Lloyd-Jones on the Plight of the World and the Church

Worried about the condition of the church or the condition of the world? Seeming instability may stir panic in our hearts, homes, and churches. Preaching from Romans 1:2, "God promised beforehand through

his prophets in the holy Scriptures," Martyn Lloyd-Jones reflects on a ministry which spanned Hitler's advance into Europe and bombing of England. The pastor of Westminster Chapel even prayed during service when a bomb struck nearby. Did Lloyd-Jones panic over a man like Hitler? No. Here, he explains:

"Are you troubled about the state of the church, the dwindling congregations, the plight of the world, the might of the world, the organization of the world, and all these things? Oh, I say, go back to the Old Testament and take hold of the comfort and consolation of the Scriptures. Or are you troubled by something that has happened in the world today? Then put it in the context of the Old Testament. I was never worried for a second about a man like Hitler; it was enough for me to read the thirty-seventh Psalm, and there I read of a man like him spreading himself like a green bay tree, a sort of colossus striding the whole earth. But I read on and learned that a day came when a man wanted to go to see him and to speak with him, and he could not find him. He searched everywhere for him; he could not find any trace of him; he had vanished. Why? God had blown upon him. And the Old Testament is full of such examples. In the light, then, of all that, what can we say? I have nothing but this: 'O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out.' He seems to sleep for centuries, but He is still there; His ways are past finding out. 'For who hath known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?...Or who hath first given to him and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him and through him and to him are all things: to whom', and to whom alone, 'be glory for ever. Amen.'" -D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans: Exposition of Chapter 1, The Gospel of God (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 2022), page 97.