Martyn Lloyd-Jones on preparing for death

A worthwhile read.

Sometimes a light surprises

The following excerpts are from Martyn Lloyd-Jones' book Living Water: Studies in John 4.

Go to the seaside

Martyn Lloyd-Jones (July 1927):

People complain about the dwindling congregations and how the churches are going down. Why are people ceasing to attend places of worship? Why is it, that last Sunday night I noticed that, while the places of worship in Cardiff were only sparsely attended, the trains coming from Porthcawl and other seaside places were packed out. Why did these people spend their day at the seaside and other in places rather than in the house of God worshipping? Well, the answer is perfectly plain. They obviously prefer to be at the seaside and feel that they get more benefit there than in their chapels and churches. Now it is no use our arguing with people like that, it is no use our telling them that they really do not get greater benefit there, because they honestly believe they do.

...What I feel like saying to these trippers is this: If you honestly believe (and remember it is your responsibility) that you derive greater benefit by spending your day in the country than you do by attending a place of worship, well then, go to the country. Don't come here if you honestly feel that you could do better elsewhere. Unless you feel that something is being offered and given to you here which no other institution can offer or equal, well then, in the name of Heaven, go out into the country or to the seaside. The church of Christ is a church of believers, an association of people banded together by a common belief and a common love. You don't believe? Well, above all, do not pretend that you do, go to the country and the seaside. All I ask of you is, be consistent. When someone dies in your family, do not come to ask the church in which you do not believe to come to bury him. Go to the seaside for consolation.

(Murray, Iain H. The Life of Martyn Lloyd-Jones 1899-1981, pp 90-91)

Lloyd-Jones on the Christian life

Martyn Lloyd-Jones interview

Interesting interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4muYwEdpGn4

One thing that stood out is was the interviewer's statement about the "amazing number of young people" who attended Westminster Chapel. Given the date of the interview, I assume that includes the height of the counterculture. Hippies. You might suppose young people would find MLJ too stuffy and formal. And it's not as if his church had drums and electric guitars.  But apparently, young Christians were drawn to MLJ's earnest, methodical expository preaching. Substance.  

Prayer, providence, and Dunkirk

Then another thing that has focused attention on the doctrine of providence is what we call 'special providences'. Now special providences are special interventions of God on behalf of individuals or groups of people. For instance, at Dunkirk during the War a kind of mist came down to protect the soldiers while at the same time the sea was unusually calm and smooth, and many people in this country were ready to say that that was a providential act of God. They said that God had intervened in order to save our troops by making it possible for them to be brought back into this country. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Great Doctrines of the Bible (Crossway, 2012), 141.

Clean power

From Dr. David Martyn Lloyd-Jones:

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 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 so. She came ever afterward until she died and had become 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. She said, “The moment I entered your chapel and sat down on a seat among 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.”

--Elizabeth Catherwood and Christopher Catherwood, eds., The Christ-Centered Preaching of Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Classic Sermons for the Church Today (Crossway, 2014), 34

HT: Dane Ortlund.

Lloyd-Jones on cessationism

A commenter has left some documentation which is worth posting in its own right.

2. Ian D. Elsasser11/20/2013 10:28 PM

   In Chapter 8 of The Baptism and Gifts of the Spirit, a chapter titled “Gifts that Authenticate”, Martyn Lloyd-Jones tackles the issue of the gifts of the Holy Spirit:
   
   “It has certain inherent difficulties, which often arise because of our ignorance of the spiritual realm, but at this time it is a very important matter for two main reasons. The first is that we need some supernatural authentication of our message; and secondly, it is important because of the danger attending it, because of the enemy, who can counterfeit to such an extent as almost to deceive, according to our Lord and Saviour, ‘even the very elect themselves” (152).
   
   After a brief rehearsal of the New Testament passages showing God attesting the message by miraculous deeds (152-155), he asks:
   
   “Now I believe I am right in saying that everyone who is a Christian in any sense at all is prepared to believe and to accept that these things happened, but it is here that the vital question arises—do we accept it as being only true of the early church? Was it only meant to be true of the early church? This is the question to which we must now address ourselves” (155).
   
