Our main speaker this year is Jeff Smith, a pastor from Florida. He spoke for the first time this evening very helpfully on penal substitutionary atonement.
It was good to be reminded of the anecdote in Iain Murray's biography of Lloyd-Jones where (Vol 1, pp 190, 191) he writes of how in the late 1920s a fellow minister who heard Lloyd-Jones preaching at a service in Bridgend, South Wales and spoke to him about it saying '...you talk of God's action and God's sovereignty like a hyper-Calvinist, and of spiritual experience like a Quaker, but the cross and the work of Christ have little place in your preaching.'
Lloyd-Jones (speaking at a later date), spoke of how he was like George Whitefield in his early evangelistic preaching, strongly emphasising sin and the rebirth. 'I assumed the atonement but did not distinctly preach it or justification by faith. This man set me thinking and I began to read more fully in theology.'
Murray comments that this remark 'was to prove of considerable importance in the development of Dr. Lloyd-Jones' ministry.' To remedy this Lloyd-Jones sought the guidance of Rev. Vernon Lewis (who regarded the Doctor's preaching as similar to Karl Barth's). Lewis recommended the works of P. T. Forsyth (The cruciality of the cross|), James Denney (Death of Christ) and R. W. Dale (Atonement).
After dinner Lewis Allen spoke pastorally and helpfully on Christ's intercession in heaven. Inevitably he quoted Robert Murray M'Cheyne “If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies. Yet distance makes no difference. He is praying for me." We also had John Owen's "Most men have only general and confused notions and apprehensions of the present state of Christ with respect unto the church." For a good book on the subject I suggest looking here.
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