From the TeachingtheWord Bible Knowledgebase

Part 5 of a series. Read parts 1 - 2 - 3 - 4

Postmodern Evangelicals are trying all kinds of approaches to the problems of the nations - except the one that God says will work. In this series we've seen the true story of Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who took God at His Word, despite opposition from the Evangelicals of his day. His commitment to the authority of the Bible revitalized a church, revolutionized a city, and rescued a nation from disaster.

A Second Look at Sandfields

God has promised this, as we read in Isaiah 55:11: "My Word that goes forth shall not return to me void" - it shall not return to Me empty, it shall not return to Me without fruit, without result. "But it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it." The people and leaders of a Scripture-driven church understand that God honors His Word. They understand that it is as the Word prospers and grows and prevails, that the church prospers and grows and prevails. It is as the Word of God accomplishes His purpose, that the church accomplishes its God-ordained purpose.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones understood this when he came to Sandfields and found a church that was off-message, off-mission, off the battlefield, and on the shelf as far as God's purpose was concerned. He understood that his mission as a pastor was to get the church back into the Word, and to pull down all of the things that had been built up over time that were contrary to the Word. And the result at Sandfields was a revolution. The revolution started inside the doors of the church. And it spread to the surrounding community.

Lives were changed. Hardships were eased. Increasing numbers, even non-Christians who observed what was happening without the full understanding of a mind transformed by the Gospel, saw that the revolution at Sandfields was a far more effective answer to the problems of the times than anything else the church had proposed or tried.

Many people today do not realize that in the 1920s and 1930s, the country of Wales was very close to becoming a foothold for Communism in Western Europe. But by the late 1930s, Martyn Lloyd-Jones was being credited as one of the two men most responsible for saving the nation of Wales from Communism. God's Word did not return empty. It accomplished His purpose. That purpose began with the changing of individual lives in an insignificant and struggling church. And that purpose grew to encompass the rescue of an entire nation from the dark night of Communism. And God's purpose was accomplished not through political effort, but through loyalty to the authority of God's Word. And it began in a single local church.

The Revolution Begins: The Preacher's Own Household

The spiritual impact of the revolution at Sandfields manifested itself, first and always, in radically changed lives. One of the first people to experience such a change was one of the least expected - Martyn Lloyd-Jones' own wife.

Like her husband, Bethan Lloyd-Jones had grown up in the Evangelical church. And like him, she was also a qualified medical doctor. But she gave up her medical career to marry the man she knew would soon leave medicine for the ministry, and he took up his charge at Sandfields right after their honeymoon. Bethan had heard her future husband preach for the first time only a few months before. He preached on the account of Zacchaeus in Luke chapter 19, and the point of his message was that all men in all circumstances are equally in need of salvation from sin. The message disturbed her greatly, even frightened her. She resented the idea that she was in the same category as someone who was not religious at all. Her state of unrest went on for many months. As she later wrote,

I was for two years under Martyn's ministry before I really understood what the Gospel was. I used to listen to him on Sunday morning and I used to feel, Well, if this is Christianity I really do not know anything about it. On Sunday night I used to pray that somebody would be converted; I thought you had to be a drunkard or a prostitute to be converted. I remember how I used to rejoice to see drunkards become Christians and envy them with all my heart, because here they were, full of joy, and free, and here I was in such a different condition.¹

During this time, she felt a growing conviction of sin, and wondered if her sin could be greater than the merit of the blood of Christ. Through the patient counsel of her husband, and his suggestion that she read an evangelistic book by John Angell James called The Anxious Enquirer Directed, she at last came to understand the Gospel - that Christ's atonement "was well able to clear my sins away." The pastor's own wife came to the place of personal repentance from sin, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as her Savior from God's wrath.

Bethan Lloyd-Jones was one of many at Sandfields who thought they were Christians, but under the preaching of the new pastor came to understand that they were not. Many of them subsequently trusted in Christ.

The Revolution Transforms a Church Leader

Another unlikely convert was a man named E. T. Rees. A member of the church board and the principal lay leader at Sandfields, Rees was at the station to greet the new pastor and his wife when they arrived in Port Talbot. He and Martyn Lloyd-Jones would become lifelong friends. On that cold February day, Rees had high hopes for the new man's ministry - but little did he realize the impact it would soon have on his own life.

Thirty-six year old E. T. Rees was politically active as an Evangelical spokesman. Like many other Evangelical leaders, he thought the church needed to confront the crisis of the times by becoming politically involved - supporting causes and candidates, advocating changes in public policy, petitioning for legislative and regulatory reform. As he would later confess, "I put politics before the Gospel and environmental change [change in the prevailing culture] before personal change."

