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total quotes: 66 | use CTRL+F in your browser to search this page for keywords |
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On March 1, 1981, Dr. David Martyn Lloyd-Jones
passed away. He was the long-time minister at
Westminster Chapel in London. His fruitful life and ministry have
left a legacy that extends beyond his death, so in
this, the thirtieth year since his passing, we will
see a small sampling of what he has to say.
Each Thursday throughout the year, I will post a
quote from ‘The Good Doctor’ on this page. I won’t
be making any additional comments—just the
quote and its source. I hope the late
doctor’s words will be an encouragement and joy to
you during 2011. I extended the weekly quotes into 2012 as well! I have also added previous quotes from Lloyd-Jones that I have posted in other places on this site so that they will all be in one place. |
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The All-Sufficient
God [3] posted 12.01.2011 |
If we take as our standard the common ideas about Christianity, then we must go astray. If we do not come to the Bible itself, and if we do not believe its message, then how can we have a true conception of the gospel? And we really know nothing about Christianity apart from what we have in this book. It is not a question of what anybody thinks. One person's thought is as good as another's. What matters, is not what I think constitutes Christianity, but what the Bible says. So we must come back to the Bible and its message. We must read it and we must study it, and as we do so, we will find that it has one great message throughout, a message that is put to us in different ways and presented in different forms, but is always the same. |
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Assurance
[124] posted 12.15.2011 |
There is nothing in mankind to recommend it
to God, nothing in human nature, nothing in
any one of us to recommend us in any way to
God and to His love. Indeed the truth about
us was, and is, that there was everything in
us that was wrong and vile and hateful,
everything calculated to antagonize God
towards us -- enemies, hateful, vile,
ungodly, sinners as we were. We must realize
that our salvation is entirely gratuitous,
and arises only and altogether from the love
of God in His infinite grace. If our salvation depended in any sense, or to any extent at all, upon ourselves, our position would always be precarious. We might fail at any moment and would then lose all. But, thank God, that is not the position. Our salvation is no respect at all depends upon ourselves, it is entirely dependent on the love of God. And because my salvation depends upon the love of God and on that alone, and on nothing in me, I am certain of it. Why? Because God does not change, and cannot change, and if I am within the ambit and the scope of the love of God now, I always shall be. The love of God, the gratuitous character of my salvation, my realization that I was without strength, that I was ungodly, a sinner, and that it is entirely in spite of me that Christ died for me, these are the ultimate ground of my assurance. And on this ground I am assured, not only that I am saved now, but that I shall remain saved, that because I am justified I am also glorified, and therefore I rejoice in hope of the glory of God. |
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The Assurance
of Salvation [423] posted 08.04.2011 |
Sanctification is not just a matter of being delivered from particular sins. So often you will find that that is what is taught. People seem to think that if only they could get rid of this one sin, they would be sanctified; and it becomes still worse when the entire doctrine is focused upon deliverance from one particular sin. No, sanctification is a matter of being rightly related to God, and becoming entirely devoted to Him. Sanctification means becoming positively holy. It does not just mean I am not guilty of certain sins, because the moment you begin to think of it negatively like that, you are satisfied that you are sanctified; but you may be as far from sanctification, if not further, than the man who is guilty of one or other of those sins, because now you are now guilty of smugness! Sanctification means being devoted to God, not only separated from the world but separated unto God and sharing His life--it is positive holiness. |
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Authentic
Christianity [248] posted 08.25.2011 |
How do you explain the persistence of the Christian church? Men and women would have ruined her long ago. Look at the heresies that have come in. Look at the false teaching that has had to be cleared out. Look how people put organizations in the place of the living Christ. See how the church has become an institution, dead and filled with pomp and power, having silver and gold but no spiritual authority. See how she has become political. Ah, people would have destroyed her long since. There is only one reason she still persists: It is this living Christ. Throughout the centuries He has taken hold of men and women--lame, hopeless, impotent, helpless in sin and iniquity and shame--and lifted them up and brought revival and authority and power. So, on goes the church. |
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Authority [13] posted 12.15.2010 |
Use your reason, use your intellect; do so honestly, and you will come to the conclusion that there is a limit to reason. And then wait. It is at that point that God in His infinite grace and kindness meets us in revelation. |
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Authority [63] posted 09.15.2010 |
The Holy Spirit normally speaks to us through the Word. He takes His own Word, He illumines it, and takes our minds and enlightens them, and we are thus made receptive to the Word. Through such a process we are able to check all the experiences that we may have, so that we may be sure that we are not being led astray or deluded. It is not right, therefore, to speak of the Spirit or the Word, but rather of the Spirit and the Word, and especially the Spirit through the Word. |
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Authority [82] posted 07.18.2010 |
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The Basis of
Christian Unity [77] posted 01.20.2011 |
The ultimate question facing us these days is whether our faith is in men and their power to organize, or in the truth of God in Christ Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit. Let me put it another way: Are we primarily concerned about the size of the church or the purity of the church, both in doctrine and in life? |
