Daily Devotional

February 20

A First Book of Daily Readings

by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (selected by Frank Cumbers)
Posted from the OPC Website

It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth

The argument that the modern man refuses to be coerced into living the good life by the fear of God but will respond to appeals is entirely falsified by the facts...; as men have ceased to believe in the wrath of God and have discarded the idea of law and righteousness, so their moral standards have gradually deteriorated and conduct has become lax and loose....

As men ceased to recognize God as the One to whom they are responsible and under whose eye they live, so a sense of discipline and order gradually began to disappear from all the relationships of life. A man who does not live a life of obedience himself soon ceases to be concerned about the fact that his own children should obey him. The result is that discipline in the home has been sadly neglected, children no longer respect their parents as they should, and quite frequently these children have become the tyrants of the home.


The fact is that those who were brought up under the stern and strict, and often hard, discipline of former times had actually a deeper regard as well as a greater respect for their parents…. As man's sense of responsibility to God has declined, and as he has ceased to believe that God has ordained the whole of life, including the natural orders of society, so the ideas of the family and home, of marriage and parenthood, and, indeed, of law and order in general, have become looser and looser, and men have regarded themselves as being laws unto themselves.

And what real hope can there be of international peace and concord unless nations are prepared to recognize and acknowledge a law above themselves and outside themselves—a law which has sanctions and power, a law the breaking of which will lead to suffering and punishment?

The Plight of Man and the Power of God, pp. 65-6

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“Text reproduced from ‘A First Book of Daily Readings’ by Martyn Lloyd-Jones, published by Epworth Press 1970 & 1977 © Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes. Used with permission.”