He was raised in a Christian home, the second of eleven children born to George and Mildred Martin. Although he always gave intellectual assent to the truths of Scripture taught faithfully by his parents and made repeated professions of faith in childhood (the result, he said, of a sensitive conscience and a fear of God’s judgment), it was not until his late teens that he was converted. His considerable native intelligence, zeal and energy—devoted till then to schoolwork, football and baseball—were now and for the rest of his long life to be harnessed for the cause of Christ. Knowing God through knowing Scripture and telling others about this God from his Word became his all-consuming passion. He spent endless hours reading his newly-purchased Thomson Chain Reference Bible, wearing it out within three years, preaching at the local Mission Hall and on the street corner in Stamford CT, and praying with other newly converted friends. He studied at Bob Jones University and Columbia Bible College, graduating Magna Cum Laude in 1956.

He married Marilyn Hart in June 1956 and they enjoyed 48 years of happy marriage and were blessed with three children. Mrs Martin was called home in 2004 after a six-year battle with cancer. In 2006 Pastor Martin married Dorothy Chanski, a great support and blessing to him in retirement, who predeceased him in 2020.

Pastor Martin exercised an itinerant ministry from 1957 until the birth of the Martins’ first child, Joel, in 1961. This change in circumstances persuaded him that he needed to be at home much more than his itinerant ministry allowed. In September 1962 he received a call to be the pastor of a Christian and Missionary Alliance Church in North Caldwell, NJ, about an hour from New York City. During these years he was discovering the doctrines of grace as he preached consecutively through books of Scripture. An instrumental figure in Pastor Martin’s developing understanding of biblical doctrine at this time was Ernest Reisinger (who was to become the first U.S. Trustee of the Banner of Truth Trust in 1967). Through Mr Reisinger, Pastor Martin read such books as The Sovereignty of God by A.W. Pink and The Death of Death in the Death of Christ by John Owen. After about a decade of reading, preaching, praying and thinking, Pastor Martin became unshakeably convinced that Reformed Christianity is nothing less than biblical Christianity and that it ought to bear the fruit of a deep and genuine piety. One of the texts that has informed Pastor Martin’s ministry is 1 Timothy 4.16: Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers. He has preached and lectured and written on this verse countless times, but his own life and ministry stands as a living sermon on the text, as anyone who had the privilege of knowing him can testify.

Pastor Martin faithfully served the CMA church in North Caldwell from 1962 until 1966, but as his convictions developed in an increasingly Reformed direction he realised that he could no longer pastor in a denomination whose beliefs were so different from his own and so offered his resignation. The congregation however, refused his resignation! They loved and esteemed him and his teaching so much that they disbanded as a CMA church, leaving behind the buildings and parsonage. In September 1967 the church reconstituted with the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith as its subordinate standard and the name Trinity Baptist Church. This congregation was to become Pastor Martin’s life’s work, into which he poured every ounce of his strength and abilities for another forty-six years, seeing the church grow from small beginnings in the little rented building affectionately known as the ‘Cracker Box’ in Caldwell, NJ to the present large suite of buildings (incorporating a Christian School) in Montville, NJ. The name of Trinity Baptist Church and Albert Martin came to be inseparable in the minds of innumerable believers throughout the world who (like the present writer) owe an incalculable debt to the ministry of this servant of Christ and the church he shepherded so faithfully.

Ernest Reisinger not only introduced Pastor Martin to books but to men who would shape him—not least Iain H. Murray and Professor John Murray. As a result of these friendships Pastor Martin was first invited to preach at the Banner of Truth Ministers’ conference in Leicester, England at the age of thirty-four. When Professor Murray was invited to speak at the three evening meetings of the 1967 Banner of Truth Ministers’ Conference he replied, “If Al Martin is to be there I really think he should be asked to take the three evening services you propose for me. He is one of the ablest and moving preachers I have ever heard. In recent years I have not heard his equal. My memory of preachers goes back sixty years. So, when I say he is one of the ablest, this is an assessment that includes very memorable preachers of the past and present.”

