The Instructions for the Rich
Paul's closing instructions to Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:17–19 carry a twofold charge to the wealthy: resist the twin sins of pride and idolatry, and actively pursue generosity. The sermon works through two prohibitions (do not be haughty; do not trust in uncertain riches) and three positive exhortations (do good; be rich in good works; be ready to give and willing to share), grounding each in the character of the living God who gives richly for enjoyment, not for hoarding. The concluding section sets out ten biblical perspectives on wealth, insisting that godliness neither requires the renunciation of riches nor permits their idolization, and that the benevolence of the rich man is itself evidence of the eternal life God has graciously given him — received by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
Divine Simplicity 2 - Of God and the Holy Trinity (2LCF 2.1-3)
What does it mean to say God is 'without parts,' and why does it matter for every other divine attribute? This second session on divine simplicity (2LCF 2.1–3) continues an expository study of the Second London Baptist Confession's opening chapter on God, working through the classical doctrine that God is not composed of physical, metaphysical, or logical parts — a doctrine historically attested from the church fathers through the Reformation and represented in every major Reformed confession. The session focuses especially on God's pure actuality (the denial of act-and-potency composition), the inseparability of God as knower, knowing, and things known, and the impossibility of God being both agent and patient — showing that divine simplicity is the ontological foundation for God's immutability, independence, absoluteness, unity, and infinite love.
The Unholy Alliance Seeks a Sign
Matthew 16:1–4 records a politically improbable coalition — the theologically opposed Pharisees and Sadducees — uniting in their demand that Jesus produce a sign from heaven. The sermon traces three features of this encounter: the nature of their demand, the hypocrisy Jesus exposes in their selective discernment, and the gravity of his description of their generation as wicked and adulterous. Jesus refuses to satisfy carnal curiosity or submit to carnal scrutiny, responding instead with the sign of the prophet Jonah — the death and resurrection of the Son of Man — the very gospel that calls every hearer to repent and flee to Christ rather than bargain with God.
The Lord's Prayer, Part 6
What does it mean for a justified believer to pray 'forgive us our debts'? This study of Matthew 6:12 distinguishes between forensic justification — God's once-for-all judicial declaration of pardon — and the ongoing filial forgiveness a child of God seeks from his Father so that he may know the smile and nearness of God in daily life. Six reasons are given for why believers must continually pray this petition: remaining corruption, desire for God's fatherly favor, consciousness of the evil of sin, trust in divine mercy, renunciation of self-righteousness, and acknowledgment of Christ's sufficiency. The study closes by examining the expansion of the petition in verses 14–15, showing that a forgiving spirit toward others is not the cause but the necessary sign and fruit of having been forgiven by God through justifying grace.
Christ Our Passover
Paul's declaration in 1 Corinthians 5:7b — 'Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us' — grounds the Apostle's call to holiness in the atoning work of Christ. This exposition traces the Passover typology of Exodus 12 through six correspondences between the Old Testament type and the anti-typical Lamb: the sacrificial lamb, its unblemished character, its slaughter, the blood's application, its particular scope, and its vicarious nature. Christ's death satisfies divine wrath against the sins of his people and simultaneously breaks sin's dominion, calling believers to pursue holiness as those truly unleavened before God.
Divine Simplicity - Of God and the Holy Trinity (2LCF 2.1-3)
Divine simplicity — the classical doctrine that God has no parts, no composition whatsoever, and that all that is in God is God — is examined through its confessional, definitional, historical, and doctrinal dimensions. The 1689 London Baptist Confession's phrase 'without body, parts, or passions' serves as the entry point, with 'without parts' identified as the direct expression of divine simplicity. The doctrine is shown to be the ontological foundation for God's aseity, infinity, immutability, and the unity of his attributes, and is traced through an unbroken stream of witnesses from Irenaeus and Augustine through Aquinas, the Reformers, and the Reformed scholastics. Hearers are pressed to resist any conception of God as a composite being whose attributes are properties inhering in a subject, and to affirm instead that God is identical with his own essence, being, and every perfection predicated of him.
