This 373-page book with twenty-six chapters was compiled from sermons preached by Dr. Lloyd-Jones on four verses: Ephesians 6:10-13. The following quotes are excerpts from selected chapters.
Chapter 1: Introduction
"A Christian's battle is not only with sin inside, but with the Devil and his forces outside. ...we must never forget the devil, we must never forget the 'principalities and powers'. I must never think that my whole problem is confined to that which is within me and in other people. Above and beyond that is this other mighty power arrayed against me, the mightiest of all powers apart from God Himself. Not to remember this basic fact is to court certain defeat and disaster. The great trouble with the world today, and with the Church unfortunately, is that they know so little about the devil and the 'principalities and powers'. Much teaching concerning holiness and sanctification never even mentions the devil and these powers at all. The problem is regarded solely as something confined to ourselves. Hence the total inadequacy of many proposed solutions." (p.19)
"The first thing we have to realize is that the Christian life is a warfare, that we are strangers in an alien land, that we are in the enemy's territory." (p.20)
Chapter 3: The Enemy
"A belief in the devil and his powers is an absolute essential to a belief in the biblical teaching concerning sin and evil. You cannot really believe the biblical doctrine concerning sin unless you believe in the devil and in the principalities and powers associated with him." .... "Further, a belief in the devil and his forces is absolutely essential to a true understanding of the biblical doctrine of salvation." .... "Do not think that you can understand the biblical doctrine of salvation and reject the devil. You cannot! You do not hold the true doctrine of salvation if you do not believe in the devil and his powers." (pp. 50, 51)
Chapter 7: The Subtle Foe
"There is nothing, I would say, which is more significant about evangelicalism in this present century [the 20th] than the way in which it has largely ignored this teaching concerning the devil and the principalities and powers, and the 'wiles of the devil'. (p.98)
"Another guise which the devil adopts, another mask which he puts on--and it is one of the cleverest of all--is that he hides himself altogether, and ridicules the whole notion that there is a devil at all, or any such beings as 'principalities and powers'." .... "The devil is at his very cleverest when he persuades people that there is no devil." (p.106)
Chapter 8: Heresies
"But somebody may ask, 'Does it matter whether you believe in a personal devil or not? The answer is that the Apostle most certainly assures us that we are fighting personalities and 'spirits' of evil, the world 'rulers of this darkness', not the 'darkness', but 'the rulers' of the darkness. His whole object is to get us to see that we must not be deluded in this respect, but realize that there are these spiritual entities, personalities, headed up by the devil himself, who are warring a terrible, subtle, vicious warfare against God and all His people. This is not a matter of opinion, it is not just a matter of accommodating our teaching to suit the modern mind and modern knowledge and understanding; if you do not believe in the person of the devil you are rejecting not only the teaching of the Apostle Paul but you are rejecting the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself!" (pp.108, 109)
Chapter 10: Counterfeits
"Any movement or teaching that does not make the Lord Jesus Christ and His death upon the cross, and His glorious resurrection, an absolute necessity, and absolutely central, is not Christian, but a manifestation of 'the wiles of the devil'." (p.143)
Chapter 12: Philosophy and Vain Deceit