   He then addresses the arguments of “people who say, ‘Of course I accept everything that I find in the New Testament. I am sure it is historical and that these things actually happened. But that really does not apply to us now, it was only meant for that time’” (156), outlining the arguments of those who believe these extraordinary activities were meant to convince unbelieving Jews (156), that they were intended for the beginning of the Christian church to get the church going (156-157), and that they occurred only until the New Testament canon was completed, with their appeal to 1 Corinthians 13.8-10 (157-159).
3. 
   Ian D. Elsasser11/20/2013 10:30 PM

   (Cont...)
   
   Lloyd-Jones rejects this cessationist argumentation:
   
   “There, then, is an outline of the argument that is being put forward at the present time, and which has been put forward very largely during this present century. Let me begin to answer it by giving you just one though at this point. It is this: the Scriptures never anywhere say that these things were only temporary – never! There is no such statement anywhere. ‘Ah but’, says somebody, ‘what about that passage from 1 Corinthians 13?’ Well, I would have thought that that chapter is sufficient answer in and of itself to this particular criticism. You see what we are asked to believe by that kind of exposition” We are told that the coming of the New Testament Scriptures puts us into a place of perfection; whereas if you look at verse 12 it actually says: ‘For now we see’ – that is the apostle and others. The apostle is included with all other Christian believers before the New Testament canon, much of which was written by Paul himself, had been completed. We read: ‘Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then’ – when the Scriptures have come and are complete – ‘face to face: Now I know in part; but then’ – which they say means the completion of the Scriptures – ‘shall I know even as also I am known.’
   “You see what that involves? It means that you and I, who have the Scriptures open before us, know much more than the apostle Paul of God’s truth. That is what it means and nothing less, if that argument is correct. It means that we are altogether superior to the early church and even to the apostles themselves, including the apostle Paul! It means that we are not in a position in which we know ‘face to face’ that ‘we know, even as also we are known’ by God because we have the Scriptures. It is surely unnecessary to say more.
   “What the apostle is, of course, dealing with in 1 Corinthians 13 is the contrast between the highest and the best that the Christian can ever know in this world and in this life and what he will know in the glory everlasting. The ‘now’ and the ‘then’ are not the time before and after the Scriptures were given, because that, as I have said, puts us in a position entirely superior to the apostles and prophets who are the foundation of the Christian church and on whose very work we have to rely. It is inconsistent, and contradictory – indeed, there is only one word to describe such a view, it is nonsense. The ‘then’ is the glory everlasting. It is only then that I shall known, even as also I am known; for then we shall see him as he is. It will be direct and ‘face to face’. No longer, as Paul puts it again in 2 Corinthians 3:18– as an image or a reflection, but direct, absolute, full and perfect knowledge.
   “So you see the difficulties men land themselves in when they dislike something and cannot fully understand it and try to explain it away. All things must be judges in the light of the Scriptures, and we must not twist them to suit our theory or argument. Let me finish with this general statement – there is nothing in the Scripture itself which says that these things are to end, and further, every attempt to make the Scriptures say that leads to the same dismal, impossible conclusions that we have already seen in the case of 1 Corinthians 13.
   “My friends, this is to me one of the most urgent matters at this hour. With the church as she is and the world as it is, the greatest need today is the power of God through his Spirit in the church that we may testify not only to the power of the Spirit, but to the glory and the praise of the one and only Saviour, Jesus Christ our Lord, Son of God, Son of Man” (159-160).
   
   - D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Baptism and Gifts of the Spirit, Baker Book, 1994
4. 
   Ian D. Elsasser11/20/2013 10:34 PM

   FAITH HEALING AND JAMES MAYNARD
   
   “My Dear Gerald,
   
   “Many thanks for your most kind letter. Strangely enough an almost identical one arrived from the authorities of the Sudan Interior Mission except that they had no reference to Maynard James’s booklet.
   
   “With regard to the latter my attitude is this. He belongs to ‘The Church of the Nazarenes’ and they are very good people with whom I am in agreement apart from one thing, namely, that they believe the Baptism with the Holy Spirit confers entire sanctification. In other words they are really the followers of the teaching of John Wesley on holiness. When Maynard James originally sent me this booklet I pointed out of course our disagreement at this point but was able to say that I thought his terms of ‘tongues’ was excellent and balanced.
   
