John Stott – Witkowski Blog

April 26, 2026May 13, 2026 Peter Witkowski Church History, Discipleship

From Sermon to Life: The Powerful Story of Lloyd-Jones and Stott’s Reconciliaiton

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who led Westminster Chapel through World War II and a large part of the Cold War, was the epitome of biblical faithfulness in the pulpit. When a V-2 rocket exploded next to his church and anointed him and his congregation with a fine coat of ceiling dust, he brushed off the dust, took a quick break, and then continued with his sermon. Nothing could deter Lloyd-Jones from preaching the gospel of his Lord and Savior. As the Welsh pastor noted during a Cold War era sermon, “The greatest trouble in the world is not the nuclear bomb but humanity’s rejection of the Gospel.” As he said in another sermon, the gospel is “the one and only remedy that can cure the disease which is the cause of all our local and particular problems.” And so, he preached that truth in both the best and worst of times.

A Man of Integrity

What was true of the Doctor in his famous pulpit was also true of him in the quiet recesses of his home. As his reconciliation with the Anglican pastor John Stott would make clear, Lloyd-Jones lived out gospel convictions just as faithfully in private as he did in public.

In a sermon preached during his rise to fame in 1949, Lloyd-Jones warned his audience against the bitterness of unforgiveness. To illustrate his point, Lloyd-Jones recounted a story about two men who sought to be reconciled with one of their former pastors who was on his deathbed. Lloyd-Jones recalled:

So they took the journey, and they arrived at his house. His wife went up into the bedroom and told him they were there, but he refused to see them. I could not do that! How could I go out and face God in eternity and my whole eternal destiny and refuse to forgive a man who came to me with an outstretched hand?

In contrast to the man in the story, Lloyd-Jones understood that those who had been forgiven had to forgive.

When Lloyd-Jones preached this on 1 John 4, he was still more than thirty years away from his death and was enjoying a budding relationship with Stott, a minister who shared the Doctor’s passion for expository preaching, evangelism, and discipling the next generation. Lloyd-Jones so valued Stott’s friendship and insights into the Scriptures that the Doctor asked Stott to take over Westminster Chapel upon his retirement.

A Conflict

But then on October 18, 1966, their relationship unexpectedly soured. That night at the Second National Assembly of Evangelicals (NAE), Lloyd-Jones delivered a powerful address, calling for British evangelicals to exit liberal denominations that allowed for the denial of essential doctrines, such as justification by faith alone. As Lloyd-Jones noted, “To leave a church which has become apostate is not schism. That’s one’s Christian duty and nothing else.” Lloyd-Jones hoped his call for gospel unity built upon gospel purity would spark an evangelical revival. The Welsh pastor said, “If those of us who believe it [the Word of God] only come together … I believe we would then have the right to expect the Spirit of God to come upon us in mighty revival and re-awakening.”

Stott who shared the stage with Lloyd-Jones held the opposite view. The Anglican pastor believed that evangelicals should stay in their liberalizing denominations for the purpose of winning them back to truth.

When the Doctor’s address concluded, Stott rose to speak. But before turning to his official duties as chairman of the NAE, Stott broke professional protocol. He criticized the Doctor’s appeal, fearing that those pastors attending the NAE would, in Stott’s words, “go home and write their letter of resignation that very night.”

Stott offered the following critique of his friend:

I believe history is against what Dr. Lloyd-Jones has said…Scripture is against him, the remnant was within the church not outside it. I hope no one will act precipitately…We are all concerned with the same ultimate issues and with the glory of God.

With his words, Stott prevented the resignations he so feared, muted his friend’s influence in the British Evangelical movement, and shattered his close ties with Lloyd-Jones.