"Beyond any doubt, in the last analysis the greatest single enemy of the Christian faith and the Christian truth is philosophy. This is the case because philosophy implies a final confidence in human reason, in the power of man's mind, in man's ability to arrive at truth, to comprehend it, and to encompass it. The ultimate problem is always the problem of authority. What is the ultimate authority with respect to truth? This is absolutely fundamental. According to the teaching of the Bible from beginning to end our supreme authority is God's revelation. Here is the great watershed that determines a man's whole position in these matters. We are either trusting entirely and exclusively to the revelation which God has been graciously pleased to give; or else ultimately we are trusting to our own ability, our own knowledge, our own understanding." (p.164)
"I have no doubt whatsoever in my own mind that the Christian Church is as she is today, very largely because for the last hundred years so much time has been given in the theological colleges and seminaries to the teaching of philosophy. It is the greatest enemy of the Christian truth." (p.171)
"Whenever the Christian Church is afraid of 'being a fool for Christ's sake' she has already gone wrong. This change for the worse took place about the period 1850-1870. There had been the great Evangelical Awakening in the eighteenth century. ..... [Then] The Church wanted to be intellectually respectable, she wanted to be able to parade her fine understanding of things before the world. But the moment she does that she has sold everything. We are to be 'fools for Christ's sake'. If you believe the Christian Gospel people will say to you, 'What, do you still believe that? Do you still believe in sin? Psychology has explained that long ago.' They will laugh at you. 'Do you still believe the Bible? Do you still take that as your ultimate authority? Do you really say that you put the Bible before all that has been discovered in the last 2,000 years about these very things?' And if you do not say unashamedly, 'Yes because it is still the Truth, and the only Truth', you have already succumbed to 'philosophy and vain deceit'. We are meant to be fools for Christ's sake." (pp.174, 175)
Chapter 17: Attacks Upon Assurance (Part 1)
"You will probably find that you are unhappy because you are not enjoying your relationship to Him as you should, and as you need to, and that makes you query whether you are in the relationship at all. Whatever I may feel, it is the relationship that matters; and my feelings do not make the slightest difference to the relationship, thank God!" (p. 246)
"So when the devil comes to you and tries to shake you because of your varying feelings and moods and states, tell him that you are not saved by your feelings, but saved by Christ, and that you are relying on Him, and on Him alone. Do that, and you will find that your feelings will come back; they will be restored to you. As long as you rely on Him, 'His mighty grasp of you', you will be able to defeat the wiles of the devil and rejoice again with a 'joy unspeakable and full of glory'." (p.248)
Chapter 18: Attacks Upon Assurance (Part 2)
"Never allow the devil to raise with you again the question of your justification. The Apostle John expresses this in his First Epistle: 'If we confess our sins, he is faithful' -- He would be going back on His own character if He did not forgive us -- 'he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness' (1 John 1:9). We are not sinless and perfect in this world, we cannot be; and therefore, if we think we are, there is something wrong with our doctrine. But John safeguards his doctrine against the error of the foolish, who veer off at a tangent as such people are always ready to do. He tells Christians that he is writing to them that they may not fall into sin, but that, if any Christian does sin he is not to feel that he has ceased to be a Christian; let him realize rather that 'we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world'. Never allow the devil to make you go back to the question of justification. If you have truly believed in Christ and are justified by faith, that is once and for ever, never to be repeated. Fall as a child before God, confess your sins, and He will forgive you your sins, and cleanse you from all unrighteousness."
