April 9th, 2010
Lloyd-Jones, Martyn. Living Water: Studies in John 4. Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2009. 730 pp. $40.00.
Introduction
Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) is well known by many in the Reformed circles of Christianity. This is because of his love for the Puritans–he has been given credit as the man who single-handedly brought Banner of Truth into life. Banner of Truth is most known for their Puritan Paperback Series. My prayer is that he would be well known throughout all of Christendom. He has much to offer today’s Christian. You can download sermons for free at OnePlace.com. I highly recommend you check out that website.
Summary
Living Water is a compilation of 56 sermons delivered by Dr. Lloyd-Jones on John 4:13-14. The breadth of these sermons (imagine one year spent in studying two verses!) is beyond my ability to describe. He begins with the possibility of the Christian life for all people and shows, through careful exposition how Christ impacted one woman in a private discussion and then explains how He should impact all of us in much the same way.
His sermon entitled Wrong Ideas of Worship and of God is worth the price of the book as he shows how Christ says we should worship God. The five or so sermons at the end of the book greatly challenged me regarding my evangelism. Again, these sermons are very pertinent to today’s church.
Along the way, ML-J details what conviction of sin really means, how one can be saved, why we ought to believe in the authority of the Bible as the Word of God, and even a sermon on the difference between Christianity and religion. As I said above, this sermon series compiled into this book is amazing in detail and length.
Review/Recommendation
It is hard to review another pastor’s sermon unless he is espousing heresy. Dr. Lloyd-Jones brings out many different nuances of these two verses. He applies them to the Christian walk today and offers many defenses of the Christian faith along the way. To read Living Water is to take a class in evangelism, systematic theology, and apologetics at the same time.
What is more, Ian Murray wrote in an article for Banner of Truth magazine that this is the last of ML-J’s sermons to be published. All of his sermons have been exhausted in terms of formatting them for print publication. While starting with Living Water may seem daunting (it is 730 pages!), I highly recommend that you pick up anything by Martyn Lloyd-Jones and be fed by arguably the greatest expositor and pastor of the 20th century.
Christian Book Notes 