More Publications For You.

For those interested in my other publications, please go to the Smashwords website. 

Dr D Martyn Lloyd-Jones

I discovered a very interesting thing today, and it was this.  If you go to Smashwords.com and then type in the name of Martyn Lloyd-Jones, you will find ONLY ONE BOOK that matches the search term.  Smashwords has now published in excess of 90,000 books on a wide range of subjects, amounting to some 1.7 million words.  It has more than 16,000 authors.  Yet only one book has been published by Smashwords on Dr D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones.  Surely that fact commands attention on your part.

Why not have a look and see what it is; then, with your appetite whetted, you can proceed to get your own copy.

Education Is Cheap; Ignorance Costs!

The surest way to repeat the mistakes and errors of the past is to remain ignorant of them.  If you want to make sure that the church remains in her moribund condition, just live life at you have been doing.

But if you want to be informed about issues of truth, issues that are foundational to life itself, then you owe it to yourself to be better educated.  Education does not cost as much as ignorance!

May I refer you to my new book on Dr D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, my mentor and teacher of many years; and he being dead still speaks to me through his written and recorded messages.

I therefore refer you to the website where you can get your own copy of this remarkable book.  All of the information is brand new; it records my own personal reflections on DMLJ's teaching, and how it helped me, and sometimes hindered me.  It also has a section (about 50% of the entire book) that deals with his understanding of the Gospel message as it pertains to the atonement.  This has not been done before  - to the best of my knowledge.  So get this book and read it, and tell others about it.  There is a message here that has to be got out to the multitudes, and we must do our part in spreading the word.

Will you help in this?

Calvin and Courage - Under the Cross

Available for download from today, this brand new ebook, written by the author, is long-awaited. Delivered as one of the papers at the Amyraldian Association Annual Conference in Attleborough, Norfolk in Spring 2009, to mark the 500th anniversary of the birth of the reformer fro Geneva, John Calvin (1509-1564), this paper shows a side to Calvin that is not readily known - his warm-heartedness and compassion.  Sadly, some Calvinists, by their attitude, have portrayed Calvin as an ogre, and have painted him in a light that is simply not a true reflection of the man himself. 

This book demonstrates the heart of Calvin in a way that some might not recognise.  Yes, he could be firm when circumstances demanded it, and he was.  Read how he dealt with Michael Servetus, the Catholic heretic who opposed and undermined true doctrine in several aspects such as the doctrine of the Trinity, which he denied, infant baptism of covenant children, etc.  See the reformer's resolution when faced with the violent and immoral Libertines.  But, then, in contrast, see him minister to the young ministerial students who were facing martyrdom at the stake for their faith.

The true Calvin just has to be seen to be appreciated and loved.  It is so sad that Calvin has been misrepresented in the house of his friends, resulting in Christians dismissing the great reformer out of hand.  Visit here and read about a well-balanced Calvin, and your admiration of him will grow by leaps and bounds.

This chapter, contributed by the author, is taken from the book, "John Calvin 500 - A Reformation Affirmation," and is used with permission of the publishers, Charenton Reformed Publishing, Norwich.  If you want to read all seven papers, then visit the publisher's website here.

New LLoyd-Jones Book Making An Impact.

It gives me great pleasure to report that the author's book on Dr D Martyn Lloyd-Jones is gaining the attention of the Christian reading public, with the first sales coming in yesterday.

To secure your copy, click here.

This unique book deals with how one minister experienced the Doctor's preaching, and the help and inspiration that gave him.

It also does what no one else has done - it extracts more than 320 quotations from the Lloyd-Jones evangelistic sermons that demonstrate that theologically and soteriologically, he followed Calvin and Amyraut and Baxter rather than John Owen. This will be new to may DMLJ followers, but facts are stubborn things that do not easily give way to speculation.

Click here and discover for yourself a wealth of evangelistic material that will inform your thinking, and hopefully set your soul on fire for Christ and His mighty Gospel.

On the left hand panel of the site, you will find other books by me, two of which are free to download, and the others are priced at a minimum price.

Philip Doddridge - Book Sale!

Dr Philip Doddridge
(1702-51)
Read about ‘The Good Doctor’, one of England’s greatest Nonconformists.
A highly-acclaimed tercentenary biography of 2002 is now available at half price
[£5+p&p].
For more details, click on the link.

50% off this excellent book from the pen of Dr Alan C Clifford - not to be missed.  Available while stocks last.

The Grand Place, Brussels, and Protestant Martyrs

I have had the privilege of visiting many different countries as part of my recent work, and one of the most beautiful places is the Grand Place in Brussels, Belgium.  Every time I visit the city, I always make a point of going to this outstandingly beautiful location. I would have stood looking up at those high spires and admiring the magnificant architecture, and marvelled at how the workers ever achieved such a fete.

