PREACHING IN THE HOLY SPIRIT by Albert N. Martin
Publisher: Reformation Heritage Books
With the warmest commendation, I am pleased to announce an important new title by my friend and mentor Albert N. Martin, for 46 years a pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Preaching in the Holy Spirit addresses a topic of immense value for the pulpit ministry, and with insight drawn from Scripture and demonstrated in one whose preaching has been treasured far and wide for four decades. His approach is explicitly expository with the beneficial addition of practical illustration from the author’s personal experience and his long and fruitful ministry.
The focus of this book is quite unusual. We often consider the need for illumination by the Spirit in the preacher’s study and for the influence of the Spirit within our hearers as they listen. To my knowledge this is a rare treatment solely dedicated to the imperative of a preacher’s conscious dependence upon the Spirit in the act of preaching itself. Through long ages, the church’s greatest heralds of the Word have consistently ministered in this elevated manner, but the phenomena which ought to be normative is rarely discussed or mentioned in print, and sadly, too infrequently in evidence today. This book’s several chapters take up the agency and operations of the Spirit in the act of preaching, his indispensable necessity in preaching, his manifestations in preaching, and the problem of a restrained or diminished measure of his blessing in preaching.
This new book began as sermons delivered at the Trinity Pastors Conference hosted by Trinity Baptist Church in October 2002. It was my privilege to be present there when the messages were first preached. I believe I shall never forget the experience. The pastors gathered on that occasion saw and heard, in a very high degree, a ministry greatly owned by the same Spirit so honored and praised by the preacher. By the grace of God alone, Pastor Martin did not merely tell us how to preach; he showed us once again, as he has many times before and since. The rich biblical and experiential content of this book, carefully considered, has potential for a radical transformation of a preacher’s ministry. May the Spirit multiply the fruits of it for His everlasting glory and the good of His beloved ones.
Especially if you are responsible for the public ministry of the Word, or if you aspire to pulpit ministry, I strongly urge you to acquire this book and take to heart its indispensable and dynamic counsel. We absolutely must be preaching in the Holy Spirit if our ministry would meet the biblical standard of what preaching ought to be (ANM, from Chapter 2).
D. Scott Meadows, Pastor
Calvary Baptist Church (Reformed) of Exeter, New Hampshire, USA