preaching to ourselves every day - Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“I am more than ever convinced that the trouble with many Christian people is that they do not preach to themselves. We should spend time every day preaching to ourselves, & never more so than when we get on our knees in prayer. By preaching to yourself I mean that, when you are on your knees, and all these thoughts and doubts and uncertainties come crowding in upon you, and your sins rise up against you, and you feel you have no right to pray at all, and that you are almost a cad in doing so – I say, you must first realize where they come from and then begin to remind yourself of the central truths of the Christian faith. You must remind yourself of the great doctrine which we have been considering together. You say: ‘Of course I am a sinner; when the devil told me I was a sinner, he was quite right. He said it to discourage me; but I am going to use it to help myself. Of course I am a sinner! God is holy and I am vile, and I do not realize even yet how vile I am. Well then, how can I pray? How can I go into the presence of God? The answer is, that God Himself has opened the way for me; He has provided it. He has sent His only Son into this world to bear my sins, to die for me. Christ has kept the law for me and has ‘put His own perfect robe of righteousness upon me. With this on me I can go into the presence of God’. Having convinced yourself of that, you gain confidence and begin to pray.

Thus you have solemnly and specifically to remind yourself of what you are, and of what you are doing, also that the God whom you are addressing is the God who has revealed Himself. You have to see the absolute necessity of Christ, and to know that He really covers you in every respect. So with Christ’s righteousness upon you, and Christ with you, you go into the presence of God. John in his First Epistle states it thus: ‘If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness’. He says that in the context of ‘the blood of Jesus Christ which cleanses us from all sin’ (1 John 1:7-9). He goes on to say, ‘If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He is the propitiation for our sins’ (1 John 2:1-2). That is what you say to yourself. You do not wait until a better mood comes; and you do not simply go on talking in spite of your mood or state. You have to say to yourself ‘Although I am a sinner, and though I feel nothing, I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. I know that I can never fit myself to go into the presence of God; but I believe this record in the Scriptures. I therefore believe, whatever I may feel or not feel, that Christ the Son of God has died for me and my sins; and that therefore I have as much right to go into the presence of God as the greatest saint’.

And then you immediately, thank God for it all – ‘By prayer and supplication with thanksgiving’, says this apostle in teaching the Philippians how to pray (Phil. 4:6). Forget for the moment all your needs and desires, even that particular thing which led you to pray. Before you ever come even to that, just thank God for His love, thank Him for His mercy and compassion, thank Him for sending His Son into a world such as this; thank Him for going to the Cross and dying for you, thank Him for rising again, thank Him for sending the Holy Spirit. Pour out your heart in praise and thanksgiving. Soon you will find freedom; your heart will be moved, and you will know for the first time in your life ‘boldness and access with confidence’. Then pray that God will shed His Holy Spirit abroad in your heart so that you may experience the authentication of all these things.”

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Unsearchable Riches of Christ: Exposition of Ephesians 3,
Boldness, Access, Confidence

“I need Thee, precious Jesus" – Frederick Whitfield

“I need Thee, precious Jesus,
For I am full of sin;
My soul is dark and guilty,
My heart is dead within.
I need the cleansing fountain
Where I can always flee,
The blood of Christ most precious,
The sinner’s perfect plea.

I need Thee, precious Jesus,
For I am very poor;
A stranger and a pilgrim,
I have no earthly store.
I need the love of Jesus
To cheer me on my way,
To guide my doubting footsteps,
To be my strength and stay.

I need Thee, precious Jesus,
I need a friend like Thee,
A friend to soothe and pity,
A friend to care for me.
I need the heart of Jesus
To feel each anxious care,
To tell my every trouble,
And all my sorrows share.

I need Thee, precious Jesus,
I need Thee, day by day,
To fill me with Thy fullness,
To lead me on my way;
I need Thy Holy Spirit,
To teach me what I am,
To show me more of Jesus,
To point me to the Lamb.

I need Thee, precious Jesus,
And hope to see Thee soon,
Encircled with the rainbow
And seated on Thy throne.
There, with Thy blood bought children,
My joy shall ever be,
To sing Thy praises, Jesu,
To gaze, O Lord, on Thee.”

– Frederick Whitfield, 1861

Man, where is your reason? Why set your heart on earthly treasure? – George Swinnock

"Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides You.” – Psalm 73:25

“A Christian in his saddest condition can enjoy God as his portion. You, who have chosen the world for your portion, have you not read what a perishing portion it is? I offer you today a portion worthy of your choicest affection, a portion that, if you accept it, the richest emperor in the world would be a beggar to you. It is a portion that contains more wealth than heaven and earth. If a man would offer you a bag of gold or a bag of brass tokens, a bag of pearls or a bag of sand, which would you choose? Surely you know!