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Born of God [188] posted 02.09.2011 |
There is nothing more terrible than to feel
that you are simply the victim of chance or
fate, of blind, impersonal forces, that
there is no object at all in life and no
purpose, either to the individual or the
universe or the entire human race. Nothing,
I repeat, is so frustrating as to feel that
the whole of life is meaningless. But here
is a great fundamental postulate that says
that is not the case. God! God creating! And
clearly He had an object and a design and a
purpose in the very act of creation -- the
creation of the universe itself, human
beings included. Even though you and I may not always understand what is happening in our world and lives, it is a good thing to know that there is a purpose, there is a meaning ... Though we may not always know or understand the meaning, we know that there is one because it is God's world, created by Him. And another way I would put this same point is this -- and I thank God for this perhaps more than for anything else -- it is not our world. For it is as bad to think that it is our world as to think that it is a meaningless world. Man, of course, has inflated himself and has exaggerated his power simply because he has made a few discoveries. I do not want to detract from his greatness but at the present time there is nothing so foolish as this self-confidence. How little he knows! Yet he thinks that it is his world! He thinks that he can manipulate it, that he can order it, that he can develop it, that he can reform it -- and we see the results of his efforts! But it is not his world, and thank God, I say again, that it is not. Thank God that the world and its future are not subject to human knowledge and human control and human power. This, again, is a very comforting thought. |
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Born of God [334] posted 10.27.2011 |
Whenever there is an infection around -- I
mean a physical infection such as influenza,
typhoid fever or smallpox -- there are two good
rules that should always be put into
practice. The first is to avoid exposing
yourself to infection. That is common sense,
is it not? That is why, when there are
epidemics, it is good not to go into
overheated, crowded places. You avoid
infection. But that is the negative aspect.
There is a second rule, and this is more
important. You must build up your
resistance. Then, if you have done this as
you should, you will be able to walk into
the midst of the infection -- though common
sense would, of course, prevent you -- with
very much less danger to yourself. We avoid every appearance of evil. Yes, but we still have to live in the world; we do not become monks or nuns. The error of monasticism was the emphasis only on the negative, on the avoidance of infection. You avoid it by becoming a monk. You build a great wall around yourself, you do not mix with the world, and you think that by doing this you are not subject to the temptation, to the infection, of sin, and you will therefore be a holy person. But it did not work. The positive aspect is therefore much more important. However careful you are to avoid infection, you cannot get right away from it, you cannot live in a glasshouse. So the thing to do is to build up your resistance, not by going out of the world, but by making yourself strong, so that as the germs attack you and try to infect you, you can throw them back. If all your spiritual antibodies are present in large numbers, then the infecting agent stands no chance when it comes along in your direction. That is the kind of approach that we find put before us so constantly in the New Testament teaching. |
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Christian
Conduct [285] posted 08.11.2011 |
If we say that we believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God and our sole and infallible guide in all matters of faith and conduct, then we should believe that the church should always conform to the picture and the pattern which we have of her in the New Testament. Therefore, any variation in that, or any departure from it, should be of concern to us. |
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The Christian
Soldier [201] posted 12.15.2011 |
My authority must not be human reason. That
is the supreme authority today -- human
reason based upon modern knowledge. We are
told that because we are living in a
scientific age the entire situation is
different. But that is clearly and patently
quite inadequate, because there is so much
that I do not know, there is so much that I
do not understand. My mind is too finite, it
is too small. Then I am told that our position is today dependant upon modern knowledge, and that I must not rely upon knowledge from the past. But that leaves me in this position: If I say today in the light of my knowledge that the bulk of past 'knowledge' was wrong, I know perfectly well that people in fifty and a hundred years time will be saying exactly the same about what I know now; therefore what I know now will probably be wrong. I have got nothing; I am on shifting sand, and confronted by a sliding scale of truth. |
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Compelling
Christianity [193] posted 11.03.2011 |
The program of God is not social or political redemption and emancipation and improvement. It is individual; it is personal. The Gospel is the good news that God takes hold of us individually and delivers us out of this present evil world and takes us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His dear Son. Oh, the blessed Gospel tells you tonight, whoever you are and whatever you are, whatever your past may have been, however filled you may be with failures and disgrace and shame, that God is still interested in you and is able to redeem you. |
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Courageous
Christianity [170] posted 01.12.2011 |
The next thing proved by the Resurrection is
that Christ is able to save us from all our
enemies. I proclaim to you that Jesus of
Nazareth is the Son of God and the Savior of
the world. Savior? What does He save us
from? He saves us from the world, the flesh,
the devil, and the law of God. Yes, the law
of God is against us, and the law in that
sense is our enemy. "By the law is the
knowledge of sin" (Rom. 3:20), and the law
condemns us; "By the works of the law shall
no flesh be justified" (Gal. 2:16). The law
of God accuses us, and we cannot escape it.