(Pp.258, 259)
Chapter 21: Temptation and Sin
"I am certain that one of the main causes of the evil state of the Church today is the fact that the devil is being forgotten. All is attributed to us; we have all become so psychological in our attitude and thinking. We are ignorant of this great objective fact, the being, the existence of the devil, the adversary, the accuser, and his “fiery darts“. And, of course, because we are not aware of this we attribute all temptation to ourselves. So the devil in his wiliness will have succeeded admirably. We become depressed and discouraged, we feel that we are failures, and we do not know what to do. So the second answer is to remind ourselves of the devil himself, to expose him, to rip away the camouflage with which he always hides himself." (p.292)
"You resist the devil by refusing to argue with him, and by refusing to reason with him. There is only one thing to do with the devil, and that is, to have nothing to do with him, to dismiss him. If you acknowledge his suggestion, his thought, and begin to try to argue he will defeat you every time." (p.297)
"He knows the Scriptures much better than you do, and he will say, 'But what about this?' If you foolishly say, 'Very well, let us have a look at it', you are behaving in a foolish manner. Have nothing to do with him. 'Resist' means that you have nothing whatsoever to do with him. Tell him that he is a liar, take up 'the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God', and do what I have been saying. Do not take up any point, any word, any phrase; have nothing to do with him, and he will flee from you." (p.298)
Chapter 22: Discouragement
“The devil's objective is to get us to entertain such a feeling. If he can make us examine ourselves in such a manner that it not only becomes introspection but leads us to the conclusion that we have never been Christians at all, he is perfectly satisfied. I am reminding you that the fundamental answer to him is that, whatever we may feel like, we are still Christians. But how do we prove that to ourselves? That is the real need at this point. The way to do so-- and it is the reason why the Protestant Reformers saw that this is the fundamental article of a standing or a falling Church--is to remind yourself of justification by faith only! The devil says, 'Look at your record, there is only one conclusion to draw, you are not a Christian, you have never been a Christian'. Answer the devil by telling him that what makes a man a Christian is not anything that he finds in himself, it is 'Jesus' blood and righteousness'. Thank God for this, for if we all examined ourselves truly and tried to decide on the basis of our own life's record whether we are Christians or not, there would not be a single Christian! There is only one thing that makes us Christian--His righteousness, and nothing else.” (p.306)
Chapter 26: Worldliness
“The beginning of Christian understanding is that 'Our citizenship is in heaven' (Philippians 3:20). Heaven is where we belong. That is the essential difference between a Christian and a non-Christian. The Christian is a man who belongs to a different realm, the realm of God, the kingdom of God. He has been 'translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear Son' (Colossians 1:13). He is a stranger here, a journeyman, a pilgrim, a wayfarer. That is the Christian view of life, and if we keep this in the forefront of our minds we have gone most of the way already to defeat the devil as he attacks us in this matter of worldliness.” (p.366)
“That is the theme of the whole Bible. The Christian is a pilgrim, and life is a Pilgrim's Progress. We do not belong here. This world is Vanity Fair through which we are passing. We do not build permanently here. No, keep moving, keep your eye on your ultimate destiny, remind yourself of who you are. Do not be over-attracted by the Fair, do not spend too much time at any of its stalls as you are passing by. You are entitled to look at them, you are entitled to use this world, but you must not abuse it. Never forget where you are going, and who you are, and the family to which you belong. Keep these things in the forefront of your mind, says the Bible, and you will already have defeated the wiles of the devil in this matter of worldliness.” (p.367)
Go here to find many of Martyn Lloyd-Jones' sermons onine.
"A belief in the devil and his powers is an absolute essential to a belief in the biblical teaching concerning sin and evil. You cannot really believe the biblical doctrine concerning sin unless you believe in the devil and in the principalities and powers associated with him." .... "Further, a belief in the devil and his forces is absolutely essential to a true understanding of the biblical doctrine of salvation." .... "Do not think that you can understand the biblical doctrine of salvation and reject the devil. You cannot! You do not hold the true doctrine of salvation if you do not believe in the devil and his powers." (pp. 50, 51)
Chapter 7: The Subtle Foe
"There is nothing, I would say, which is more significant about evangelicalism in this present century [the 20th] than the way in which it has largely ignored this teaching concerning the devil and the principalities and powers, and the 'wiles of the devil'. (p.98)
"Another guise which the devil adopts, another mask which he puts on--and it is one of the cleverest of all--is that he hides himself altogether, and ridicules the whole notion that there is a devil at all, or any such beings as 'principalities and powers'." .... "The devil is at his very cleverest when he persuades people that there is no devil." (p.106)