Pastor Martin’s preaching gifts were continually sought after in family conferences, pastors’ conferences and other settings all around the world. His preaching ministry was multiplied exponentially through the work of the Trinity Pulpit (begun in 1971) sending out more than 800,000 cassette tapes of Pastor Martin’s recorded sermons to all parts of the globe. In 1977 Trinity Ministerial Academy began as a ministry of Trinity Baptist Church. Pastor Martin taught Pastoral Theology to generations of students at the Academy until it closed in 1998. Alongside these many and varied public ministries, Pastor Martin also came to be a kind of Pastor of pastors, as men sought his counsel on all aspects of pastoral ministry. He was a diligent and conscientious correspondent, carefully replying personally to every enquiry that came across his desk, as well as spending untold hours on the phone counselling pastors who needed his wisdom and encouragement. As a result he and his fellow elders decided to begin an annual Pastors’ conference where the recurring issues about which he was being consulted could be addressed in a more time-efficient way. This conference continues to this day and is one of the highlights of the year for many of those who regularly attend.

If I may speak personally, I first encountered Pastor Martin through the Trinity Pulpit cassette tapes. I listened to his 90+ lectures on Pastoral Theology in the year before entering seminary and they proved to be an ideal preparation for my formal ministry training. Pastor Martin seemed not only to have read every significant work relating to pastoral theology and to have mined them for every gem of wisdom they had to offer, but to have distilled their riches and woven them throughout his lectures. No matter what the topic, Pastor Martin provided counsel that was biblically faithful and practically wise. I never dreamt that one day I would have the privilege of attending the Trinity Pastors’ Conference and getting to know the man whose voice and teaching had become so familiar to me, but thanks to Ted Donnelly’s gentle insistence I did attend each year and got to know the man behind the lectures.

I discovered that every word of these lectures had been hammered out on the anvil of pastoral experience over decades of faithful ministry, and that these lectures had been lived before they were taught. I’m thankful that Pastor Martin was able to commit them to writing and leave in his three-volume Pastoral Theology an enduring legacy for future pastors. Every page provides a window into Pastor Martin’s own life and ministry: for with a consistency that I have rarely witnessed, he has sought to practise every word he teaches. His own character and work commend his teaching and exemplify a saying he was fond of quoting: ‘The life of the minister is the life of his ministry.’

It was as a preacher, however, that Pastor Martin was most used, both in Montville and throughout the world. In the pulpit all his gifts and character were at full stretch—his hard-won understanding of whatever passage of Scripture he was expounding, through a lifetime of prayer and laborious study, his natural rhetorical powers reinforced by decades of reading the masters of preaching, the lucidity of his mind, the powerful logic of his argument, the passionate zeal for the truth, devotion to his Lord and love for those to whom he preached. He used to quote what was said of Robert Murray M’Cheyne, ‘He preached as if he was dying to have you converted’; Pastor Martin preached as if he was dying to have you either converted or sanctified. And supporting his preaching was the scrupulous consistency of a man determined to keep a clear conscience before God and men. By God’s grace he was enabled to finish his race well and keep that clear conscience to the end.

Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. (Heb 13.7)

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Permit me to ride a hobby horse of mine for a few minutes! I want to issue a plea for an exegetically informed gifted illustrator to produce illustrations for a really excellent children’s Bible story book. I wonder how many children grow up with completely wrong ideas about Scripture simply because of a misleading picture in a story book. I’m not questioning the motives of the illustrators—no doubt they want to produce pictures that are simple and appealing; but how often do they end up distorting what the text actually says?

Noah’s ark is the classic example of this. How many children grow up thinking that the ark was some ludicrously unseaworthy tub that looks like it would capsize on a small pond if a breath of wind happened to touch it, never mind survive a cataclysmic worldwide flood?! Portholes (where are they mentioned in Genesis?!) with a fully grown giraffe’s neck sticking out. Is it any wonder that children grow up thinking the idea of an ark is ridiculous? The Answers in Genesis organisation has done a phenomenal job of showing generations of children (and adults) what the ark would really have looked like, even recreating a full-size replica of it in Louisville, KY.

My mother had a Bible that included a picture of the manna in the wilderness raining down from the sky on a little girl who stood holding her arms open to catch it. It was a very memorable picture which stuck in my memory for decades, but it contradicts how the text of Scripture actually describes the arduous and back-breaking work of gathering the manna off the ground six mornings a week!

