Dr Lloyd-Jones Memorial Lecture 2024 Welsh Revivals

It is a blessing to live so near the London Seminary. I especially like to be at the annual Dr Lloyd-Jones Memorial Lecture. I think I've been at them all, all the way back to 2008. (It would be nice to be asked to do one but that is not likely to happen). This time round it was Jonathan Thomas (the third time a Welshman has been the lecturer). His subject was Welsh Revivals and he gave a very helpful and straightforward reminder of some of the many revivals that have happened in Wales between 1735 and 1905. It is important to keep going back to this subject because it is easy to forget that God works in this way. Besides the references to Lloyd-Jones, the best part of the mesasge was perhaps the application where Jonathan reminded us of the importance of personal revival and reminded preachers that success is not all down just to good preaching. There needs to be a place in our thinking for God and revival.

Dr Lloyd-Jones Memorial Lecture 2023 Bavinck

 

This year's Dr Lloyd-Jones Memorial Lecture at London Seminary was given by Dr James Eglinton on Bavinck on preachers and preaching. This very interesting talk revealed that only one sermon by Hermann Bavinck survives but he and his protege, his nephew J H Bavinck, wrote on the subeject and so it is possible to address the subject. The emphasis was on persuasion which begins with knowing the culture and then applying the biblical message. Sadly, the lecture was delivered in the dark as there had been a power cut. It was only once the lecture was over that the lights came on again. About 30 or 40 were there. Dr Eglinton did very well in difficult circumstances. He has been lecturing all week at the seminary on Dutch Neo-Calvinsim (Kuyper, Bavinck et al).

Dr Lloyd-Jones Memorial Lecture 2022 Jesus the Preacher

It was great to hear the Dr Lloyd-Jones Memorial Lecture from Dr Peter Williamd of Tyndale House last night. He spoke very helpfully on Jesus as a preacher, bringing many useful things to light. I guess there were about a hundred or so there. You can hear more or less what Dr Williams had to say on five YouTube videos, the first of which is found here. (These include questions at the end which we did not have last night),

Day Off Week 41 2021/Dr LloydJones Memorial Lecture 2021 Evangelism

This week's day off was slightly disjointed. I read most of Mike Mellor's book on pathos in preaching Preaching the heart of God. Challenging and helpful. I also finished the book on the Beatles that I bought last week, listening to the Beatles. In the evening we went up to the seminary to hear Rico Tice give the Lloyd-Jones lecture. I'll try to report on that some other time.

Dr Lloyd-Jones Memorial Lecture 2019 Preachers and Preaching

I am sorry not to have written this up before now but last Tuesday we had a very special meeting at the Pastor's Academy in Finchley when Sinclair Ferguson delivered to a packed audience the annual Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones lecture. The year 2019 is the fiftieth anniversary of the delivering of the lectures in Westminster Seminary that became the book Preachers and preaching.

It was a long paper but the momentum never sagged. There were three parts - the lectures themselves, the preaching of the preacher and the preacher who wrote the book.

Sixteen lectures were given over six weeks with two final sessions for questions and answers. Lloyd-Jones liked preaching books with plenty of anecdotes and his own lectures are packed with them. One of his greatest concerns was with the matter of what is most often called unction. Dr Ferguson suggested that while we may reject Lloyd-Jones's exposition we cannot deny the evidence of church history which suggests that his view that we need the Spirit always to preach and sometimes he comes powerfully is correct. Lloyd-Jones favourite story of this was that of John Livingstone at the Kirk o' Shotts when some 500 were either converted or something similar Livingstone himself wrote

It is most probable that no gift, no pains, a man takes to fit himself for preaching, shall ever do good to the people or himself, except a man labour to have and keep his heart in a spiritual condition before God, depending on him always for furniture and the blessing. Earnest faith and prayer, a single aim at the glory of God and good of people, a sanctified heart and carriage, shall avail much for right preaching. There is sometimes somewhat in preaching that cannot be ascribed either to the matter or expression, and cannot be described what it is, or from whence it cometh, but with a sweet violence, it pierceth into the heart and affections, and comes immediately from the Lord. But if there be any way to attain to any such thing, it is by a heavenly disposition of the speaker. A man would especially read the writings, and labour to follow the gifts, of those whom God hath, in the most eminent manner, blessed with the converting and confirming of their hearers, rather than those who seem to have rare gifts for learning and delectation, without such success.