Chapter 8: Heresies
"But somebody may ask, 'Does it matter whether you believe in a personal devil or not? The answer is that the Apostle most certainly assures us that we are fighting personalities and 'spirits' of evil, the world 'rulers of this darkness', not the 'darkness', but 'the rulers' of the darkness. His whole object is to get us to see that we must not be deluded in this respect, but realize that there are these spiritual entities, personalities, headed up by the devil himself, who are warring a terrible, subtle, vicious warfare against God and all His people. This is not a matter of opinion, it is not just a matter of accommodating our teaching to suit the modern mind and modern knowledge and understanding; if you do not believe in the person of the devil you are rejecting not only the teaching of the Apostle Paul but you are rejecting the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself!" (pp.108, 109)
Chapter 10: Counterfeits
"Any movement or teaching that does not make the Lord Jesus Christ and His death upon the cross, and His glorious resurrection, an absolute necessity, and absolutely central, is not Christian, but a manifestation of 'the wiles of the devil'." (p.143)
Chapter 12: Philosophy and Vain Deceit
"Beyond any doubt, in the last analysis the greatest single enemy of the Christian faith and the Christian truth is philosophy. This is the case because philosophy implies a final confidence in human reason, in the power of man's mind, in man's ability to arrive at truth, to comprehend it, and to encompass it. The ultimate problem is always the problem of authority. What is the ultimate authority with respect to truth? This is absolutely fundamental. According to the teaching of the Bible from beginning to end our supreme authority is God's revelation. Here is the great watershed that determines a man's whole position in these matters. We are either trusting entirely and exclusively to the revelation which God has been graciously pleased to give; or else ultimately we are trusting to our own ability, our own knowledge, our own understanding." (p.164)
"I have no doubt whatsoever in my own mind that the Christian Church is as she is today, very largely because for the last hundred years so much time has been given in the theological colleges and seminaries to the teaching of philosophy. It is the greatest enemy of the Christian truth." (p.171)
"Whenever the Christian Church is afraid of 'being a fool for Christ's sake' she has already gone wrong. This change for the worse took place about the period 1850-1870. There had been the great Evangelical Awakening in the eighteenth century. ..... [Then] The Church wanted to be intellectually respectable, she wanted to be able to parade her fine understanding of things before the world. But the moment she does that she has sold everything. We are to be 'fools for Christ's sake'. If you believe the Christian Gospel people will say to you, 'What, do you still believe that? Do you still believe in sin? Psychology has explained that long ago.' They will laugh at you. 'Do you still believe the Bible? Do you still take that as your ultimate authority? Do you really say that you put the Bible before all that has been discovered in the last 2,000 years about these very things?' And if you do not say unashamedly, 'Yes because it is still the Truth, and the only Truth', you have already succumbed to 'philosophy and vain deceit'. We are meant to be fools for Christ's sake." (pp.174, 175)
Chapter 17: Attacks Upon Assurance (Part 1)
"You will probably find that you are unhappy because you are not enjoying your relationship to Him as you should, and as you need to, and that makes you query whether you are in the relationship at all. Whatever I may feel, it is the relationship that matters; and my feelings do not make the slightest difference to the relationship, thank God!" (p. 246)
"So when the devil comes to you and tries to shake you because of your varying feelings and moods and states, tell him that you are not saved by your feelings, but saved by Christ, and that you are relying on Him, and on Him alone. Do that, and you will find that your feelings will come back; they will be restored to you. As long as you rely on Him, 'His mighty grasp of you', you will be able to defeat the wiles of the devil and rejoice again with a 'joy unspeakable and full of glory'." (p.248)
Chapter 18: Attacks Upon Assurance (Part 2)
"Never allow the devil to raise with you again the question of your justification. The Apostle John expresses this in his First Epistle: 'If we confess our sins, he is faithful' -- He would be going back on His own character if He did not forgive us -- 'he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness' (1 John 1:9). We are not sinless and perfect in this world, we cannot be; and therefore, if we think we are, there is something wrong with our doctrine. But John safeguards his doctrine against the error of the foolish, who veer off at a tangent as such people are always ready to do. He tells Christians that he is writing to them that they may not fall into sin, but that, if any Christian does sin he is not to feel that he has ceased to be a Christian; let him realize rather that 'we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world'. Never allow the devil to make you go back to the question of justification. If you have truly believed in Christ and are justified by faith, that is once and for ever, never to be repeated. Fall as a child before God, confess your sins, and He will forgive you your sins, and cleanse you from all unrighteousness."
