Televised interview of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

John Piper called Dr. David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “One of the greatest preachers of the 20th century” and, from what I’ve read and heard from him, and read about him, I would tend to agree.

Thanks to Adrian Warnock’s blog, I was made aware of this fascinating video which shows a portion of a televised interview from 1970 of Dr. Lloyd-Jones. My understanding is that Dr. Lloyd-Jones made very few appearances on television, so seeing him “live” on this video is a treat for those of us who never had the opportunity to know or see him while he was living. The Martyn Lloyd-Jones Recordings Trust produced this video to mark the anniversary of Dr. Lloyd-Jones’ death, 30 years ago this week—St. David’s Day, March 1, 1981.

At one point in this interview, Dr. Lloyd-Jones was asked about his call to preach: “Did you feel in yourself that you had the qualities that would make a successful preacher?” Dr. Lloyd-Jones answered:

“I really was never concerned about that. My concern was with what needed to be preached, and it was this—with burning conviction as to the message needed—that drove me on. I’ve sometimes told people of a story which will help to answer your question, how, having taken my decision to go into the church and to preach, someone very near to me was walking with me one night and asked me the question, ‘How do you know that you’ll be able to preach? You know what you can do as a doctor. Why not go on with that and exercise Christian influence? What if you find suddenly that you can’t preach?’ Well, I’d only tried preaching about three times, in very small places, and the only answer I could give was this: ‘I know what I want to preach and what I think must be preached and I have a feeling, somehow, that I’ll be able to say it.’”

Dr. Lloyd-Jones’ answer reminded me somewhat of my own call, 22 years ago, to preach, and the burden Christ laid on my heart for His church and for a lost world.