Samson's Victory at Gaza
Judges 16 presents Samson not as a man driven by fleshly passion but as a Spirit-empowered covenant agent executing divine judgment against Israel's Philistine oppressors. Careful attention to the narrative parallels between Judges 16 and Joshua 2 challenges the assumption that Samson sinned with the harlot at Gaza, revealing instead a strategic military mission consistent with God's call on his life from the womb. Though Samson's capitulation to Delilah's manipulation brings catastrophic consequences, the grace of God is displayed precisely in the nadir of Samson's failure, as God hears his prayer and grants him a victory in death greater than any he achieved in life — a pattern that points forward to Christ, who was delivered up by his own people and accomplished more in his death than in his earthly ministry.
The Lord's Prayer, Part 5
The fourth petition of the Lord's Prayer — 'Give us this day our daily bread' (Matthew 6:11) — addresses the believer's daily dependence upon God for temporal provision. This study examines what the petition does not mean (it neither excuses idleness nor promises wealth), what it does mean (a request for all necessary temporal sustenance, not luxury), and its theological weight: it confesses the forfeiture of blessing through the fall, acknowledges that even the capacity to work is a divine gift, expresses faith in God's provision, and recognizes God as the first cause behind every blessing. The practical scope of the petition extends beyond personal need to intercession for fellow believers, the suffering church, and the persecuted worldwide.
The Prayer of the Early Church, Part 1
Acts 4:24–28 records the early church's response to persecution: a corporate prayer that grounds confidence not in circumstances but in the character of God. The sermon traces three foundations of the congregation's confidence — God as sovereign creator, God as sovereign revelator (particularly through Psalm 2), and God as sovereign predeterminer and governor of all things — showing that the church's unity is a gospel-defined unity, not a generic sociological bond. The exposition presses these truths against fleshly anxiety, open theism, and the therapeutic impulse to find comfort in a God who co-suffers, calling the congregation to bring their petitions to the immutable, impassible God who has decreed all things and governs them for the good of his people.
The Prayer of the Early Church, Part 2
Acts 4:29–31 presents the early church's prayer as a model for Christian supplication: addressed to the sovereign Creator, Revelator, and Governor of all things, and shaped by three specific requests — the administration of justice against gospel opposition, boldness to proclaim Christ regardless of human threat, and continued confirmation of apostolic preaching through the miraculous. The sermon then traces God's threefold response: an indication of his presence in the shaking of the place, the filling of the Holy Spirit, and the provision of courage that immediately issued in bold gospel proclamation. The chief application is that Christians must follow this pattern — coming to God in humble recognition of who he is, praying for justice, courage, and vindication of the word, and trusting that God gives strength and boldness to his people rather than stirring up those things from within themselves.
Exhortation and Doxology
Paul's charge to Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:13–16 is framed by two weighty divine witnesses — the life-giving Father and the Christ who confessed the truth before Pontius Pilate — and calls every gospel minister to keep the apostolic commandment without spot, blameless, until the Lord's appearing. The sermon examines the gravity of that charge, the eschatological horizon that shapes it, and the doxology to God that it provokes, displaying five divine perfections: the blessed Potentate, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, sole possessor of immortality, dweller in unapproachable light, and the One whom no man has seen or can see. Faithfulness — not popularity, church size, or personal ability — is the measure of ministerial success according to the apostolic ethic. The congregation is exhorted to pray for those in gospel ministry, to pursue the knowledge of God including the doctrine of the Trinity, and to see faithful preaching as the ordinary means by which God saves sinners.
Of God and the Holy Trinity (2LCF 2.1-3)
The doctrine of the Trinity — one divine and infinite being in whom there are three subsistences, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — is not a speculative ivory-tower abstraction but the foundation of all Christian communion with God and comfortable dependence upon him. This session in the study of 2LCF Chapter 2 continues the examination of paragraph three, working through the personal distinctions of generation, filiation, and spiration; the confession's summary statement on unity and personal distinction; and the practical import of Trinitarian theology for prayer, worship, redemption, and assurance. Biblical proofs are drawn from Genesis, the Psalms, Isaiah, and the New Testament, demonstrating the revelatory development of the doctrine from its seed form in the Old Testament to its full flower in the New.
