This is an extract from a chapter in the new Lloyd-Jones book (taken from the electronic edition of the Banner mag for May which has the whole chapter).
5 RAISING THE STANDARD OF PREACHING - NOTES OF A MEMORABLE ADDRESS
[Dr Lloyd-Jones preached for the last time as minister of Westminster Chapel on Friday, March 1, 1968. Illness (from which he recovered after surgery) then led to his retirement from that pastoral charge. But among the labours that he continued thereafter was his chairmanship of the Westminster Fellowship of ministers, and, on resuming public ministry one of his first engagements was at the Fellowship, meeting at Westminster Chapel on October 9, 1968. In the intervening months he had heard preachers in different places and of different denominations, some of them no doubt men who attended the Fellowship. As with a number of ML-J’s addresses no record of this one was taken, by tape or shorthand, and what follows are only my hurried notes as a hearer. Even in this fragmentary form I believe they are worthy of preservation. The meeting was packed; love and thankfulness for the speaker were the paramount feelings, and his rousing words were long to be remembered by all who were there. The title above is my own and no subject was given in advance of the meeting.]
[Dr Lloyd-Jones preached for the last time as minister of Westminster Chapel on Friday, March 1, 1968. Illness (from which he recovered after surgery) then led to his retirement from that pastoral charge. But among the labours that he continued thereafter was his chairmanship of the Westminster Fellowship of ministers, and, on resuming public ministry one of his first engagements was at the Fellowship, meeting at Westminster Chapel on October 9, 1968. In the intervening months he had heard preachers in different places and of different denominations, some of them no doubt men who attended the Fellowship. As with a number of ML-J’s addresses no record of this one was taken, by tape or shorthand, and what follows are only my hurried notes as a hearer. Even in this fragmentary form I believe they are worthy of preservation. The meeting was packed; love and thankfulness for the speaker were the paramount feelings, and his rousing words were long to be remembered by all who were there. The title above is my own and no subject was given in advance of the meeting.]
Dr Lloyd-Jones began by apologizing for the interruption to his presence at the Fellowship, although ‘it had been beyond my control’. He would say only one thing about his operation.
Before that he had enjoyed remarkable health, and he had found it difficult to visualise what one would be like when taken ill. ‘I think I now know “the peace of God that passeth all understanding” as a very real thing. Something that cannot be put into words was given me in a way I shall never forget as long as I live. On the negative side, I have to confess, I wondered afterwards why I did not feel as Paul a “desire to depart and to be with Christ”. It wasn’t that I was craving to live, but looking back on it, there was a lack there. I knew I was going to get well. It seems to me I should have known something of that other aspect in facing death – a spirit of expectation. I regard the absence of that as a deficiency. Our relation to our Lord should make it otherwise. We should not be waiting for things to happen, for death to come; we should be preparing.’
He endorsed the words of a minister dying from tuberculosis who urged those around him to love God with all their strength, for when illness comes strength is gone. ‘We become too weak to read, even the Scriptures. We must use our strength, and lay up reserves for the day of trial.
‘Our danger is to be victims of our routine, to get carried away by the momentum of the work. We need reminders of the words of Edmund Burke. In the midst of a parliamentary election campaign at Bristol, Burke was about to rise and speak when he was told that his opponent in the election had suddenly died: “What phantoms we are, and what phantoms we pursue!”
‘Another thing has concerned me in these last months. The point at which my ministry was interrupted had a message for me. I was preaching on Romans 14:17, “For the kingdom of God is
not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” I had dealt with “righteousness, and peace” [the latter on March 1], and there I was stopped. I was not allowed
to deal with “joy in the Holy Ghost”. I have a feeling it was not accidental. God intervened and I could suggest a reason why. I was able to deal with “righteousness, and peace” (I had a fleeting
experience of it), but the third thing is the profoundest of all. Why was I not allowed to deal with “joy in the Holy Ghost”? Because I knew something, but not enough about it. As though God said, “I want you to speak with greater authority on this.” ‘I am convinced this is the most important thing of all and it leads me to what I want to put before you. For six months, until
September, I did not preach at all. I have been a listener and it has been a most valuable experience. As a listener, through four of those months, my general impression is that for people outside our churches most of our services are terribly depressing! I am amazed people still go. Most who do go are females, over the age of 40, and I feel they go out of duty; some, perhaps, have the opportunity to be important in their little spheres. There is nothing to make a stranger feel he is missing something – instead he finds this awful weight! And the minister, feeling this, thinks he must be short; thus people come together in order to depart. I am speaking generally
about the churches, but in this respect there is very little difference in evangelical churches.
