Every Remembrance - An article about Martyn Lloyd-Jones

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	Every Remembrance John Sloan, Hertford

The impact of the ministry of Dr Lloyd-Jones on my understanding of the gospel was immediate and unforgettable. It was one June morning in 1955 - my first Sunday at Westminster Chapel. The text was Ephesians 1:19 ... the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe - which included me, of all people. It took the same mighty power which raised his blessed Son from the dead to lift me, as David put it in Psalm 40, out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock and established my goings. I was already a believer, but had never understood the glory and wonder of my salvation as I did that Sunday morning, the best part of 50 years ago. We sang to close William Tidd Matsons' great hymn

Lord, I was blind: I could not see
In thy marred visage any grace;
But now the beauty of thy face
In radiant vision dawns on me.

The last verse reads

For Thou hast made the blind to see,
The deaf to hear, the dumb to speak,
The dead to live; and lo, I break
The chains of my captivity.

It so happened that the Doctor's oldest grandchild was dedicated on that same memorable Sunday morning, and herein lay another great lesson - the Doctor's great emphasis on the importance and uniqueness of each individual soul - no such thing at Westminster of multiple dedications. Each child had to be brought and presented to its Maker alone. That was just my first Sunday, little wonder that people could not wait to be back the following Sunday.

Romans

I say without hesitation that it was in the providence of God that I was in the chapel for the first Friday on Romans. I can picture the scene and remember the essentials of the sermon to this day.

Romans 1:1. The subject Paul. What the Doctor did was to outline Paul's whole life: birth, upbringing, education and all the natural powers and propensities of the great Apostle and showed how what he was before his conversion, zealous in the Jew's religion as he was, was so amazingly exploited to the full in his ministry in the gospel.

Needless to say, I did not think of it then, but have thought many times since, that the sermon fitted the Doctor's own life well. He was a Welshman, well endowed with all the best natural gifts of that nation - oratory, passion, intellectual ability. His early years gave him a great understanding of people from all walks of life. His scientific training at the heart of a centre of medical excellence, in which, like Paul, he excelled above his contemporaries, the Doctor rose with such distinction to the top of his profession. Then the call to preach, and he was channelled, with Paul-like zeal, into his ministry of the gospel.

Dr Lloyd-Jones would be the first to tell us that a minister of the gospel needs more than natural gifts. How often he would remind us that even the Son of Man submitted to the baptism of the Holy Spirit in order to fulfil the ministry his Father gave him. John the Baptist testified ... upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on Him, the same is he which baptiseth with the Holy Spirit ....

Prayer

Like his Lord the Doctor knew much of the Spirit's anointing which gave such authority to his exposition of Scripture and power in evangelism. To me, the key to the Doctor's success was ultimately twofold.

1. Christ centred and God magnifying preaching
2. Dependence on vital intercessory prayer

.... He must increase, 1 must decrease ... the key to John the Baptist's ministry. The Doctor was always reminding would be preachers to keep personal and family references, if not completely out of the pulpit at least to an irreducible minimum. On the subject of prayer, one would hear people say that if the Doctor had pronounced the benediction after his main prayer, the congregation would have gone away well blessed. However, there was always much more to come.

The first time that I saw Dr Lloyd-Jones was in one of his Friday night discussion groups in 1948. Much of the discussion was predictable, but the question remained, `Why pray when a sovereign God knows all and the outcome of every situation is determined by him?' The Doctor finally drew a graphic illustration from agriculture. The farmer has to plough, harrow, plant his seed and then wait with patience for the harvest. The Lord of the harvest is equally interested in the work of the gospel as the result. But the question still remains, why must we expend our time and energy in prayer as the farmer does in his labour on the farm? The final word of summary that evening was given with tremendous power ... Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest .... We must pray because we are commanded to do so.

Listening to Dr Lloyd-Jones, we were not only introduced to the great themes and doctrines of the Bible but also to the outstanding men and women, the prophets, apostles, reformers, missionaries, evangelists, martyrs, theologians and hymn writers, that the Lord has used over the centuries in pursuit of his stated aim - to take a people for himself from every tribe and nation. To name them, the list would be endless. In many ways, the Doctor's ministry was like a complete education. His discourses were always applied to our own lives and to the current state of the church and the times in which we lived.

I was at a Sunday morning service in Sao Paulo some years ago. Visitors were asked to give their name and home church. Nothing was said then, but in the minister's main prayer, there was a great paean of praise for God's gift to the church of Dr Lloyd-Jones. On another occasion I was in Tokyo. Same routine - name and home church. After the service we were invited to the coffee lounge. For a moment I stood there alone, then people began to gather around me - Japanese, Americans, Swiss and others. I wondered what was happening. They all wanted one thing - News of the Doctor.

Our Lord put it so wonderfully before he went to the cross ... He that receiveth whomsoever I send, receiveth me ... . In receiving Dr Lloyd-Jones, we did indeed receive him who sent him and the Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

However brief, a look at the life of such an eminent servant of God, demands a response. I can think of nothing better than Charles Wesley's great prayer, which we sang on that first Friday of the Romans series in 1955.

Give me the faith which can remove
And sink the mountains to a plain;
Give me the child-like, praying love,
Which longs to build thy house again;
Thy love, let it my heart o'er power,
Let it my ransomed soul devour.

Enlarge, inflame, and fill my heart
With boundless charity divine;
So shall I all my strength exert,
And love them with a zeal like thine;
And lead them to thine open side
The sheep for whom their Shepherd died.

There are countless numbers around the world who would say of Dr Lloyd-Jones as the Apostle said of the Philippians, I thank my God upon every remembrance of you.