martyn lloyd-jones

God cares very deeply and eternally for His people

Posted on March 12, 2017 by elizabethprata

If you haven’t listened to Martyn Lloyd Jones’ series called Great Biblical Doctrines, you’re missing out. I listened to two this morning, Redemption: The Eternal Plan of God and The Covenant of Grace in the Old Testament. These and the other sermons in the series edify and encourage.

Tomorrow I’ll continue with the final essay in the 3-part series I’m doing on the vessels of wrath, but for the Lord’s Day, which is a day of rest, prayer, and exaltation of His glorious name, here is something encouraging Dr Lloyd-Jones said in both the above linked sermons.

God is so loving and concerned with His people that he declares in both the Old Testament and in the New, His faithful and eternal love for us. He restates His covenant of Grace over and over, to reassure us. he is our God, and we are His people! The Jews are His chosen ones, and grafted into that family of Abraham, are the church age saints, the Gentiles.

Because God is in heaven and we were not, we would otherwise never, ever know of His plan since before the foundation of the world to bring a people to Himself. But He condescended to tell us, and more than once. Here, see:

“At that time, declares the Lord, I will be the God of all the clans of Israel, and they shall be my people.” (Jeremiah 31:1)

And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. (Jeremiah 32:38)

And they shall know that I am the Lord their God with them, and that they, the house of Israel, are my people, declares the Lord God. And you are my sheep, human sheep of my pasture, and I am your God, declares the Lord God.” (Ezekiel 34:30-31).

You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. (Ezekiel 36:28)

What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” (2 Corinthians 6:16)

and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty. (2 Corinthians 6:18)

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. (Hebrews 8:10).

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. (Revelation 21:3)

Doesn’t that just make your heart swell with love and also crush your pride? Why, why does God want us? We’re awful, sinful, dirty, and depraved. It’s to show the riches of His mercy, His faithfulness, His righteousness, His love.

God Himself is such a blessing. Praise Jesus, and may His spotless name be revered throughout all eternity by His people.

god's love for us verse

discernment, Uncategorized

What the devil cannot do

Posted on August 20, 2016 by elizabethprata

Here is Martyn Lloyd Jones with a few thoughts on something the devil cannot do.

Putting God first…herein lies the stifling of the passions that defeat us. Herein lies the quietness that calms our tumults. Herein lies the peace of knowing that our sins are forgiven and forgotten by God and so they can be forgotten by us.

When men seek things before they seek God, they throw themselves into what has come to be known as the ‘rat race’. An earlier phrase described it as ‘the pace that kills’. But it was never the pace that killed, it was the fear of tomorrow that made the pace necessary.

The devil has never praised God. He can make people happy. But whisky can make people happy. The fact that a thing can make you happy doesn’t prove it’s right. There are drugs that can make you happy. You see, the devil can come, and he can counterfeit all these things. If a man says “I am happy”, it doesn’t prove he is a Christian. It can be counterfeited. There is only one thing I know of that the devil cannot counterfeit: praising God. The devil never does that. Never. The devil has made anybody praise God.

He can counterfeit a belief in God. But that’s a very different thing. The Apostle James tells us in his epistle, ‘the devils also believe, and tremble.’ The devil has never praised God. He can persuade people that they believe in God. If it suits his purpose he can transform himself into an angel of light, and encourage people to believe in God and to be religious. He is doing that to large numbers today. But there’s one thing he’s never done and he can’t do it, and that is to make people praise God. He can give you a counterfeit intellectual interest. He can give you a counterfeit interest in God’s people. A counterfeit interest in communion service. A counterfeit interest in prayer, a counterfeit joy and gladness. He has never made anybody praise God. Why? Because he hates God.

But these people [in Acts 2] were praising God. That is why I say in many senses it is the ultimate test of the profession of the Christian faith – praising God! My friends, are you praising God? I’m not asking if you believe in Him, or if you try to worship Him. I’m not asking if you make requests of Him. I’m asking one thing only. Do you praise God?

Sermon- Praising God, Acts 2:46-47.

It occurred to me that this test would apply to a false teacher. Someone who teaches about God but is not saved, (2 Timothy 3:5) and who is the son of the devil will never praise God. Sons of the devil, those who are energized by satan and are in bondage to satan, cannot praise God because the devil cannot praise God. His minions can’t either. Use it as a test, as MLJ noted. Not that a false teacher can’t say the words, though oftentimes they can’t, they choke on them. They might say off-handedly, “Praise God it rained!” but a life lived in praise to Him, sincere, thorough, zealous praise, will never pass their lips. Look for it…or in this case, the absence of it.

Uncategorized

Discernment Lesson: Comparing a Beth Moore & Martyn Lloyd Jones teaching on on the same verse

Posted on June 12, 2016June 12, 2016 by elizabethprata

I recently did a discernment lesson on the most popular story Beth Moore tells, The Hairbrush Story. Chris Rosebrough has dismantled it sentence by sentence, and I pointed readers to that link, and then offered some of my own insights.

