Quote of the Day

"While it is true that man could use reason to gain an incomplete knowledge of God, such reason never enabled any man apart from God’s intervention to come to him. Only by God’s initiative does man have the opportunity to go beyond the blindness of sin and become a Christian." —Martin Lloyd-Jones (1899–1981)

Hell-Bound Sinner

"A Christian can generally be known by his very appearance. The man who really believes in the holiness of God, and who knows his own sinfulness and the blackness of his own heart, the man who believes in the judgment of God and the possibility of hell and torment, the man who really believes that he himself is so vile and helpless that nothing but the coming of the Son of God from heaven to earth, and His going to the bitter shame and agony and cruelty of the cross could ever save him, and reconcile him to God‑‑this man is going to show all that in his whole personality. He is a man who is bound to give the impression of meekness. He is bound to be humble. Our Lord reminds us here that if a man is not humble, we are to be very wary of him. He can put on a kind of sheep's clothing, but that is not true humility, that is not true meekness. And if a man's doctrine is wrong, it will generally show itself at this point. He will be affable and pleasant, he will appeal to the natural man, and to the things that are physical and carnal; but he will not give the impression of being a man who has seen himself as a hell‑bound sinner, and who has been saved by the grace of God alone" —Martin Lloyd-Jones (1899–1981)

Taken from Studies in the Sermon on the Mount [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1977] pp. 258‑259.

Emphasize the Negative!

Matthew 7;21-23 "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity."

"Our Lord teaches us to beware of this terrible, alarming possibility of deceiving ourselves. We are all quite clear about conscious hypocrisy. The conscious hypocrite is not a problem; he is obvious and self-evident. What is so much more difficult to discern is unconscious hypocrisy, when a man not only misleads others but also deceives himself, when a man not only persuades others wrongly about himself, but persuades himself wrongly about himself. That is the very thing with which our Lord is dealing here, if we believe the New Testament is true, then there is nothing more important than that we should examine ourselves in the light of a statement such as this.

If, then, what we are describing is unconscious hypocrisy, does it not follow that we can do nothing about it? Is it not by definition something with which a man cannot deal with? If it is a condition in which a man is deluding himself, how can he possibly safeguard himself against it? The answer is that, on the contrary, a great deal can be done. The first and most important thing is to consider the cause of self-deception. That is the way to discover it in ourselves. If we can arrive at a list of the causes of self-delusion and self-deception, and the examine ourselves in the light of these causes, we shall be in a position to deal with them. And the New Testament is full of instruction with respect to that. That is why it is always exhorting us to test and to examine ourselves; that is why it is always exhorting us to prove and try the spirits, and indeed to prove all things. It is a great Book of warning. That is not popular today. People say that that is being negative; but the New Testament always emphasizes the negative aspect of truth as well as the positive.

What, then, are the common causes of self-deception in this matter? First: there is a false doctrine of assurance. This is the tendency to base our assurance only upon certain statements which we ourselves make. There are those who say, "Scripture says, 'He that believeth on him is not condemned' but shall receive 'everlasting life'; 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved'; 'Whosoever believeth in his heart and confesseth with his mouth shall be saved.'" They interpret such statements as meaning that as long as they acknowledge and say certain things about the Lord Jesus Christ, they are automatically saved. Their error is surely this: The man who is truly saved and who has a genuine assurance of salvation does make, and must make, these statements, but the mere making of these statements does not of necessity guarantee, or assure, a man of his salvation. The very people with whom our Lord is dealing with do say: "Lord, Lord," and they seem to put the right content into that statement; but, as we have seen, James reminds us in his Epistle that "the devils also believe, and tremble." If we read the Gospels, we discover that the evil spirits, and devils, recognize the Lord. They refer to Him as "the Holy One of God." They know who He is; they say the right things about Him. But they are devils and they are lost. So we must be wary of that very subtle temptation, and remember the way in which people wrongly persuade themselves. They say "I do believe, and I have said with my mouth that I believe Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God, and that He has died for my sins, therefore..." but the argument is incomplete. The believer, that Christian, does say these things, but he does not stop at merely saying them. That is what is sometimes described as "fideism" or "believism," which means that a man is really putting his final trust in his own faith, and not the Lord Jesus Christ. He is relying on his own belief, and on his mere assertion of it."

Excerpt taken from a two-volume set, titled "Studies in the Sermon on the Mount" by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1896-1981)

Heresies

I do not understand that mentality in the Christian Church today which says that we must all come together and sink our differences; and that what we believe does not matter. It is a denial of the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, and of the story of the twelve ignorant, untutored and unlettered men who knew whom and what they believed, and who had the power of the Spirit upon them, and who ‘turned the world upside-down’. This is surely one of the central messages of the Bible. The great concern of the New Testament Epistles is not about the size of the Church, it is about the purity of the Church. The Apostles never said to the first Christians, ‘You are antagonizing people by emphasizing doctrine. Say more about the love of God and less about the wrath of God. They do not even like the Cross, and they cannot abide the story of the resurrection! Drop that talk about the wrath of God and Christ’s ethical teaching!’ Not so do the Apostles speak!

There is an exclusiveness in the New Testament that is quite amazing. The Apostle Paul writing to the Galatians says, ‘Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached, let him be accursed’ (Galatians 1:8). ‘My Gospel!’, says Paul writing to Timothy. He denounces other teachers. So many of these modern preachers are much nicer people than the Apostle Paul! They never say a word against anyone at all, they praise everybody, and they are praised by everybody. They are never ‘negative’! They never define what they believe and what they do not believe. They are said to be ‘full of love’. I am not misjudging them when I say that that is not the explanation. The explanation is that they do not ‘contend for the truth’, they are innocent concerning the ‘wiles of the devil’. It is not for us to decide what to leave out and what to drop for the sake of unity. My business is to expound this truth, to declare it — come what may! We must not be interested primarily in numbers, we must be interested in the truth of God. Why are many today denying the glory of the Protestant Reformation? Martin Luther — one man, standing against the whole Church — would be dismissed today as ‘just an individualist who never cooperates’. But he stood up and said in effect, ‘I am right, you are all wrong!’ ....by Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones 1899-1981