Operations of The Holy Spirit in Preaching #1

Driving home: We are to address the immediate agency and operations of the Holy Spirit upon the preacher, in the act of preaching.

Martin describes an 'alarm system' going off when he hears phrases like 'how to obtain the power of the Spirit' or 'Holy Spirit power,' likening it to Simon Magus's error in Acts 8, to emphasize that the Spirit is a person, not a force to be manipulated.

And this is particularly vital when we are dealing with the ministry of the Spirit in conjunction with the act of preaching. When I read statements such as these, how to obtain the power of the Spirit in our ministries, or Holy Spirit power, something in me, the bells within me, go off in an alarm system, because it seems to me it takes us perilously close to the language of Acts chapter 8. Give me this power! My money perish with thee.

7:21 - 7:57 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He argues for the Spirit's indispensable necessity by first examining the ministry of Jesus Christ, showing that despite His divine nature and perfect humanity, He received a…

Martin urges listeners to read John Owen's Volume 3, specifically the section demonstrating the Spirit's ministry in the development of Christ's perfect humanity, to underscore the constant and immediate agency of the Spirit in Jesus' life.

The same Holy Spirit, that conceived Him in the womb of the Virgin, is the Spirit who nurtured the holy humanity of our Lord Jesus as He grew in wisdom and stature, in favor with God and with men. And if you have never read Owen Volume 3, his masterful treatise on the work of the Spirit, I urge you to read the section in which Owen demonstrates the ministry of the Spirit in the divine, the development of the perfect humanity of our Lord Jesus. There was a constant and an immediate agency and operation of the Holy Spirit

13:37 - 14:22 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin transitions to specific manifestations of the Spirit's immediate agency, first describing how the Spirit gives the preacher a heightened and felt sense of the spiritual…

Martin humorously expresses the common pastoral desire for 'one more Saturday' to improve a sermon, illustrating the constant pressure and desire for perfection in sermon preparation.

The moment of truth has come. And I know we'd all like to have an eight day week. We always see it by one more Saturday. How much better I preach.

34:18 - 34:25 Read in full sermon

The point: If you don't know anything of what that is, I pity you. And I pity your people.

He describes a preacher so caught up in beholding Christ's glory during preaching that he wouldn't care if everyone left, illustrating an internal rapture and heightened sense of spiritual reality.

But the Spirit of God by His immediate agency and operation enables you to get a sight of Christ as you preach of that glory that was hammered out in the study. And as you behold His glory, there's a sense in which you wouldn't care if everyone got up and walked out. Just soliloquizing about your Savior in an internal rapture in the act of preaching. You may have been reflecting upon the horrors of hell.

36:14 - 36:46 Read in full sermon

The point: If you don't know anything of what that is, I pity you. And I pity your people.

Martin uses the vivid image of a preacher 'smelling the brimstone' when preaching on hell, to illustrate the heightened, felt sense of spiritual realities that the Spirit gives.

And there was heaviness. And you felt, how can I preach this horrific doctrine? And in the act of preaching it's as though you can smell the brimstone. And your soul feels the horrors of the pit that awaits the impenitent. It may

36:48 - 37:06 Read in full sermon

The point: If you don't know anything of what that is, I pity you. And I pity your people.

He describes the physical manifestations of the Spirit's work: an 'unforced glow' on the countenance, an 'unplanned tear,' and 'unplanned pathos' in the voice, which no actor can produce, to show the authenticity of the Spirit's immediate agency.

What does he experience? A heightened and felt sense of the spiritual realities in which he is now trafficking as he preaches. The result of that is it will give at times an unforced glow to the very countenance of the preacher. You experience that last night in this building.

37:22 - 37:48 Read in full sermon

The point: If you don't know anything of what that is, I pity you. And I pity your people.

Martin quotes George Whitefield's desire for 'a thousand words felt' to illustrate the profound, internal experience of spiritual realities that the Spirit produces in preaching.

pity your people. This is why Whitefield said I would not for a thousand words felt.

