The secret of the early Christians, the early Protestants, Puritans and Methodists was that they were taught about the love of Christ, and they became filled with a knowledge of it. Once a man has the love of Christ in his heart you need not train him to [...]]]> D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Unsearchable Riches of Christ, 253:

The secret of the early Christians, the early Protestants, Puritans and Methodists was that they were taught about the love of Christ, and they became filled with a knowledge of it. Once a man has the love of Christ in his heart you need not train him to witness; he will do it. He will know the power, the constraint, the motive; everything is already there. It is a plain lie to suggest that people who regard this knowledge of the love of Christ as the supreme thing are useless, unhealthy mystics. The servants of God who have most adorned the life and the history of the Christian Church have always been men who have realized that this is the most important thing of all, and they have spent hours in prayer seeking His face and enjoying His love. The man who knows the love of Christ in his heart can do more in one hour than the busy type of man can do in a century. God forbid that we should ever make of activity an end in itself. Let us realize that the motive must come first, and that the motive must ever be the love of Christ.

Eternal Light! Eternal Light! How [...]]]> Last night I listened to an outstanding message by Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones called “Full Assurance of Hope.”  As he does so well, the good Doctor deeply ministered the grace of the gospel to my soul.  In the course of his message he quoted the text of this beautiful, gospel-inspired hymn by Thomas Binney:

Eternal Light! Eternal Light!
How pure that soul must be,
When, placed within thy searching sight,
It shrinks not, but with calm delight
Can live, and look on thee.

The spirits that surround thy throne
May bear the burning bliss;
But surely that is theirs alone
Who, undefiled, have never known
A fallen world like this.

O how shall I, whose native sphere
Is dark, whose mind is dim,
Before the Ineffable appear,
And on my naked spirit bear
The uncreated beam?

There is a way for man to rise
To that sublime abode:
An offering and a sacrifice,
A Holy Spirit’s energies,
An Advocate with God:

These, these prepare us for the sight
Of holiness above:
The sons of ignorance and night
May dwell in the eternal Light,
Through the eternal Love!

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