From the MLJ Archive

1 Samuel 4:21-22 — What has gone wrong in the church today? In this sermon on 1 Samuel 4:21-22, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones says that the answer is found in the church’s loss of the sense of the glory of the presence of God. The church is like God’s ancient people, the Israelites, who often strayed away from God. Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones says that when the Israelites lost the Ark of the Covenant to the Philistines, this was because they failed to look to God’s glorious presence. They became enamored with the trappings of religion and missed what it means to know and love an awesome God. The church today is often no different. For when Christians look to institutions and politics to reach the world, they lose sight of the very God they say that they seek to proclaim. When the church has been the most impactful in the world it is when they were overcome with a sense of God’s glorious presence. This recognition of God’s glory ought to transform all believers and empower them to take the gospel to the whole world. For the church is at its weakest when it is concerned with itself and its own glory. But Jesus Christ shows us that we are to seek to glorify God and know Him truly and only then can the church serve as God has called it.