However, just today (17th Jan 2012), I learned that that place has a somewhat different notoriety, because it was at this exact place in Brussels that made its mark on the great Protestant Reformation in Europe in the sixteenth century.  Let Dr F. A. Schaeffer tell the story:

When Luther had begun his preaching, he received word about the first Protestant martyrs. Some monks had read his work, turned to his way of thinking, and were burned alive in the Grand Place in Brussels.  The spot is still marked where they died. And the story is told that when Martin Luther heard about it, he began to walk the floor and he said, 'I can't go on.  I can't do it anymore.  Because of me other men are being killed.  I can't go on!'  Then as he wrestled with it, he understood that because it was truth, no matter what the cost to himself or anybody else, he must go on. 

Schaeffer continues, "Thank God, Martin Luther marched straight forward - the reformation went forward."

The next time I visit the Grand Place in Brussels, while still admiring its beauty and magnificence, I will remember those godly men who died for Christ and his Gospel.

Courage Under The Cross

The author of this blog has today published on the internet his latest book, "Courage Under The Cross In Troubled Times."  This book was written at a very tense and dangerous time in the South Armagh area of Northern Ireland and during the worst years of the terrorist campaign there.  He was responsible for conducting two of the three funerals of two of the elders who died in that terrorist outrage against a small Protestant Pentecostal church in Darkley.  In the weeks that followed, he preached a series of sermons that were designed to encourage that beleaguered and vulnerable people who lived in that area that became known as "Bandit Country."

The fruits of his labours are made available as an ebook and may be ordered here.
Please visit the site by clicking on the highlighted link above, and buy this little book.  You will be glad you did!

Is God Pleased With Today's Preachers?

This is a most pertinent question to ask; and it is even more pertinent to answer.  Is God pleased with the preachers in the modern church?  When Christian people are frustrated with what passes for preaching today, how is God feeling and what is He thinking about it all?  Let me put it like this: if you believe that God is a holy God and that He is there, do you think He can take it lightly when people spread over the face of the earth and move among God's people, and say, "This message is straight from God," when they are speaking only for themselves?  This tells us that it is perilously possible for a preacher to speak only for himself and from himself, perilously possible? 

What makes is infinitely worse is when these preachers contradict what God says clearly in His Word.  He has revealed His own heart and mind in the Scriptures, in propositional form, yet they seem to disregard what God has said and have made up a message of their own that they then pass off as the Word of God.

Now, do you expect God to take this lightly? What isd He?  Is He really an old grey-headed and grey-bearded man sitting in a rocking chair in heaven, blind and hard of hearing, and totally oblivious to what is going on in His church?  Well, think again.

Preachers With No Message.

How can any preacher affirm that he is bring the Word of God to his congregation when God has not spoken to him?  Just because a minister enters the pulpit and serves up a talk to his people does not in any way mean that he got that message from the Lord.

In Jeremiah's day, prophets spoke and prophesied in the name of the God who did not speak to them.  Where did their message come from?  From their own selves?  From their own reading and learning?  Out of which pit did it emerge?  They have come and spoken in the name of God, and they have said, 'God says...' but God has not spoken to them or given them a message.  They are messageless messengers!  They did not receive a Word from the Lord. 

What have they done, then?  They have dished up what are no more than their own words for the people.  Their own ideas have been welling up within them, and they have been merely echoing the words of others.  They have done their reading by way of preparation, but all they could give their people are the echoes of what others have said or written.  Sermons today are exercises in regurgitation of others ideas.  But there is no "word from the Lord."  These men come and say, "This is the Lord's word for you today," but it is not!  It is the message of man.

All such preachers are under the judgement of God for claiming to speak for Him when He has given them nothing to say.

Unsent Preachers

In the days of Jeremiah the prophet, we find times that are an exact mirror of our own times.  In the country at large, there is great wickedness; and in the church there is even greater wickedness.

Jeremiah talks authoritatively about prophets who have not been sent by God, therefore do not and cannot preach the Word of God.  Jer.23:21, God says through Jeremiah, "I have not sent these prophets, yet they run."  They are busy day by day on rweligious and church business, but they have not been sent by Me.  They are doing their own thing, and following their own bidding.  How busy they are at their church work.

But what they have not realised is that the God they purport to serve disclaims that He has sent them.  So what on earth are they doing, running when they have not been sent? Who sent them, then?  Did they send themselves?  But that's not 'sending' in any real sense.  Whose will are they doing?  What an uncomfortable issue to face up to.

The Doctor's Influence

New book on Dr D Martyn Lloyd-Jones's influence on the author of this blog is available here.  Please have a look and buy it for yourself and when you have read it, write a review and place it on the Smashwords website.

As the 31st anniversary of his death comes around on 1st March 2012, learning how one man  was influenced by Dr Lloyd-Jones will help you to appreciate his ministry a bit more. See the book at Hazlett Lynch.

True believers

Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones stresses that you cannot be a Christian unless you believe certain specific things, certain specific truths about our Lord Jesus Christ. A Christian is a believer, a man who believes certain facts, certain verities.  But its not just an intellectual thing, this believing.  Believing is also a commitment of ourselves to the One in Whom we believe.  It is about trust, about entrusting ourselves to the Lord Jesus Christ as our Saviour.  It is about receiving Christ, and receivine the Holy Spirit. You cannot be Christian without the Holy Spirit (Rom.8:9). Impossible.