It stands over and against us. World, flesh, devil, law. At the back of them all is the most terrifying of them all -- death, the last enemy, the enemy that the modern world is trying to fight with all its ingenuity and cleverness and science. We are all struggling to keep ourselves young and to fight off old age and death. You can postpone it for a year or two, but you cannot evade it. There he is with his scythe, advancing nearer and nearer and nearer, and the day -- we all know it -- must inevitably come when he will hammer at your door and say to you, "Move on." You will have to go. The last enemy. And he is not only the last enemy chronologically, but he is the last enemy in the sense that he is the one who faces us with the judgment, the law, the holiness of God, and possibly an eternal destiny of misery and wretchedness and unhappiness -- the last enemy. Now our Lord claims to be the Savior, but if He cannot save us from all our enemies, He does not merit the designation of Savior. Thank God, He can meet the challenge. He dealt with the devil many times when He was here in the flesh and conquered him with ease. He lived untouched by the world, separate from it. The sins of the flesh He never knew. He was tempted externally in all points like as we are, yet was without sin; and He was never tempted from sin within. As for the law of God, we have already seen how He met its every demand. He never broke His Father's law, and there on the cross He gave a complete and perfect satisfaction for all its demands. Yes, but that obedience involved His death. Has the last enemy got Him? It is one thing to beat the world, the flesh, the devil, and the law of God, but what about the last enemy? Has it not conquered Him; has it not succeeded? The world said, "Yes, it has!" They were beginning to triumph, but their triumph was short-lived, shattered by the Resurrection. Christ conquered our last enemy, enabling His people to look in the face of death and say, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" (1 Cor. 15:55). Paul continued, "The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." (vv. 56-57). He has conquered the last enemy. He is a complete, a perfect, Savior. I would not be able to say that if He had not risen literally in the body from the tomb. But I can say it because the Resurrection is a fact. "And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus" (Acts 4:33). This is what a man or woman does who is filled with the Spirit as these people were. The Resurrection is the fact on which everything is based, and this is what the world needs to know. |
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The Cross [86] posted 03.03.2011 |
There are people who think they are Christians simply because they are born in a particular country, or for other reasons of that kind. But this is the test—what is your boast? If you boast more in your country than in the cross of Christ, there is no need to argue about it, you are not a Christian. Does that sound drastic? That is Christian teaching. The apostle Paul used to boast of the fact that he was a Hebrew. He did not afterwards. He was still glad that he was. He does not derogate from his appreciation of being a member of the family of God’s children on earth, even in a physical sense. But he does not boast of it. It must not be the big thing, the thing that moves us most of all. It must not come first. |
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The Cross [108] posted 01.27.2011 |
It is the thing by which we are saved, delivered from our great enemy, the world. It is the thing in which one really sees fully the person and the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is also the place, the act, in which one sees the glory of God the Father—the truth concerning the Father. And I am sure that the trouble with most of us is that we have never seen the greatness, the grandeur, and the extent of the cross. |
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The Cross [159] posted 01.19.2012 |
God said: ‘Let there be light: and there was
light.’ God brought light into being by the
mere word of His power, His mere fiat. And
God created everything in the same way—a
word was enough, such is the power of God.
He speaks and it is done. A word is enough to create but a word is not enough to forgive. Before God can forgive any sin to any man, His only begotten Son had to leave the courts of heaven, and come down on earth and take on human nature, and live as a man and be ‘stricken, smitten of God,’ upon that cross. And the cross thus proclaims the holiness of God, the heinousness of sin, the terrible problem of sin, the terrible seriousness of man’s rebellion against God. |
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Evangelistic
Sermons [122] posted 09.22.2011 |
In all these glorious instances of the free love of God in the New Testament, repentance is always present and always presupposed. But, where there is no repentance there is no love from God and no forgiveness. We must be careful therefore lest we damn ourselves in our apparent cleverness and wrest the Scriptures to our own destruction. There is no 'love of God' for you unless you have repented or unless you do repent. Make no mistake about this. Do not rely or bank on God's love. It is only given to the penitent; there is no entry into the kingdom of God expect by repentance. |
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Evangelistic
Sermons [228] posted 01.05.2012 |
There is a possibility of a new start, a new
beginning, and for all, even for the most
desperate. No case can be worse than that of
the prodigal son. Yet even he can start
again. He has touched bottom, he has sunk to
the very dregs, he has gone down so low that
he could not possibly descend any further.
