Regarded as one of the greatest preachers of the 20th century, Listen to Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones preach about the Kingdom.
Even so, confidently and hopefully pray, “thy Kingdom come.”
Because our view of what God is doing in history is so limited, we may be tempted at points to give into a pessimistic view of how things are going. John Murray reminds us that we can have no sympathy with “defeatism.”
“Faith imbued with zeal for the honour of Christ and the glory of God will have no sympathy with the defeatism which is, after all, but disguised fatalism. He who is head over all things is head over all things to his body the church. He has authority in heaven and earth. And he is the Lord of the Spirit. Implicit in the prayer he taught his disciples to pray, ‘thy will be done as in heaven as in earth’, is the prayer that the whole earth should be filled with his praise. Nothing less is the measure of the believer’s desire. ‘And blessed be his glorious name for ever: and let the whole earth be filled with his glory.’ May we not pray for the peace of Jerusalem—‘peace be within thy walls and prosperity within thy palaces’. And who knows but the floodgates of reformation grace and power may be opened and we shall have occasion to say, ‘When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like men that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen, The Lord hath done great things for them. The Lord hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad.’”
~John Murray, Collected Works, Volume 1, page 279.