Samson's Victory at Jawbone Height
Judges 15 narrates Samson's campaign against the Philistines — the burning of their grain fields, his arrest by three thousand men of his own tribe of Judah, and his Spirit-empowered slaughter of a thousand Philistines with a fresh jawbone at Lehi. The sermon works through the chapter under four considerations: the wickedness of the oppressing enemy, the cowardice of the covenant people (who acquiesce to bondage and hand their own deliverer over to his enemies), the faithfulness of the nation's deliverer, and the graciousness of Israel's God who sustains and vindicates his servant even when his people never cry out for rescue. Samson is presented not as a bumbling brute governed by passions but as a man of faith, filled with the Spirit, whose deliverance-unto-death typifies the greater Champion who would be handed over by his own nation to a foreign power and accomplish a far greater victory.
The Lord's Prayer, Part 4
Matthew 6:10 — 'Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven' — is not a passive resignation but a twofold petition: that God's people would actively obey His revealed, preceptive will as disclosed in Scripture, and that they would submit patiently to His secret, decretive will even when it brings hardship and trial. The study distinguishes the decretive will (God's eternal, all-encompassing decree, which cannot be altered) from the preceptive will (the commandments and precepts God requires of His creatures), drawing on the Westminster Larger Catechism, John Owen, Thomas Watson, and Thomas Manton. Four practical applications follow for the individual — recognizing God's right to command, knowing His revealed will, obeying it, and submitting patiently to His providential ordering — together with applications for the church and for society.
Samson's Marriage in Timnah
Judges 14 presents Samson's marriage to a Philistine woman not merely as a personal failing but as the sovereign orchestration of Yahweh to open conflict between Israel and the Philistines. The distinction between God's decretive will and His preceptive will is central: God overrules sinful choices to accomplish His purposes, yet this never licenses disobedience to His revealed commands. Samson's Spirit-empowered exploits anticipate a greater Deliverer, and the chapter closes with a direct call to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom alone everlasting life is found.
Of God and the Holy Trinity (2LCF 2.3)
What does it mean to confess that God is one being subsisting in three persons — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? This study of 2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith chapter 2, paragraph 3 works through the classical Trinitarian formulation upheld by the particular Baptists, tracing its foundations in Scripture, its continuity with the ecumenical creeds, and the Baptist Confession's terminological improvement of 'subsistences' over 'persons.' The exposition addresses the unity and equality of the three subsistences, the personal distinctions expressed by eternal generation and procession, and the practical necessity of robust Trinitarian confession in an age of continuing anti-Trinitarian error.
The Good Fight of Faith
First Timothy 6:11–12 sets a man of God in sharp contrast to the false teachers Paul has just condemned: where they pursue comfort, ease, and financial gain, Timothy is commanded to flee, follow, fight, and hold fast. The sermon works through four imperatives — a necessary flight from wickedness, a righteous pursuit of six virtues, a good fight waged as both soldier and athlete, and a steadfast grip on the eternal life God has effectually given. The passage drives home that perseverance in the Christian life demands active, disciplined, Spirit-dependent effort, not passive coasting, and that the same effectual call that conquered Paul conquers every believer, however quiet their conversion.
The Lord's Prayer, Part 3
What does it mean to pray 'Your kingdom come'? This Bible study on Matthew 6:10 works through the second petition of the Lord's Prayer, distinguishing the universal providential kingdom, the present kingdom of grace, and the coming kingdom of glory, drawing on the Westminster Larger Catechism's answer to question 191. The session applies this petition at three levels — the individual believer, the local church, and the civil order — pressing the congregation toward a kingdom mindset that is expressed in doctrine, churchmanship, evangelistic prayer, and loyalty to the reign of Christ.
