Martyn Lloyd-Jones

VALLEYS TO MOUNTAINTOPS

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REAL OR FAUX CHRISTIAN

screen-shot-2016-10-19-at-4-21-43-pmNOTE: This post is directed to all my sisters and brothers that have at least at one point in their life questioned their salvation. If you sit in the pew and never question GOD’s saving grace to you then I would question your Christianity. The enemy only puts stumbling blocks in the path of believers.

7/17/2016

A thought has become clear enough that I can form the words into questions: Am I puling myself up to GOD with my bootstraps? Does my attempt to draw close to Him come solely from my effort? Am I more a faux Christian than real? This line of thought began a few days ago while reading this quote:

“…the very nature of love…is always active…the real trouble with the person who is seated there in his study reading beautiful…books about love and who feels that he is…a fine Christian is this: What is really happening to that person is that he is simply in love with himself, because he appreciates these elevating thoughts” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#211, p116).

I earmarked page 116 and went back to it later and seriously asked GOD if I was sinning in this way. (I really do love to create at my desk and do not enjoy so much being active out in the madding crowd.) At that time He convinced me that I was okay, but now in my reading today I am again asking. The questions reoccurred as I read:

“Worship is the submission of all our nature to God:

The quickening of conscience by His holiness

The nourishment of mind with His truth

The purifying of imagination by His beauty

The opening of the heart to His love

The surrender of the will to His purpose” Will Metzger (ref#79, p156).

“Yes, Yes,” I thought, “I want to submit all of me to GOD.” I want to, but am I? Is it really happening? Or am I only wishing it so? Am I just sitting at my desk dreaming I’m a good Christian?

Is GOD quickening my conscience by His holiness? Is He nourishing my mind by His truth? Is He purifying my imagination by His beauty? Is He opening my heart by His love? Is He…or am I pretending He is—do I just finding joy in dreaming that I’m like that?

My thoughts continue. I have a precious 1984 vision of me worshipping GOD with abandon burned in my mind and I have been seeking its fulfillment ever since. Am I allowing Him, in His time, to bring it about or am I attempting to self-fulfill it on my own?

These past few day the questions drive me further and further from my FATHER into my own conclusions that I really am, all these years, been a faux Christian! I have made a case for my failure as a lover of GOD. But…

But, the disappointment of it all drove me back to the beginning. What am I living for? What am I seeking? I sat in my prayer closet this Sabbath afternoon and wept while writing—my pen expressing my heart:

“I want to find the fulfillment of flat-out expressions of wonder toward GOD—of absolutely letting my heart define, to its capacity, the joy of being adopted by GOD. What a longing I have to exalt Him uninhibitedly—to possess total concentration on the object of my worship and make habits of various ways to magnify the TRIUNE GOD Who for some reason, chose, before the foundations of the world, to plant His very nature in me.

“This alone is all I live for—all I covet. There is no plan B or other options; I will entertain nothing else. This is the only prayer for myself—that I might find contentment with continual praise.

“And, FATHER, this is a prayer You will answer for You have put the desire in my heart (no matter what my thoughts tell me), and You, in Your time, will bring to fruition that request.

“JESUS, I shadow You—may I routinely confess my sin so I am prepared to let You infuse my brain with practical ideas of holiness. I now tell myself to be fervent, diligent and disciplined—keeping my body armed and ready for a sudden deployment to praise. Here I am—LORD, here—show me, show me righteousness that I might respond with abandon.”

I am not a faux Christian!

VALLEYS TO MOUNTAINTOPS

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DRIFTING

7/9/2016

Screen Shot 2016-08-23 at 3.13.25 PMThe SPIRIT has set me straight again. So easily I drift. “Drift” is such a good word; it conjures up an image of unnoticed moving—like fishing in a huge lake without an anchor—like falling asleep in a moving vehicle on the Interstate.

I have ended up back to my default, earthy nature—so unnoticed. I could have tried harder to end the drift—stayed awake, paid more attention, but, speaking from experience, it could not have been prevented.

Without the intervention of GOD I am just as lost today as I was the moment before it was His pleasure to regenerate me. I cannot control myself any more now than I could as a blatant sinner. Folks who believe they need JESUS one time only to forgive their sins and welcome them into heaven are deceiving themselves. The need for Him is perpetual.

I realized my drift in a commentary on 1 John. I became more and more contrite as I read the words. For the umpteenth time the SPIRIT laid out His plan for my earthly sanctification—how to become a partaker of the divine nature (2 Pet I:4).