‘It is a great thing to be a listener. You want something for your soul, you want help. I don’t want a great sermon. I want to feel the presence of God – that I am worshipping him, and considering
something great and glorious. If I do get that I do not care how poor the sermon is.
‘I suggest to you that our greatest danger is the danger of professionalism. We do not stop sufficiently frequently to ask ourselves what we are really doing. The danger is of just facing a text, and treating it as an end in itself, with a strange detachment. Far away from London, and in an Anglican church, we heard a vicar preach on the words of Jeremiah 20:9 “Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.” The preacher had taken great trouble preparing the sermon; it was well arranged, there was form to it; the one thing that was not there was fire. It was a cold douche. No-one could possibly go out of that service on fire! The preacher could not have asked himself, “What is this fire and is it for me?” Instead of asking such a question, he had just prepared a sermon and the vital thing was not there. ‘You may think I was listening as a critic, I was not. At another location I heard a sermon on Galatians 3:1: “O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?” We were told a lot about “bewitching”, and the sermon was about things that could and do side-track us; but I was astounded that the preacher did not see the main thing in the text – these Galatians turned from this glorious thing, Jesus Christ who had been placarded before them. This is what we must be talking about!
‘We can miss the wood because of the trees and lose the glory of the gospel. Our business is to send people away with the most glorious thing in the universe. This applies to people who come
regularly. There is no hope of attracting outsiders while those inside are as they are. Those outside are already depressed, and, if not, they will soon be.
Before that he had enjoyed remarkable health, and he had found it difficult to visualise what one would be like when taken ill. ‘I think I now know “the peace of God that passeth all understanding” as a very real thing. Something that cannot be put into words was given me in a way I shall never forget as long as I live. On the negative side, I have to confess, I wondered afterwards why I did not feel as Paul a “desire to depart and to be with Christ”. It wasn’t that I was craving to live, but looking back on it, there was a lack there. I knew I was going to get well. It seems to me I should have known something of that other aspect in facing death – a spirit of expectation. I regard the absence of that as a deficiency. Our relation to our Lord should make it otherwise. We should not be waiting for things to happen, for death to come; we should be preparing.’
He endorsed the words of a minister dying from tuberculosis who urged those around him to love God with all their strength, for when illness comes strength is gone. ‘We become too weak to read, even the Scriptures. We must use our strength, and lay up reserves for the day of trial.
‘Our danger is to be victims of our routine, to get carried away by the momentum of the work. We need reminders of the words of Edmund Burke. In the midst of a parliamentary election campaign at Bristol, Burke was about to rise and speak when he was told that his opponent in the election had suddenly died: “What phantoms we are, and what phantoms we pursue!”
‘Another thing has concerned me in these last months. The point at which my ministry was interrupted had a message for me. I was preaching on Romans 14:17, “For the kingdom of God is
not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” I had dealt with “righteousness, and peace” [the latter on March 1], and there I was stopped. I was not allowed
to deal with “joy in the Holy Ghost”. I have a feeling it was not accidental. God intervened and I could suggest a reason why. I was able to deal with “righteousness, and peace” (I had a fleeting
experience of it), but the third thing is the profoundest of all. Why was I not allowed to deal with “joy in the Holy Ghost”? Because I knew something, but not enough about it. As though God said, “I want you to speak with greater authority on this.” ‘I am convinced this is the most important thing of all and it leads me to what I want to put before you. For six months, until
September, I did not preach at all. I have been a listener and it has been a most valuable experience. As a listener, through four of those months, my general impression is that for people outside our churches most of our services are terribly depressing! I am amazed people still go. Most who do go are females, over the age of 40, and I feel they go out of duty; some, perhaps, have the opportunity to be important in their little spheres. There is nothing to make a stranger feel he is missing something – instead he finds this awful weight! And the minister, feeling this, thinks he must be short; thus people come together in order to depart. I am speaking generally
about the churches, but in this respect there is very little difference in evangelical churches.
