The Gospel is an argument, a statement of a reasoned case — Martyn Lloyd-Jones

"All I am doing now is introducing his [Stephen's] message to you, and here is the introduction: “Men, brethren, and fathers" (Acts 7:2). What then? Here is the first word: “Hearken” (Acts 7:2). Hear! Listen! That is how Stephen began, and that is how any preaching of the Gospel must begin.
We must start by listening patiently. “Lend me your ears! I have something to put before you that will not be easy. Listen! Listen for all you are worth. Listen for your very life.”

What may we deduce from this word “hearken”? It shows us that the Gospel is an argument, a statement of a reasoned case. Stephen is on trial. He is addressing his judges, and he presents his case. Read it; study it; read it many times over. Watch the procession of the argument; watch the buildup of the facts of the case; watch the logic in it all.

Now this is Christianity. It is a matter of reason; it is an argumentation. I emphasize this because so many people today fondly imagine that they reject Christianity because they are reasonable people who are not interested in “sob stuff” or emotionalism. “Christianity?” they say. “That’s all right for women and children, all right perhaps for people in the backwoods, but not for ‘modern man’—modern man come of age, with reason, understanding, sophistication and scientific knowledge. Oh,” they say, “I shall not allow you to play on my feelings. I know your Christianity, ‘the opium of the people,’ the drug, the sheer emotionalism.”

Now I want to be quite fair and honest—Christianity has often been misrepresented in that way. But that is not Christianity. If you want to know what Christianity is, you must go back to this book of the Acts of the Apostles. Here, in this first extended report of a sermon delivered under the auspices of the Christian church, is my notion of evangelism. I do not care what anybody else is doing—this is New Testament evangelism. Stephen’s sermon is typical of all the other speeches and sermons in Acts and in the great periods of reformation and revival in the church. It is not emotionalism. It demands the use and exercise of all our best faculties. It demands our concentration and our full attention.

And these people who dismiss and reject Christianity, and the preaching of Christianity, as unintelligent and emotional “sob stuff” that plays on the feelings—what do they themselves do? They probably sit at home looking at their television sets. What do they get there? Lurid drama perhaps, or a western or some “sob stuff” in connection with a love affair. Is that reason? Is that understanding?

Now let me issue a challenge as I start an exposition of this great sermon: Have I been playing on your feelings? Have I just been entertaining you by telling you stories? Let us be honest: Do you find it an intellectual exercise to look at the television or to listen to the radio or to read your newspaper or a novel? Of course not! Some of you may be complaining that I am putting too great a strain on your intellect. All right. That I am prepared to accept. But it proves my case that this message is something that comes to us and says, “Hearken! Listen! Pull yourself together!” You cannot follow it if you are lounging back in a comfortable chair; you have to sit up. Here is a reasoned case. It is not easy; it is not simple. It demands all your energies and faculties. You need every ounce of intellect you have.

Why? Because this is truth! This is a body of truth, a body of doctrine, a body of great statements of truth—and truth is addressed to the mind. The Bible teaches that man’s greatest gift, in a sense, is his mind. Human beings have minds in a way that no animal has. They are able to follow an argument; they are able to reason; they are able to look at themselves and examine themselves.

So Stephen looked at this great body of men whom he was addressing. He saw their passion; he saw their prejudice; he saw their violence; and he saw that they were too emotional. So very politely he addressed them—“Men, brethren, and fathers” (Acts 7:2). There was no need to insult anybody: “honour to whom honour” is due (Rom. 13:7). He was a gentleman, and he presented his case.

But Stephen did venture to say this word “hearken” at the very beginning. He said in essence, “Please try to control yourselves. Try to control your passion. Listen up.”

— Martyn Lloyd-Jones (2004). Vol. 4: Glorious Christianity (1st U.S. ed.). Studies in the Book of Acts (16–18). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.

Because Jesus was truly deserted, our desertions are only temporary trials — Timothy Keller

"You see, everybody but God will let you down. God will never let you down. God will never drop you. God’s arms will never fail you, but believe it or not, do you know why? Because there was one person who God’s arms failed. Jesus Christ did not sin, but he was truly deserted. We just feel deserted. He was truly deserted.