Never has a more hopeless picture been drawn
than that of this boy in the far country
amidst the husks and the swine, penniless
and friendless, utterly hopeless and
forlorn, utterly desolate and dejected. But even he gets a fresh start, even he is called to make a new beginning. There is a turning-point which leads on to fortune and to happiness even for him. What a blessed gospel, and especially in a world like this! What a difference the coming of Jesus Christ has made! What new hope for mankind appeared in Him! |
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Glorious
Christianity [185] posted 07.14.2011 |
Oh, the blessings of this Christian life! Did you know that if you believe this Gospel and yield yourselves to it, all your past sins will be blotted out? In the past, were there things you are now ashamed of? You cannot do anything about them; the blots are on the book. But if you believe this message, every blot will be erased. God will cast all your past sins into the sea of His forgetfulness. He will pardon you and love you freely. He will look upon you and declare that He justifies you freely by His grace. He will assure you that His own Son has borne your punishment, that He came in order to do this, so the books could be cleared. |
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God's
Sovereign Purpose [270] posted 07.21.2011 |
Nobody at all deserves to be saved; every one of us merits destruction and condemnation. Every one of us deserves to be overwhelmed with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. No man deserves to be saved. No man can save himself. And the fact that anybody is saved at all is to be attributed to one thing only, and that is the mercy and the grace of God and His almighty power unto salvation. |
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God's Way of
Reconciliation [251] posted 05.12.2011 |
We have all become so subjective, and are so much interested in our own moods and states and feelings and conditions, that when we give our testimonies we say that what salvation has done is to make us happy, or to take away this or that; and there we stop. But the grand object of salvation is to bring us into the presence of God—nothing less, nothing short of that. |
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The Gospel In
Genesis [31] posted 02.16.2012 |
People are never tired of speaking of the dogmatism of the pulpit—the dogmatism of the preacher, the dogmatism of the church—and they do not like it. But I want to ask you a simple question: if you are not a Christian, if you do not believe the Bible and if you do not believe in God, on what grounds are you not believing? What are your reasons? What is your argument? Where is your proof? Can you prove to me that there is no God? Can you prove to me that Jesus of Nazareth was not the only begotten Son of God with two natures in one person? You say you do not believe it. You do not believe in miracles either. Does that prove that He never worked a miracle? Can you prove it? Do you have anything beyond a dogmatic assertion? |
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The Gospel In
Genesis [43] posted 11.22.2009 |
The church is not a philosophical society, nor a cultural society. Its
business is to expound and proclaim the
message of the Bible. It is not interested,
primarily, in anything else. That is why a
meeting, a service, at church is unique.
All services thus held in the name of Christ are unique in the sense that we start by making the claim that we come from God with a message from him. We do not start with ourselves. We are not involved in an endeavor to arrive at God or at anything else. We come to consider a message from God. |
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The Gospel In
Genesis [68] posted 01.06.2011 |
Christianity,
primarily, is not a discussion about ideas.
It is a discussion about
you.
And that is the first thing men and women
realize when they are on their way to
becoming Christians. Throughout their lives
they have never faced themselves at all.
They have been protecting themselves. They
have been putting up the camouflage to
conceal themselves... We hide behind the trees of these philosophies and ideas and comparative religions and abstruse questions, and as long as we are there, it is all outside us. But God penetrates through it all. |
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The Gospel of
God [14] posted 06.23.2011 |
We all have our gifts; let us therefore hand them back to Him that He may use them. Let us not try to be the same as everybody else. We are not meant to be. Let God use the gifts He has given us. So that I in my way and you in your way, and others in their varied ways may all together be like a great choir, singing our different parts in a mighty anthem of praise to God. |
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Great
Doctrines of the Bible [1:148] posted 12.08.2011 |
People often get into trouble about this
question of miracles because they start by
thinking that a miracle is something
contrary to nature. But that is quite wrong;
they have forgotten that God works in
nature. It is simply that God has two
different ways of working. Generally He
achieves His purposes through the secondary
causes; but sometimes He does it directly,
and that is a miracle. God is working, in
everything, always and everywhere; so that
when you have a miracle, it is still God
working, but working in a different way; and
to deny the possibility of miracles is to
say that God is confined, or bound, by His
own laws. Some people, of course, insist that miracles are impossible because they break the laws of nature. If such people believe in God at all, they mean that God is now bound by the laws which He Himself has placed in nature, and can do nothing about it. They reduce God to a position subservient to His own law. But this denies the doctrine of God all along the line. |
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Great
Doctrines of the Bible [3:61] posted 12.08.2011 |
The common view held by the world is that death is just the end of life. Death means, it is said, cessation of existence. A man exists; he dies; he is no longer existing and that is the end of that. But that is not the biblical teaching at all! In fact, biblical teaching is the exact opposite. Bible writers are very anxious to assert and to emphasize that death does not mean the cessation of existence. Death, according to the Bible, is simply the separation of the soul and the physical body. Here we are in this life, and the soul and the body are intimately connected; they are one. My soul functions in and through my body. When I die, my soul will leave the body. My body will still be left here in this world; my soul will go on. So death is the separation of soul and body but by no means the cessation of existence. |
