Martyn Lloyd-Jones

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HOLINESS

“God demands more than that we acknowledge His holiness. He says to us, ‘Be holy, because I am holy.’ God rightfully demands perfect holiness in all of His moral creatures. It cannot be otherwise. He cannot possibly ignore or approve of any evil committed” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p26).

“God, being God, cannot simply forgive sin. Now the common idea about God, the one that we have instinctively is that when we admit we have sinned, all that is necessary is that we should come to God, say we are very sorry, and God will forgive us. But according to the Bible that is impossible. God, because He is God, cannot just forgive sin like that. If God could have forgiven sin just by saying, ‘I forgive,’ He would have done so, and Christ would never have been sent into this world. The work that was given to Him to do was given to the Lord Jesus Christ because without it God cannot forgive sin. He must not only justify the ungodly—He must remain just. The way of salvation must be consistent with the character of God. He cannot deny Himself; He cannot change Himself; He is unchangeable. He is absolutely righteous and holy and just. He cannot remain that and simply forgive sin” Martyn Lloyd Jones (ref#189, Feb 17th).

“[W]ithout holiness no one will see the Lord” (Heb 12:14 NIV).

“The work of Christ was essential because of the character of God, and it was essential because of man being in sin; something had to be done to render man fit for God” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#189, Feb 17th).

“Pray not only against the power of sin, but for the power of holiness also. A wicked heart may pray against his sins, not out of any inward enmity to them, or love to holiness, but because they are troublesome guests to his conscience. His zeal is false that seems hot against sin, but is cold to holiness” William Gurnall (ref#225, Aug 26th).

“[S]inful habits make us feel guilty and defeated. The absence of Christlike character usually doesn’t have a similar effect on us, so there is less motivation to seek change in our lives. We need to work at ensuring that our commitment to holiness is a commitment to God, not to our own self-esteem. When we sin we are more vexed at the lowering of our self-esteem than we are grieved at God’s dishonor” Jerry Bridges (ref#192, p149).

“God, being God, cannot simply forgive sin” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#189, Feb 17th).

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JOYOUS CONFESSION

“Trusting in God to meet our needs breaks the power of sin’s promise to make us happier” John Piper (ref#220, p247).

“Every time you desire to do and choose to do what is right in God’s eyes, you celebrate the grace that is yours in Christ Jesus” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Dec 17th).

“’Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever’ (Ps 73:25-26). These are the words of a man who learned the secret to contentment. When you are satisfied with the Giver, because you have found in him the life you were looking for, you are freed from the ravenous quest for satisfaction that is the discouraging existence of so many people. Yes, it is true that Your heart will rest only ever when it has found its rest in him” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Jan 6th).

“Sin will rob you of happiness and joy and will give you a sense of condemnation because sin always ultimately breaks fellowship with God and therefore immediately casts us off from the source of all our blessedness. It is no use saying you want to walk with God and then deliberately sinning. The one thing that matters is fellowship with God” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#189, Oct 1st).

“The conscience only retains its tenderness and purity by a constant and immediate confession; the heart can only maintain its felt peace with God as it is perpetually sprinkled with the blood of Jesus. The soul, kept thus beneath the cross, preserves its high tone of spirituality unimpaired, amid all the harmful influences by which it is surrounded” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, Dec 2nd).

“Sin separates. But sin immediately confessed, mourned over, and forsaken brings God and the soul together in sweet, close, and holy fellowship. Praise Him for any evidence that sin does not have entire dominion” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, Nov 6th).

“God’s love is ‘an ocean without shores or bottom’” Dane Ortland (ref#382, p192).

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REPENTANCE

“[P]eople experience the love of God in terms of sin, condemnation, and loss and what God has done about it” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#332 p525).

“[R]epentance embraces a change in the whole man, including his inclinations, purposes, and works. The works of men are visible, but the root of them is concealed. So the root must first be changed so that afterward it may yield fruitful works. We must first wash from the mind all uncleanness and conquer wicked inclinations so that outward testimonies may be added afterward. If any man boasts that he has changed and yet lives as he did before, it will be vain boasting for both conversion of the heart and change of life are necessary” John Calvin (ref#164, April 20th).

The road to repentance is godly sorrow (2 Corinthians 7:10). Godly sorrow is developed when we focus on the true nature of sin as an offense against God rather than something that makes us feel guilty. Sin is an affront to God’s holiness, it grieves His Holy Spirit, and it wounds afresh the Lord Jesus Christ. It also gratifies Satan, the archenemy of God. Dwelling on the true nature of sin leads us to godly sorrow, which in turn leads us to repentance.

