The Sacred Anointing

185 Pages·2007·2.02 MB·English

by  Tony Sargent

The Sacred Anointing

An enquiry into the convictions of David Martyn Lloyd-Jones on unction as the paramount
need in the preaching ministry

Tony Sargent

The sermon itself is the main thing … the sacred anointing upon the preacher, and the divine power apply-
ing the truth to the hearer … these are infinitely more important than any details of manner.
C.H. Spurgeon1

1 Lectures to My Students, in 3 vols (1st series, Passmoed & Alabaster, 1881, Zondervan, 1980), p. 96; also quoted by Iain H.
Murray, The Fight of Faith, p. 264.
2
[Page iv]
Copyright © 1994 Tony Sargent
First published in Great Britain in 1994 by Hodder & Stoughton
This edition first published 2007 by Paternoster
Paternoster is an imprint of Authentic Media,
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Authentic Media is a division of IBS-STL UK, a company limited by guarantee
(registered charity no. 270162)
The right of Tony Sargent to be identified as the Author of this Work has been
asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, me-
chanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of
the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying. In the UK such licences
are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, Lon-
don, W1P 9HE
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN-13: 978-1-84227-478-1
3
[Page v]

This book is affectionately dedicated with grateful thanks to the memory of the late

Tom Macbeth Paterson

constant encourager, teacher, adviser, pastor and one who, during the time I was his assistant, ensured that
we regularly went to the Doctor!
4
[Page vii]
Contents

Foreword
Preface
Introduction
Author’s Notes
1 The Smile of God
2 Background
3 Unction
4 ‘Suing God’
5 Pauline Influence
6 Godliness
7 The Earlier Years
8 Diagnostic Preaching (I)
9 Diagnostic Preaching (II)
10 Checks
11 Balances
12 Not in Word Only
13 Retrospect
General Index
5

[Page ix]

Foreword

It will be with me for the remainder of my life. I will never forget the sense of divine presence and divine
authority experienced on occasions when I listened to Dr Martin Lloyd-Jones expounding scripture. I re-
member hundreds of young people holding on to every word as he ministered to volunteers based on one of
our ships. The subject also was unforgettable—‘The Word and the Spirit’. To listen to the tape of that sermon
is still an enormous blessing and challenge, though it must have been preached at least 30 years ago. Later I
listened to one of the last sermons that Dr Lloyd-Jones ever preached, delivered in my home city of Carlisle.
The exposition of the conversion of Saul is as fresh in my memory as if it was delivered yesterday. Indeed in
my own preaching I still repeat some of the sentences delivered that day, though I made no attempt to memo-
rise them. There was a power in that preaching which cannot be explained merely by human oratory or per-
suasive logic. Dr Sargent’s contention is that this was the unction of the Holy Spirit upon the ministry—the
sacred anointing of God. Thinking back to those days, I can only agree 100% with the author.
We believe in the sufficiency of scripture. The Bible is the completed word of God. But it is also the living
word as ‘the Spirit breathes upon the word and brings the truth to light’. Relevant in every age and for every
generation.
I am delighted to see this book being reprinted and my prayer is that I, every preacher, and every teacher
of homiletics will always recall the central theme of this book. ‘The supreme thing needed in the pulpit at the
point of the delivery of the sermon is unction. May the study of this book and the application of its challenge
deliver us from ‘ossified orthodoxy’—to use Dr Lloyd-Jones’ own words.
Peter Maiden
International Director, Operation Mobilisation
6
[Page xi]