A few weeks later, Stott apologized to Lloyd-Jones for his lack of decorum. Though Stott claimed that he and the doctor maintained “a warm personal relationship,” in the years after 1966, the events of October 18 continued to nag at Stott. According to Lloyd-Jones’ wife, Bethan, Stott arrived at Lloyd-Jones’ hospital room two years later in tears. The Anglican pastor feared that his rebuke had contributed to Lloyd-Jones’ cancer diagnosis. Bethan quickly brushed off Stott’s fears as silly and guided Stott into the Doctor’s hospital room. Still, the events of that night and their subsequent fallout had in the words of one historian resulted in the marginalization of Lloyd-Jones’ voice within the evangelical movement. And they continued to occupy space in Stott’s mind.

From Illustration to Life

In 1978, Stott sensed that the window to restore his friendship with the Doctor was closing and once again sought out his old friend. In the words of Stott’s biographer, the Anglican pastor traveled to Lloyd-Jones’ home hoping to “build bridges and to repair a friendship.”

In so doing, he transformed Lloyd-Jones’ illustration into the Doctor’s reality. Would he forgive?

When Stott arrived at Lloyd-Jones’ house, Bethan in concert with Lloyd-Jones’ wishes, escorted Stott into the Doctor’s study.

There, Stott encountered not coldness and anger but kindness and forgiveness. Stott said of his friend’s reception of him, “[Lloyd-Jones] could not have been more affable and welcoming.” After talking about their shared passion for the book of Ephesians (both preached through the book and would publish volumes on it), the two men waded into the old wounds of 1966. As they did so, Lloyd-Jones extended love and reconciliation to Stott. Lloyd-Jones told his old friend, “If God spares me, and we could be together, I’d say like Simeon, ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.’” By God’s mercy, Lloyd-Jones proved himself to be the same man in his study at the end of his life as he was in the pulpit as he rose to popularity. As the Doctor said back in 1949: “This truth is given to me that I may live by it and that I may experience in my life in all the power and grace and glory.” And so by God’s grace, Lloyd-Jones lived what he preached in some of his most public of moments in some of his most intimate ones.

A Genuine Act

Though I have been able to pull out this thread of gospel faithfulness from Lloyd-Jones’ life, I doubt that the Welsh pastor was ever so self-aware. Lloyd-Jones preached thousands of sermons. Admittedly, he edited many of them for publication in his final years. But, he never turned his attention to his sermons on 1 John. His family would compile, edit, and publish those volumes after the Doctor’s death. I have no reason to think that Lloyd-Jones was especially aware of the contents of his 1 John sermons when he met with Stott for the last time. After all, the two friends talked about the book of Ephesians and not John’s epistle. Moreover, the accounts of Lloyd-Jones’ last visit with Stott originate from Stott and others and not with Lloyd-Jones. I believe, Lloyd-Jones saw his meeting with Stott as nothing more than a meeting between old friends.

Rather, I suspect Lloyd-Jones’ actions arose not from self-awareness but from his ever-deepening experience of God’s mercy and grace. As Lloyd-Jones told his friend and first biographer, Iain Murray, during the last weeks of his life:

When you come to where I am, there is only one thing that matters, that is your relationship to Him and your knowledge of him. Nothing else matters…Our best works are tainted. We are sinners saved by grace. We are debtors to mercy alone…God is very patient with us and very kind and He suffers our evil manners like He did with the children of Israel…The Love of God!

In other words, the man who had “For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified” written on his tombstone could not help but love others as he had been loved. In short, he was a man of the gospel.

Conclusion

May God grant us all such consistency. May we live out the gospel of forgiveness in private with the same fervency we speak of it in public. May all who pull the threads of our life find such faithfulness.

