Daily Devotional

March 12

A First Book of Daily Readings

by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (selected by Frank Cumbers)
Sourced from the OPC website

We praise Thee for the radiance
That from the hallowed page,
A lantern to our footsteps,
Shines on from age to age

The authority of the Scriptures is not a matter to be defended, so much as to be asserted.... I am reminded of what the great Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said in this connection: "There is no need for you to defend a lion when he is being attacked.  All you need to do is to open the gate and let him out"; ... it is the preaching and exposition of the Bible that really establish its truth and authority.

I believe that this is more true today, perhaps, ... than it has been for the last two centuries.... There is nothing that really explains the whole world situation, as it is today, except the Bible. Take even the question of the origin of the world and the very nature and character of the world itself. We know that there have been certain scientists in this present century who ... have been forced to come to the conclusion that there must be a great Mind, a great Architect, behind the universe.... The Bible has always asserted this, but at long last some of these men are coming to admit it.


But when you come to consider the state and condition of the world, this particular point is still more evident. When you look at the average individual man as he is today, in spite of all the advance of learning and culture and knowledge, ... what are you to say? When you are confronted by the fact of two major world wars in this present century, ... the only adequate explanation is that which is given in the Bible: the biblical doctrine of sin. Nothing else really gives an adequate explana­tion....

It is only in the light of this teaching that you can understand the whole process of history. Now it is of great interest and real significance to observe that the critics themselves are now beginning to say this. They used to deny it.... They hated the whole notion of sin. Man was developing and improving. He was getting better and better. But now they have been forced to admit the truth of the biblical teaching and they are coming back to it.

Authority, pp. 41-2

---

“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.”