Nor can you be a Christian without the new birth.  Church tries to pretend that you can, but it is impossible. Except a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God, preached Jesus. The vital thing is not are we members of churches, but are we full of faith in these things? 

Government Laws Discriminated Against Evangelicals

The Act of Uniformity of 1662 was the occasion that led to the great ejection of many of England's greatest preachers and pastors from their charges.  This Act demanded that every minister within the Church of that time accept completely the Anglican Book of Common Prayer in every jot and title. While ministers had no real objection to the contents of the Book of Common Prayer, they did object to the imposition of this Book of Prayer for use in the churches. 

Whether the ministers, more than 2,00 of them, were ejected by the church authorities, or, as Prof. A. M. Renwick states, "heroically resigned their livings," is a matter to be researched.  But the fact remains, that 2,000 and more ministers of the Gospel found themselves outside the national church because of sheer pig-headedness of the church authorities.  Presbyterian, Independent and Baptist minsters were nolnger welcome in the English church.

In addition, the Corporation Act (1661), the Five Mile Act (1665), and the Test Act (1673), placed every Englishman who was not also an Anglican churchman, including the servants of the Gospel, under serious disability.  This ecclesiastical discrimination paved the way for even greater errors to enter the church, and ushered in the great apostasy that has bedevilled that church ever since.

Trusting In God’s Unfailing Goodness

There is the principle of trust in God’s unfailing goodness, in good times and in bad.  When Fontaine was unable to find a living as a preacher/minister, he would not make himself a burden to others, and considered ways of providing for his family.  In Barnstable, he worked as a manufacturer of textiles (a trait that was deeply embedded within this family), and as an importer/exporter of textiles, while in Ireland, he set up a fishing company, commenting that he “was a preacher who hoped to become a fisherman, the opposite of the apostles.”  Each of these ventures was blessed with a measure of success, but due to circumstances beyond his control, each left him poverty-stricken.  Yet he never complained, and with grace he accepted both the good times and the bad as from the Lord.

In the church, God, in his sovereign grace, at times blesses the ministry of the Gospel in quite spectacular ways; believers are encouraged and built up in their most holy faith, and sinners are converted to Christ.  What lovely times they are!  How sweet are those times when newly converted sinners come to you and tell you that God has dealt savingly with their souls.  To hear the sound of a new convert’s first words of prayer in the prayer meeting is indescribable.  We can give God all the praise and glory for these special times of blessing.  This is summer time in the church. 

But when the winter arrives, and things are not proceeding as we think they should; or when active opposition to the Gospel begins to raise its ugly head; or when 'believers' are doing all kinds of “dirty tricks” against the minister, well that’s a different story.  It is easier to see the hand of Satan at work in these times, than it is to see the over-ruling providence of God rolling out his sovereign and mysterious purposes for the church.  Yes, we can accept the good times from the Lord, but we have difficulty accepting the bad times from him.  We need to learn from Fontaine that glorifying God means accepting whatever his providence supplies.  Remember, it is his “provide–ance” for us, for our good, for our ultimate salvation, and for his eternal glory.  Fontaine learned this from experience, and stands as a ‘real time’ example and inspiration to us today.

That’s very difficult to accept at times.  To have your most precious thing removed from you, is extremely difficult to accept.  And to see the invisible hand of our good Father at times like this is most challenging.  Only by accepting the good and the bad from our Father can we know the peace of God ruling in our hearts. 

350 Anniversary of the Great Ejection.

Over the next weeks and months, I hope to post articles on the men who were ejected from their pulpits by the largely apostate church of England in 1662. More than 2000 faithful pastors were removed from their charges by that church. In the Anglican ministry there were men of Presbyterian conviction, Independents and baptists.  The result of this was a great purging of the church of those intolerable factions - the preachers of the everlasting Gospel.  That church has paid very highly for such uncalled for action against the servants of Christ.

Recorded sermons?

What do you think of the practice of recording services/sermons?  It can be one of the best ways of spreading the Word that is offered today, and why should we not use this technology to preach the Gospel?

However, there is a down-side to this practice; or rather not so much the practice itself as the way it is discounted by many Christians today.  What I mean is this: very often when sermons are being listened to on CD, etc, the auditors do not have the same awareness of listening to God's Word as they wold have of sitting in church.  They can beak into conversation, thus lose the drift of the message.

I would counsel that when listening to a sermon of CD or on DVD, take a few moments of recollection, reminding yourself that you are about to listen to God's Word, and give it the attention that you would give to it of you were in church. 

Was Lloyd-Jones Amyraldian?

Have you seen my new book - on Dr D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones?  It's a personal appreciation of his life and ministry, and has a unique list of some 321 extracts from his evangelistic sermons (in the main) that reveal the real Lloyd-Jones.  If you buy a copy, would you be so kind and submit a review of it for me?  Thank you.

It can be downloaded here.