“Having come to repentance, however, we must by faith lay hold of the cleansing blood of Christ, which alone can cleanse our conscience. In fact, it is faith in Christ and the assurance of the efficacy of His cleansing blood that leads us to repentance” Jerry Bridges (ref#192, p204-205).

“Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, does, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeavor after, new obedience” Albert N. Martin (ref#221, p15).

“I am elected to repent” Richard Baxter (ref#333, p195).

“[W]ithout repentance there is no salvation” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#189, Dec 24th).

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CHOOSING WRATH

“Vessel of clay! He who made thee has a right to destroy; far from seeking thy destruction, He labours to avert it. He menaces in mercy; and, if thou perishes, thou are self-destroyed” Francios Fenelon (ref#333, p244).

“They do not cry to me from the heart, but they wail upon their beds. Although I trained and strengthened their arms, yet they devise evil against me” (Hosea 7:14-15 ESV).

“The reason why sinners die, is not because there is no mercy for them in God, nor because Jesus Christ is either unable or unwilling to save them, but because they are not willing to come up to the terms on which the salvation is offered. He would, but they would not. He was willing to save them, but they were not willing to be saved by Him; this they may thank themselves for” Matthew Henry (ref#333, p252).

“[D]ominated by their own personal cravings, they shall receive a moral twist which will cause them to believe that which is fictitious. [H]aving set a high value upon this present age [they have] come to love it” (2 Tim 4:4,9 Wuest).

“The wrath of God is not declared against unrepentant sinners merely because of the sins they have committed, but because, when called to repent, they chose to continue in resistance, repeating the sins of the past in defiance of the light given them” Ellen G. White (ref#331, p62).

“[I]f we go on sinning willfully after having received a full knowledge of the truth, no longer for sins does there remain a sacrifice, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment and fiery indignation which is about to be devouring the adversaries” (Heb 10:26-27 Wuest).

“In the time of his distress he became yet more faithless to the LORD” (2 Chron 28:22 ESV).

“None can come to Jesus except the Father draws them. Yet sinners do not perish because they cannot come, but because they will not come” John Berridge (ref#333, p280).

The cross reveals sin for what it is and pronounces doom on the whole world. Only CHRIST’s death reconciles me to God. Believe in CHRIST or suffer GOD’s wrath. There is only two choices. (ref#189, Feb 21st).

“God is infinitely compassionate and infinitely ready to forgive so that it ought to be ascribed exclusively to our unbelief if we do not obtain pardon from him” John Calvin (ref#382, p160).

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JUDGMENT

“I either believe that my sins have been punished in the body of the Son of God or else they will be punished in me” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#189, Feb 21st).

“I will discipline you in just measure, and I will by no means leave you unpunished” (Jer 46:28 ESV).

“All humanity faces eternal judgment for sin” ESV Study Bible (ref#125, p2358).

“It is the tendency of all sin eternally to undo the soul. Every sin naturally carries hell in it! Therefore all sin ought to be treated by us as we would treat a thing that is infinitely terrible” Jonathan Edwards (ref#229, p70).

“’Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD. They say continually to those who despise the word of the LORD. ‘It shall be well with you’; and to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart they say, ‘No disaster shall come upon you’” (Jer 23:16-17 ESV).

“The Lord is patient with his creation, but will surely return in judgment like a thief in the night” ESV Study Bible (ref#125, p2416).

“[W]e are superior to the whole world through God’s gratuitous pity, even though be nature we have nothing to boast of in ourselves. [W]e are all children of wrath, we can claim no superiority” John Calvin (ref#164, May 5th).

“[W]e have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God” (Rom 5:9 ESV).

“Christians are destined not for wrath but for salvation at Jesus’ coming” ESV Study Bible (ref#125, p2303).

“[W]hen we are being judged by the Lord, we are the subjects of a disciplinary judgment in order that we may not be condemned with the world” (1 Cor 11:31-32 Wuest).

“We who are in Christ no longer look to the future for judgment, but to the past; at the cross, we see our punishment happening, all our sins being punished in Jesus. The loved and restored you therefore trumps, outstrips, swallows up, the unrestored you. Not the other way around” Dane Ortland (ref#382, p187).

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REBELLION AGAINST GOD

“We must hate all sin for what it really is: an expression of rebellion against God” Jerry Bridges (ref#192, p198).