August 11, 2024November 17, 2024 Peter Witkowski Apologetics

Abortion, Faith, and Politics: Examining Harris’ Dangerous New Claims

Over the last few months, Vice President Kamala Harris has radically reshaped the political conversation around abortion, sliding into the pulpit of orthodoxy. Throughout the course of her campaign, Vice President Harris has boldly asserted that, “One does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree: The government, and certainly Donald Trump, should not be telling a woman what to do with her body.” Notice, she does not appeal to the authority of other religious leaders, saying as, “Pastor so and so said.” Nor does she claim that her understanding of faith is compatible with abortion, inviting other religious people to join her. Rather, she presents herself as a religious authority. In other words, her language does not convey that she hopes conservative evangelicals will find a church that aligns with her party’s platform. Rather, she is telling them and all people of faith what should be true of every church or place of worship. Namely, no Christian or religious person should object to a woman getting an abortion because to quote the Vice President “that decision does not require anyone to abandon their faith or their beliefs.” To disagree with her is no longer to disagree with a political party or ones’ government but with the God of the universe.

My Main Concern is Not

My main concern today is not to debate the morality of abortion which is firmly fixed in my mind nor the need for Christians to oppose the practice. Abortion is murder. I lament that liberals and even a growing number of conservatives long to normalize this brutal culture of death, using duplicitous language of “healthcare.” Without reservation, I believe Christians should advocate for life across the political spectrum. Tax rates, housing prices, and issues pertaining to the quality of one’s life count for nothing if one is not alive to pay taxes or buy homes.

Neither a conservative, evangelical pastor’s opposition to nor a Democratic Presidential Candidate’s support of abortion is noteworthy.

My Main Concern

But what is and what I object to is Vice President Harris’ defense of abortion with an appeal to a governmental defined religious orthodoxy. I oppose not only to the content of her orthodoxy, but her very use of orthodoxy. In other words, I do not wish to replace the Vice President’s political forays into theological orthodoxy with those of a candidate more closely aligned with my theological convictions. For example, I acknowledge that most non-evangelicals who identify as some form of “Christian” disagree with the pro-life position. Though I hope to win those churches back to the apostolic faith of Jesus, I also believe that the government has no authority to tell those affiliated with the Sparkle Creed or any other religious creed what is or is not an acceptable tenant of their faith.

Faith Still Belongs

I am also not advocating that those with religious opinions should retreat from the public square or deny that their faiths have a shaping influence on their actions. Without question, one’s faith and worldview will have a profound effect on one’s personal and public ethic. I long for pro-life politicians to unapologetically live out their religious convictions in the public square through the creation of laws that promote life, understanding that those of liberal faiths can do the same with their convictions. I do not object to the enforcement of a public ethic (though I long for that ethic to reflect God’s righteous standards), but with proscribing that all people should conform their faith to that ethic.

The Separation of Church and State

By invoking the language of orthodoxy, Vice-President Harris is straining the bounds of the separation of church and state. To borrow the language of the hour, she is toying with the idea of establishing a leftist “Christian” or perhaps more accurately stated leftist “Religious Nationalism.”

When Thomas Jefferson coined the phrase “a wall of eternal separation” to describe the relationship between the state and the church in 1802, he had in mind the very overreach committed by the Harris Campaign. He wrote, “religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his god…the legitimate powers of government reach action only and not opinions.” The state and those running the state have the right to enforce laws that reflect the ethic that flows from their religious views but possess no religious authority to bind the consciences of its citizens to the particular religious views of those in power. Politicians are not prophets.

The Biblical View

While ideas of religious freedom have a foundation in American political history and theory, they also have a biblical foundation. Except when coerced by the state, the church does not look to the state for instruction on what is or is not orthodox. Rather, the church claims a God given right to determine its own doctrine in accordance with Scripture and then to share those doctrines with both its surrounding culture and the state. “Your word is a Lamp unto my feet and light to my path (Ps 119:105).”

When it comes to religion, the state should not inform the pastor of God’s will. The pastor should inform the state. To quote the British theologian John Stott, the church should function as the “nation’s conscience.” Operating in this vein, Nathan rebuked King David for his sexual sin and murder. Elijah condemned Ahab for his unjust grab of land. Isaiah scolded Hezekiah for his foolish foreign policy. Jesus rebuked Pilate for assuming divine authority. And Paul pleaded with Felix to embrace Jesus as his savior.

