Thursday, April 17, 2014

Book Review: Safe In The World

Safe in the World (The Assurance of Salvation #2). D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. 1988. Crossway. 160 pages. [Source: Bought]

Safe in the World is the second book in the Assurance of Salvation series which is a collection of sermons--preached by Martyn Lloyd-Jones in the early 1950s--focused on exploring every aspect of John 17. The first book, Saved In Eternity, covered John 17:1-5. The second book covers John 17:6-15.

The Gospel of John is one of my favorite, favorite books of the Bible. I loved spending so much time in just one little chapter from that gospel. I wish that Martyn Lloyd-Jones covered every single chapter of the gospel of John.

There are twelve chapters:

Our Lord Prays For His Followers: His Reasons and Requests (John 17:6-19)
Not of the World (John 17:9)
God's People (John 17:6)
The Name of God (John 17:6-8)
The Name of God Revealed (John 17:6-8)
The Christian and the Truth of God (John 17:6-8)
Christ Glorified In Us (John 17:10)
Manifesting the Work of Christ (John 17:10)
True Joy (John 17:13)
Kept and Guarded but… (John 17:11-12, 15)
The World and the Devil (John 17:11-15)
God's Perfect Will (John 17:15)

I recommend The Assurance of Salvation because these sermons cover the essentials of the Christian faith. It addresses what it means to be a Christian, it focuses on how Christians should be living. I love the scriptural focus. I love how they make much of Christ!

Favorite quotes:
The more I try to live this Christian life and the more I read the New Testament, the more convinced I am that the trouble with most of us is that we have never truly realized what it is to be a Christian. It is our whole conception of what a Christian is, and of what the Christian life is meant to be, that is so defective, and that is why we miss so many blessings. That is why, too, we are often so troubled and perplexed and bewildered and why we react as we do to so many of the things that happen to us in this life and in this world. If only we understood what the Christian really is and the position in which he is placed, if only we realized the privilege and the possibilities of that position, and above everything, the glorious destiny of everyone who is truly a Christian, then our entire outlook would be completely changed. (207)
The way to love God is to begin to know God's love to you, and this doctrine is the high road to that love. Before time, before the creation of the world, he set his eye upon you, he set his affection upon you, you were marked, you were already put among his people. (229)
We talk about God, we argue about God, we express our opinions and we pray, yes, but the question is, do we know God, is God living to us, is he real to us? Is our prayer, therefore, vital? Is it a living communication and is a real transaction taking place? (245)
The basic, central thing about the Christian is that he is in a given relationship to the truth concerning our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (258)
The Christian, by definition, is a man who says, "I am nothing, I am what I am entirely by the grace of God." He is a man who is always flying to Christ, and one who disclaims anything in and of himself. (274)
Are we living epistles, read of all men, commending him, testifying to him and the power of his grace? That, the New Testament tells us, is what is meant by being a Christian. (283)
I know of no better way of starting my day than by saying to myself every morning, "I am one of the people in the world today through whom Christ is to be glorified. I am not here for myself, or for anything I want to do, the main thing for me this day is that Christ should be glorified in me." (292)
The Christian is meant to be a joyful person, one who is meant to experience the joy of salvation. (298)
I suppose there is nothing that so tends to rob us of our joy as our realization that we do not love him as we ought, because when we realize this, we become unhappy and miserable. I will tell you the best antidote to that: when you realize your love is weak and faint and poor and unworthy, stop thinking about your love, and realize that in spite of its poverty, he loves you. (303)
To know the Lord's joy is to realize that, and to realize, furthermore, that the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world for us, that he came in order to prepare us for God, and to deliver us from the guilt of our sin. He has done it all. He has borne the guilt and the punishment and the law is satisfied. (304)
The very fact that the Son of God came into this world at all is proof positive that man can never save himself. If man could save himself by his own exertions, the Son of God would never have come. The very fact that he has come proclaims that man at his best and highest will never be good enough. (325)
© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

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