I was thinking of this issue again last week when I preached on Moses striking the rock at Horeb to provide water for the thirsty and complaining Israelites. Each week I provide a sheet for the children in the congregation to accompany the sermon, so they can fill in blanks as they follow the message. For the younger children I look for a picture that relates to the sermon for them to colour in. Trying to find an appropriate picture of the water from the rock was extremely frustrating! Almost every picture I came across on the internet showed Moses tapping a rock and something like the stream of water from an airport drinking fountain springing forth! It’s such a missed opportunity to educate our children about the reality of this Bible history! These are incredibly dramatic stories that deserve the best illustrations we can provide—excellently produced in terms of art and colour and vividness, but as faithful to the text as we can make them. A picture is worth a thousand words, after all—especially to children—so we should labour hard to make sure the pictures are as accurate as possible. Instead of the pictures that show several dozen Israelites in the desert with a couple of cows gathered round this little trickle of water, why not show the two million or so people and herds and flocks of animals and the rock exploding as a vast underground reservoir erupts like a geyser and creates a river of freshwater in the desert that follows the Israelites through the wilderness? (1 Cor. 10:4). How do later biblical writers describe this water? Ps. 78:15–16, 20: He split rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink abundantly as from the deep. He made streams come out of the rock and caused waters to flow down like rivers… He struck the rock so that water gushed out and streams overflowed.

Then the idea of two million people and their animals being supplied with water for forty years in the desert won’t seem so laughable. And more importantly, when Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 10:4 that the rock is a picture of Christ being struck by the rod of God’s judgment so that the spiritual water of life bursts forth from his shattered body to supply countless millions with eternal life, we have an accurate lens through which to view the illustration—the mighty thundering waters of Niagara Falls rather than a feeble little jet from a drinking fountain!

No doubt a hundred comments will soon tell me of any number of excellent resources that do exactly what I’ve been pleading for here! I hope so! And if not, biblically informed illustrators please take note!!

Warren Peel has been married to Ruth since 1998 and they have four daughters. He is pastor of Covenant Christian Fellowship, Galway (Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland), and a trustee of the Banner of Truth Trust.

Featured image (visible on social media) by Henrik Eikefjord on Unsplash

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The elders at Trinity Bible Church of Dallas regretfully announce that effective immediately, Steven J. Lawson has been removed indefinitely from all ministry activities at Trinity Bible Church of Dallas.  Several days ago, the elders at Trinity Bible Church of Dallas were informed by Steve Lawson of an inappropriate relationship that he has had with a woman. The elders have met with Steve and will continue to come alongside him and pray for him with the ultimate goal of his personal repentance. Steve will no longer be compensated by Trinity Bible Church of Dallas.’

‘The board of OnePassion Ministries mournfully announces that just recently Steven J. Lawson confessed to the board that he has had an inappropriate relationship with a woman, a sin that has disqualified him from ministry. In response Steve has resigned from all his duties at OnePassion Ministries… Steve has confessed and regrets the damage he has caused to his family, the church, the reputation of OnePassion Ministries and most of all Jesus Christ.’

No doubt many of us have benefited greatly from Steve Lawson’s preaching and writing ministry. To hear of his removal from ministry under these circumstances is a grievous shock. The devil loves to use the public fall of the Lord’s servants to make other believers stumble or sin—we are not ignorant of his designs (2 Cor. 2:11). With that in mind, let’s make every effort to respond to this news in as godly a way as possible. What effect should this sad news have on us?