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I Am Not
Ashamed [24] posted 09.08.2011 |
People get into trouble, something goes wrong in their lives; they are taken ill, lose their job, lose a husband or a wife, perhaps, and they suddenly find themselves bereft, all they had lived for has suddenly gone. They thought that they were quite happy, and they thought they had a philosophy of life, but they now discover that the foundation has gone, that there is nothing left. They do not know what to do and so they try the cults and various other things. And then they wonder whether the Christian Church can help them—they want comfort and they want it directly. But they will not get it. Christianity never gives direct comfort. You will never know the comfort and the consolation of the Scriptures and of the gospel until you believe the gospel. You cannot have Christian comfort until you have become a Christian. That is the trouble—people are trying to get the benefits of Christianity without becoming Christians. It cannot be done. The benefits are the by-products. The thing that is essential is a belief in the faith. |
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John Knox and
the Reformation [16] posted 10.06.2011 |
Once you have godliness, righteousness and morality follow. We are trying today to have morality, righteousness, and a good ethical conception without the godliness, and the facts are proving, before our eyes, that it simply cannot be done. |
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The Kingdom of
God [185] posted 08.18.2011 |
The Law of God is not here for you to applaud, it is here for you to apply. The fact that you have got it does not mean that you are right; have you kept it? God has not made you just custodians and guardians of the Law. He does not want you to agree with it, He wants you to practice it. |
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Let Not Your
Heart Be Troubled [68] posted 09.15.2011 |
If we are depending for happiness and joy and quiet heart, in a final sense, upon any human being, upon our family, our home, our profession, our money, our health and strength, we are doomed to experience disappointment. Every one of these things one day will be taken from us. |
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Life in the
Spirit [255] posted 03.24.2011 |
Whatever the Christian does he should always be doing it at its very best…the Christian child should be a better child than any other child, the Christian husband a better husband, the Christian wife a better wife, the Christian family the best type of family in the whole world, the Christian businessman the best businessman conceivable, the professional man the best man in the profession. I do not mean from the standpoint of ability, but from all other aspects. Everything the Christian does should be done with all his might, and with a thoroughness and with an understanding which nobody else is capable of. |
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Life in the
Spirit [260] posted 02.03.2011 |
If we continue to spend our lives in jollification, doing less and less work, demanding more and more money, more and more pleasure and so-called happiness, more and more indulgence of the lusts of the flesh, with a refusal to accept our responsibilities, there is but one inevitable result—complete and abject failure. |
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Life in the
Spirit [270] posted 06.09.2011 |
The notion that God is One who can wink at sin and pretend that He has not seen it, and cover it over and forgive every offender, and never feel any wrath, and never punish is, I say, not only to deny the Old Testament, but to deny the New Testament also. |
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The Life of
Joy [52] posted 02.02.2012 |
Paul is anxious that Christian people should know the great eternal decrees of God and how they are being worked out. He wants us to understand the nature of the death of our Lord upon the cross, the power of His resurrection and the application of all that to our lives by the Holy Spirit. He wants us to see that God, from the very beginning, has had this plan which He is certainly working out. Then, as we grasp this more fully, it will increase our love to God, and as we have this growing assurance of our great salvation, so our love will abound yet more and more. |
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Living Water [476] posted 06.30.2011 |
What is life for? What is its meaning and purpose? Is it just to have enjoyment, just to get some kicks? Are were here merely to eat and drink and indulge in sex--is that the whole of life? Obviously thousands think it is, and when they are deprived of these in any shape or form, they are down; they have no resources, nothing at all to fall back on. But Christians see that the world is not their home; it is a kind of preparatory school, and their destiny is elsewhere. This is not the only world; this is not the only life. |
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Love So
Amazing [178] posted 10.20.2011 |
The world is as it is because it is ignorant
of God. It is in the dark about God. And it
is like that because the devil keeps it
there. He comes and says: "Do you still
believe in God?" That is what he said to
Even at the beginning. He said: "Do not be
such fools; do not listen. God is keeping
you down. Religion is against you. Make
yourselves free; assert yourselves." On the other hand, though it wants to be free, the world has to admit that people are monsters and are their own greatest danger. The world cannot understand them. So, you see, it is a mass and jumble of contradictions. It says that men and women are perfect at one moment and do not need God, then the next moment? Well, who knows what they are? And you have these terrible descriptions: they are psychotic; they are ill; they are diseased; they cannot think; their minds are twisted and perverted. It is utter confusion. Yes, but the real confusion is the ignorance with regard to God. It is because it does not know and recognize God, that the world is as it is; and it is because men and women do not know God that they do not know themselves. They think they are wonderful and find they are fools. They do not know the truth about themselves. |