   “On this question of faith-healing I certainly agree with him. I expressed my disagreement with the view put in the Christian Medical Fellowship publication at the time. I think it is quite without scriptural warrant to say that all these gifts ended with the apostles or the apostolic era. I believe there have been undoubted miracles since then. At the same time most of the claimed miracles by the Pentecostalists and others certainly do not belong to that category and can be explained psychologically or in other ways. I am also of the opinion that most, if not all, of the people claiming to speak in tongues at the present time are certainly under a psychological rather than a spiritual influence. But again I would not dare to say that ‘tongues’ are impossible at the present time.”
   
   (D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Letters 1919-1981, Banner of Truth, 1994, pp. 201-202)
5. 
   Ian D. Elsasser11/20/2013 11:02 PM

   LLOYD-JONES DISAGREEMENT WITH WARFIELD ON CESSATIONISM: MIRACULOUS HEALING
   
   “There was a measure of different between Dr Lloyd-Jones and other members of the Christian Medical Fellowship on this subject [miraculous healing]. The tendency of these colleagues, in his opinion, came too near to excluding any expectation of the supernatural or, at least, to excluding the possibility of gifts of healing on the grounds of Warfield’s argument that being the ‘accompaniments of apostleship’ they ceased with the apostolic age. A Memorandum on Faith Healing, published ‘for private circulation’ by the CMF in 1956, argued for the cessation of such miraculous gifts but although the committee which produced this Memo was chaired by ML-J he did not accept that part of the argument....”
   
   “In passing it is important to note that the strength of B. B. Warfield’s influence in UCCF and CMF circles was related to ML-J’s advocacy of his writings. It was ML-J who had done most to re-introduce Warfield’s writings in England with the testimony that for conservative evangelicals probably no works have ‘proved to be of greater practical help and a greater stimulus’ than those of ‘the greatest exponent, expounder and defender of the classic Reformed faith in the 20th century’ (Introduction to Biblical Foundations, IVF, 1958). This explains why ML-J in his addresses to CMF colleagues made such a point of disagreeing with the Princeton divine whose influence, in all other respects, he rejoiced to see extended”
   
   Iain H. Murray, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The Fight of Faith 1939-1981, The Banner of Truth Trust, 1990, p. 786

Was Martyn Lloyd-Jones a cessationist?

I'm going to comment on a few statements by Frank Turk:

http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2013/11/a-cornucopia-of-good-will.html

The problem with your question, however, is that is stands on one faulty assertion: that if I have experienced any of the ordinary outworking of the Holy Spirit, I have to concede all on-going extraordinary outworkings of the Holy Spirit.  I don’t have to do any such thing – especially when they are allegedly presented to me for my personal “amen,” what I find is a list of hunches, anecdotes, oceans of people who cannot be accounted for, and not anything that looks even like the moment in Acts 3 when Peter and John healed the Lame Beggar – let alone Lazarus or Eutychus.

Are the examples of Spurgeon's clairvoyance just lucky" hunches"? How does that reflexive, dismissive attitude differ from Paul Kurtz, James Randi, or Martin Gardner? And that's just one set of examples. What about examples from the Covenanters? Are those just lucky hunches?

What's wrong with anecdotal evidence? Remember, cessationism posits a universal negative. Although you can't extrapolate a general pattern from anecdotal cases, you don't need to. It only takes one good counterexample to disprove a universal negative. 

On the one hand, MarArthurites say church history disproves noncessationism. On the other hand, if they are going to summarily discount every counterexample as "anecdotal" or a lucky "hunch," then the appeal to church history is just a sham. They don't really care about testimonial evidence from church history. 

You think Spurgeon would endorse the so-called Charismatic ministries today?  Or that Lloyd-Jones was somehow commending the Pentecostals when he was condemning them?