“…what accounts for most of our failures in Christian living is our failure to realize what we are. It is our failure to realize what God has done to us….We must think less and less of doing and more and more of being. If we only are what we ought to be, then the doing will more or less look after itself” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#211, p87, underlining mine).

How earthy nature strives to be righteous; it’s all about doing. In my natural state I work hard to accomplish something impossible and get exhausted and cranky in the attempt. When my focus centers on trying to succeed I can be assured that I am drifting.

The SPIRIT ended my drift by revealing the following truth: I am a partaker in the divine nature. My activities reflect my family heritage; I’m a child of GOD! I’m either living like CHRIST or want to be living like CHRIST. This is who I am regardless of my failure or success at spiritual activities.

Today I praise GOD for making me who I am and, with pleasure, I’ll keep my ears open for suggestions from Him. My eyes are off my activities and on Him. It seems like accomplishing nothing but praise, accomplishes everything else.

So, today no more earthy nature strivings—at least until I get lulled into another drift.

SABBATH

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FINDING GOD’S PRESENCE

“It is man’s sinful nature which makes the Sabbath and its proper observance so hateful to him. The Sabbath calls upon us to discipline our lives” C. E. Hunter (ref#171).

GOD sometimes helps us get into His presence but we have to look for Him. Bishop J. C. Ryle suggests, “Arrange your time on Sunday so that you may have leisure for quiet, sober meditation on eternal things. Avoid the company that would lead you to talk only of this world” (ref#167).

It helps immensely to remind ourselves of how truly in desperate need of GOD’s help we are. All during each day we can pray without ceasing, knowing He is there to help us fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants, but Sunday affords opportunity to evaluate our last week’s activities.

There are weekly activities that cause barriers between our FATHER and us. It is our first Sabbath duty to crash through these obstacles.

“…there are certain things that will stand between us and the fellowship that in turn leads to joy. First of all, there is sin—unrighteousness….If we recognize and confess sin, then there is the blood that cleanses, and God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins (1 John 1:7,9). The second hindrance that John talks about in 1 John 2:3 is lack of love for the brethren….You lose contact with the brethren, and you lose contact with God…The third hindrance is a love of the world,…You cannot mix light and darkness. The last thing that interrupts fellowship with God, he tells us at the end of 1 John 2, is false teaching about the person of Jesus Christ. Obviously if the only way to God is through Christ, if I am in any way wrong about my teaching or doctrine concerning Him, then automatically I sever the communion, and again I lose my joy” Marytn Lloyd-Jones, (ref#189, Sept 18th).

SABBATH

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THE TIME REQUIREMENT FOR SABBATH KEEPING

What motivates me to action is remembering a previous joy of similar activities. I have never moved myself into the LORD’s presence and been sorry I did. So each remembrance is sweeter. But time is required to get into His presence.

Preparing to take mushroom pictures is easy, however sometimes it is not pleasant doing it. While getting into GOD’s presence is difficult, once there it becomes the greatest joy. The hard part is moving myself into His presence.

“We must rest entirely, in order that God may work in us; we must resign our own will, yield up our heart, and abandon all the lusts of the flesh. In short, we must desist from all the acts of our own mind, that God working in us, we may rest in him…” John Calvin (ref#187).

“God’s rest is the rest of contemplation on the work that He has made, with all the penetrating influence, and sustaining power, and blessed oversight, that the divine contemplation must involve” R. A. Finlayson (ref#188).

“The worship due to the great Creator requires time for the contemplation of his attributes, as revealed in his glorious works. It requires time, also, to recollect all the manifestations of his wisdom and goodness in the dispensations of his Providence, and to give vocal expression to feelings of gratitude for the benefits received, and the happiness bestowed” Archibald Alexander (ref#175).

“If you are…in need of a spiritual tonic, go to the book of Acts, and there you will find this irrepressible joy that these people had in confirmation of the Lord’s promise” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#189, Sept 16th).

VALLEYS TO MOUNTAINTOPS

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SABBATHING-UP

4/10/2016

Screen Shot 2016-05-17 at 4.38.31 PMGOD does as He pleases but until I see His obvious moves, I go along day by day, or I should say, Sabbath by Sabbath following His prompting on my heart. Lately my mind has been selecting activity options to fill these Sabbaths. 24-hours is a lengthy period to have to fill with spiritual activity living in a physical world.

Lists prepared for Sabbath pursuit sound a bit legalistic—law centered, instead of faith centered. And GOD has given me an experience on this Sabbath that proves list making is a mistake.