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The New Man [252] posted 09.01.2011 |
There are Christians who say, 'I am saved,
and all is right with me; I am not
interested in anything else. I am not a
theologian, I do not want to read great
books on theology'. But no Christian has a
right to remain a babe in that way, he has
no right not to exercise his senses. 'But I
am a practical man', you say, 'I am a great
worker'. But you have no right to divide
yourself up in that way. It should be the
ambition of every Christian to 'grow in the
grace and in the knowledge of the Lord'. You should study your Scriptures, read all the best books you can, get knowledge that is as deep and profound as is possible, and 'exercise your senses,' because according to inspired authors, if you do not, you cannot receive the whole truth. If you remain a babe, and do not grow and develop, you will have to continue being spoon-fed with milk, and you will never know anything about 'the strong meat' of the Word of God, and of the doctrine of salvation. |
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Not Against
Flesh and Blood [31] posted 11.10.2011 |
What is so interesting is that in an age like this, which claims to be too sophisticated and too intelligent to be Christian, and which is faintly amused at people who still go to places of worship, so many people are returning to this kind of belief [astrology]. It just reveals the emptiness of the soul apart from God; it shows how people in sin and in their unease will clutch at anything that seems to give them hope and a sense of security. |
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Not Against
Flesh and Blood [63] posted 03.17.2011 |
Anything that is in the Scriptures is important for us. If you feel that any part of the Scriptures has nothing to say to you, then there is something seriously wrong with you. If you pick and choose in the Scriptures and only read your favorite passages because you think they will help you, then you are a babe, an infant—indeed, one might even query whether you are born at all. The Scripture—the whole of Scripture—is for us, and we are to know it and to study it and to understand it as best we can. |
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Old Testament
Evangelistic Sermons [74 & 76] posted 07.28.2011 |
The modern man not only does see sin as it is from the standpoint of God, he fails also to see it as it is from man's standpoint. He not only does not know God, he does not even know himself. The trouble is that we all by nature refuse to face honestly the problem of ourselves and our own inner nature. We argue about our ideal selves instead of our actual selves. We refuse to face the naked truth of our own hearts as they are. If only we faced the truth about ourselves we should soon be right on the question of sin, we would soon realize its terrible and awful nature, and above all, its terrible force and power. Consider yourself and your own experience. Face for a moment the struggles that go on within your own heart. Conjure up the vain thoughts and desires that grip you and control you from time to time. Would you like to state them all in public? Would you like the world to know all about you? When a man really knows himself and thereby knows something of the nature and problem of sin he doesn't want to argue about the doctrines of grace, he just thanks God for them and accepts them with his whole soul and heart and mind. |
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Out of the
Depths [24] posted 06.02.2011 |
Have you really examined yourself and really looked into your own heart? There is no hope for a man who does not do that, and the truth about the modern world is that people are running away from just this. They are crowding into cinemas, reading novels—anything to fill up their lives and keep them from thinking. I say that you have to fight for your life and you have to fight for your soul. The world will do everything to prevent you facing yourself. My dear friend, let me appeal to you. Look at yourself. Forget everybody and everything else. It is the first step in the knowledge of God and in the experience of His glorious salvation. |
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Out of the
Depths [42] posted 07.07.2011 |
The Christian experience is something quite definite, it is quite concrete; that is way a man can really test himself and discover whether he is Christian or not. The New Testament exhorts him to do so, and it is asking of him something that can be done. There is no need for uncertainty in your mind; it can be discovered quite easily. Let us never think of the Christian position as some vague, indefinite, nebulous thing somewhere up in the air. No, the Christian position is a very definite one; it is one of the most concrete things in life. |
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Out of the
Depths [94] posted 05.05.2011 |
It is not what you and I think that matters, it is what the Bible teaches. People have their own ideas as to what constitutes a Christian. You find, when you discuss these things with people, they say, ‘What I say is this.’ And because they say it, they think it must be true. But surely there is no ultimate final standard of what makes a man a Christian except this Book. What do we know of Christianity apart from this Book? What right have we to say, ‘This is what I think makes a man a Christian?’ Surely this Book is our only sanction and authority. We know nothing of Jesus Christ apart from what we find here, and we have no right to postulate what is the Christian experience apart from the teaching of God’s Word. |
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Preaching and
Preachers [87] posted 05.16.2010 |
With the grand theme and message of the Bible dullness is impossible. This is the most interesting, the most thrilling, the most absorbing subject in the universe; and the idea that this can be presented in a dull manner makes me seriously doubt whether the men who are guilty of this dullness have ever really understood the doctrine they claim to believe, and which they advocate. We often betray ourselves by our manner. |
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Preaching &
Preachers [149] posted 04.14.2011 |
