The Itinerant Doctor (Martyn Lloyd-Jones)

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The Itinerant Doctor
Geoff Thomas, Aberystwyth

Virtually every week, some day from Tuesday to Thursday, Dr Lloyd-Jones would take the train out of London and travel to preach in churches all over the British Isles. He had been doing it since he began as a minister in Wales. He was an evangelist to the UK and these were the opportunities he was given to bring the gospel continually to a thousand a week outside London.

My mother and father had thus first heard him in his visits to Merthyr Tydfil in the 1930s, preaching to a packed congregation at Zoar Chapel. My mother always remembered something he said, opening up a passage of the New Testament on the theme of `man' and showing how we had not moved one inch from the condition described in the first century. She did not know that this was a familiar theme of his.

A great blessing

I heard him first in September, 1958, while just in my teens. Officers in camp had spoken of him with lowered voices - the same tone they adopted when such a hymn as `A debtor to mercy alone' was referred to. These were the most delightful men to be with. I wanted to be like them. So when Dr Eifion Evans was inducted to the pastorate of Memorial Hall Forward Movement Church, Cardiff; I took the train from Barry to hear him.

The Welsh singing was terrific. The platform party was dark-suited. It was a serious occasion. DMLI-J spoke, and I adjusted to it steadily. The impression of the importance of this kind of preaching was the abiding legacy of that night. I told him years later that this was the first time I had heard him. 'I preached on Mark 5 and the raising of Jairus's daughter' he said. 'I can't remember' I said. He tried to refresh my memory. 'I was speaking of how the Lord was going in one direction to Jairus's home when suddenly his journey was held up by the woman with the issue of blood who reached out and touched the hem of his garment. The Lord stopped and dealt with her then and there. I said how Eifion Evans was on his way to become a pharmacist, and then God intervened in his journey and he went another way to become a preacher.' 'I can't remember' I confessed. He looked a little baffled at this and said, `David Jones had a great blessing that evening ....'

But I had a great blessing that night too; it was an awareness of the power of God. I was struck recently reading again Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 5:4 When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and 1 am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present.... I believe that is the great dimension that validates true preaching. I have long believed that is the preaching, for example, that will most help the mentally handicapped. The dancing and clapping that some encourage them to indulge in is the least helpful kind of introduction to God they could possibly meet.

How all men should preach

It was just that one sermon I needed as an adjustment to DMLI-J. After that I can recall the texts and also the themes of the sermons I heard during my student years. But God, And Paul reasoned of righteousness, temperance and judgement to come, And the place was shaken where they were assembled together, How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? This latter was particularly meaningful after living for two years in the preaching wilderness of the USA and wondering whether my impression of the preaching of DMLI-J was simply the infatuation of my own adolescence. But then I listened again and it came - lucid, compelling, gripping, moving, elevating, thrilling, faithenriching, constraining to new obedience, doxology and renewed assurance. Yes, that is how my sermons should be. That is how all men should preach.

When he came to a community three classes of people came to hear him. Those who attended church, kept declining causes going and could tell you knowledgeably that this was the man who had given up Harley Street to become a preacher. They lacked any discernment. Nostalgia for the old days of big meetings had brought them along. They delighted in all they heard but for inadequate reasons. Then there were the evangelicals who were beginning to purchase his works, read Banner of Truth books, knew the larger issues that some had sacrificed buildings and manses to support. Those who could also brought their children to hear him. I took my daughter (now married to the editor of this magazine). She was then 10, and when we walked home together afterwards I asked her what she thought of it. 'It was like Sunday mornings but simpler' she said in total honesty. Exactly. Then there were people drawn along by the buzz. They were the most stimulating to talk to, as they tried to describe their impressions. A Welsh vet. and his wife said `He could make you believe that black was white'. That is, they put it all down to rhetoric. They had been moved. There had been an awakening, convicting work that night, but Christianity is so inconvenient, and, well, it had been just the stirrings caused by human eloquence. They awarded him 10 out of 10 for that, and went on their way, along the broad road to destruction.

Extraordinary

'Couldn't you come next time for three evenings?' I pleaded. I described how we might get Christian professors from the University College to chair the occasions, etc. He refused kindly. `I think we will do what we usually do' and that was a visit once every two years, Welsh in the afternoon and English in the evening. He told me that one of the ladies at Westminster Chapel would say to him that it should be compulsory for everyone who came to the Chapel for the first time to return and hear him again.

The effect of his visits was extraordinary, a lifting of the spirit in a time of refreshing and joy. That it is 20 years since he last came and preached outside London is almost unbelievable. The sight and sound of him in the pulpit is as vivid as if it were last St David's Day. The vacuum his absence has left stubbornly refuses to be filled. We had hopes of his mantle falling on one or another but catastrophes have befallen those to whom we had looked most optimistically. These are cruel days. In an age of common congregations we need uncommon leaders. What is God teaching us? That the removal of leaders is the form which the divine judgement the whole of Britain is under has come on us evangelical Christians. Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child (Ecclesiastes 10:16). It is what we deserve, and we must cry to God that he remember mercy.