I’m reading a book on sermons by Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones on John 4 in preparation for my sermons on that chapter coming up. The book is only 750ish pages. I have plenty of work ahead of me. But some of the sermons are well worth it, like one entitled Spiritual Dullness and Evasive Tactics preached in October, 1966. Think about that for a moment, 1966. Amazing to me how much of what he says fits our contemporary situation.
He begins with noting the essence of Christianity: “we have within us a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” The Christian life is a spiritual life under the power and direction of the Spirit. This great salvation “is to enable us to live in the world and to look forward to the glory that is to come.” This positive beginning shifts as the Dr. begins to lay the smack down. He gets quickly to exposing the sins of his time in England that mirror those of ours here in America.
“We face national prejudices, class prejudices, race prejudices, and so on. There is almost no end to them. What harm they have done in the life of the individual Christian, and what harm they have done in the life of the church throughout the centuries- the things we cling to so tenaciously simply because we have been born like that!”
He was addressing the Jewish-Samaritan prejudice. Later in the sermon he brings us to the problems of Apartheid and the Civil Rights struggle in the U.S. The people in England were denouncing the white South Africans and Americans. He admits, obviously, the sinfulness of racism, but takes this as evasiveness. The woman at the well used this prejudice to evade Jesus, and the Dr.’s contemporaries were using those prejudices in other nations to evade the truth about themselves.
“You see, in denouncing somebody else, you are shielding yourself. While you are denouncing these people or friends in America or somewhere else over this racial problem, you are full of self-righteous indignation. That is very clever, but you are just evading the problem of your own life, the running sore of your soul.”
Racism, past and present, as grave sins. The class and ethnic prejudices are grave sins. But I often see people using “retroactive morality” (a phrase I heard Buster Olney use about steroids in baseball) to denounce past people and generations. We do this, Lloyd-Jones things (and I agree) to avoid the reality of our own besetting sins. We evade the exposure of OUR sins by denouncing the sins of others. We talk about gluttony if we don’t want to face what the Bible says about homosexuality (there is far more about homosexuality, and the civil law had far more severe penalties, so why are talking about this?). Some denounce homosexuality to avoid evade their adultery and/or greed. As sinners, this is what we do.
“The fact that we have become Christians, that we are born again, that the Spirit of God is in us, does not mean that we have solved all our problems; that is only a beginning.”
Our problems with prejudice, sexuality and covetousness of various kinds to not disappear overnight. Lloyd-Jones notes that our spiritual understanding is not automatic. Graeme Goldsworthy mentions that while we receive the mind of Christ, we are progressively sanctified in our minds in a way that reflects our general justification and sanctification. We are imputed righteousness and the mind of Christ positionally. Then Christ imparts righteousness and understanding in sanctification. This is the Dr.’s point. He makes is here as well:
“Our old habits are like autumn leaves that you see on the trees in spring. These old leaves take a long time to drop off; they have to be pushed off slowly by the new buds.”
One of the hindrances that he mentions to growing in our spiritual understanding is laziness, “a failure to exercise our senses, a failure to apply ourselves to the truth and to apply the truth itself to us.” One way we do this, he says, is to read the Bible superficially, if we read it. We don’t stop to ponder how that passage applies to us in addition to God’s promises. As a result, we evade the searchlight of the Scripture which exposes our sin.
“We are living in an age that likes to be entertained; the element of entertainment has come increasingly into Christian activity and Christian worship- … Oh, what a tragedy it is that with all of these riches people should be spending their time in sheer entertainment!”
That was 1966! How much more with all the technological advances with regard to entertainment options are we enslaved to entertainment. This has infected our worship to an even greater degree. Many worship services resemble concerts with lights, smoke and more. The point- turning heart and mind toward God- are often lost in the earthly wonder of sight and sound. The problem is not the instruments, but our hearts that long to be entertained and moved emotionally without being moved intellectually.
This also infects preaching. Don’t get me wrong, preaching should be engaging and interesting. There is nothing wrong with a funny story IF it gets the point across. But pastors are not stand up comics. Jokes serve the message, the message doesn’t serve the jokes. “In preaching and teaching we tend to put too much emphasis upon the will and upon surrender. … The great truth, the body of doctrine, has not been unfolded because people have become impatient with that; they say they do not have the time, they can no longer sit and read.” And this was before the internet. Many sermons today are superficial, avoid doctrine (particularly controversial doctrines) and are short. The focus is on conversion, an after-effect from the 1870’s (in England, the 2nd Great Awakening in the U.S.) in terms of making a decision. While the pastor should have a Christ or gospel-centered focus to their preaching and the Scriptures, this is not to be confused with a justification-centered focus. When the doctrine of justification swallows up everything else the church is in danger. As J.I. Packer noted in his famous introduction to Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, a single truth posing as the whole truth is an untruth (my paraphrase). Justification is true, but not the whole truth. Pastors must also preach unto sanctification.
We find the Dr. preaching a sermon that should ring through the most churches in the West today. We desperately need to hear this. We are too guilty of evading our sin and seeking entertainment. We have reduces the message of Christ to justification. There is much spiritual dullness among us as a result.
Cavman Considers 
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