This idea that because people are members of the church and attend regularly that they must be Christian is one of the most fatal assumptions, and I suggest that it mainly accounts for the state of the Church today. |
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Preaching &
Preachers [280] posted 02.17.2011 |
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 that 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. |
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Seeking the
Face of God [74] posted 04.28.2011 |
It is all very well to have a cheerful view of life while the sun is shining and when you are on vacation. But here is the test: what are you like when everything goes wrong, when everything turns against you and all your world and all your dreams and hopes seem to come crashing to the ground at your feet? |
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Seeking the
Face of God [101] posted 02.24.2011 |
If you really want to know whether you are a Christian or not, the simplest, most direct way, always, is to discover what you are like when things go against you. A time of affluence and prosperity, when the sun is shining and everything is going well, never tests our profession. But the moment things go wrong and you are in a state of perplexity, then you will know exactly the value of what you claim to believe. |
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Seeking the
Face of God [121] posted 05.26.2011 |
The way whereby we can attract the masses who are outside the church and outside Christ to the faith is to show that God is with us. People are not interested in something theoretical. The thing that always convinces people is reality. If they see there is something about our lives, a certain quality, a certain calmness and equanimity, the ability to be more than conquerors in every kind of circumstance, if they see that when everything is against us, we still triumphantly prevail whereas they do not, they will become interested in what we have. They will want to know more about it. I am convinced, therefore, that the greatest need today is Christian people who know and manifest the fact that they know the living God. |
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The Sons of
God [169] posted 01.26.2012 |
Can you say that your life, taken as a whole
-- your thought life, your feelings, your
actions, your will, your everything is under
the direction of the Spirit of God? I am not
asking whether you are perfect. I know you
are not perfect, any more than I am perfect.
But can you say this: 'With all my faults
and failures, and all that is true of me, I
can say that the directing force and
principle in my life is the Spirit of God'?
The Apostle Paul states that if you can say that, you are a son of God. That, then, is the question for you to face. Can you say this, are you sure of this? Is the main direction of your life being determined by the Holy Spirit of God? Is it your greatest desire that it should be? If it is, whatever else may be true about you, whatever your faults or failures, I say to you, on the authority of God Himself, you are a 'son of God'. |
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Spiritual
Depression [12] posted 05.19.2011 |
We are all in such a hurry, we want everything at once. We believe that all truth can be stated in a few minutes. The answer to that is that it cannot, and the reason why so many today are living superficial Christian lives is because they will not take the time to examine themselves. |
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Spiritual
Depression [66] posted 01.13.2011 |
The fact that you are unhappy or troubled is no indication that you are not a Christian; indeed, I would go further and say that if you never had any trouble in your Christian life I should very much doubt whether you are a Christian at all. There is such a thing as false peace, there is such a thing as believing delusions. The whole of the New Testament and the history of the Church throughout the centuries bear eloquent testimony to the fact that this is a ‘fight of faith’, and not to have any troubles in your soul is, therefore, far from being a good sign. It is, indeed, a serious sign that there is something radically wrong. |
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Spiritual
Depression [208] posted 03.10.2011 |
There is a kind of general indolence or laziness which afflicts us all and is undoubtedly produced by the devil himself. Have we not all noticed that when it comes to things in the spiritual life, we do not seem to have the same zeal and enthusiasm, nor do we apply the same energy as we do with our secular calling or vocation, our profession or business, our pleasure, or something we happen to be interested in? Have we not all noticed when we have been working quite well that somehow if we turn for a season of prayer, we suddenly feel tired and fatigued? It is not curious that we always become tired and sleepy when we want to read the Bible? We are fully persuaded that it is something purely physical, and that we really cannot help ourselves, but it is as certain as anything can be that the moment we begin to apply ourselves to spiritual things we shall immediately come face to face with this problem of indolence and the laziness that afflicts us, however alert and energetic we may have been previously. |
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Spiritual
Depression [212] posted 03.31.2011 |
If I really believe that the Bible is more important to me than the daily newspaper, I must read my Bible before I read the newspaper. Whatever I may leave undone, I must see to it that this is done. My prayer time must be insisted upon, I must have my time for meditation; whatever else is not done, I must do these things. That is the beginning, that is an illustration of an element of order coming back into life. So many people fail and become miserable and depressed simply because they have not taken themselves in hand. You will have to do it yourself it will never be done for you, indeed, nobody else can do it for you. If you do not attend to these things in detail I assure you that you will remain a depressed Christian. |
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To God's
Glory [150] posted 11.17.2011 |
The spirit must have a form and that is why you have such a thing as the Christian church. An idea must always take form if it is to be of any value. But there is always a tension between these two. Certain dangers arise, and the biggest danger of all is that the form tends to cripple the spirit.