As I was at a time of private reading this LORD’s Day, He caused the words in the book to penetrate my heart and fill it to almost bursting. It was a similar experience D. L Moody had as he sought the fullness of the HOLY SPIRIT:

“…one day, walking down a street in New York…suddenly God overwhelmed him with this mighty blessing. It was so mighty that Moody felt he would be killed by it, and he held up his hand and said, ‘Stop, God’” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#194, November 20th)!

I can identify with “Stop, God!” I’ve had enough of His spiritual truth to certainly last me until next Sabbath just in my private reading today.

I am familiar with reaching a point in public or private prayer where I know I am finished. There is nothing more my heart wishes to say to the LORD. I have a friend that calls such a phenomenon, “praying up.”

GOD has just caused me to experience, “Sabbathing up.” Even though there are hours left before Sabbath’s end, I have taken in all that I can assimilate today.

I have to smile, I am like those who are fearful about impeding retirement wondering if they’ll be able to find satisfying activity to replace the job hours. Most surprise themselves by finding their days fuller than before. Sabbath living is the same.

Leaving the workweek behind, I’ll watch the LORD fill my Sabbaths with purposeful activities that will give me great spiritual joy and strength whether it take 24 hours or one. He knows my needs and desires.

SABBATH

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THE SABBATH AND ITS LENGTH

“There is a threefold rest or Sabbath spoken of in Scripture: (1) temporal; (2) spiritual, which is an internal soul-rest in ceasing from sin (Heb 4:3); (3) eternal, celebrated in heaven (Heb 4:9, 11), where the saints rest from their labors. It is the first of these, the weekly Sabbath that is here meant” Thomas Boston (ref#179).

“It was designed to meet the physical, moral, spiritual, and social wants of men’ to afford a suitable time for the public moral and religious instruction of the people and the public and private worship of God; and to afford a suitable period of rest from the wear and tear of secular labor” Archibald A. Hodge (ref#181).

“Our duty with respect to the Sabbath is to keep it holy. God has made it holy, set it apart for holy exercises, and we must keep it holy, spending it in holy exercises” Thomas Boston (ref#179).

“The quantity of time to be observed as a Sabbath of rest [is] a day—a whole day of twenty-four hours, and one day in seven….Our Sabbath is held in memory of Christ’s resurrection, and it is certain that Christ rose early in the morning of the first day of the week…the day to be kept holy is one whole day—not a few hours, while the public worship lasts, but a whole day” Thomas Boston (ref#179).

“I once heard a man say about the observance of the Lord’s Day. He said he had come to the conclusion that the Lord’s Day, like the Lord Himself, was in danger of dying between two thieves, the two thieves being Saturday night and Monday morning! He said that, increasingly, Saturday night was extended and extended and blended into Sunday, and then people started their Monday morning quite early on Sunday evening. Sunday becomes just a few hours during the morning, and then we think, ‘Well, that is enough now; we have been to church once.’ Thus, our Lord’s Day has been lost between two thieves” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#185).

“Rise early, and let your first thoughts and aspirations be directed to heaven. Meditate much and profoundly on divine things, and endeavor to acquire a degree of spirituality on this day which will abide with you through the whole week” Archibald Alexander (ref#175).

“My advice to all Christians is to contend earnestly for the whole day against all enemies, both without and within. It is worth a struggle…” J. C. Ryle (ref#178).

SABBATH

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THE TWO DIVISIONS OF THE BIBLE

“We shall do well to remember that the Old Testament is just as much inspired as the New, and that the religion of both Testaments is…one and the same. The Old Testament is the Gospel in the bud; the New Testament is the Gospel in full flower…The Old Testament saints saw many things through a glass darkly: but they looked to the same Christ by faith and were led by the same Spirit as ourselves. Let us, therefore, never listen to those who sneer at Old Testament arguments. Much infidelity begins with an ignorant contempt of the Old Testament” Bishop J. C. Ryle (ref#167).

“There is no duty imposed upon the Israelite in the Ten Commandments that is not equally incumbent upon all men everywhere” Benjamin B. Warfield (ref#180).

“Here is this great book; we divide it up, and we call it the Old Testament and the New Testament…But…if we were to be strictly accurate we would not describe it in that way. The real division of the Bible is this: first, everything you get from Genesis 1:1 to Genesis 3:14; then everything from Genesis 3:15 to the very end of the Bible. What you have up to Genesis 3:14 is the account of the creation and of God’s original covenant of works with man and of how that failed because man broke it. Beginning with Genesis 3:15 you get the announcement of the Gospel, the covenant of grace, the way of salvation, and that is the whole theme of the Bible until you come to the last verse of the book of Revelation” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#189).