Will you fail to choose him for your portion? Would you choose a little honor before the exceeding and eternal weight of glory? This is to choose broken cisterns before a fountain of living water, dirt before diamonds, drops before the ocean, and nothing before all things. Man, where is your reason? Why set your heart on earthly treasure when you have the desire of all nations to set your heart upon? If you knew the blessed God, and who it is that is offered to you—the sweetest love, the richest mercy, the surest friend, the fullest happiness and the highest honor—then you would leave the merchants of this world who load themselves with dirt, and turn your interests to the other world. You would more willingly leave these frothy joys and drossy delights for the enjoyment of God; yes, more than a prisoner would leave his fetters and the misery of jail, for the liberty, pleasures, and preferments of a court. O reader, if you could see the vastness, suitableness, and fullness of God as your portion, I am confident, though you used to esteem the world with all of its delights, you would leave these to the men of this world who prefer their own country, and would fetch your riches from afar…

God comes, and He offers for the heart the precious blood of His Son, the curious embroidery of His Spirit , the noble employment of angels, the fullness of joy, and the infinite satisfaction of His blessed self to all eternity. Now why is the devil’s money accepted, the world’s offer embraced, & God’s rejected? Truly, men do not know the worth of what God offers them…

A man who sees a candle after fourteen years, having been born in a dark dungeon, wonders at its glory, delights in beholding it, & inquires into its nature. Bring him afterwards into the open air to behold the sun, & all his wonder will be directed to this great luminary. Man is taken up with the candle of creature comforts. Let him once see the Sun of Righteousness, the all-sufficient & eternal God, the excellence of His glorious being, & that which was glorious before has no more glory in comparison to the sight God.” – George Swinnock

the Bible gives us a very realistic view of life in this world – Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“Because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel.” -Colossians 1:5

“Then, thirdly, the Bible, after laying down this great fundamental principle about the fleeting nature of life and the importance of the soul and its eternal destiny, then gives us a very realistic view of life in this world. And this is what proves to me, if nothing else did, that this is the Word of God, because it tells me the truth all along. I read other things, my newspapers and the philosophers and so on, and, with their great idealism, they try to tell me that this world is a wonderful place! The world outside Christ says, ‘Isn’t life wonderful?’ Is it? Have you found it wonderful like that? Is it thrilling? Is it marvelous? Is it just one round of pleasure and happiness? Is that how you have found it? To believe that, to believe that the world has ever been like that or ever will be like that, is to believe a fairy tale.

If you want realism, come to the Bible. It tells you that this world is a place of sin, a place of sorrow, a place of sighing, of bitterness, enmity, fighting, selfishness, greed, malice; that is what the Bible says. And even worse, it tells us that there are times when men and women are so sunk and steeped in sin and iniquity that they become perverts. It is all here. There is nothing you can produce to me in a book or newspaper but that I will show it to you here, described in stark realism. That is life, says the Bible. It is a place of tribulations – ‘In the world you will have tribulation,’ says the Son of God (John 16:33). He does not promise anything better. He never promised anybody a life of ease.

A man came running after Him one afternoon and said, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’

Wait a minute, my friend, He said. ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’ Are you ready for that? (Luke 9:57-58).

No. Our Lord never painted a rosy picture of life. He said that it is a vale of woe. And why? Well, the Bible has its explanation: it is all because of man’s sin and disobedience. The world is as it is because it has sinned and rebelled against God and because, in its folly, it is trying to live life apart from Him. “There is no peace,” says my God, “for the wicked” (Isaiah 57:21), and there is not. You can become wealthy and learned; you can split the atom; you can organize the Common Market; you can do a thousand and one things, but there will never be peace while you continue to be wicked and live a life apart from God. That is what the Bible says.

Christianity is not a fairy tale; the fairy tale is everything else. The Christian faith is real; it stands up to life & looks at it as it is. It says: That is the sort of world it is; and it is because of human rebellion and arrogant disobedience of God, and it will never be better until human beings are changed. There is no hope of reforming the world; there is no hope that the world will ever grow naturally into perfection. Believe me, men and women are not gradually evolving into something better; they remain exactly where they have always been because they and the world are under the wrath of God.

Now that does not mean for a moment that we should be unconcerned about our world; that we should not do our best to make it as good as we can. Of course, go and do that for all you are worth, but what I mean is this: Do not tell me that Christianity is out to make the world perfect; it is not. It tells you that the world is under the wrath of God and is doomed. The sentence has already been promulgated and it will be carried out, though I do not know when (it may be sooner than some of us think).

There is an end coming because man is sinful and because the world is in rebellion against God: that is what the Bible teaches; that is what Epaphras preached at Colosse. And then he went on to say: Now there is the position. You are moving through this world; you will only do it once and you will never come back again. You have a soul and you decide its eternal destiny while you are here. Do not talk about making the world a better place but make certain that you are somehow delivered from this doom that is coming.

And then, Epaphras said, I can tell you how that can happen. And he began preaching the message of the gospel – Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, who came down from heaven to earth and lived and died and rose again. What for? To lift up humanity? To give a fillip to the human march of progress? No! He came in order that ‘whosoever believes’ – individuals – might be delivered. He is the one who, when he was thronged by a great crowd of people, felt a poor woman tugging at the hem of his garment and had time to listen to her and to heal and to cure her. He is interested in individuals, thank God! That was the message of Epaphras. He said: You can be delivered out of this. Salvation is a personal salvation. The world is under the judgment and the wrath of God but believe this message of Christ, the Son of God, and you will be delivered out of that doom.

But, he said, your salvation even in Christ in this world is only partial – you do not get it all here. Epaphras did not say: Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will never have another problem. You will go marching down the highway with a new step and a new thrill. You will never meet another temptation; all your problems will be solved.

That is a travesty of the gospel; do not believe it; it is not true. The New Testament has never said that, never! We only receive a little installment of salvation in this world, but, thank God, it is enough."

- Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Love So Amazing: Exposition of Colossians I,

The hope