Martyn Lloyd-Jones: From Doctor to Pastor

Martyn Lloyd-Jones was born in Cardiff on 20th December 1899 and died in London on St David’s Day 1981.

His early years were spent at Llangeitho in Cardiganshire and in his youth attended Daniel Rowlands Chapel in the village. His father, like so many others in Wales at that time, relocated to London in 1914 seeking a better life for himself and his family. A couple of years later, Martyn began medical training at St Bartholomew’s Hospital and, at the age of 23, earned a Doctorate in Medicine and became the chief clinical assistant to the King’s physician, Sir Thomas Horder.

Martyn was affectionately known throughout his entire life as ‘the Doctor’ but by 1927 he shocked the whole medical profession by leaving to become the pastor of The Bethlehem Forward Movement Mission at Sandfields in the largely working class, industrial town of Port Talbot in South Wales.

From there, in 1939 he moved to London to be the assistant to Dr Campbell Morgan at Westminster Chapel in Buckingham Gate. During his long pastorate, his influence of evangelicalism in the English speaking world was immense, and his enduring legacy remains to the present day.

An enduring legacy

Speaking for myself, having become a Christian at the age of 18 in a Spurgeon’s Mission Hall in South London, I was invited by two new friends to join them at Westminster Chapel to hear the Doctor preach in late January 1963.

I remained a regular member of the congregation for the next five years and the ministry of the Doctor has shaped and influenced my whole life ever since. During those years I got to know him as my pastor and he, with his family, welcomed me into their circle. Subsequently this has been a profound influence making an indelible mark on me in how one should live the Christian life.

Although I was not responsible for recording the Doctor’s regular sermons, he did ask me to record three of his subsequent messages in the annual Puritan (Westminster) Conference held in December each year. Shortly after his retirement in 1968 I was offered several boxes of old magnetic paper tapes of the Doctor's preaching in the 1950s, which had been recorded in the chapel during that decade.

When the Doctor died in 1981 my immediate thought was of the value of his recorded ministry. I knew that the Doctor’s son-in-law, Sir Fred Catherwood, had hundreds of the his recorded sermons in the loft at his home in Ealing. I wrote to him offering the tapes which could possibly fill any gaps in the official collection, and be made available to the general Christian public at some point in the future if the family agreed that was a worthwhile project.

It just so happened, providentially, that the night before my letter arrived Fred had written a note on his desk which simply said ‘Doctor's tapes?’ for consideration the next day. In short, he called me and we met and he asked me to set up a charitable trust entitled ‘The Martyn Lloyd-Jones Recording Trust’ in order to distribute the Doctor's recorded sermons to a wider public, which I agreed to do with his support.

The immediate task in hand was to find someone with the technical skills and knowledge who could handle the fragile early collection of reel-to-reel magnetic tapes and transfer them to the popular format of cassette recordings, whilst maintaining the highest quality standards available at the time. I contacted Jim Harris of Anchor Recordings studios to see if he could help and by return he informed that Tony Ruston, his recording engineer would be the person to speak to. Tony was delighted to step up to the plate and soon became a key trustee of the MLJ Recordings Trust. We both worked together with Sir Fred for the next nearly 30 years.

Tony writes:

I had the privilege of being the director of the Martyn Lloyd-Jones Recordings Trust from its foundation until 2008. It was back in late February 1982 when I received a phone call that was to change my life. It came from the owner of a small Christian recording company that I'd been working for. They apparently had been asked to undertake the task of transferring all the sermons of the late Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones from reel-to-reel tape onto cassette.

As the task was such a large one, they wondered if I would be interested in doing it for the customer directly. And that was how, on the 1 March in 1982, my wife and I found ourselves driving down to Barcombe in East Sussex to meet with the client, Ray Gaydon. He was one of the founders of the Martyn Lloyd-Jones Recordings Trust and was at that time pastor of Barcombe Baptist Chapel. The Trust had only just come into being at that time and was the joint vision of Ray and Sir Fred Catherwood, who was Dr Lloyd-Jones' son-in-law.