Here is the dividing verse. It is cryptic but the meaning is there. GOD is talking to the snake:

“And I will put enmity

Between you and the woman,

And between your seed and her seed;

He shall bruise you on the head,

And you shall bruise him on the heel” (Gen 3:15 NASB).

 

 

SABBATH

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INTRODUCTION TO THE SABBATH

“The plain truth is, that the Sabbath-breaking of the present day is one among many proofs of the low state of vital religion” Bishop J. C. Ryle (ref#167).

As with all GOD’s commands there is great benefit in keeping them (Ps 19:11). But we, (I’m pretty sure that will include all of us) have strayed so far from keeping the Sabbath that we have not experienced most of the benefits.

“The first thing that is essential before we can ever have and hold this joy is the absolute centrality of the Lord Jesus Christ” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#189, Sept 17th).

CHRIST must be at the top of our priority list if we are to approach the subject of the Sabbath correctly. Then we must believe that keeping the commandment will provide joy. Then we must be blameless in keeping it.

Just a note before we move on to explain the “What” of the Sabbath next week: Theories exist that Sabbath-keeping has been done away with along with the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament when JESUS became the sacrifice for our sins. If you have ever heard this theology or don’t think the Sabbath is important to keep, see:

http://www.westminsterconfession.org/worship/the-lords-day.php

Archibald Alexander gives a very thought-out account of why it is still a command for us who live after the resurrection of JESUS.

“Unless we had a particular day set apart, by divine authority of the worship of God…public worship would, for the most part, fall into disuse” Archibald Alexander (ref#175).

VALLEYS TO MOUNTAINTOPS

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JOURNALING WITH AN EYE TO KEEPING THE SABBATH

12/25/2015

Screen Shot 2015-12-30 at 12.57.10 PMSo, I start this adventure of training myself to keep the Sabbath. And, it will be training for I have no thoughts of how to achieve it. It is not something I can feel my way into either, it must be an act of my will. “You do not wait until you feel…you make yourself” (ref#189, Nov 12th).

Presently my Sundays are composed of attending church in the morning, but I am so involved in the service (coffee table, soundboard, slide presentation, etc.) that I rarely find myself in GOD’s presence. Even after the service I have little time to encourage or admonish or confess my sins to my sisters and brothers because I am involved in packing up the equipment since we have church in a local school building. And, what’s worse is that in the little time I have after church I do not encourage, admonish or confess, but usually just do the surface conversation stuff.

The afternoon includes eating, napping, and activities with my husband. Evenings sometimes consist of visiting others but mostly sitting in front of the boob tube exhausted.

Usually in the afternoon I have a little time to read Christian non-fiction or Scripture. GOD, in His mercy, sometimes apprehends me powerfully, but mostly I read and simply enjoy the new knowledge gained. Now you know why I’m longing to explore the full benefit of the Sabbath observance.

THE NEW YEARS RESOLUTION

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Screen Shot 2015-12-30 at 11.43.47 AM“It is not enough to remember [who God is and what His promises are]; we must hear it again. Prayer is the act in which we hear it again. It is not enough to carry memory verses around with us; we need daily encounter with the resonant voice of God. Prayer is that encounter….We pray. We listen. God speaks his word again—the same word!—and we are restored and renewed in our commitment….Resolve is essential but not enough. In prayer God provides renewal. Prayer is not so much the place where we learn something new, but where God confirms anew the faith to which we are committed” Eugene Peterson (ref#144, loc 1298-1311).

Faith is the thing GOD renews in prayer. Sabbath faith is what He gives to prepare for the week ahead. We need to hear His promises again; we need to hear GOD jog our memory; we need encounters with GOD much more than we think we do. He commands us to keep the Sabbath for good reason:

“I need emancipation; I need to be lifted to another realm; I need a force and a strength and a power that I do not have myself. That is my need, and here is the answer: I am given faith—I am given an outlook and understanding—I am introduced to a source of power…” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#189, Dec 7th).

January 1st is for starting again with resolutions. Mine is to be more diligent in keeping the Sabbath holy. Beginning Sunday I plan to address the Sabbath Day with Sunday and Monday posts.

May GOD show Himself pleased in all your spiritual resolutions this year.