Saved by Grace Alone: Sermons on Ezekiel 36:16-36

Martyn Lloyd Jones (1899-1081) was one of the leading British evangelicals of the twentieth century. Trained as a medical doctor he first served a small congregation in Wales. On a local level a revival was seen under his ministry there. From 1939 to 1968 he was the pastor of Westminster Chapel, London. In the past years the Banner of Truth has published several books of Lloyd Jones: bundles of lectures and also bundles of sermons. Especially, I mention the series on Romans and Ephesians.

Preaching from consecutive passages without being boring  was on one the strong points that characterized the preaching of Lloyd Jones. Listening to or reading his sermons you feel that the Scriptures are really opened and it Gospel message explained and applied,. We also see this in the fourteen sermons on Ezekiel 36:16-36 that are contained in Saved by Grace Alone published by the Banner of Truth in 2018.

While his sermons are firmly based on the meaning of Scripture in its original context, they are not overloaded with historical and exegetical detail. The preaching of Lloyd Jones is focuses on the unchanging needs of man and the true solution for it given in the gospel of God’s grace revealed in Christ. Lloyd Jones plainly deals with the reality of sin, but also points urgently and tenderly to the complete sacrifice of Christ.

By God’s grace God himself, and not just blessings he gives, comes the greatest joy of the believer. A true believer knows he is saved from the wrath to come. He is a pilgrim on the way to his ultimate destiny: the new Jerusalem. Lloyd Jones never spoke about justification by faith alone and regeneration by God’s Spirit as if it were trivial matters or just the best options among others. He emphasized they are essential for real Christianity. Alone when we are saved by grace alone can we expect that we have no reason to fear when we die and to appear on the final day before the judgment seat of Christ.

I can heartily recommend the reading of this powerful sermons. Let ministers and theological students listen to the voice of Lloyd Jones as a model of real Gospel preaching; preaching that takes seriously that man’s eternal destiny depends on the fact whether he is saved by grace alone or not. When you are save by grace alone, you understand why Charles Wesley longed for a thousand tongues to sing his great Redeemer’s praise.

Martyn Lloyd Jones, Saved by Grace Alone: Sermons on Ezekiel 36:16-36 (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth, 2018), paperback 239 pp., ₤7,50 (ISBN 9781848718289)