The Danger of Covetousness
Covetousness is condemned throughout Scripture not because possessions are evil but because the love of money and the pursuit of riches displace God as the supreme object of the heart's devotion. Expounding 1 Timothy 6:6–10, this sermon distinguishes between the lawful possession of wealth (which Paul nowhere forbids) and the idolatrous craving for it (which Paul calls a root of all kinds of evil and warns leads to destruction and perdition). Godliness with contentment is set forth as the great gain that exposes the false teachers' mercenary religion as a counterfeit, while the positive commands to labor diligently, give generously, and seek God's kingdom first are offered as the practical antidotes to a covetous spirit.
The Birth of Samson
Judges 13 presents the only birth narrative in the book of Judges, and this exposition works through two broad categories: the sin of Israel and the provision of a deliverer. A striking feature of this cycle is the absence of Israel's cry of distress — the people have made peace with Philistine oppression, a condition the sermon applies directly to the church's accommodation of cultural wickedness. The passage is read as a type of Christ's coming: a barren woman, a sovereign divine promise, a Spirit-empowered deliverer who only begins what the greater than Samson will complete. The sermon closes with calls to uncompromising allegiance to Christ, reverent worship, and confidence in a God who initiates salvation toward those who are not seeking Him.
Of God and the Holy Trinity (2LCF 2.1-2)
What does it mean that God is omnipresent, and how does his omniscience differ from all creaturely knowledge? Working through the second chapter of the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, this study examines the divine attributes of omnipresence and omniscience with theological precision, drawing on Scripture, the church fathers, the Reformers, and the Reformed orthodox tradition. God's omnipresence is grounded not in his omnipotence or omniscience but in his infinity and immensity — he fills all of heaven and earth repletively, with his whole being, while remaining utterly transcendent and uncircumscribed by creation. God's omniscience is equally distinguished from creaturely knowing: he knows all things not discursively, derivatively, or by foreknowledge acquired through observation, but intuitively, independently, and eternally, in one simple act of self-knowledge.
The Lord's Prayer, Part 2
How does the first petition of the Lord's Prayer — 'hallowed be your name' — actually shape the daily life of a believer, a family, a church, and a missionary enterprise? This Bible study on Matthew 6:9 works through the meaning of God's name (his essence, attributes, titles, and word), explains what the petition is actually asking (not that God become holy, but that his existing holiness be recognized and exalted), and applies it in four concentric spheres: personal discipleship, household religion, corporate worship, and global missions. The study draws on the Westminster Larger Catechism, Calvin, Spurgeon, Thomas Watson, and John Owen to show that praying 'hallowed be thy name' commits the petitioner to a life of knowing, professing, depending on, esteeming, and actively promoting that name.
Of God and the Holy Trinity (2LCF 2.1-3)
What does it mean to confess that the Lord our God is but one only living and true God, infinite in being and perfection? This session opens a multi-week study of 2nd London Baptist Confession chapter 2, introducing the doctrine of God (theology proper) with attention to divine singularity (Christian monotheism against polytheism, monolatry, and tritheism) and the three divine omniperfections, treating omnipotence in particular depth. Five interpretive cautions frame the study: the ontological chasm between Creator and creature, the legitimacy of biblical speculation, the revelatory condescension of God in anthropomorphic language, the necessity of reading any text in light of the whole canon, and the call to sustained mental exertion in theological study.
Do this in Remembrance of Me
The command of Christ to 'do this in remembrance of me' (1 Corinthians 11:24–25) grounds the Lord's Supper as an act of joyful obedience, not arbitrary religious imposition. Working through Paul's corrective to the Corinthians, the sermon examines three dimensions of the ordinance: its divine authority as a positive institution of Christ, its character as a memorial of the once-for-all sacrifice at Calvary in direct contradiction to the Roman Catholic Mass, and its Christ-centeredness as an extrospective gaze upon the perfections of the Redeemer rather than an introspective audit of the self. Christians are called to cultivate the habit of historical retrospect — remembering the full scope of Christ's messianic work — and warned that forgetfulness of the Savior is a perennial danger that the Lord's Supper is designed by God to remedy.