Because he was truly deserted, you will never be. That’s the reason why the psalmist can say, “… I will yet praise him …” You see, do you right now say, “Lord Jesus, I thirst”? Can you say this? Can you say, “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God”? The reason you know someday you will praise him, someday you will drink, you will not starve, you will not die of thirst, is because when Jesus Christ said, “I thirst,” all he got was vinegar.

If you say to the Lord, “I thirst,” I can tell you this: you won’t get vinegar. You won’t get a sop. Because Jesus was truly deserted, our desertions are only temporary trials. Are you thirsty tonight? Are you hungry tonight? We’re about to take the bread and the cup. It represents the fact that anybody who comes tonight … You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to be great. You don’t have to have it all together. You might feel as far away from God as this psalmist. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t come. Say, “I thirst.” You won’t get vinegar. Let’s pray."

— Timothy Keller

For the Christian, God is the ultimate beauty — Timothy Keller

"…I’ve been reading more of Jonathan Edwards, who is a great American theologian. The one thing he continually brings up … It strikes me over and over again, and I see it more and more in the Scripture.
That is he says the difference between a real Christian and just a religious person, the difference between a real regenerated (he would say) Christian, a Christian with a regenerated or renewed heart by the Holy Spirit, and just a religious person is the religious person finds God useful, but the real Christian finds God beautiful. That’s the essence of the difference. In other words, he would say verse 4 is the very essence of the cry of a real Christian heart. This is the essence.

He would say a Christian and a religious person … you put them together, and they may both be obedient to God. Let me go further. They may both be very committed to God … really, really committed to God. I’ll go further. They may both be bowing to God and submitted to God. One step further. They may even be both desperately seeking God. The religious is driven, and the Christian is attracted.

That’s the difference, because, you see, the religious person may be desperate for God, but the religious person wants what God can give. In the religious person, the eye of your heart has found something so beautiful, and you’re going to God to get it. If God doesn’t give it to you, you walk away because the thing that is truly beautiful to you … You may be very committed. You may be giving yourself, but the thing that’s most beautiful to you in the whole world isn’t God himself.

Therefore, you see, religious people want God to do things for them. They’re very upset if he doesn’t. A Christian above everything else wants only one thing, and that is God himself. When God comes to Abraham, he says, “I am thy shield …” We all want that, but get this. “… and thy exceeding great reward.” The religious person says, “You’re my reward. That’s it? You’re my reward? How about physical safety? How about just a use for my gifts in my work? How about a happy family?”

God says, “I am thy reward.” A religious person doesn’t get that. They say, “That’s it?” You see, a Christian is somebody who says, “One thing. The thing I want is you. The thing I find beautiful is you.” You see, to find something beautiful is to say, “This isn’t a means to anything. This is the thing.” If you’ve ever experienced an incredibly beautiful piece of music … Now, you know, it’s different for all of us, is that not true?

A certain piece of music will just overwhelm you. You put it on, and you sit, and you listen to it. What happens? You weep. You’re overwhelmed. It washes over you, and you forget everything else. It’s sort of like your beauty sensors just can’t take any more. They’re overflowing. They’re backed up into the rest of your system. There’s nothing else you could do. This isn’t a means to anything. This is the thing itself. This is what you live for … to experience the beauty.

You don’t say, “Jesus will be really useful.” No. Useful for what? See, there has to be a bottom line somewhere. There has to be a bottom line. Everything is useful for something, but at some point, you have to rest and say, “This is it. I’m doing this. I’m doing this to get to …” What? For the Christian, God is the ultimate beauty. I was just reading one of Edwards’ sermons (a sermon he wrote when he was 20). It was on the text of 2 Corinthians 2:14.

The name of the sermon is A Spiritual Understanding of Divine Things Denied the Unregenerate. That’s the name of the sermon. Aren’t you glad you have a minister whose titles are different? A Spiritual Understanding of Divine Things Denied the Unregenerate. This is a paraphrase of a typical passage.

“The regenerate soul, the real Christian, sees a beauty and an amiableness and tastes an incomparable sweetness that is all together hidden from the unregenerate. Unbelievers may know about spiritual beauty by hearsay. They may even be able to make fine speeches about spiritual beauty. To the regenerate, God has given a glance and there breaks in upon the soul a heavenly sweetness, such a sense of the amiableness and holiness and an excellency in God and a sweet loveliness in Christ. He sees by new light that was never before let into his mind.”