1. We should mourn with those who mourn. We are all joined to one another and so when one part of the body suffers, we all suffer. We should grieve with Steve’s family and the family of the other woman involved, their churches and friends in their pain, praying for the Lord to sustain them and give them grace to forgive a sinner who has fallen, confessed and repented.
2. We should guard our own hearts. ‘Let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.’ (1 Cor. 10:12). Let’s redouble our own efforts to keep ourselves from sin. Voddie Baucham put it so well: ‘The wisest man in the Bible fell into sexual sin, the strongest man in the Bible fell to sexual sin, and the godliest man in the Bible fell to sexual sin. For me to think I’m above falling into this sin is to think that I’m wiser than Solomon, stronger than Samson, and godlier than King David.’ How we need to pray for the Spirit to preserve each of us.
3. We should pray all the more earnestly for protection for our pastors and all in leadership in ministry. The devil is a roaring lion, constantly hunting for prey (1 Pet. 5:8). Do you regularly pray this for your pastor and elders?
4. We should remember that a fallen Christian is still a Christian. A believer who falls and repents is to be forgiven, whatever the consequences of their sin might involve; he is still a brother and is to be treated as a brother (Luke 17:3; 2 Thess. 3:15).
5. We should beware of the particular temptations and sins that come with hearing of the fall of a Christian leader, and pray for God’s grace to resist them:
6. Cynicism: ‘They’re probably all doing that and are no better than him—you can’t trust anyone in leadership.’
7. Pride: ‘I have never done that, so I’m better than him.’
8. Complacency: ‘I would never do that, so I’m better than him.’ He who puts his armour on should not boast as one who takes it off. (1 Kings 20:11). Wait until you’re safely in heaven before you start talking about things you would never do. Robert Murray M’Cheyne was one of the godliest men of his generation, but he said that the seeds of all sins were in his heart. A little water and the right conditions and who knows what poisonous fruit our hearts could bring forth. Make sure you have close friends who will keep you accountable.
9. Self-righteousness: we can be like the Pharisees exulting over the woman caught in the act of adultery, because it makes us feel superior when we find some poor, wretched, fallen brother or sister in a worse state than we are. What did the Lord say to people with that spirit? ‘Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.’ (John 8:7) We may not have committed this sin, but how many other sins are we guilty of? How many other sexual sins have we committed, even if not this particular one? How many times has the Lord in his grace turned you back from this very road before you got to the stage this man reached?
10. We should guard our conversation against the temptation to gossip and empty speculation. Trinity Bible Church and OnePassion Ministries have wisely said as little as possible about the details of what exactly happened. They have said enough and the people who need to know more do know more. Our sinful hearts may want to know more, but we need to accept that it is none of our business. We should avoid trying to read between the lines of what has been publicly stated. In fact, in the absence of more information we have a duty to assume the best as far as possible. Although a few more details have come to light since the news broke, there is a great deal that the general public doesn’t know and doesn’t need to know. Love always hopes (1 Cor. 13:7). Why would we fill the vacuum by assuming the worst about a fallen brother? Why not assume the best? Let’s assume, until we know otherwise, that this brother was convicted by the Word of God and the work of the Spirit so that he confessed this sin of his own free will instead of keeping it a secret, that he is genuinely repenting of what he did and that he is humbly submitting to whatever his elders are counselling him to do. Let’s hope that this ‘inappropriate relationship’, although clearly serious enough to disqualify Steve from continuing in ministry for the time being, was not as sinful as it could be.
11. Let’s commit not to talk about this subject or think about Steve Lawson without praying for him and his family, and the woman with whom he had this relationship and her family. Let’s pray that his repentance is indeed genuine, that his wife and family will be given the grace to forgive him just as God in Christ forgave them. Let’s pray that the cause of Christ will be furthered because this terrible situation is handled in a biblically faithful way, so that instead of cover-up and self-justification there is repentance and grace and loving discipline. Let’s pray for the restoration of a fallen brother, even if that means he never stands in a pulpit again. Let’s pray that no Christian will fall into this sin, using this man’s fall as an excuse for doing so.
12. Many Christians, when they hear about the fall of an eminent Christian leader through whom God has blessed them, begin to doubt the legitimacy of his teaching and the reality of the blessing they gained from his ministry. But in the end every minister of the gospel is a weak earthen vessel that the Lord in his grace and power chooses to use to build up his people (2Cor 4.7). That any blessing ever comes through a sinful human being is a testimony to the greatness of God—God can draw a straight line with a bent stick. Paul spoke of some men who preached Christ for sinful motives, even out of envy and rivalry, but was able to say that the main thing was that Christ was preached and he rejoiced in that (Phil. 1:15–18).
13. Above all we should be so profoundly thankful of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, without which every one of us would be lost. ‘If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?’ (Psa. 130:3) The Lord Jesus lived a life in which he never once, in thought, word or action, had an inappropriate relationship with anyone—instead he related with perfect integrity towards everyone. On the cross he suffered and died to atone for Steve’s sin, whatever it was, and all his other countless sins, and all the sins of all of us his people so that we might be forgiven. ‘If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.’ (Psa. 130:3–4)

Warren Peel is pastor at Covenant Christian Fellowship, Galway, Ireland, and a trustee of the Banner of Truth. This piece first appeared on the Gentle Reformation blog. It was first published here on 20 September 2024 and last updated on 14 October 2024.

