Dr Eryl Davies. Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones and Evangelicals in Wales: Bala Ministers’ Conference 1955-2014 (Darlington, England: Bryntirion Press/EP Books), 2015.
As we wind our way through the 21st century interest in the preaching ministry of the late Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones is unabated. Now comes one with unquestioned scholarly and personal credentials and whose relationship to Dr. Lloyd-Jones and the Welsh Church gave him unique access. Dr. Eryl Davies’ new book provides a faithful guide to the ministry of the Doctor in his native land and gives not only an eyewitness account of the glory years of Lloyd Jones’ preaching in Wales—and his preaching before ministers, which many believe evoked some of the most insightful preaching of Lloyd-Jones—, but now bequeaths to the Church a pastoral-theological gold mine of commentaries, illustrations, applications, and biblical diagnoses and treatments of the soul. As I read through Dr Davies’ work I was carried away to times of revival, but rather than creating nostalgic feelings for us to go back, the book cultivated holy prayer for God to come down.
I commend this fine effort of my former professor and send off this commendation of Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones and Evangelicals in Wales with this challenge: get the book and think about setting aside your other materials for now. This is one of those volumes to read as soon as you get your hands on it. Why? Well, quite plainly, we need revival and we need revival desperately. This book reminds us of just how vital revival is to our souls and how much one minister in our midst for a while, Lloyd-Jones, believed that it must be ever-stressed before our people. The cry for revival, the hope for God to come down—yes, I do love that phrase—keeps us spiritually “honest.” To use a better and more Biblical word praying for, reading about, and long for revival “purifies” us. For even if we never see such supernatural outpouring, then we lay a foundation of prayer for another generation who might see it. And if we should never see revival, then we will have spent our lives prioritizing prayer for such an encounter with God. Now, what kind of spirituality in the Church—in our lives—will this surely produce? Indeed.
Dr. Davis’s book is a wonderful blessing and a gift to the church that I pray will be used of the Lord to stir us up to God’s glory in our own generation. If we are not visited with revival may it be said of us by future generations “they prayed so much for revival.” This book could be a singularly important instrument to that noble objective.