A Prayer By Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Quoting Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones:

“O Lord our God, have mercy upon us. Forgive us especially; we pray thee again, for our folly – for our foolish talking about our century and the ‘modern man’, as if anything had changed.

Awaken us, we pray thee, and bring us to see that thy method is still the same, that the truth remains unchanged and unchanging, and that the power of the blessed Holy Spirit is in no sense diminished.

Lord, hear us. Revive thy work O Lord, thy mighty arm make bare. Speak with a voice that wakes the dead and make the people hear. And unto thee and unto thee alone, shall we give all the praise and the honor and the glory, both now and forever, amen.”

No Flesh Should Glory

Jonathan Edwards

God aims in the disposition of things to demonstrate that man should not glory in himself, but in God alone. Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) emphasizes below that no flesh should glory in His presence:

God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 1:28-31)

Those Christians to whom the apostle directed this epistle dwelt in a part of the world where human wisdom was in great repute; as the apostle observes in the 22d verse of this chapter, “The Greeks seek after wisdom.” Corinth was not far from Athens, which had been for many ages the most famous seat of philosophy and learning in the world.

The apostle therefore observes to them, how that God, by the gospel, destroyed and brought to naught their human wisdom. The learned Grecians, and their great philosophers, by all their wisdom did not know God: they were not able to find out the truth in divine things. But after they had done their utmost to no effect, it pleased God at length to reveal himself by the gospel, which they accounted foolishness. He “chose the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty, and the base things of the world, and things that are despised, yea, and things which are not, to bring to naught the things that are.” And the apostle informs them why he thus did, in the verse of the text; that no flesh should glory in his presence. (Sermon: “God Glorified In Man’s Dependence”)