the presence of the Most High God and he was using a man to apply his word. It was obvious this preacher believed that the discharge of his message was the most important thing on earth for him at that point. He was out for a verdict, not for cerebral acquiesce but total allegiance. As he may have confessed to a London policeman, this is a matter of life and death.

What is His Legacy?🔗

From his ministry were spawned a large number of para movements. The UCCF drew strength from him as did the Christian Medical Fellowship. The Evangelical Library and the Banner of Truth can be tracked back to him. Hundreds must have gone into the many facets of Christian ministry. And, of course, due to the fact that in later years his sermons were taped we now have access in book (and tape form) to his ministry.

He was not a tidy systematic theologian — few preachers are: witness Charles Spurgeon and John Wesley. He did not build a local church in the normal sense and with due respect to those who followed him, the Chapel never regained the influence it had known in Lloyd-Jones day (and in the era of G. Campbell Morgan).

Would it work today? I mean his style — it would be good to have him back to try! If post modernity has any validity as a category it speaks of the lack of specificity and an ability to embrace all religious nuances. Bible knowledge has tumbled to gut-level ignorance. He would be more alarmed than he was in his time at the downward spin in church attendance particularly in the historic denominations. Would the long sermons and exclusive possession of the pulpit work? Possibly not. But I have taken his tapes and used them in preaching seminars in several parts of the world. I have seen untrained African brothers caught up in the flow of his passion and eloquence. But even if our delivery has to change in its style, if we have to simplify and tell over and over again the grand old story of Jesus and his love essentially the message is the same. I tell my students the greatest challenge today is how to communicate and get through to the eighty-nine per cent of Scottish people who never darken the door of a church. We must strive, we must make every effort. Whatever our style, whatever the place the essence of what Lloyd-Jones taught has to be reaffirmed. It is a matter of life and death.

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