38:21 - 38:32 Read in full sermon

Driving home: If I were forbidden to enter heaven but were permitted to select my state for all eternity I should choose to be as I sometimes feel. In preaching the gospel heaven is foreshadowed in such a state, the mind shut out from…

He quotes Spurgeon describing being 'completely out of ourselves' in preaching, forgetting everything but the subject, to illustrate the Spirit's power to engross the preacher in the truth.

That's what he was talking about. Again, I quote my friend Spurgeon. I'm hiding under Spurgeon's skirt on these matters. He writes, the divine spirit will sometimes work on us so as to bear us completely out of ourselves.

38:38 - 38:55 Read in full sermon

Driving home: If I were forbidden to enter heaven but were permitted to select my state for all eternity I should choose to be as I sometimes feel. In preaching the gospel heaven is foreshadowed in such a state, the mind shut out from…

Spurgeon's hypothetical choice to preach the gospel for eternity, even if forbidden heaven, is quoted to convey the profound joy and spiritual intensity experienced when the Spirit works powerfully in preaching.

He's meditating on if God said you can't come to heaven but you can choose whatever state you'd like to be in for eternity what would you choose, my son? Listen to Spurgeon. If I were forbidden to enter heaven but were permitted to select my state for all eternity I should choose to be as I sometimes feel. In preaching the gospel heaven is foreshadowed in such a state, the mind shut out from all disturbing influences adoring the majestic and consciously present God.

39:16 - 39:52 Read in full sermon

The point: You've known it at the level of your experience. You can never, ever treat it as something that is in the realm of fanaticism. And you can't be satisfied without it.

Martin recounts stories of young academy students describing a 'strange' and special operation of the Spirit in their preaching, which he identifies as 'unction' or 'liberty,' illustrating the conscious experience of heightened utterance.

when we had the academy.

52:09 - 52:10 Read in full sermon

The point: Perhaps some of you need to get on your face before God and say, O God, is this the cause of my barren ministry?

Spurgeon's analogy of feeling 'as heavy as Pharaoh's chariots with the wheels taken off' versus 'as much at liberty as a hind let loose' illustrates the dramatic, Spirit-dependent fluctuations in a preacher's facility of utterance.

Some of those states arise from your body being in different conditions. A bad cold will not only spoil the clearness of the voice, but freeze the flow of the thoughts. For my own part, if I cannot speak clearly, I'm unable to think clearly, and the matter becomes hoarse as well as the voice. The stomach also, and all the other organs of the body affect the mind.

54:03 - 54:23 Read in full sermon

The point: If we yearn to do them good, we want to see sinners saved. We want to see saints brought to maturity in Christ. And we have a yearningness. And we believe what we're trafficking in under God's blessing can produce it. Ho…

Martin uses the example of a young man pursuing a young lady in the church, showing his 'earnestness' and 'intention' in his soul, to illustrate the energy of the soul intent on a given object, and how this applies to a preacher's yearning for his hearers' good.

It's the energy of the soul intent on a given object. We've got a young man sitting here who's becoming intent on a given object. It's one of the young ladies in our church.

60:45 - 60:57 Read in full sermon

The point: If we yearn to do them good, we want to see sinners saved. We want to see saints brought to maturity in Christ. And we have a yearningness. And we believe what we're trafficking in under God's blessing can produce it. Ho…

He quotes Professor Murray's statement, 'To me, preaching without passion is not preaching,' to underscore the essential role of passion, born of love, in effective preaching.

Remember the words of Professor Murray, quote, to me, preaching without passion is not preaching. Listen to the words of J.W. Alexander, page 27, of his book.

62:04 - 62:18 Read in full sermon

The point: If we yearn to do them good, we want to see sinners saved. We want to see saints brought to maturity in Christ. And we have a yearningness. And we believe what we're trafficking in under God's blessing can produce it. Ho…

Martin quotes J.W. Alexander on how the 'same truths uttered... by different men or by the same man in different states of feeling will produce very different effects,' and how 'the whole mass of truth by a sudden passion of the speaker is made red hot and burns its way,' illustrating the Spirit's work in making truth powerfully effective through the preacher's earnestness and love.

The same truths uttered from the pulpit by different men or by the same man in different states of feeling will produce very different effects. And this is no Arminian talking.

62:20 - 62:33 Read in full sermon