Here’s a short segment from the ‘short biography‘ by Christopher Catherwood of Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones. (It’s not strictly a biography – the subtitle runs: ‘His Life and Relevance for the 21st Century’.)
“My relationship to the Doctor (as his eldest grandchild) is not directly relevant to this book. My goal is to introduce him to a new generation of readers and to help those discovering wonderful biblical truths for the first time learn how to think scripturally for themselves as Christians. This book is as much about the kind of evangelical mind that Lloyd-Jones possessed, and the way in which he went about his daily life before God, as what he did and when. He felt that if one was biblical, one was always relevant, and that is as true in the twenty-first century as it was in the twentieth or eighteenth.
He was, of course, a man of his own time, ordained by God to live from 1899 to 1981 and to reach out to people in that time span. But while it might be true to say, as some have in recent days, that no one in the Internet age would listen to a ninety-minute sermon, the principles of what Dr. Lloyd-Jones preached are surely as relevant as ever. It is not the length of his preaching that matters but what underlies it.
“When he stepped into the pulpit every Sunday morning and evening and every Friday night in Westminster Chapel, there was a hush and sense of expectation. His black Geneva gown him him as an individual and drew attention to why he was there: to give his hearers a real sense of the presence of God through the preaching of God’s Word, the Bible.
“In the pulpit, he was serious. Outside it, he was often warm and funny, but so important was his message when he preached that he had a serious demeanor that everyone noticed. That was counterintuitive even in his time, when famous preachers were known for their flamboyance, literary allustions, and jokes. But the eternal destiny of the human race left no time for frivolity! And he communicated that to his congregation the moment he donned his black robe and entered the pulpit.” (Catherwood, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, pp 14-15.)