As for Lloyd-Jones as a preacher Ferguson singled out the humbling of his natural pride and his new understanding of the cross when someone showed him that he was preaching regeneration but failing to point people to Christ. On Romans 5 Lloyd-Jones says "The Christian life is in many ways a matter of logic, a matter of deduction" and he famously spoke of preaching as logic on fire or eloquent reason. His reading of Calvin, Edwads and Warfield confirmed him in this. Providentially he had a medical training and made use of this in his approach to preaching. However, it was more than that. As Dr Ferguson pointed out there have been many preachers with a medical training who did not preach like Lloyd-Jones. More important then, it was suggested, was his taking up of the recommendation of Lord Horder, his medical mentor, that his students read Jevons on logic. As for eloquence Plato's emphasis on logos, ethos, pathos was again important. Lloyd-Jones had the logos but believed he lacked pathos (as most preachers do). Ethos is to do with the integrity of the preacher and his message – and ourselves your servants for Christ’s sake.

We ended with some personal reminiscences and a reference to a picture of Lloyd-Jones being introduced to the Queen. At the end I felt like I did when I finished reading the two volume biography. This was a truly holy man, an eloquent preacher used by God. Only to be like him to some extent.

Dr Lloyd-Jones Memorial Lecture 2018 Reformed Piety

It was good once again to be at the London Seminary on Tuesday night to hear Dr Joel Beeke give the annual Dr Lloyd-Jones Memorial Lecture. He spoke on Reformed Piety - Covenantal and Experiential very helpfully to a good crowd.
One of the most interesting things he said I thought was this -  

While I was on active duty in the US Army Reserves, a sergeant laid his hand on my shoulder one day and said, "Son, if you ever have to go to war, there are three things you must remember in battle: what tactics you need to use, how the fight is going (which is usually very different from how it ought to go), and what the goal of the battle is." That sergeant gave me an experiential approach to fighting. His three points also provide insight into how experiential religion and preaching ought to go. When we preach we ought to be idealistic, realistic and optimistic a la ROmans 8, Romans 7 and the passages that speak to us of heaven.

He also warned against antinomianism, legalism, hyper-covenantalism and hypercalvinism. Great stuff.

Dr Lloyd-Jones Memorial Lecture 2017 Ramon Llull

Monument Palma, Mallorca
(Olaf Tausch, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>,
via Wikimedia Commons)

For some years now the London Seminary has put on an annual lecture in memory of Dr Lloyd-Jones the seminary's founder. This year Hicham from France spoke on the forgotten pioneer missionary to Muslims, the Franciscan Ramon Llull (c1232-1325). He is also remembered as the first writer in Catalan. His writings before conversion are apparently on the bawdy side. Born in Mallorca, he is also buried there. Between times he learned Arabic and travelled to Tunisia seeking to win Muslims to Christ. Hxxxx, who was very positive about Llull despite his Romanist background, has been able to consult some of his Arabic writings in Barcelona, which added to his knowledge of the man, though many mysteries remain. The only biography is Samuel Zwemer's 1902 work. It was a refreshing privilege to hear this paper, which will hopefully stir many to such pioneer work also. About 40 were present.

Opportunities for intake last week

Gavin Peacock, Highgate Rd Chapel

The opportunities to hear others ministering last week were so many that it has taken me until now to write things up.

We started off last Monday (4th) in Westminster Baptist Church listening to Paul Yeulett from Grove Chapel speaking to the fellowship on Stress in the ministry. He began with some more general remarks on the subject of stress before narrowing down to stress in the ministry going to the Psalm and 2 Corinthians before finishing with some practical suggestions such as the importance of things such as rest, variety and delegation. It was a helpful paper and although our chairman was rather disappointed by the number present (about 16) it seemed none to bad given the subject and the day. I must say that although the folk at Westminster Baptist Church are extremely welcoming and kind, the building is not a great draw aesthetically. Such relatively superficial considerations do weigh with some.

The Westminster Fellowship was originally the brainchild of Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones and on Tuesday evening it was the Dr Lloyd-Jones Memorial Lecture that I went off to at the LTS. This normally takes place during the annual John Owen Centre Conference but as the lecture is intended not to be only for ministers a shift of timing was felt desirable. A good number attended this year's lecture which was from Old Testament specialist Dr Iain Duguid. He spoke on The Song of Songs, on what love is and on marriage and singleness. He helpfully argued that marriage involves  a threefold bond - legal, affectionate and sexual. He spoke of marriage as friendship on fire. He closed with an appropriate focus on Christ and the cross. See here for a similar paper given at Westminster Theological Seminary.

Besides this public lecture Dr Duguid lectured to the seminary students on the Song. On the Wednesday afternoon  there was an opportunity for others to be present when we turned to another of the wisdom books Proverbs and how to preach it. Dr D made some helpful remarks on the subject and gave an example or two of how to go about it. It was good to be present for that too.

