Thursday, January 24, 2013

Quote of the Day

…Dr Lloyd-Jones believed that, while the truth ought to result in profound emotion, the cultivation of 'emotionalism' was thoroughly alien to true Christianity.  Feeling alone he saw as not merely valueless, it was positively dangerous.  'Emotionalism is ever the most real, because the most subtle, enemy of evangelicalism.'  True feeling must be a result of truth believed and understood, and he frequently gave warning against that type of service where attempts are made to induce emotion by 'working up'  the meeting with music and choruses, or by the telling of moving stories.  'tears are a poor criterion for faith, being carried away in a meeting by eloquence or singing or excitement is not the same as committing oneself to Christ.'  To aim at emotion is the surest way to produce counterfeit Christians. 

Thus his belief was that where feeling could be restrained it ought to be restrained.  The power of God was more likely to be known in a solemn stillness than amid noise and excitement.

- From Iain Murray's biography of Martyn Lloyd-Jones

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