Preface

I am glad this book is going into print again, this time under the Paternoster label. It was well received 16
years ago. Particularly gratifying was its translation into Korean. This edition is being printed together with a
new book Gems from Martin Lloyd-Jones. In the original preface to The Sacred Anointing I said that I hoped
one day to release an anthology of his ministry which would be a generous selection of quotations taken from
virtually the whole gamut of Dr Lloyd-Jones’ published sermons. The task took longer than I anticipated.
Increasingly, preaching receives a bad press and allegedly is sinking in popularity, even within the
churches. There may be some truth in this, but it is not the whole story. In the United Kingdom hundreds of
young men and women still offer for the ministry. Some preachers’ conferences, including those at Westmin-
ster Chapel where Dr Lloyd-Jones ministered for nearly thirty years, draw hundreds of people. The work of
the Proclamation Trust is becoming more widely known and in our own college dozens of students have gone
through our homiletics and communication classes. Added to this, the circulation of books and demand for
tapes by Lloyd-Jones is staggering. Spurgeon and F.B. Meyer, too, are still in demand, as are the books of Dr
John Stott.
Sometimes I am asked, ‘How would Lloyd-Jones’ approach to the preaching ministry ‘work’ today?’ Else-
where I have written on this. Would he have made any modifications in a so-called postmodern era? John
Brencher, in an incisive but sympathetic critique of his overall ministry suggests, with justification, that
Lloyd-Jones did not take easily to change. In the pulpit his was virtually the only voice, the service order re-
mained constant, the hymns came from the same milieu. Would he have moved over to the NIV version of the
Bible, and made more allowance for the increasing biblical illiteracy of modern congregations? Would he
have ruled out all new songs and hymns and given further consideration to a team ministry? I can only muse
over the possibility.
But there are areas on which I write with certainty. He would not have faltered in his conviction in the
absolute necessity for preaching. Such ministry must centre on the essential doctrines of salvation. He would
argue that right theology alone in the pulpit is not enough. His convictions about the work of the Spirit, the
technical term is pneumatology, in the delivery of sermons is fixed. To explore his convictions in this area
was one of the reasons why I [Page xii] attempted this book. Unction is vital in the proclaiming of the mes-
sage. Unction demonstrates that the ‘smile of God’ is on the preacher. Without it he is ineffective. Lloyd-Jones
would be emphasising this even more so today. He would not have shifted from his conviction that man qua
man remains the same. Paul’s personal diagnosis of the human condition stands for every man throughout
the whole of time. ‘For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do … O wretched
man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ (Rom. 7:19, 24)
Every generation repeats the mistakes of the previous. As Hegel put it ‘history teaches us that history
teaches us nothing.’ The only answer to the recurrent problem of man is the timeless remedy of the gospel;
expressed plainly—the blood of Christ alone can deal with the sins of mankind.
My hope is that this book, twinned with the anthology (Gems from Martin Lloyd-Jones), will coax a fu-
ture generation of preachers not to copy but learn from Lloyd-Jones. May they with clarity, accuracy and
relevance proclaim the truth. And in so doing, may they be persuaded, as Peter Maiden advises in his fore-
word, to seek that unction which is so essential.
Tony Sargent
International Christian College
Glasgow
7
[Page xiii]

Introduction

Dr Lloyd-Jones once remarked that ten years should pass before a book was written on a preacher and his
ministry Well, more than a decade has elapsed since his homecall in 1981. In this volume I am attempting to
assess his preaching method in the light of the influence which he exerted unconsciously on the author. I
have endeavoured to absorb as much of his procedure as appropriate into my own ministry. Faced with a
verse or passage of Scripture it has been helpful to ask, ‘How would Lloyd-Jones have tackled this text? How
would he have analysed and applied it?’ In this book I seek to share my findings with a readership which
probably includes a good percentage of preachers.
Would Dr Lloyd-Jones have approved of such a project? Inasmuch as he gave lectures on preaching years
ago in what has become a bestselling book2 we feel his answer would have been positive. However he would
have urged that, in the final analysis, the preacher must be his own man.
Why a book on his method of preaching if he revealed all in his volume? My defence is that I have at-
tempted an evaluation of his method by constant referral to his own addresses, whether released in print or
tape form. I have tried thus to show how his principles are illustrated in his preaching and how his method-
ology can be adapted and usefully applied by men in the ministry. To do this I have read virtually all the pub-
lished sermons thus far available as well as ensuring that plenty of tapes were my companions in many jour-
neyings.
Researching this book has been a fascinating project. The goal was to follow the evidence rather than be
influenced by previous assumptions. Early on, a major adjustment had to be made to my skeleton outline. It
became obvious that no book on Lloyd-Jones’s homiletics could be offered without due consideration being
given to his doctrine of the Holy Spirit. And, without treading on ground so thoroughly gone over by his bi-
ographer, some personal references had to be incorporated into this thesis. You cannot grasp the measure of
Lloyd-Jones’s preaching without considering in some fashion the man. Also, in a manner which is unusual if
not unique in contemporary preaching, it became clear that Lloyd-Jones’s homiletics and hermeneutics are
both contingent on his pneumatology. If the former is the fruit, the latter is the root. In the natural order of
things roots come first. Thus it became increasingly clear that I had to explore [Page xiv] his convictions on
the doctrine of the Spirit which he developed and crystallised over the years in relation to the act of preach-
ing.
His plea was not that the pulpit should be graced by a more erudite standard of ministry but rather that
the ministry should be Spirit-filled. Preachers are to be borne along by the Holy Ghost. Unction is the key. It
held the pivotal place in his convictions. This is reflected in the amount of treatment I have given to this sub-
ject which, I claim, is justified by his emphasis. My purpose has not been to defend Lloyd-Jones but to define,
declare and illustrate the position that he took. Neither have I attempted a eulogy, though I recognise the
danger because I owe him a great deal.
I am not suggesting that Dr. Lloyd-Jones was a faultless preacher or an infallible theologian. In some ar-
eas his theology is frayed and not systematic. Slavishly to follow his method would be counter-productive for
those whose natural gifts are not equivalent to his and whose pulpit is not in a down-town, historic church.
However, if our critiques of Dr. Lloyd-Jones and his method are not as sharp and our reservations are not as
great as some might desire, my apologia follows that of Arnold Dallimore when researching the life of
George Whitefield, which gave birth to his two-volume, magisterial biography:
I have endeavoured to give my portrait of Whitefield both reality and depth. I make known not only his
accomplishments and abilities, but also his foibles and his mistakes. I must confess, however, that I had al-