In other words, the church should share God’s principles with those in power. It should praise leaders when they repeal unjust laws that condemn shoplifters to life sentences. Conversely, the church should call those who pass a bill that legalizes infanticide to repentance. As Lloyd-Jones notes, “The church is here to show that according to biblical teaching, the general consensus of opinion is not the basis on which you arrive at moral decisions, either with regard to homosexuality, or with regard to divorce, or abortion, or birth control, or any one of these questions.” The state should not preach to the church. The church should preach to the state, reminding those in power to “Serve the Lord with fear (Ps. 2:11).”

For the sake of the United States and its faith community, I encourage Vice President Harris to abandon her usurpation of the pulpit, and to sit once again in the pew.

February 27, 2014February 15, 2019 Peter Witkowski Discipleship, Parenting

The Hearts Of The Young Restless, And Unredeemed

The Woowh, Woowh, Woowh of our first child’s heartbeat was by far one of the most glorious sounds to ever reach my ears. Only moments before the tech found my sons’ heart, my wife and I had been sitting nervously in the Doctor’s office afraid that we might be on our way to becoming America’s next goofiest couple. After all, who misreads a pregnancy test? But when we saw our son’s little jellybean shape appear on the ultrasound screen accompanied by a strong heart beat our faces burst into uncontrollable smiles. We were having a baby!

The Nature Of Unredeemed Hearts

Just as the recognition of our son’s little heartbeat moved us quickly from insaneville to the corner of happy and reasonable, understanding a child’s spiritual state at conception is foundational to all that follows. Before we can discuss salvation or the beauties of baptism with our grade schoolers, we have to understand what our little wiggle worms need to be saved from. Is a child graced with a morally neutral heart, needing spiritual guidance; or is our little gal given a mostly maladjusted heart that she can overcome with gifted spiritual actions; or did our cute guy inherit a desperately corrupt heart from which he cannot escape apart from the work Christ through the Holy Spirit? According to the Bible, only the last phrase accurately describes the hearts of those who process the glorious social freedom to run about in diapers. “The Bible teaches that children are not good by nature; they are not a ‘blank slate’…they are genetically predisposed to be bad because every child is born with original sin and a rebellious nature” (Fitzpatrick, Newheiser, & Hendrickson, p. 29). Let’s see how this plays out in Romans 5.

Babies Are Sinners

According to Romans 5:12, every human being enters the world infected by sin. Way back in Genesis 2, Adam was chosen by God to represent humanity. He was blessed with the ability to have a perfect relationship with God. But enticed by the snake, Adam irrationally chose to depart from God’s love. And the moment the fruit hit his lips, Adam radically altered the nature of humanity. He now had a selfishness, prideful, and generally sinful nature. Consequently, all of Adam’s descendants including the sweet baby cooing on her mommy’s quilt have the vile stain of sin on their hearts (Ps. 58:3). As Wayne Grudem notes, “Even before birth children have a guilty standing before God (p. 499)”. We know that this weighty statement is true because all people suffer from sin’s greatest side effect, death. As Paul writes in the next chapter, “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23a). Sinners die.

Why Some Say Babies Are Neutral

Now some object to the above statements. They question how babies and infants can be charged with sin if they did not willfully commit an act or recognize what they were doing when they did. For example, the miscarried child never cheated on its spouse or even stole a cookie. And the infant blessed with a short life span never realized that that slapping mommy at bath time violated the fifth commandment. Consequently, some Christians claim that babies are naturally innocent and become sinners with age and action.