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When an eagle judges that its young are ready to fly, it pushes them out of the nest, forcing them to flap their wings and try to fly. If the eaglet isn’t able to do this immediately, it will drop like a stone. But the eagle swoops down underneath and catches its young and bears it up to safety. Then the process is repeated until the young bird learns how to use its wings. It sounds cruel—but it’s for the eaglet’s good. It needs to learn to fly and that will never happen in the security of the nest. But the mother is watchful, strong and swift to come to the rescue if needed.

That’s the Lord’s own description of those two or three months Israel has spent in the wilderness since leaving Egypt. The Lord has been disciplining his people, testing them and training them to trust him. Perhaps at times his methods have seemed harsh, even cruel.

Think of how he led the Israelites in a circle until they were trapped, with the Red Sea behind them and the whole Egyptian army racing towards them. How distressing that must have been for them! How damaging for their mental health! Exodus 14:10 says that they ‘feared greatly’. But the Lord swooped down to catch them, parting the Red Sea and bringing them safely through.

Think of how he led them for three days with no water—right on the brink of what the human body can endure. He brought them to Marah where there was water—only for them to find the water was bitter! The Lord is tossing them out of the nest. Will they flap their wings of faith and fly? Will they trust him? No—so he swoops down to catch them and makes the water sweet.

But Israel won’t learn to trust him if he gives them everything they need instantly, dropping food into their mouths like baby birds in a nest. So once again he pushes them out of the nest, letting them suffer the agony of hunger pangs for weeks. They suffer so much they wish they were dead. Will they trust him? No—they are in free fall, so again he swoops down to catch them in might and grace and rains down bread from heaven.

Again he pushes them out of the nest to teach them to trust him by leaving them without water. Will they flap their wings of faith and fly this time? Surely they know now that the Lord can be trusted? But no—again they grumble and complain. So Lord swoops down and gives them a mighty river of water from the rock.

Time and time again, with great patience, the Lord has caught his plummeting people on his mighty wings and borne them up and carried them to safety.

Can’t you testify to how the Lord has done the same for you, over and over again in your life? This is how he deals with all his people. Haven’t there been times when he has pushed you out of the nest—out of your comfort zone, out into a terrifying, bewildering, painful ordeal. You felt yourself plummeting—it seemed certain you would crash to the ground, that you couldn’t cope. But just in time he caught you and bore you up on his mighty wings.

Can’t you look back and see, at least in part, his wisdom in sending trials of various kinds into your life? Illness, failure, disappointment, setbacks, hardships, chronic pain, weakness, loneliness, grief. It may have seemed cruel at the time; it may have been a deeply traumatic experience; you may have questioned the Lord’s kindness and wisdom: ‘Why would a loving God do this to me?’ His purposes may have been completely hidden from you at the time. But later it became clear—or at least a little clearer—what the Lord was doing. He was teaching you to trust him—to flap the wings of faith, to learn to fly. We can’t stay in the nest all the time, where it’s safe and comfortable and easy, where everything is provided for us. It wouldn’t be good for us, nor would it be kind of the Lord to let us.

Maybe you feel like you’re in free fall today. Something or someone you depended on has been torn away. Everything you thought you knew has been turned upside-down. You feel like a great hand has plucked you out of your nest and thrown you into the air, so that you’re spinning around with no idea of which way is up, with the ground rushing up to meet you.

The Lord is teaching you to fly. To trust him. And if you fail, there is a gracious safety net. Look back and remember ‘what you yourselves have seen’—how the Lord has borne you up on eagles’ wings so many times before. Remember how he did it for Israel, not just here in the wilderness but countless times throughout their history. Talk to your brothers and sisters in your church and listen to their stories of how the Lord has borne them up on eagles’ wings again and again. By his grace, in his strength, flap your wings and learn to trust him more.

Thumbail photo by Richard Lee on Unsplash

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