The Passionate Preaching of Martyn-Lloyd Jones
by Steven Lawson
– He was a doctor but realized that he was fixing bodies to send them back to the world where they would just die, so he decided to become a preacher. News spread like wild fire that he left the medical field, people did not understand why he would give up such a good career to be just another preacher. He said that those people did not understand what the Gospel could do.
– A God-called man would rather die if he cannot preach.
– Jones said that no seminary could make a man of God, only God could do that.
– He read two chapters in the morning and two chapters in the evening of the Bible. He knew the Bible so well that people called him the walking Bible.
– He believed it was his job to declare the Bible, not defend the Bible; he was a preacher, not an apologist.
– The essential role of the preacher is to make the Bible come alive to the people.
– The preacher is to be a persuader, making people want to come to Christ.
– You’re not preparing a sermon for doctors and professors but for every kind of person that is in the congregation. Be practical, remember the people who you are preaching to.
– Information starts at the intellect, but preaching starts at the heart.
– The sermon must be clear to the one in the pulpit if it is to be understood by the ones in the pews.
– Just as in the Old Testament the wood had to be cut and gathered before placed on fire for a sacrifice, so it must happen with preaching – the pastor must prepare his message and then take it to the pulpit so that God can set it on fire. Jones believed that God would bless sermon preparation, not the lack of it.