The Divine Refuge
Psalm 46 proclaims God as the divine refuge of His covenant people in the midst of cosmic upheaval, national crisis, and personal trial. The sermon works through the psalm's four movements: the declaration of God's presence, the contrast between earthly chaos and divine stability, the invitation to behold God's redemptive works in Scripture, and the command to be still in God's sovereignty. The central comfort is covenantal: because Yahweh, the Lord of hosts, has bound Himself to His people in the covenant of grace, no trial, calamity, or fear can unseat Him from His throne or separate His people from His care. Believers are called to meet their sorrows not with fretting but with a deepening knowledge of God, which is itself the appointed means of comfort and strength.
The Lord's Prayer, Part 1
The preface to the Lord's Prayer — 'Our Father in heaven' — calls the believer to ground every act of prayer in sound theology proper before a single petition is offered. Against both the hypocrite's ostentation and the heathen's vain repetition, the Lord Jesus provides a model that is at once personal and majestic: the One addressed is Father by adoption through the redemptive work of Christ, and He is in heaven, sovereign over all creation. This study traces six qualities of 'Our Father' — that He is personal, gracious, hearing, caring, loving, and the exclusive object of prayer — before turning to 'in heaven' as the warrant for approaching God with both filial confidence and reverential awe.
The Final Days of Gideon
Judges 8 traces the final days of Gideon — his diplomatic handling of Ephraim, his military justice against the treacherous Israelite towns of Sukkoth and Penuel, his defeat of the Midianite kings, and his dismal decline into quasi-monarchical idolatry. The sermon exposes the danger of elevating any human deliverer to a role that belongs to Christ alone, and warns that success and the praise of men are among the most potent instruments of a servant's ruin. Israel's immediate return to Baal-worship upon Gideon's death illustrates both the necessity of personal accountability before God and the inadequacy of every judge to do what only Jesus Christ can: break the reigning power of sin and secure an everlasting peace for his people. The call is to pursue the way of escape from idolatry, to prize the means of grace, and to resolve to end well — as Paul did, not as Gideon did.
The Indictment of False Teachers
False teachers are identified in 1 Timothy 6:3–5 not only by their departure from apostolic doctrine but by the character it produces: pride, ignorance, an obsessive craving for controversy, and a materialistic motivation that treats religion as a revenue stream. The sermon argues that what a man believes concerning God inevitably shapes how he lives under God, so that heterodoxy and ungodliness are inseparable fruits of the same root. The congregation is called to cultivate discernment through saturation in Scripture and confessional theology, so that the orthodox may recognize and withdraw from ravenous wolves before damage is done to Christ's flock.
Judges 21
Judges 21 closes the appendix of the book of Judges (chapters 17–21) with a portrait of a nation morally unmoored: the eleven tribes, grieving the near-extinction of Benjamin, pursue the preservation of that tribe through oath-keeping so selective it becomes its own form of wickedness. The chapter exposes the pattern of sin snowballing from small beginnings into national catastrophe, the inconsistency of piecemeal holiness, and the horror of unrestrained human depravity. Yet God's sovereignty overrules the chaos, preserving the tribe of Benjamin — from which both King Saul and the apostle Paul would come — and the passage closes with the theological verdict of verse 25: without a king, every man does what is right in his own eyes.
The Identity of the New Testament (1.2-3)
What gives the church the right to declare these 27 books—and no others—the Word of God? This session works through 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith chapter 1, paragraphs 2 and 3, to answer that question by examining the origins of the New Testament canon and the three attributes by which canonical books are recognized: divine qualities, corporate reception, and apostolic origin. Drawing extensively on Michael Kruger's scholarship, the lesson demonstrates that the canon was neither a fourth-century political invention nor a community preference, but a self-authenticating body of Scripture whose recognition by the church was providentially prepared for from within the structure of redemptive history itself. The closing application presses the hearer to see that no argument for canonicity finally persuades apart from the inward testimony of the Holy Spirit.