There must be a minimum of organization
otherwise you cannot do anything. You can be
a vague dreamer but you will not help
anybody. Every idea has got to take form in
some sense or other, but the moment you give
it a form and you have organization, you
have to encounter the problem of how to
prevent the organization from throttling the
spirit. That is the trouble. |
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Unity in
Truth [121] posted 10.13.2011 |
My dear, good, evangelical friends, I have been contending for most of my ministerial life for the importance of doctrine and understanding. But if you are going to make your understanding of doctrine a cause of offence to your weaker brother for whom Christ died, if you are putting your conscience first and never considering his conscience at all, then you are being utterly unscriptural, unspiritual, and unchristian. Let us be careful, brethren. The tests that we put at the center are those of our blessed relationship to our Lord. We are brothers. Families are strange mixtures, but we are a family, the family of God. We are different, yes, but we are all brethren. We have got the same life in us; we are all partakers of the divine nature. We have been born from above, born of the Spirit. We are one; we are all going to heaven. Well, let us march there together and bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. |
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The
Unsearchable Riches of Christ [55] posted 11.17.2011 |
It is the effectual working of the power of
God that makes anyone a Christian. It means
a rebirth, a regeneration. It is not the
result of our decision, it is not something
that you and I decide to do; it is what is
done to us! Paul would never have been a
Christian at all were it not for this power.
But even after becoming a Christian he would
have been ineffective apart from this same
power. It is this working, it is this power
of God, that not only transformed his whole
outlook, but it called him into the ministry
and gave him the gifts that are requisite to
the ministry, the understanding of the
truth, the power to speak, the power to
write, the power to teach. It was all of
God. |
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Victorious
Christianity [140] posted 09.29.2011 |
How can one keep silent? The Gospel is so glorious, and men and women are dying in sin and in ignorance. Let them scoff at us, let them ridicule us, let them do what they will, we will go on preaching. We cannot but preach. We cannot but repeat that we bear witness to these things. Christ is the only hope; He is the only Savior. |
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What Is An
Evangelical? [34] posted 10.06.2010 |
Traditions may be good, but when they become traditionalism, they are bad. We should not be concerned primarily with merely maintaining some recognized position or continuing in some particular tradition. That is not our object. |
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What Is An
Evangelical? [89] posted 04.21.2011 |
We must not divide on the question of prophetic interpretation: pre-, post-, a-millennialist, and so on. Not one of them can be proved, so we must not put them into the category of essentials. You have your views; hold them. Let us discuss them together; let us reason together out of the Scriptures; but if we divide on these matters, I maintain that we are guilty of schism. We are putting into the category of essentials what is non-essential. |
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Why Does God
Allow War? [25] posted 02.14.2010 |
There is nothing which is so utterly contrary to the whole teaching of the Bible as the assumption that anyone, and at any time, without any conditions whatsoever, may approach God in prayer. |
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Why Does God
Allow War? [32] posted 02.14.2010 |
Prayer is not meant to be the doubtful experiment that may lead to faith and belief; it is rather the expression, and the outcome, of a faith that not only believes in God, but is also prepared to trust its all to Him and to His holy will. To pray to God in order to discover whether prayer works or not is an insult to God. |
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Why Does God
Allow War? [55] posted 04.07.2011 |
You may not understand what is happening to you. It may seem to you all wrong, but trust yourself to Him. Believe when you cannot prove. Hold on to His constancy, His justice, His eternal purposes for you in Christ. Regard these as absolutes, which can never be shaken, build your case logically upon them, remain steadfast and unshaken, confident that ultimately all will be made plain and all will be well. |
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Why Does God
Allow War? [117] posted 01.13.2011 |
To tell a man who is writhing in agony that the pain is not quite as bad as he thinks it is, is both insulting and annoying. The intention may be good, but the result will be not only not to help the man, but to add to his trials by producing an additional source of irritation! That is not the method of the Gospel. It takes the facts as they are. It faces them honestly. It covets no cheap victory or success by belittling the problem. |
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Why Does God
Allow War? [119] posted 06.16.2011 |
Trials, difficulties and tribulations are not to be ignored, neither are they without any explanation whatsoever; God uses them, and employs them, and guides them in such a manner as to promote our good. There is therefore no irreconcilable opposition between belief in God and the difficulties and trials of life. God uses them to our advantage and employs them in order to bring His own great purposes to pass. |
| The Dr. David Martyn Lloyd-Jones Library |
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