That’s the difference. A Christian is somebody who actually says not, “I’m in this. I want to pray.” You see, here’s the difference. A religious person prays and says, “I get nothing out of it. God never answers my prayer.” A Christian is somebody who finds praise and contemplation of God far and away the deepest and most satisfying part of prayer."

— Timothy Keller, The beauty of God

When gathering clouds around I view — Robert Grant

"When gathering clouds around I view,
And days are dark, and friends are few,
On Him I lean, who not in vain
Experienced every human pain;
He sees my wants, allays my fears,
And counts and treasures all my tears.

If aught should tempt my soul to stray
From heavenly wisdom’s narrow way,
To fly the good I would pursue,
Or do the sin I would not do,
Still He, who felt temptation’s power,
Shall guard me in that dangerous hour.

If wounded love my bosom swell,
Deceived by those I prized too well,
He shall His pitying aid bestow,
Who felt on earth severer woe,
At once betrayed, denied, or fled,
By those who shared His daily bread.

If vexing thoughts within me rise
And, sore dismayed, my spirit dies,
Still He, who once vouchsafed to bear
The sickening anguish of despair,
Shall sweetly soothe, shall gently dry,
The throbbing heart, the streaming eye.

When, sorrowing, o’er some stone I bend,
Which covers what was once a friend,
And from his voice, his hand, his smile,
Divides me for a little while,
Thou, Savior, mark’st the tears I shed,
For Thou didst weep o’er Lazarus dead.

And O, when I have safely passed,
Through every conflict but the last;
Still, still unchanging, watch beside
My painful bed, for Thou hast died;
Then point to realms of cloudless day,
And wipe the latest tear way."

— Robert Grant

To pray is the obvious, natural thing for a child to do — Martyn Lloyd-Jones

"Prayer is something which is expressive of the relationship between the child and the Father. Now I think that is a very important argument. You show me a man who does not pray very much and I will tell you the real problem of that man. It is that he does not know God, he does not know God as his Father. That is the trouble. The problem is not that he is not a moral man, or that he is not a good man. He can be highly moral, he may be very faithful in Christian church work, there may be nothing he is not prepared to do, but if he does not pray, I tell you that the essence of that man’s trouble is that he does not know God as his Father. For those who know God best are the ones who speak to him most of all.
There is no need to prove a thing like this—the little child always speaks to his Father. Have you not often noticed how the child of some great man talks to him freely, while another man going into his presence is nervous. Not so the child; the child speaks freely, because he knows the relationship and so he speaks to his father. And that is why the most saintly people are the ones who pray most; that is why the Lord Jesus Christ prayed more than anybody else, because he knew God in a way nobody else knew him. That, then, is the way to approach this question of prayer. The whole trouble with people who get into difficulties over prayer is that they start at the end instead of at the beginning. You do not start with the desire for answers, you start with adoration, and it is because we forget this all important matter that we tend to get into such perplexities. To pray is the obvious, natural thing for a child to do and there is nothing that expresses more eloquently or more cogently the whole relationship of man to God as prayer. That is the first thing. So, then, I think that the saints and, supremely, our Lord himself, prayed to God, primarily, not to ask for things but to assure their own hearts and to maintain their contact with God and to make certain of their contact and communion with him.
Our whole idea of prayer is false. We think of prayer only as guidance and requests. Now if you were to put that into practice in human relationships you would regard it as insulting. No, the thing the saint wants to know above everything else is that all is well between his soul and the Father. There is nothing the saint delights in more than to know God as his Father. He likes to maintain the contact and communion, to assure his heart before God and in the presence of God. The saint is in this difficult world, there are temptations from the outside and the whole world is against us, and the saint is tried—sometimes he almost despairs. So he goes to God immediately, not to ask this or that but just to make certain that all is well there, that the contact is unbroken and perfect, that he can assure his heart and know that all is well.
That is what our Lord is doing here in John 17, and that is the thing which stands out most frequently in this prayer. Our Lord is assuring his own human heart in the presence of his Father…"

— Martyn Lloyd-Jones (2000). The assurance of our salvation: Exploring the depth of Jesus' prayer for His own: Studies in John 17 (33–35). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.

