Jeff Ling

This is a startling and oh so welcome announcement. For many of us, the hope of ever purchasing series such as Romans from the MLJ Trust was just out of reach. No one would ever fault the trust for charging – it was just prohibitive for those with limited funds. Now, with their official announcement at Together For the Gospel 2012, ALL of the recorded sermons of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones can be downloaded for free! Amazing! This is such a gift from the Trust to the Body of Christ around the world. Many of us have benefited from “The Doctor’s” writing over the years and consider him to be one of the finest expositors the church has ever known.  You can visit the trust here to sign up for free.  Consider a donation to their ministry while you are there! Thanks be to God for this wonderful gift.

Here is there announcement in full:

This is probably the biggest announcement the MLJ Trust will ever make. Starting from tomorrow, April 12th, all 1,600 recorded sermons by Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones will be available to download, at no cost, to anyone who wants to listen to them! There are no exceptions, so the Ephesians sermons, Romans sermons, etc. will all be available (it will take a few days to make sure that they are all included in the library). All one has to do is join the MLJ Library (membership is free of course) and start to download! Simply go to our newly updated site at http://www.mljtrust.org and click on “MLJ Library”.

This is a decision that the UK Board has been wrestling with for a long time, because by moving away from the sale of MP3 discs (and tapes before that), which has kept the Recordings Trust in existence for 30 years in God’s grace, they will become completely dependent (as we are in the United States MLJ Trust ministry), on the voluntary donations of brothers and sisters who feel called to support the ministry while downloading sermons.

In the end, however, and after much prayer and discussion, our brothers in the UK felt that as the world of low-cost distribution through the internet was now far reaching enough that most people around the world (even in developing countries) can gain access to this ministry through a computer, and as many other ministries have had a positive experience shifting to a voluntary donation approach to on-line sermons, they felt (as we do) that this change might be in accordance with God’s will.

While there is some nervousness about such a big change, it our our most earnest hope, on both sides of the Atlantic, that this announcment will help us to fulfill the objective that has fueled this ministry since its inception 30 years ago: To preserve, and make as widely available as possible, the doctrinal exposition of God’s word by the late Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, a man who could never quite believe how God had used him for the benefit of the Gospel over his long ministry in the pulpit of Westminster Chapel.

This announcement eMail has been timed to coincide with our formal announcement at “Together for the Gospel”. This morning (Wednesday, April 11th), we will be making the announcement on stage to the approximately 7,000+ Christian leaders and teachers who will be attending, and we never forget that the participation of the MLJ Trust at this conference was made possible by the kind support of our subscribers.

To those who have been able to donate to our ministry, we thank you so much. For those who have not had an opportunity, but would like to help us continue funding this ministry, a link to our donations page is at the bottom left of this eMail (Your GeoTrust secured contribution will be processed by Network for Good). As a reminder, the MLJ Trust is 501 (c) (3) charitable consisting of four Board members who volunteer their time, and no staff. You can learn more about us at www.mljtrust.org.

How sweet are your words unto my taste! Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth. Psalm 110:103

This similitude is one of frequent occurrence in the Bible. Moses says, that the Lord made his people to “suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock.” It is quite clear, then, that we may regard this species of food as the symbol of great spiritual blessings. The sources from where the Christian’s nourishment is derived are various. We should be grateful to God that He has not limited us to one secondary source of spiritual nourishment. It was proper, it was wise and gracious in God, that there should be but one Plant of Renown, but one Rose of Sharon, but one Lily of the Valley, but one Living Vine, in other words, that there should be but one Savior and Redeemer, but one Head and Reservoir of the Church. But there are offshoots from this divine plant, there are streams issuing from this sacred fountain-head, from each of which the believer may, by faith, extract the nourishment that strengthens and revives hone?

And what is the word of God but this honey? And from where does this honey fall, but from the heart of God? It is the unfolding of the heart of God. His mind conveys the word, but His heart dictates the word. Take the promises; how “exceeding great and precious” they are. Have you not often found them sweet to your taste as the honey and the honeycomb? When some portion of the word suited to your present need has been brought home to your heart by the sealing power of the Holy Spirit, how have all other sweets become bitter to your taste compared with this! Your Heavenly Father saw your grief, your Divine Captain beheld your conflict and your exhaustion, and bade His Spirit go and drop that sweet promise into your sad heart, and you found the entrance of God’s word gave light and comfort to your sad and gloomy spirit.

