Lloyd-Jones on Preaching and Politics

“Most people are troubled about the discord between nations. That is right, and it is also right that we should be deeply concerned about the clashes within nations. People are giving their opinions, and talking boldly, and condemning this side and that side. But when you get to know something about the private lives of some of the people who are most eloquent in that respect, you will find that, in their own married lives, they are doing exactly the same things that they are condemning! How ridiculous it is!

“One great difference between Christianity and secularism is that secularism is always talking about generalities, and the individual is forgotten. Christianity realizes that the mass, the nation, is nothing after all but a collection of individuals. I have very little interest in what a statesman has to say if he does not carry out his principles in his own personal life. What right has he to talk about the sanctity of international contracts, and to say what people should do and not do in groups, if he is not carrying out in his own private life the precepts he gives to men and women in their various spheres?

“It is as individuals are put right that a nation is put right. The most glorious epochs in the history of this country [Britain] have followed times when a personal gospel has been preached, and when a large number of individuals have become Christians. It is only then that we have begun to approximate to a Christian nation. But it is no use telling people to employ Christian principles in their conduct if they are not Christians themselves, and if they do not understand the Christian faith in a personal sense. That is my answer to those who criticize evangelical preaching and biblical exposition, saying, ‘I thought you would have had something to say about disarmament conferences, or about what is happening in South Africa, and here you are talking about husbands and wives. I wanted to know how to solve the great world problems.’ I trust that by now it is clear that it is evangelical preaching alone which really deals with these big problems, all else is but talk.

“You can organize marches and make your protests. It all comes to nothing, and makes not the slightest difference to anyone. But if you have a large number of individual Christians in a nation, or in the world, then and only then can you begin to expect Christian conduct on the international and national level. I do not listen to a man who tells me how to solve the world’s problems if he cannot solve his own personal problems. If the man’s home is in a state of discord, his opinions about the state of the nation or the state of the world are purely theoretical. We can all talk, but the problem is how to apply Christian doctrine in practical living. And it is precisely at this point that you must be ‘filled with the Spirit.'” (Martyn Lloyd-Jones)