In stark contrast, Martyn Lloyd-Jones believed that such "little side lines" were a waste of the church's time. The only reform petition to Parliament that could do any lasting good, he said, was this one: "He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God" (John 3:18). Like many other Evangelicals, E. T. Rees thought this was a wonderful sentiment but impractical for changing the culture. But unlike some other men, the lay leader at Sandfields would experience a drastic change of thinking.

E. T. Rees would come to understand that, despite his years in the church and position of leadership, and despite the fact that he called himself an Evangelical, he was just as ignorant of the doctrine of the new birth in Christ as Nicodemus was in John chapter three. Like the Pharisees of Jesus' time on earth, Rees believed that the coming of the kingdom of God would be signaled by sweeping political and social change, not the relatively quiet but far more powerful spiritual rebirth of individuals. He did not understand Jesus' declaration that "My kingdom is not of this world," any better than Pontius Pilate did (John 18:36).

Rees' spiritual turmoil came to a crisis level on the first Sunday of October 1927. On that day, Martyn Lloyd-Jones preached on the very things that were troubling the man's soul. "As the sermon proceeded, E. T. Rees' whole system of thought finally collapsed and even from the pulpit the preacher could see from the look on his face what was happening."² Rees had come to true, personal saving faith in Christ.

Rees understood at once that his newfound faith in Christ made it impossible for him to involve the church in politics any longer. Until that time, he was confused and even troubled by the beginnings of change he was seeing at Sandfields. But now he saw the revolution at Sandfields in the light of the Gospel. The result of the preaching of Scripture alone was genuine and lasting change, the work of the Holy Spirit. This was not the superficial, temporary change brought about by rising and falling political movements. This was change for eternity. E. T. Rees himself was changed forever, and he would continue to glory in the work of the Holy Spirit through the Word at Sandfields and beyond until his home-going in 1985, at age 95.

The Revolution Transforms a Hardened Sinner

During the first years of Martyn Lloyd-Jones' ministry at Sandfields, most of those who came to faith in Christ were nominal Christians who now saw their true condition in the light of the Word of God. E. T. Rees' conversion was one of the first signs of a spiritual breakthrough among the membership, starting in the winter of 1927-28. But as time went on, increasing numbers from outside the church, many of them hardened sinners, came to faith as well. One such man was William Thomas.

Known in Port Talbot and the surrounding towns as "Staffordshire Bill," Thomas was a notoriously profane man of nearly seventy. So depraved was his manner of life that even other deep sinners avoided his low morals, drunken ways, and filthy conversation. Staffordshire Bill's conversion began one night as he settled down in a local barroom to drink himself into unconsciousness. As he sat alone with his glass, he heard snippets of conversation at a nearby table, and soon realized that two of his fellow patrons were talking about Sandfields church:

"Yes," said the one man to the other, "I was there last Sunday night and that preacher said nobody was hopeless - he said there was hope for everybody." Of the rest of the conversation he heard nothing, but, arrested and now completely sobered, he said to himself, "If there's hope for everybody, there's hope for me - I'll go to that chapel myself and see what that man says."

It would not be easy. On the first two Sunday evenings, Staffordshire Bill went to the doors of the church but lost his nerve and went home. But as the days wore on, he found that he could no longer turn to alcohol to drown the terrors of his soul. The Spirit of God had already begun His gracious work, and would see it through. The third Sunday evening found Staffordshire Bill once again at the church doors,

wondering nervously what he should do next, when one of the congregation welcomed him with the words, "Are you coming in Bill? Come and sit with me."

That same night, Staffordshire Bill passed from condemnation to life. He found...that he could understand the things that were being said, he believed the Gospel and his heart was flooded with a great peace. Old things had passed away, all things had become new.

As he left the church that night in the company of the man who had invited him in, his companion introduced his new fellow Christian to the pastor's wife with the words, "Mrs. Jones, this is Staffordshire Bill." She later recalled,

I shall never forget the agonized look on his face, for he flinched as though he had been struck a sudden blow. "Oh no, oh no," he said, "that is a bad old name for a bad old man; I am William Thomas now."³

Staffordshire Bill had died to sin, and William Thomas had risen in Christ, a new creation. The Spirit of God had done His work through "the foolishness of preaching." William Thomas would never again hesitate to enter the doors of Sandfields church. He became a fixture in the congregation, and was one of a number of older "babes in Christ" who were lovingly nurtured by their newfound brothers and sisters. Martyn Lloyd-Jones was with him when he died of pneumonia three years later, and Bethan later described the scene as her husband had recounted it:

William Thomas was far away somewhere, but responded to a greeting and a prayer. He was obviously at perfect peace and all the evidences of the old sinful, violent life were smoothed out of a now child-like face. The minutes passed and became an hour, and more. Then suddenly the painful sound of the difficult breathing seemed to stop. The old man's face was transformed, alight, radiant. He sat up eagerly with upstretched arms and a beautiful smile on his face, as though welcoming his best of friends, and with that he was gone to that "land of pure delight where saints immortal reign."⁴

The Revolution Spreads

We could cite many other individual examples of the work of the Holy Spirit through the power of the Word preached at Sandfields. Nominal Christians, church leaders, and notorious sinners alike were moved to faith by the same Gospel message, preached in simplicity and without worldly trappings. And they grew in the "nurture and admonition of the Lord" as they submitted themselves, individually and corporately, more and more to the authority of Scripture.

Lives were changed. Hardships were eased. Increasing numbers, even non-Christians who observed what was happening without the full understanding of a mind transformed by the Gospel, saw that the revolution at Sandfields was a far more effective answer to the problems of the times than anything else the church had proposed or tried.

Word of the Sandfields revolution spread, but not by conventional means. There was no marketing campaign, no publicity effort. None was needed:

The word spread in all manner of ways. Women spoke over their shopping of how their husbands now preferred prayer meetings to the cinema. At school, one afternoon, a teacher was told by a boy in her class, "We had a dinner today, Miss! We had gravy, potatoes, meat, and cabbage, and rice pudding" - they had rarely had such a meal at home before, and the reason followed: "My father has been converted!" So the money this man had formerly spent on drink, when he got his pay on Fridays, now came home for his wife and children.

Others saw a neighbor, who had been a well-known spirit medium...abandon the only livelihood which she knew, for the Gospel. Every Sunday evening she had been paid three guineas - quite a large sum in those days - for leading a spiritist meeting. Then one Sunday when she was ill, and unable to go out, her attention was attracted by the numbers who were passing her house on the way to Sandfields. The very sight of these people, and their evident anticipation, awakened a desire in her to attend a service herself.⁵

The woman did come, and left transformed, trusting in Christ as her Savior. She later testified to Martyn Lloyd-Jones that as soon as she came in and sat down among the people, she was conscious of a supernatural power. But it was different from the power she was accustomed to in the spiritist meetings she had conducted for so many years. The power present at Sandfields, she said she knew immediately, "was a clean power."

Church Growth, God's Way

The "clean power" at Sandfields - the power of the Word and the Spirit - grew the church without any resort to the world's methods. By the end of 1927, the church's membership had risen to 165. By the end of 1928, there were 248. By the end of 1931, there were 471. The church soon paid off its debt and no longer needed denominational aid. The building was renovated and expanded to accommodate the growing crowds.

Some of the new members had been Christians before coming to Sandfields, but most were new converts. No segment of the community, from business owners and professionals to dockworkers and household servants, was unrepresented among the membership. People from all walks of life responded to the Gospel message that all are equally hopeless without Christ, but Christ offers hope to all. The keynote of the revolution at Sandfields was changed lives. As at Ephesus, "the Word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed" (Acts 19:20).

Word of the revolution at Sandfields spread to the borders of Wales and beyond, and men from other churches came to try to find out the "secret" of its success. Some went away disappointed to find that the only secret was to preach the Word and rely on the Spirit of God, rather than human innovations, for the results. But others went home inspired to emulate the Sandfields attitude and practice.

By 1935, Martyn Lloyd-Jones was preaching to gatherings of 7,000 and more in various parts of Wales and England. And the reach of the work at Sandfields began to extend beyond the British Isles, as its increasingly evangelistic people sought to support foreign missionary efforts that would be true to Scripture. In the mid 1930s, Peggy Robson became the first member of Sandfields to go out as a foreign missionary, under China Inland Mission.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones' rapidly growing influence was not that of a church-growth expert. It was the influence of a Scripture-driven man pastoring a Scripture-driven church. As E. T. Rees later said,

[H]e was ever reminding us, even to his last night, his farewell night, "Do not talk about me, talk about my Saviour." It was not his personal influence or his personal attraction that led to the salvation of [so many], but a realization that they were lost souls and that Jesus Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost.⁶

Next: Seeds of a Revolution in Our Time

References:

1. Ian H. Murray, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The First Forty Years (Banner of Truth, 1982), page 166.

2. Murray, page 165.

3. The account of Thomas' conversion is from Murray, pages 222-223.

4. Murray, page 247.

5. Murray, pages 220-221.

6. Murray, page 226.

sac0019