2 Preaching and Preachers (Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1971).
8
most wished his faults had been more pronounced, lest by reason of their fewness and feebleness, I should be
charged with favouritism.3
As we concede, not everyone will be convinced by Dr. Lloyd-Jones’s position on the doctrine of the Spirit.
But surely no biblical preacher will oppose him in his contention that the supreme thing needed in the pulpit
at the point of delivery of the sermon is unction. The extraordinary, ever-increasing output of his books, am-
ply illustrates his conviction. A sensitive reading of the printed page reveals that he did have an unusually
powerful experience of the Holy Spirit’s anointing. Though he personally was not happy about tape minis-
tries4 (yet he did allow his sermons to be recorded), after his passing a tape-library was established with the
goal of making his preaching ministry widely available. Some of these give classic illustrations of a man in
the act of preaching being borne along by the Holy Ghost.
In researching this book I have kept the needs of preachers in mind as well as those of the average mem-
ber of any congregation mature enough to wish to study what the preaching ministry entails. Thus, when
referring to sermons on tape, I have deliberately selected those which not only secure the point being made
about Dr. Lloyd-Jones’s theology and preaching but serve as an example, at a wider level, of high quality
preaching. The Lloyd-Jones’ Recording Trust was once asked if it stocked C.H. Spurgeon’s ministry! The en-
quirer had obviously profited a great deal from the famous Baptist preacher’s sermons. The request was not
just to read what he had to say but hear how he said it. Alas [Page xv] that tape recorders were not in those
days available to eavesdrop on such an eloquent ministry. Students of Lloyd-Jones are much more favoured.
It is my hope that many ministers and those in training will obtain some of the tapes referred to in order to
hear Dr Lloyd-Jones for themselves.
The nature of the book demands extensive quotation from DML-J’s published material. I express heartfelt
thanks to his daughter Lady Elizabeth Catherwood for giving free access to the tapes and graciously allowing
ample quotation from her father’s works. It is my intention to publish a glossary of quotations on a variety of
topics from Dr Lloyd-Jones’s ministry. To have added this to the present volume would have made it too thick
a book and rendered it unmanageable.
It was at Westminster Theological Seminary (Philadelphia) that Dr Lloyd-Jones delivered his lectures
which gave birth to his book on preaching. Westminster have now, in their Californian campus, a doctoral
research programme dedicated to the exploration of homiletics and hermeneutics. This volume was part of
the work that I attempted under their auspices particularly encouraged by Professor David Schuringa. It is
released to a wider audience in the hope that the contents may benefit an increasing generation of preachers.
Much of my material has been written up between sessions of conferences at which I have preached in a
variety of countries. I owe a great debt to ministers, pastors and church leaders who—from the borders of
Afghanistan to the islands of Japan, from Tanzania to what was the Soviet Union—have invited me to con-
duct pastors’ conferences. To Operation Mobilisation and the Africa Inland Mission with whom I have been
associated for more than fifteen years I am also indebted. They, and especially George Verwer, stimulated the
more international aspects of a ministry which two decades ago never trespassed beyond the borders of the
coastal resort of Worthing in the south of England.
I am grateful to my congregations into the pastorate of which I was inducted by Dr Lloyd-Jones twenty-
three years ago for their forbearance, patience and encouragement. Special thanks are also due to Kenneth
Jowett and Joan Hall who spent hours helping me in my researches; to members of our pastoral team and
particularly my gifted colleague Pastor Tim Saunders who, along with Dr R.T. Kendall and the Rev. Dr H.R.
Hywel-Jones, Principal of the London Theological Seminary, critiqued my efforts but have no responsibility at
all for the finished product.
My appreciation too to Tony Chapman, Jenny Crutchfield, Gill Smith Boyes and to my one-time Sunday
school teacher turned religious editorial consultant, Edward England, who seemed to take pleasure in the
notion that one of his lads from our native city of Sheffield eventually appeared to have made good!
I would also like to express my thanks to Bob and Ramona Adams of Escondido, who opened their home
to me and made me very much part of their family while engaging in my doctoral research programme; and

3 Arnold A. Dallimore, George Whitefield, The Life and Times of the great evangelist of the 18th century revival (Banner of Truth,
London, 1970).
4 Preaching and Preachers, p. 18.