1965
When you consider all of the author's great expositions of Scripture, it may seem strange that we've selected a book that isn't.
But although Lloyd-Jones is best known as a preacher, he had been trained as a physician and had practiced medicine before he went into the ministry. Though he wrote dozens of books ^ 147 J on verse-by-verse Bible study and Reformed theology, his most widely acclaimed book is Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cure.
As Christopher Catherwood wrote in his biographical sketch of Lloyd-Jones (Five Evangelical Leaders, Harold Shaw Press, 1985),
Spiritual Depression is a key to understanding the man. It not only demonstrates his spiritual insight but also reveals two other important sides of his life. "He was very much the pastor as well as the preacher, and ... he was greatly helped in his pastoral work by his medical training."
"You cannot isolate the spiritual from the physical," he wrote,
"for we are body, soul, and spirit." Even something like overtiredness has spiritual effects, he noted. Yet the ultimate causes of spiritual depression were the devil and human unbelief. Many Christians struggle with depression because they aren't sure of their salvation; sometimes they don't fully rest in the truth of justification by faith.
Sometimes depression comes from the idea that once a person is converted, life will be happy ever after. But Christians should have a better understanding of Satan's wiles than that. Lloyd-Jones speaks of the "balance of the Christian life, which is found in obedience (the will), coming from the heart (the emotions), guided by sound doctrine (the mind)."
The New Testament confirms that Christians are always facing trials and temptations, Lloyd-Jones points out. Paul speaks of the "fight of faith," but within each Christian is the Holy Spirit, who is called the Spirit of power and the Spirit of love.
The Christian is also reminded of God's forgiveness through the death of Christ. ״Christianity/׳ says Lloyd-Jones, "is common sense." If you are dominated by your feelings, you get into trouble, but the ״great antidote to spiritual depression," he says, is understanding biblical doctrine.
Born in Wales, Martyn Lloyd-Jones entered medical school in London when he was only sixteen years old, and there he studied under Sir Thomas Horder, the royal physician, who was the leading physician of his day. He never forgot the value of asking questions before making a diagnosis, a practice that greatly helped him in the Christian ministry. Though he never had any formal theological training, he made the switch from medicine to a pulpit ministry after only a few years in medical practice. He became the minister of the Bethlehem Forward Movement Mission Church in Aberavon, Wales, with a working-class congregation. Within a few years he was hailed as the greatest Welsh preacher since the Welsh revival of 1904. Then in 1939 he accepted a call to become pastor of Westminster Chapel in London, succeeding G. Campbell Morgan. He stayed there for the next thirty years.
"He became probably the most influential evangelical leader in Britain," says Oliver Barclay of the British Inter-Varsity, and this was partly because he helped evangelicals gain a new confidence in biblical truth and historic Christian doctrine.