Babies Receive Judgment

These proponents are correct to a degree. The Bible teaches that babies and fully grown adults are only held responsible for their actions. But these arguments do not overcome the harsh, practical reality of original sin. Babies die. My son’s heart stopped beating at 2:49 pm on July 16, 2013 only seventeen weeks after our initial visit. The Bible clearly states that my son did not die for my sins or for the sins of my wife (Ez. 18:19-20). He died nestled softly in my arms because he was born with corrupt nature. The apostle Paul noted in Romans 5 that “death reigned…even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam.” My son did not willfully sin as Adam did by defying the words of God. But his life was still ruled by sin. The lifeless tombstone that sits above my baby’s body is proof positive that his nature was corrupt and in need of a redeemer. Just as his father Adam, my precious son died.

All Babies Go To Heaven

Yet, I have hope. Even though my son was born a sinner like his dad (Psalm 51), we serve a God who conquered death through the cross! “The free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 6:23b). “Look at yourself in Adam; though you had done nothing you were declared a sinner. Look at yourself in Christ; and see that you have done nothing, you are declared righteous” (Stott, p. 157). This is the gracious hope of every believer: Jesus freely saves! And, our heavenly father greatly delights in bestowing the gift of salvation upon little boys who only grow to be a lovable twelve inches long! All throughout scripture, we find evidence of God saving innocents, those who lack the mental faculties to worship their creator. In Job 3:11-19, we learn that by God’s grace innocents escape the suffering of this world and inherit the glories of heaven. In the New Testament, Jesus reaffirmed the presence of children in heaven, making little ones the centerpiece of several analogies (Mark 9:33-37, Mat. 19:14). As John MacArthur writes, “If children are not readily and fully received into the kingdom of heaven, the analogy to spiritual conversion would be a poor one” (MacArthur, p. 59). And, David famously comforts all parents with jellybean size holes in their hearts proclaiming, “I shall go to him” (2 Sam 12:23). “We cannot say that babies die and go to heaven because they are ‘sinless.’ Rather, babies go to heaven because God is gracious” (p. 72). As the above scripture passages make clear, God saves babies. He has redeemed my son and all innocent children from the curse of Adam by his free gift of salvation. And this same free gift of salvation is available to all who call upon the name of Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. As Grudem writes, God saves babies and all other people, “entirely on the basis of Christ’s redemptive work and regeneration by the Holy Spirit within them” (Grudem, p. 300).

Age Of Accountability

Before we go on, let’s quickly address the age of accountability. I believe the age of accountability to be as elastic as a pair of maternity pants. I’ve known seven-year-olds that legitimately understand salvation and choose to reject or accept it. I’ve seen five-year-olds that don’t. And, I’ve been blessed to minister to forty-year-olds who may never have the SalvationSeries_BaptismClassforParents_Session1 mental capacity to repent and accept Jesus as Savior. I think John MacArthur summaries the position well writing, “All children who die before they reach a state of moral awareness and culpability in which they understand their own sin and corruption – so that their sins are deliberate – are graciously saved eternally by God through the work of Jesus Christ” (MacArthur, p. 89).

Treat Your Children As Sinners

How do we respond to the news that our children enter the world with evil hearts (Gen 8:21)? We respond by calling our children to repent of their sins and to believe in the gospel. We can do so without fearing that we will somehow bump our children off the corner of spiritual neutrality into fire of damnation. As noted earlier, children are born sinners. As J.D. Geear writes, “You didn’t start to sin because you hung around the wrong crowd; you were the wrong crowd” (p.29) They already stand in condemnation and in need of a savior. All of us are ultimately children of Adam. Just ask any parent harboring a member of the terrible two’s gang. They will happily affirm their child’s capacity to sin. Exposing children to truth does not change their initial status before God. Preaching the gospel to our children is a blessing and kindness (Rom. 10:15). All children even the ‘innocents,’ come to salvation through the word of God (I believe babies encounter the risen word of Christ). The best and most loving thing we can do for little sinners is to expose them to the word of God, prayerfully asking the Holy Spirit replace our baby’s heart of stone with a heart of flesh.