March 9 Daily Devotional

A First Book of Daily Readings

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (selected by Frank Cumbers)

Bible Reading

“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.”

Comments on D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, A First Book of Daily Readings

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Devotional

Today, while it is called today!

It is only in the light of God's hatred and abhorrence of sin that we can really see His love and appreciate the wonder and the glory of the gospel. The measure of His anger against sin is the measure of the love that is prepared to forgive the sinner and to love him in spite of the sin. In spite of all the talk and writing about the love of God during the past century, there has been much less evidence of true appreciation of the love of God and less readiness to surrender all to it.

The idea of love has been so sentimentalized that it has become little more or better than a vague general benevolence. The love of God is a holy love. It expresses itself not by condoning sin or compromising with it; it deals with it and yet does so in such a way that the sinner is not destroyed with his sin but is delivered from it and its consequences....

But there is no real ground at all for the objection to this teaching concerning "the wrath of God." For the way of escape is wide open. There is no need for anyone to remain under the wrath of God. And surely that fact settles the matter. Were there no escape, the position would be very different. But what can happen to anyone who deliberately refuses to accept that offer of salvation save to suffer the consequences of that refusal?

And that is the explanation of the note of urgency in the preaching of Paul and the other Apostles and of all the greatest preachers ever since. That is why the gospel is good news. The wrath of God already revealed. But now the way to escape that wrath is also revealed in the gospel of Christ.

The Plight of Man and the Power of God, pp. 72-3