As if all that was not enough, there were three further opportunities for intake on the Saturday. The LTS was having an elders day with Garry Williams, Robert Strivens and Ian Fry (a minister and Director of Youth and Children’s Ministry Training at Oak Hill Theological College) [LTS here] and next door the Kensit church had a morning conference on reaching Muslims with Amjad Mahand. We opted for Gavin Peacock with is wife Amanda at Highgate Road Chapel, following up the Song of Songs work with a well attended day conference on biblical manhood and womanhood. There are difficulties when a group focusses only on one matter but it was good to look at the subject again with some very clear messages and an opportunity for questions at the end. More from cbmw here.

Duguid/Yeulett

 

Dr Lloyd-Jones Memorial Lecture 2011 Andrew Fuller and religious affections

This evening Michael Haykin (of the Andrew Fuller Centre) gave the Dr Lloyd-Jones Memorial Lecture on "Sweet Sensibility"; Andrew Fuller's defence of religious affections. This is a subject that Dr Lloyd-Jones himself tackled back in 1967.

Dr Haykin began by outlining what Sandemanianism was. It was an attempt to reduce faith to mere assent. It took the view that the affections play no role at all in saving faith. Many wrote against it including John Wesley, Thomas Scott, Anne Dutton, William Gadsby, etc, but the best work was that of Fuller, his Strictures on Sandemanianism of 1810.

Fuller was born in Wicken, a small agricultural village in Cambridgeshire. His parents, Robert Fuller (1723-1781) and Philippa Gunton (1726-1816), were farmers who rented a succession of dairy farms. In 1761 his parents moved a short distance to Soham, where he and his family began to attend the local Calvinistic Baptist church, and where Fuller was converted in November 1769. After being baptised the following Spring, he became a member of the Soham church. In 1774 Fuller was called to the pastorate of this work. He stayed until 1782, when he became the pastor of the Calvinistic Baptist congregation at Kettering.

His time as a pastor in Soham was a decisive period for the shaping of Fuller’s theological perspective. It was during this period that he began a lifelong study of the works of the New England divine Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) which, along with his humble submission to the authority of the infallible Scriptures and the fearless exercise of his mind, enabled him to become what his close friend John Ryland Jr (1753-1825) once described as ‘perhaps the most judicious and able theological writer that ever belonged to our [the Calvinistic Baptist] denomination’.

Fuller came into contact with Sandemanianism when he travelled throughout Scotland in the 1790s and 1800s seeking to raise financial support for the Baptist Missionary Society and their mission at Serampore, India.

Fuller was quite willing to admit that there was much in Sandemanianism that he considers ‘worthy of serious attention’. Sandeman’s critique of the undue subjectivism that reigned in certain quarters of eighteenth century Evangelicalism, for instance, was not without merit. As Fuller notes: ‘If the attention of the awakened sinner, instead of being directed to Christ, be turned inward, and his mind be employed in searching for evidences of his conversion, the effect must, to say the least, be uncomfortable, and may be fatal; as it may lead him to make a righteousness of his religious feelings, instead of looking out of himself to the Saviour.’ Fuller shared Sandeman’s concern that some professing believers of their day were more taken with their experiences of Christ than with Christ himself. For them, faith is all but reduced to religious feeling.

Yet, he goes on to argue, the solution to such an unbalanced focus on the subjective elements of Christianity is not to be found by rejecting them out of hand: ‘Subjective religion is as necessary in its place as objective.’ While faith can never be identified simply with feeling, nor can it be ever divorced from the affections of the heart. Genuine faith ‘does not pertain to the understanding only’, Fuller stresses. In elaborating this position, Fuller makes a number of telling points against the Sandemanian system.

First, if faith does concern only the mind, then there would be no way to distinguish genuine Christianity from nominal Christianity. A nominal Christian mentally assents to the truths of Christianity, but those truths do not grip the heart and re-orient his or her affections. The so-called faith of a nominal Christian, Fuller points out, is really little different from that of the fallen angels, whom we are told in James 2:19 ‘believe’ in the existence of one God and ‘tremble’.

Fuller dealt with other issues such as the holy kissing, their obsession with the letter of Scripture, their glorying in the smallness, etc but central was the issue of saving faith.

Dr Haykin closed by pointing out that Sandemanian ideas do recur from time to time. The Campbellites are an obvious example from the 19th Century as is easy believism from the 20th century. He also cited this paper about the relevance of Sandeman in recent years.