The greatest ground of security in this world — Martyn Lloyd-Jones

"There is no greater ground of security in this world of time than to feel that you are a part of the grand plan and purpose of God. None of these things are accidental, none of them are fortuitous. It does not matter what may happen in the future, nothing can disturb this plan. My friend, if you are a Christian, do you know that you were the object of God’s interest and concern before the foundation of the world? All these things have been worked out in eternity, before time, so we must always remember that nothing can happen in time which will make the slightest difference. That is the argument which we find so constantly in the Scriptures. We must never be tired of quoting those great words: ‘For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Rom 8:38–39). And if you have ever been in any doubt about that, read this prayer and see the security as he outlines it here…

Can you imagine anything that is more comforting than this, that the Lord Jesus Christ has prayed for you: ‘Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word’? (John 17:20) Do you realize that when he was praying this prayer the Lord Jesus Christ was praying for you? Now, if we are Christians, we all like to have people praying for us… Is there anything that gives greater consolation than to know that people are praying for you? I know of nothing that is a greater encouragement to me, in my work and in my ministry, than to know that people are praying for me. They are going to God who is the source of all power and asking him to fill me with power.
So, then, if you believe in the prayer of a saintly person, how much more should you believe in the prayer of the Son of God for you. Here (John 17) he lets us know that he prayed for us and he goes on praying for us, and, most wonderful of all, what he does is to put us into the hands of God. He says: ‘Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept … and now come I to thee’ (John 17:11–13). ‘Father,’ he says in effect, ‘I hand them back to you, you keep them.’ If only we could somehow take hold of this wonderful truth, that the Lord Jesus Christ, himself, has put us into the safe keeping of God and that we are therefore in God’s safe keeping!"

— Martyn Lloyd-Jones (2000). The assurance of our salvation: Exploring the depth of Jesus' prayer for His own: Studies in John 17 (18–21). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.

the five reasons for the decline and fall of the Roman Empire — secular historian Edward Gibbon

"But why, in spite of all our efforts and endeavors and great advances, is the world still in trouble? Why is every advance followed by regression, every rise by a decline and fall? Why do our attempts to govern the world end in disaster? What is the matter? And there is only one answer. It is due to the fact that men and women have sinful and fallen natures; it is due to their estrangement from God; and, more, it is due to God’s wrath upon humanity in its sinfulness and arrogance. But the tragedy of the world is that it does not realize this.

I was reading again, only the other day, and it struck me forcibly, the explanation given by that great historian Edward Gibbon, who was not a Christian, for the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. And if his explanation is not also true of this country today, then I am completely ignorant!

Here are the five reasons he gives:

  1. The rapid increase of divorce and “the undermining of the dignity and sanctity of the home, which is the basis of human society.” Now that is not being said by me, a little evangelical preacher—that is the great Edward Gibbon, and, of course, he is right. The home is the fundamental unit in society and once the home goes, everything will go, sooner or later.
  2. “Higher and higher taxes and the spending of public monies on bread and circuses.”
  3. “The mad craze for pleasure and sport; sport becoming every year more and more exciting and brutal.”
  4. “The building of gigantic armaments when the real enemy is within—in the decadence of the people themselves.”
  5. “The decay of religious faith; faith fading into mere form which has lost all contact with reality.”

The Roman Empire was a wonderful civilization. Those Romans were perhaps the greatest experts the world has ever known on local government and on legal systems. The Roman system—that was real civilization. Add to that the Greek civilization that had gone just before, and you had human endeavor almost at its highest point. But what happened to it? It was conquered by the Barbarians, the Goths, and the Vandals—the ignoramuses. How did they ever conquer this great civilization? Gibbon’s answer is that internal rot in the civilization itself weakened and destroyed the Roman Empire. And that, I repeat, is the story of human civilization.
All human systems fail because the trouble is within the people themselves, and external rules and laws and regulations cannot change them. It is not that we need better laws, but that we need better natures; not better instruction, but better spirits and better desires. And so all this human history comes to nothing. And yet these earthly authorities prohibit the preaching of the Gospel, the only thing that can save the situation."

— Martyn Lloyd-Jones (2003). Vol. 3: Victorious Christianity (1st U.S. ed.). Studies in the Book of Acts (102–103). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Book