The love of God in Christ! Oh, it is sweeter than honey. The love that gave Christ—that chose us in Christ—that has blessed us in Christ—that gives us standing in Christ—surely it passes all knowledge. To see it traveling over all the opposition of our unbelieving minds, and the corruption of our depraved hearts, and meeting us at some peculiar stage of our journey, in some painful crisis of our history, in some bitter lonely trial through which we are passing, how does this exalt our views of its greatness, and bring us into the experience of its sweetness! Such too is the love of the Spirit, His love as tasted in His calling—in His comforting—in His sanctifying—in His witnessing, and in all His effectual and unwearied teaching. “God is love;” and on this truth—sweet in our present experience—we shall be living through eternity, “if so be we have tasted that the Lord is gracious.”

Do you have a plan for reading the Scriptures this year?

 Here are 5 different plans to take a look at. Why not start the year off right?

1) The Two Year Bible Reading Plan prepared by Stephen Witmer. Here’s a link to downloadable PDF.

2) Lifeway Publishers have a page dedicated to several reading plans including the 4+1 Plan and a Chronological Plan

“Welcome to the Read the Bible for Life 4 + 1 Plan. In using this plan you will read through the entire Bible in a year and through the Psalms twice. The advantage of this type of plan is that you will be exposed to various parts of the Old and New Testaments simultaneously, which will keep your reading very fresh and remind you of “the whole counsel of God”! The plan is “semi-chronological” at points, the prophets of the Old Testament and the letters of the New Testament placed in rough chronological order. There are 6 days of reading each week, giving you a day to rest or catch up with a missed reading.”

3) One of the most challenging but most rewarding is Dr. Grant Horner’s Bible-Reading System.

“Professor Grant Horner’s unusual, challenging, and life-changing Bible Reading System is unlike any other you have ever seen. Try it for ONE MONTH and find out for yourself! You will never be the same.”

4) A plan adapted from a book by James M. Gray (1851-1935), How to Master the English Bible. This is a great system that will help you master any book of the Bible. It’s pretty simple: 1. Choose a book of the Bible. 2. Read it in its entirety. 3. Repeat step #2 twenty times. 4. Repeat this process for all books of the Bible. There are some great tips and good reasons for trying this here.

5) Finally, the English Standard Version website offers several plans, the Navigators do as well and the M’Cheyne Bible Calendar is a favorite of many.

So find a plan and get started! Don’t let failure to be consistent discourage you and get you off track. This isn’t about God’s acceptance of you. That’s settled by the cross – the blood plus nothing! This IS about you knowing the God who loves you and being equipped to speak the truth to yourself and others in love. Just keep going.

There is welcome news coming from the D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones trust regarding the 200+ audio recordings of The Doctor’s exposition of the Letter to the Ephesians. The trust will begin releasing a sermon download weekly begining January 8th.

Their announcement is as follows:

“The UK Martyn Lloyd-Jones Recordings Trust met yesterday for its semi-annual meeting in England, and in an act of incredible kindness and support for our ministry in the United States, they are allowing us, from January 8th 2012, to have a full length sermon every week on our page on Oneplace, and, further, they have also granted us permission to run the entire series of Ephesians, which Dr. Lloyd-Jones preached at Westminster Chapel over approximately three years. Please understand that this was an enormous decision for them to make, because the Recordings Trust has existed for 30 years on the funds coming from the sale of tapes and CDs, so this is a real act of faith and love on their part, and while we are grateful to all the UK Trustees, we are particularly grateful to Paul Mitchell, who became the Trust Director three years ago, and to Tony Ruston and Ray Gaydon, who built up the ministry over 30 years. Everything we are able to do today is because the Holy Spirit provided these men and their faithful service to this ministry.”

“This systematic exposition of the Epistle to the Ephesians was preached between 1954 & 1962 and the 232 sermons have been digitally restored to benefit a new generation of Christians.”

In his intro to the series, the Doctor says:

“As we approach this Epistle, I confess freely that I do so with considerable temerity. It is very difficult to speak of it in a controlled manner, because of its greatness and because of its sublimity. Many have tried to describe it. One writer described it as ‘the crown and climax of Pauline theology’. Another has said that it is ‘the distilled essence of the Christian religion, the most authoritative and most consummate compendium of our holy Christian faith’. What language! And it is by no means exaggerated.”
(Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones)

This truly generous on their part. The collection of  messages on CD offered on their website is 250.00. So to offer these for free download over the next few years is a gift! You may want to visit the ministry’s Living Grace audio page at One Place and subscribe to the email alerts that will keep you informed as new sermons are added. While you’re there, be sure to download Dr. Lloyd-Jones’ three messages on Hebrews.

The message from Sunday the 11th:
Though the fig tree should not blossom,
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
and there be no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD;
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
GOD, the Lord, is my strength;
he makes my feet like the deer’s;
he makes me tread on my high places.
(Habakkuk 3:17-19 ESV)