This is another example of Turk trying to win the debate by controlling the terminology. The question at issue isn't if Lloyd-Jones was Pentecostal, but whether he was a cessationist. Commenting on demonic possession, Lloyd-Jones says:

So the work of healing is done by means of prayer but, secondly, there is also exorcism, which is the casting out of evil spirits. It may be that this is a subject that we have neglected, not only on the mission field, but, perhaps, in this country of ours as well. Clearly, power to cast out devils is available to those who are spiritual. Not Against Flesh and Blood (Christian Focus Publications), 89.

And here's a more extensive exposition of his position, including more examples:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-supernatural-in-medicine.html

The Supernatural in Medicine

By Dr David Martyn Lloyd-Jones

(An address to the Annual Conference of the Christian Medical Fellowship at Bournemouth, May 1971.)

Christian doctors are constantly questioned about this matter whether by a patient or a relative or some interested person. Someone is desperately ill and medical science, or art as you may like to call it, has done its utmost; but the patient is getting worse and someone suggests the possibility of 'faith healing'. So the Christian practitioner is confronted with the problem and forced to make a decision about it.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones

http://www.banneroftruth.org/pages/articles/article_detail.php?1950

A young rich man

Mark 10:17-31 (ESV):

And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: 'Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.'" And he said to him, "Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth." And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, "You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!" And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, "Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God." And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, "Then who can be saved?" Jesus looked at them and said, "With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God." Peter began to say to him, "See, we have left everything and followed you." Jesus said, "Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first."

According to Dr James Le Fanu in The Rise & Fall of Modern Medicine:

Lord Horder symbolised the pinnacle of achievement on which every consultant [American: attending physician] in London aspired. He was wealthy and stylish, turning up at St Barts [St Bartholomew's Hospital] in his Rolls-Royce and sporting a top hat. 'Tommy [Horder] was certainly the greatest clinician of his day, based on vast experience and shrewd judgement. His short squat figure exuded wisdom and humanity.' Born the son of a Dorset draper, his reward for winning every prize at medical school was to be appointed for his first job as the house doctor to Samuel Gee, physician to the Royal Household, whose patronage rapidly propelled the young Horder into the most influential of circles.

Horder's private practice read like a Who's Who of the times. It included three Prime Ministers -- Andrew Bonar Law, Ramsay MacDonald and Neville Chamberlain; writers -- Sir James Barrie, Somerset Maugham, Rebecca West and H.G. Wells; and musicians -- Sir Thomas Beecham, Sir Malcom Sargeant, Sir Henry Wood. And in time he succeeded Samuel Gee as physician to the Royal Household, becoming medical adviser to first King Edward VII, then George V, Edward VIII, George VI and finally Queen Elizabeth II.

Tommy Horder's success was well deserved. He was very good at what he did which, in the era before sophisticated medical investigations, was making an accurate diagnosis, relying almost exclusively on what are known as 'clinical methods', the ability to infer what is amiss from the patient's history and physical signs elicited at examination. This was traditional doctoring, unencumbered by the trappings of technology, and its essential feature was the human relationship between doctor and patient.

According to Sir Fred Catherwood:

Martyn [Lloyd-Jones]'s career was medicine. He went from school to Barts, one of the great London teaching hospitals, and was brilliantly successful. He succeeded in his exams so young that he had to wait to take his MD, by which time he was already chief clinical assistant to Sir Thomas Horder, one of the best and most famous doctors of the day. By the age of 26 he also had his MRCP and was well up the rungs of the Harley Street ladder, with a brilliant and lucrative career in front of him. Then something happened.

Slowly, reading for himself, his mind was gripped by the Christian gospel, its compelling power and its balanced logic, like the majestic self-supporting arches of a great cathedral. He had no dramatic crisis of conversion, but there came a point when he had committed himself entirely to the Christian gospel. After that, as he sat in the consulting room, listening to the symptoms of those who came to see him, he realised that what so many of his patients needed was not ordinary medicine, but the gospel he had discovered for himself. He could deal with the symptoms, but the worry, the tension, the obsessions could only be dealt with by the power of Christian conversion. Increasingly he felt that the best way to use his life and talents was to preach that gospel.

In 1927, Lloyd-Jones left medicine to become the minister of a small Presbyterian church in Aberavon, South Wales named the Bethlehem Forward Movement Church ("Sandfields"), mainly among the working class.