Because writing a discernment lesson about a false teacher takes so much time, which means I have to spend a lot of time wallowing in her muck, it necessitates a spiritual wash afterwards. I got curious about Moore’s teaching on Ephesians 3:19, which The Hairbrush Story was allegedly about. She focused on the part of the verse which promises the full measure of God (NIV), or the fullness of God (ESV).

and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:19)

I love Martyn Lloyd Jones’ sermons, especially on Ephesians, which I am going through anyway. I decided to listen to his treatment of the verse, the same verse, the one and only verse, and see what I could learn. After hearing Moore, I really did want to know more about the full measure of Christ it is a majestic topic. The phrase kept rolling around in my head. So I headed over to the Martyn Lloyd Jones (MLJ) Trust Sermons and listened so my mind could be cleansed from the mud and I could learn about Jesus from a credible preacher. I found the MLJ sermon All the Fullness of God

As I was pondering these things, a tweet came up from my twitter friend Landon Chapman at Entreating Favor website and Fire Away! podcast. Here it is:

This is very, very wise. I take his advice to heart.

I have never immediately compared a false teacher’s lesson on a verse to a credible teacher’s treatment of it. Of course I always compare the false teacher’s lesson to the Bible. Also, it’s not often I can find a false teacher having focused solely on one verse for the point of her lesson and then find a preacher who also preached on that exact sole verse. Comparing would be easy. Not uncomplicated or fast, but easy as in apples to apples. The Moore teaching was still fresh in my mind, as I listened to Jones’. I listened to MLJ’s sermon three times in fact.

I found that Beth Moore and Martyn Lloyd Jones, having taught the same single verse, came to exactly opposite conclusions. Totally at odds with each other. One says yes, the other no. One says black, the other says white. One says up, the other down. By the picture below, you can easily see which Bible teacher’s teaching I found biblical.

Lloyd Jones’ well known nickname; A nickname I dub Moore

Moore taught that the full measure of Christ in us believers is something we do not currently possess.
Jones taught that the fullness of Christ is something we currently do possess.

Moore taught that we could possess it IF we do certain things.
Jones taught that the fullness is something every believer already has as a gift.

Moore taught that the reason we want the full measure of Christ is so we can get blessing and power.
Jones categorically rejects this.

Moore taught that the fullness was a feeling.
Jones taught that the fullness was a doctrine.

Moore taught that we want the full measure of Christ so we can get something, power, love, blessing.
Jones taught that having the fullness of Christ is something we aspire to because Christ is the prize.

They even have a different summation point-

Beth Moore teaching the point of lesson: “I’ve got to know somebody totally loves me.”
Lloyd Jones says the point of the verse is: “It is the highest doctrine of all.”

I won’t go on, you can see it on this chart I made. I included the links from which I delved into each lesson, and the minute at which I heard each teaching so if you care to check it out yourself, you can. Below the chart are the two illustrations each teacher gave. Moore’s was with the measuring cup and Jones’s was about a bottle. They come to opposite conclusions. Moore believes the fullness has a quantity to it and Jones says the full measure is about the quality of it.

Note: MLJ preached the Ephesians series between 1957 and 1980. Moore’s hairbrush story was re-published on LifeToday in 2012 and that is where I reviewed it, though she had delivered it at least as early as 2011 and maybe a year or two earlier than that. The comments in the chart are direct quotes.

The illustration: Moore’s measuring cup and liquid.

With this visual prop, Moore was teaching that we do not possess the full measure. However if we do certain things in our own power and then ask for the fullness, Christ will give it AND “the power that comes with it”. In Moore’s interpretation, we are all 16 oz measuring cups and some of us have 2 ounces of the fullness and others of us have 4 ounces and others get to be filled up completely. A total filling is not something that will happen on this side of eternity anyway.

Lloyd-Jones teaches the opposite. He focuses on ton the vessel but on the quality of the filling. He said we already possess the fullness of Christ in us when we’re saved. He said the power of God (omnipotence) is an attribute of God that is NON-communicable. MLJ also said the fullness is not a quantity, but a quality. Why?

because the amount varies. It varies in the same man from time to time. It varies from one of us to the other, and yet we all can have the fullness.

Here is an illustration to show how you can possess the fullness and yet have more of it. Take a bottle and put it into the sea. You can fill it. Then you can say that bottle is full of the sea. Then you can take a great tank and do the same thing. They both have a fullness but they haven’t the same amount. And the sea is always the sea. The little bottle full of sea has just the same characteristics of the sea in fullness as the tank has.

The drastic difference between the two teachings comes from their view of Jesus and of self. Jones’ eyes are on Christ, Moore’s is on herself. With her, the fullness is something we get, power comes with it, we do things with this power, we get blessing, we receive affirmation of love, and we can have more of it. We, we, we. Her eyes are on self.

Jones shows us where our eyes should be. Not on the bottle, not on the amount that is IN the bottle, not on the tank, not on anything we might think we get, but on the SEA. It is what is IN us that matters. It’s all about Christ in us, His righteousness, His fullness. It has nothing to do with our works, our deeds, our emptying, our effectiveness, our requests, or anything whatsoever to do with us. He bestows His fullness of Himself to us on salvation. It is all about Christ.

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:14-21)

[By Elizabeth Prata]