“God cannot but look upon sin with infinite detestation” A.W. Pink (ref#269, p67).

“It’s hard to admit, but doing what is right isn’t natural for us. Sin turns us all into self-appointed sovereigns over our own little kingdoms. Sin makes us all self-absorbed and self-focused. Sin causes us all to name ourselves righteous. Sin seduces us into thinking we are somehow, some way smarter than God. Sin causes us all to trust in our own wisdom. Sin makes us all want to write our own rules. Sin makes us resistant to criticism and change. Sin makes our eyes and our hearts wander. Sin causes us to crave material things more than spiritual provision. Sin causes us to want and esteem pleasure more than character. In our quest to be God, sin causes us to forget God. It reduces us all to glory thieves, taking for ourselves the glory that belongs to him. All of this means that sin causes us to step over God’s wise boundaries in thought, desire, word, and action again and again. This is what’s natural for a sinner” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Dec 17th).

“Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the heart” (Prov 21:2 ESV).

“Transgression means a desire to have our own way, a desire to do what we want to do. ‘Iniquity’ means perversion. [D]o you not see that so many things you do are twisted and perverted? Jealously and envy and malice—how horrible the twist! The desire that evil may come to someone, the dislike of praise of another—evil thoughts, bent, twisted, ugly, foul—‘iniquity’! And we are all guilty of iniquity” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#189, Dec 27th).

“The principle of self-confidence is the natural product of the human heart; the great characteristic of our apostate race is a desire to live, think, and act independently of God. Remember the divine and sovereign grace does not undertake the extraction of the root of this depraved principle from the heart of its subjects. The root still remains to the very close of life’s pilgrimage, though in a measure weakened, subdued, and mortified. It demands the most rigid watchfulness connected with ceaseless prayer, lest it should spring upward to the destruction of his soul’s prosperity, the grieving of the Spirit, and the dishonor of God” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, Oct 13th).

“If you are God’s child, you’re either giving in to sin or giving way to the operation of rescuing grace, but your heart’s never neutral” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Mar 30th).

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DEATH OF SIN

“[A]bstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul” (1 Pet 2:11 ESV).

“Do I accept God’s verdict on sin in the Cross of Christ? Have I the slightest interest in the death of Jesus? Do I want to be identified with His death, to be killed right out to all interest in sin, in worldliness, in self—to be so identified with Jesus that I am spoilt for everything else but Him? The great privilege of discipleship is that I can sign on under His Cross, and that means death to sin. Get alone with Jesus and either tell Him that you do not want sin to die out in you; or else tell Him that at all costs you want to be identified with His death. The proof that your old man is crucified with Christ is the amazing ease with which the life of God in you enables you to obey the voice of Jesus Christ” Oswald Chambers ( ref#7, Dec 23rd).

“True repentance, furthermore, shows itself before the world in a thorough breaking off from sin. The life of a penitent man is altered. The course of his daily conduct is entirely changed. What God commands he now desires to practice; and what God forbids he now desires to avoid” J.C. Ryle (ref#363, p36).

“True repentance shows itself by producing in the heart a settled habit of deep hatred of all sin. He comes short of his own desires frequently. He finds in himself an evil principle warring against the Spirit of God. He finds himself cold when he would be hot, backward when he would be forward, heavy when he would be lively in God’s service. He is deeply conscious of his own infirmities. But still, for all that, the general bias of his heart is toward God and away from evil” J.C. Ryle (ref#363, p36).

“Knowing thus the faithfulness and justice of God and the power of the blood of Christ to deliver me and to cleanse me from the guilt and stain of my sins, I can with confidence go forward, knowing that all is clear, my conscience has been cleansed, and I can continue to walk with God” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#332, p 134).

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DEALING WITH SIN

“A principal hindrance to our embracing Christ’s righteousness, is the want of a due sense of our own unrighteousness” John M’Laurin (ref#333, p264).

“The beginning of our cure is to be sensible of our disorder” James Hervey (ref#333, p273).

“I must discipline ‘my members which are upon the earth’ (Col 3:5)—my affections, lusts, passions, pride, self-glory, and all like things. I must keep them down; I must mortify them. I must deal violently with them, in order that I may become more and more like Him” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#332, p526).

“Repentance is being sorry enough to quit your sin” Albert N. Martin (ref#221, p17-18).