(Pp.258, 259)
Chapter 21: Temptation and Sin
"I am certain that one of the main causes of the evil state of the Church today is the fact that the devil is being forgotten. All is attributed to us; we have all become so psychological in our attitude and thinking. We are ignorant of this great objective fact, the being, the existence of the devil, the adversary, the accuser, and his “fiery darts“. And, of course, because we are not aware of this we attribute all temptation to ourselves. So the devil in his wiliness will have succeeded admirably. We become depressed and discouraged, we feel that we are failures, and we do not know what to do. So the second answer is to remind ourselves of the devil himself, to expose him, to rip away the camouflage with which he always hides himself." (p.292)
"You resist the devil by refusing to argue with him, and by refusing to reason with him. There is only one thing to do with the devil, and that is, to have nothing to do with him, to dismiss him. If you acknowledge his suggestion, his thought, and begin to try to argue he will defeat you every time." (p.297)
"He knows the Scriptures much better than you do, and he will say, 'But what about this?' If you foolishly say, 'Very well, let us have a look at it', you are behaving in a foolish manner. Have nothing to do with him. 'Resist' means that you have nothing whatsoever to do with him. Tell him that he is a liar, take up 'the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God', and do what I have been saying. Do not take up any point, any word, any phrase; have nothing to do with him, and he will flee from you." (p.298)
Chapter 22: Discouragement
“The devil's objective is to get us to entertain such a feeling. If he can make us examine ourselves in such a manner that it not only becomes introspection but leads us to the conclusion that we have never been Christians at all, he is perfectly satisfied. I am reminding you that the fundamental answer to him is that, whatever we may feel like, we are still Christians. But how do we prove that to ourselves? That is the real need at this point. The way to do so-- and it is the reason why the Protestant Reformers saw that this is the fundamental article of a standing or a falling Church--is to remind yourself of justification by faith only! The devil says, 'Look at your record, there is only one conclusion to draw, you are not a Christian, you have never been a Christian'. Answer the devil by telling him that what makes a man a Christian is not anything that he finds in himself, it is 'Jesus' blood and righteousness'. Thank God for this, for if we all examined ourselves truly and tried to decide on the basis of our own life's record whether we are Christians or not, there would not be a single Christian! There is only one thing that makes us Christian--His righteousness, and nothing else.” (p.306)
Chapter 26: Worldliness
“The beginning of Christian understanding is that 'Our citizenship is in heaven' (Philippians 3:20). Heaven is where we belong. That is the essential difference between a Christian and a non-Christian. The Christian is a man who belongs to a different realm, the realm of God, the kingdom of God. He has been 'translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear Son' (Colossians 1:13). He is a stranger here, a journeyman, a pilgrim, a wayfarer. That is the Christian view of life, and if we keep this in the forefront of our minds we have gone most of the way already to defeat the devil as he attacks us in this matter of worldliness.” (p.366)
“That is the theme of the whole Bible. The Christian is a pilgrim, and life is a Pilgrim's Progress. We do not belong here. This world is Vanity Fair through which we are passing. We do not build permanently here. No, keep moving, keep your eye on your ultimate destiny, remind yourself of who you are. Do not be over-attracted by the Fair, do not spend too much time at any of its stalls as you are passing by. You are entitled to look at them, you are entitled to use this world, but you must not abuse it. Never forget where you are going, and who you are, and the family to which you belong. Keep these things in the forefront of your mind, says the Bible, and you will already have defeated the wiles of the devil in this matter of worldliness.” (p.367)
Go here to find many of Martyn Lloyd-Jones' sermons onine.
To see many more quotes of Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Grace Quotes
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