Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones on The Call to Preach: Questions and Answers

What does Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones teach about God's calling of unlikely preachers?

According to Dr. Lloyd-Jones, God often calls the most unexpected people to the ministry, using Paul as the prime example. He emphasizes that Paul described himself as "a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an injurious person" - seemingly "the most hopeless material, the last you'd ever have expected" to become a preacher. Lloyd-Jones notes that Paul himself says in verse 16 that he "obtained mercy for this reason...that in me first, Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering for a pattern to them which would hereafter believe." He adds that "throughout the centuries there has been nothing which has been quite so extraordinary or more wonderful in the long history of the church as the men that God has at times taken hold of and put into the ministry." Even Campbell Morgan himself was "rejected by the Methodist denomination in Great Britain as being an unsuitable person to exercise the Christian ministry."

What is the essential prerequisite for becoming a true preacher according to Lloyd-Jones?

Dr. Lloyd-Jones teaches that the essential prerequisite for any true preacher is that "he is a man who should have experienced and known in his own life the grace of God." He explains that a preacher "is a man who is primarily a witness, he is one who bears testament, he is not an advocate, he is not just a man like a lawyer taking up a brief and handling and presenting a case." While a preacher does present a case, "there's something more profound than that. He is a man who is witnessing to something, he has experienced this, he has known it in his own life, he is therefore a living witness to that which he is teaching and presenting." This experiential knowledge of God's grace is what distinguishes a true preacher from someone who merely handles religious information intellectually.

How does Dr. Lloyd-Jones explain that sin is a condition rather than just wrong actions?

Lloyd-Jones emphatically teaches that "sin is primarily and essentially a state and a condition," not merely a matter of intellect or individual acts. He explains that Paul says "I did it ignorantly, in unbelief" - indicating that "my whole trouble...was due to the fact that I was in this condition of unbelief." Lloyd-Jones rejects the modern notion that people aren't Christians because of their intellect, pointing to Paul himself as "one of the giant intellects of all the centuries" who was included by the secular British Academy as one of "the masterminds of the centuries." He argues that two brothers with equal education and upbringing can differ in faith, proving "it simply cannot be explained in terms of intellect or ability." Instead, unbelief is "a state, a condition...this deadness, this thing produced by the devil."

What was Paul's fundamental ignorance before his conversion according to Lloyd-Jones?

Dr. Lloyd-Jones identifies several areas of Paul's profound ignorance despite his great learning. First, Paul was "ignorant of the truth concerning himself" - he "thought he was all right, he found that he was all wrong," discovering he was "the chief" of sinners. Second, he was "terribly ignorant about the law of God" despite being an expert Pharisee. The Pharisees thought "mere acquaintance with the letter of the law in and of itself put them right with God," but they "never understood the spiritual meaning and content of the law." They missed that the law's object is that "thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy soul and all thy mind and all thy strength." Most terribly, Paul was ignorant of "the mercy of God" because "he'd never seen any need of it."

What does Lloyd-Jones teach about the spiritual nature of God's law versus external obedience?

Lloyd-Jones explains that the Pharisees, including Paul, "always remained with the letter" of the law and never grasped its spiritual dimension. He recounts Paul's testimony from Romans 7: "I was alive without the law once, when the commandment came, sin revived and I died." Paul discovered that the commandment about coveting revealed his spiritual bankruptcy - "Nay, I had not known sin but by the law, for I had not known lust, except the Lord said thou shalt not covet." Lloyd-Jones emphasizes that they thought "as long as I hadn't actually committed murder, I'm quite all right" but "hadn't realized that to look upon a woman to lust means that you've already committed adultery with her in your heart." The law is "essentially positive, not negative" - God "demands our heart, not our mechanical, external, legalistic obedience in certain respects."

How does prejudice blind people to the truth of the Gospel according to Lloyd-Jones?

Dr. Lloyd-Jones teaches that prejudice is the primary mechanism through which the condition of unbelief operates. He defines prejudice as meaning "that you determine the verdict before you've heard the evidence. That you've decided before you've considered anything." He notes that "the average man today starts by saying that there's nothing in Christianity. He's not read the Bible, he knows nothing about it." Lloyd-Jones emphasizes that even learned men are "as guilty of prejudice as ignorant men," citing the disagreement between historians Toynbee and A.J.P. Taylor who looked at "precisely the same facts" but came to "diametrically opposed conclusions" because each "forced the facts of history into the mode by which he is governed as a result of his prejudice." This prejudice leads to dogmatism, like Matthew Arnold saying "miracles haven't happened because miracles cannot happen."

What does Lloyd-Jones mean by doing "law work" in preaching?

According to Lloyd-Jones, "the preacher's first business is to do what the Puritans used to call a law work." This law work means "to bring men and women to a conviction of sin." He explains that the preacher must "be quite clear as to the truth concerning sin" and demonstrate that sin is "a state or a condition" rather than merely wrong actions. The preacher must show people their true condition before God, helping them see past their prejudices and self-righteousness to recognize their desperate need for mercy. This involves exposing the spiritual nature of God's law and revealing how even good things like the law can be turned to evil purposes by the sinful nature within us.

How does Lloyd-Jones describe the transformation from self-righteousness to recognizing one's need for mercy?

Lloyd-Jones vividly describes Paul's transformation from boasting in his achievements - "circumcised the eighth day, stock of Israel, tribe of Benjamin, Hebrew of the Hebrews" - to counting them "but dung." He explains that Paul "looked at it and admired it, this mound of righteousness that he'd built up" but came to see "it's refuse, it's a dung heap, it's hopeless, it's no good." Like the Pharisee in Jesus's parable who prayed "God, I thank that I am not as other men are," Paul initially "doesn't ask for mercy" because "he doesn't need it, he's alright." But through the Holy Spirit's illumination, "his eyes are opened to see the mercy and the grace of God," discovering "this blessed truth...that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the chief."

What makes someone a true preacher according to Lloyd-Jones's exposition?

Dr. Lloyd-Jones concludes that "the preacher is a man who has seen those things, who knows those things in his own experience, and who feels constrained to go and tell others about these things." A true preacher is someone "who realizes where he was and what he was, in the grip of the devil, dominated by the God of this world, blinded by him" and then "sees his appalling ignorance, and is amazed and is alarmed and terrified, and then is given to see the grace and the mercy and the love of God, in Jesus Christ." The preacher's commission, as given to Paul, is "to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins." This experiential knowledge combined with divine calling is "what makes a preacher."

Why does Lloyd-Jones warn against merely educating people about morality without addressing the heart?

Lloyd-Jones strongly warns against the approach of giving "morality lectures" or "teaching to young children and others about sex" as a solution to moral decline. He states: "if I understand the apostle's teaching correctly it's the most dangerous thing to do." He explains that "they are not pure and in telling them about sex and in warning them against the dangers you are introducing them to sex. You are stimulating sex within them, you are arousing the passions." This is based on Paul's teaching that when unconverted, "the motions of sins which were by the law, stimulated by the law" actually made things worse. Lloyd-Jones emphasizes that "the trouble is in his heart" and what's needed is what David prayed: "create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit in me."