“We must recapture the lost art of meditation, and meditation especially upon Him. We must think again about that birth in Bethlehem—what it meant, what it cost, what it really involved. Try to grapple with it; it is baffling—the sacrifice, the humiliation. Look at His life; take it step by step and stage by stage. Look at what He endured and suffered through the thirty hidden years and the three busy years of his earthly ministry. Look at Him; remember what He has done and what He literally and actually suffered. Let us go over these things, let us remind ourselves of them; and then as we begin to realise what He did, we shall realise His love to us” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#332, p525).

“[I]f we hate our corruptions and strive against them, they shall not be counted ours” Richard Sibbes (ref#311, p55).

“[I]t is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me” (Rom 7:17 ESV).

“It is an unequivocal mark of great spiritual fruitfulness in a believer when tenderness of conscience, contrition of spirit, low thoughts of self, and high thoughts of Jesus mark the state of his soul” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, Oct 14th).

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SELF-PLEASING

“You disobey not because you lack the God-given grace to obey, but because you love something more than the God who’s given you that grace” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Aug 11th).

“Sin is to look away from Him, to be interested in anything that the world can give rather than in Him. Oh, if it is something foul it is ten times worse; but the best that the world can give me is an insult to Him if I put it before Him” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#189, Mar 29th).

“Sin is the rebellious assertion of myself against the love and authority of God, against the welfare of my neighbor” John Stott (ref#258, p85-86).

“[T]he true nature of sin—opposition against God, expressed in self-pleasing” A.W. Pink (ref#269, p70).

“There is no spiritual love for the true God until self is hated” A.W. Pink (ref#269, p67).

“Sin is an infinite evil because committed against an infinitely great and excellent Being, and so a violation of infinite obligation” Jonathan Edwards (ref#229, p70).

“The masquerading nature of sin plays to the fickleness of our idolatrous hearts. So what is often is not what we think it is, and the masquerading idol has no power at all to deliver to our hungry hearts what Jesus alone can give us. Only God can give us insight into our hearts and free us from our bondage to the little costume kingdom of one” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Oct 31st).

“[W]ork out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil 2:12-13 ESV).

“Here is a call to be serious about the life that grace has made possible for you. [T]he example reminds you that if you follow, if you obey, and if you do what is right in the eyes of your Savior, you can take no credit whatsoever. This is because your right desires and your right actions exist only because of his indwelling presence and ever-active grace. [W]e do the right that we do because grace is at the moment rescuing us from ourselves” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Dec 17th).

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FAUX CONFESSION

“People are optimistic about this world, and they are so because they have never understood the nature of sin” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#189, Dec 11th).

These are people “who are under the impelling urge of variegated, passionate desires, ever learning and never able to come to a precise and experiential knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim 3:6-7 Wuest).

“The mere presentation of the cross to the natural eye will awaken no emotion, other than natural ones. Thus, in a contemplation of the sufferings of Christ, there may in minds of deep natural sensibility be emotion, the spectacle may affect the observer to tears—but it is nature only. [B]eware of mistaking nature for grace—the emotions of a stirred sensibility—for the tears of a broken and a contrite heart” Octavius Winslow (ref#365, p46).

“We may repent of our sins outwardly and even respect God’s Word, absorbing its teaching week after week at church and in Bible study, and getting a certain amount of joy from it. But if we repeatedly succumb to temptation without heart-sorrow and fail to change our ways, even when we are reprimanded by other godly people, we should beware lest our faith be only temporary” John Calvin (ref#164, June 25th).

“The unsound covert takes Christ by halves. He is all for the salvation of Christ, but he is not for sanctification. Jesus is a sweet Name, but men do not love the Lord Jesus in sincerity. Every man’s vote is for salvation from suffering, but they do not desire to be saved from sinning. They would have their lives saved, but still would have their lusts. O be infinitely careful here; your soul depends upon it” Joseph Alleine (ref#225, Oct 16th).

“[I]t is most important that we should distinguish between mock mortification and true, between the counterfeit resemblances of this duty and the duty itself. There is a pagan ‘mortification,’ which is merely suppressing such sins as nature itself discovers and from such reasons and motives as nature suggests. This tends to hide sin rather than mortify it. It is not a recovering of the soul from the world unto God, but only acquiring a fitness to live with less scandal among men” A.W. Pink (ref#269, p113).

“Nobody is free who is unforgiven. If I were not sure of God’s forgiveness, I could not look you in the face, and I certainly could not look God in the face. I would want to run away and hide” John Stott (ref#258, p84-85).

“God isn’t at the beck and call of sinners, but listens carefully to anyone who lives in reverence and does his will” (John 9:30-33 MSG).