Now at this time I'd only just about heard of Dr Lloyd-Jones and had no real idea of who he was. That first meeting was tremendous, with Ray Gaydon enthusing about Dr Lloyd-Jones' ministry and how it had transformed his own life. It was impossible for us not to have been caught up in his enthusiasm, and we were soon eager to get underway with the work. We headed home from that meeting with our car loaded with reel-to-reel recordings of the Doctor's sermons. I began work then on the task that was to occupy me full-time for the next 26 years. And what a spiritual challenge it was for both my wife and myself.

As I listened carefully, made notes, restored and transferred the sermons (some of which were in very poor condition) to master cassettes; and as my wife typed my notes, both of us were challenged to the deepest level and came to a knowledge and certainty of our salvation that we'd never had before.

Seemingly, we were being exposed to real doctrine, real biblical truth for the very first time. And I still say to my friends to this day, it was Dr Lloyd-Jones who taught me to think, to read critically, and above all to test everything against Scripture. He taught me to let the text speak to me, and not to read my ideas and thoughts back into it. Indeed, I have to say that those three years where I was transferring those tapes to cassette were some of the most important of my life, as under Dr Lloyd-Jones' ministry, both my mind and heart were awakened to the great truths of Scripture. And I know it's the prayer of everyone involved in the work of the Trust that this should be the experience of all who listen to these recordings today.

The pattern to Dr Lloyd-Jones’ week was simple but effective. On Friday evenings he gave his famous lecture series on the Book of Romans, where week by week visitors would hear as verse by verse he would take us through this great book. But make no mistake, these are no dry lectures.

Rather they are all sermons presented in the context of an act of worship where 1,500–2,000 met for that purpose. On Sunday mornings he preached to teach, encourage and build up his growing congregation. It was here that he gave his famous verse-by-verse studies of the book of Ephesians and his well-loved series on the Gospel of John. On Sunday evenings he always preached evangelistically, and it is among these sermons that I have my own particular favourites. I refer especially to the series he gave on the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. These aren't just simply evangelistic messages, but ones where he dealt with the burning issues of the age, and remarkably, many of the issues are still so relevant today in our contemporary society.

Now whilst most of these sermons are in print, there is nothing comparable to hearing the Doctor himself preach them as he did all those years ago before his own congregation.

An impact on people's lives

One of the great treasures we had in the Trust offices was the huge folder of letters telling us of how these recordings had influenced people’s lives and in many cases been used in their conversion. A Roman Catholic priest living in Lesoto wrote to tell us how, whilst listening to Dr Lloyd-Jones messages, he had been truly saved and was now a Protestant pastor! He was not the only one, as over the years we heard many such testimonies underlining beyond any doubt the worth of keeping this ministry alive as clearly '...he being dead still speaketh!' (Hebrews 11:4)

During the years as the work grew and expanded my wife and I were joined by a small staff who all brought their special gifts to the work. Doris and George Sturdy, Angie Slegg, Renee Cannings, Richard and Rosemary Sillars to name but a few. Through our wonderful but small band of helpers the Trust made many breakthroughs in finding new ways of spreading our ministry. We were, for instance, one of the first ministries in the UK to offer cassettes in albums. We also used the internet to its fullest advantage by being one of the first UK Christian ministries to offer online shopping.

Mp3 audio CDs containing whole series of teaching were another innovation we were quick to adopt. Shortly before my retirement, we were able to offer the whole of Dr Lloyd-Jones’ audio sermons free to download over the internet from our own servers here in the UK. Happily, after the ministry transferred to the US under the auspices of Jonathan Catherwood, this extension of the work continues and it is thrilling to note that downloads of Dr Lloyd-Jones’ sermons in the last 10 years now exceed 20 million and are still growing!

So, from the small acorns of Ray and Fred’s vision back in 1982, a large and fruitful ministry has grown and developed. What a privilege it was for us to be a small part of it. It is my belief that Dr Lloyd-Jones’ clear mesmeric Bible teaching that was famously described as 'Logic on Fire' is still desperately needed in our contemporary society and the world at large.