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Our Vision for These Days 1: A Recovery of the Biblical Gospel

Albert N. Martin

First of all, our vision for these days is that of seeking a recovery of the biblical gospel. Nothing is more important in any generation than the maintenance of the integrity of the gospel and the proclamation of that gospel in the power and demonstration of the Holy Spirit. I say that nothing is more important in any generation than the maintenance of the integrity of the gospel for the simple reason that the gospel is the exclusive, divine remedy for man in the manifold complexities of his sin and lostness.

Our Vision for These Days 2: A Return to Biblical Holiness

Albert N. Martin

Now, I take up with you the second element of Our Vision for These Days, namely, a renewal of biblical holiness. What I purpose to do in the time allotted is to speak of our vision for these days with reference to a renewal of biblical holiness under these three headings. First of all: the centrality of holiness in the purposes of redemptive grace. Secondly: the indispensability of holiness in the application of redemptive grace. Then: a sketch of the theology of holiness in the outworking of redemptive grace.

Our Vision for These Days 3: A Return to Biblical Churchmanship

Albert N. Martin

Now, we come to take up the third of these things that constitute our vision, not in a sense that we have had some supernatural revelation, but the word “vision” being used synonymous with our perspective concerning the great need of these days. The third strand of our vision of these days is what I have entitled “A Return to Biblical Churchmanship.”

Our Vision for These Days 4: A Restoration of Biblical Preaching

Albert N. Martin

Believing that the vast majority of you are already convinced of the primacy of preaching and the saving purposes of God, I have chosen to take no time to establish that fundamental tenet of the things most surely believed among us, but assuming that we are agreed in that conviction, I pass on directly to the subject of our vision for a restoration of biblical preaching. If we are to pray for such a restoration, if we are to labor for such a restoration, and if we are to recognize the answer to our prayers and measure our progress in sanctified endeavor for the restoration for biblical preaching, we must begin with giving, at least, the main concerns which identify such preaching.

Our Vision for These Days 5: Recognition of Pastor as a Watchman

Albert N. Martin

Where do we gain the concept of the servant of God ministering under the New Covenant as a watchman amongst God’s people? Well, when we turn to the Old Testament and seek to discover the beginnings of the biblical concept of a watchman, we find that the watchman was the man assigned the responsibility of standing upon the wall of a city or a military garrison in order to look out for approaching dangers to that city or to that garrison, and with a solemn responsibility in a context of conscious alertness and wakefulness, when perceiving that danger, to alert the proper authorities.

Our Vision for These Days 6: A Return to Domestic Piety

Albert N. Martin

Now, I wish to address the sixth area of crucial concern, which does, indeed, constitute a vital part of our vision for these days. I’ve stated it this way: it is the reestablishment of godly family life, or in the more antiquated terminology, the return to domestic piety. What we would call in current parlance “godly family life,” our forefathers designated as “domestic piety.”

Our Vision for These Days 7: A Recovery of Biblical Worship

Albert N. Martin

Our vision for these days, in terms of a passionate concern to see a recovery of biblical worship. Now, in taking up so vast and crucial a subject as biblical worship, I am doing so with a very limited field of focus, namely, the public worship of the gathered people of God in their seasons of stated gathering for such worship. I state this fact that the outset, because I’m fully aware that the biblical doctrine of worship is both exceedingly broad and deep. In bypassing many other crucial aspects of the more comprehensive biblical doctrine of worship, I have no intention, in so doing, of demeaning those other aspects, nor do I consider the matters of little importance or unworthy of extensive and careful instruction from the Scriptures.