‘It is a great thing to be a listener. You want something for your soul, you want help. I don’t want a great sermon. I want to feel the presence of God – that I am worshipping him, and considering
something great and glorious. If I do get that I do not care how poor the sermon is.
‘I suggest to you that our greatest danger is the danger of professionalism. We do not stop sufficiently frequently to ask ourselves what we are really doing. The danger is of just facing a text, and treating it as an end in itself, with a strange detachment. Far away from London, and in an Anglican church, we heard a vicar preach on the words of Jeremiah 20:9 “Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.” The preacher had taken great trouble preparing the sermon; it was well arranged, there was form to it; the one thing that was not there was fire. It was a cold douche. No-one could possibly go out of that service on fire! The preacher could not have asked himself, “What is this fire and is it for me?” Instead of asking such a question, he had just prepared a sermon and the vital thing was not there. ‘You may think I was listening as a critic, I was not. At another location I heard a sermon on Galatians 3:1: “O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?” We were told a lot about “bewitching”, and the sermon was about things that could and do side-track us; but I was astounded that the preacher did not see the main thing in the text – these Galatians turned from this glorious thing, Jesus Christ who had been placarded before them. This is what we must be talking about!
‘We can miss the wood because of the trees and lose the glory of the gospel. Our business is to send people away with the most glorious thing in the universe. This applies to people who come
regularly. There is no hope of attracting outsiders while those inside are as they are. Those outside are already depressed, and, if not, they will soon be.
‘One of the things of encouragement to me was a visit to a London church. Many who are not evangelicals say that the only thing to get people into church is to talk about things people are interested in – the war in Biafra and so on. I can testify from experience it isn’t true. I went to hear Howard Williams, who is boosted by the Baptist Union and television as a man that “deals with practical problems” and “attracts thinking people”. He has “one of the best pitches in London”, yet I saw only 120 people. He had not many “thinking people” there that night! I came from there really encouraged. The people know it is useless. We have nothing to worry about with liberalism; it is dead and finished.
‘Here is a wonderful opportunity for us. Well, what is wrong with us? Our approach is wrong. They [liberals] start with what people are interested in; our danger is to forget people altogether. Our ideas, and the results of our preaching, suggest we haven’t thought about the people at all. We are too objective. (I am tired of hearing sermons about ‘the church’, denouncing the World Council of Churches, etc). Once evangelical preaching was too subjective; now it is too objective. This leads to a mechanical approach to preaching.
‘I believe in a series [of sermons] but it can be done in the wrong way – not taking into account the state of the people listening, so that although we may deal with a passage excellently, there
is no message for them. There is a difference between a running commentary on a passage and a sermon. I believe in expository sermons, not a running commentary. What is the difference? etc, etc.
‘Here is a wonderful opportunity for us. Well, what is wrong with us? Our approach is wrong. They [liberals] start with what people are interested in; our danger is to forget people altogether. Our ideas, and the results of our preaching, suggest we haven’t thought about the people at all. We are too objective. (I am tired of hearing sermons about ‘the church’, denouncing the World Council of Churches, etc). Once evangelical preaching was too subjective; now it is too objective. This leads to a mechanical approach to preaching.
‘I believe in a series [of sermons] but it can be done in the wrong way – not taking into account the state of the people listening, so that although we may deal with a passage excellently, there
is no message for them. There is a difference between a running commentary on a passage and a sermon. I believe in expository sermons, not a running commentary. What is the difference? etc, etc.
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