This volume is the fifth in a series of eight volumes. The contents were originally preached as part of a systematic exposition of the Epistle to the Ephesians on Sunday mornings at Westminster Chapel, London, between 1954 and 1962.
David Martyn Lloyd-Jones was a Welsh Protestant minister, preacher and medical doctor who was influential in the Reformed wing of the British evangelical movement in the 20th century. For almost 30 years, he was the minister of Westminster Chapel in London. Lloyd-Jones was strongly opposed to Liberal Christianity, which had become a part of many Christian denominations; he regarded it as aberrant. He disagreed with the broad church approach and encouraged evangelical Christians (particularly Anglicans) to leave their existing denominations. He believed that true Christian fellowship was possible only amongst those who shared common convictions regarding the nature of the faith.
I find it such a relief that we can read sermons in a printed format. If I had had to listen to Lloyd-Jones preaching his way through Ephesians over an eight year period I am not sure that I would have had the patience or concentration to enjoy it or benefit by it. Every week might have felt the same and blended into one forgettable and homogenous blur. To have Lloyd-Jones's finely detailed reasoning committed to paper is a much more satisfying and useful way of hearing his teaching as far as I am concerned. But I also love variety, and it is nice to be able to alternate between volumes of sermons of very different styles. Taken each by itself, the style of each volume could grow stale with time, taken too much for granted, where alternating between styles allows one to appreciate the advantages of each without feeling like one is missing out of something important, different preachers catering to different needs of the heart and mind.
I would love to be able to distribute many copies of this particular volume of Lloyd-Jones's sermons. The sermons feel very appropriate today, affirming the assertion that there is nothing new under the sun. Even fifty years ago people were complaining that not enough money was being put into the NHS, and that prisons were overcrowded and that crime was on the rise. Outside of cultural references, and more importantly, Lloyd-Jones's understanding and analysis of the human heart and mind is spot on. A really excellent volume for anyone to dip into or to read from cover to cover. It's evangelistic for the non-Christian as well as being instructive and encouraging and challenging for the Christian. Many topics are covered over the course of the volume and there is plenty of variety of applications to be found.