Cited in sermons
Arthur W. Pink
14 sermons · All people cited
The Prayer of the Man of Sorrows
Psalm 6 is read christologically as the prayer of the man of sorrows — not merely a record of David's personal penitence, but a prophetic foreshadowing of Christ's redemptive anguish as the representative of his people. The doctrine of imputation grounds this reading: what Christ bears is not his own sin but the sin of those the Father gave him, laid upon him by divine appointment. The sermon works through two major sections of the psalm — the sorrow of the psalmist in verses 1–7 and the confidence of the psalmist in verses 8–10 — calling hearers to see their sin as atoned for by the Son of God and to live in light of that imputed righteousness, pursuing holiness and resting their prayers upon the same mercies Christ secured.
The Crucifixion of Christ, Part 4
The sixth saying of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross — 'It is finished' (John 19:30) — is not a cry of defeat but a declaration of completed victory. The single Greek word tetelestai, a perfect tense verb signifying a past completed action with abiding present results, encompasses the fulfillment of all Old Testament Scripture, the completion of Christ's earthly suffering, the full accomplishment of the Father's will, and the definitive salvation of his people. The sermon works through the typological witness of the law (Passover, Day of Atonement, the bronze serpent, the sacrificial system), the prophetic witness of Isaiah and Jeremiah, and the Psalms, showing that Christ's cry from the cross brings every shadow and promise to its intended end. The application presses the finished work as the sole ground of justification, assurance, peace with God, and security against every accusation — calling both believer and unbeliever to look to Christ alone and live.
The Necessity of Brotherly Love
John 13:31–38 presents Jesus addressing his disciples immediately after Judas's departure, speaking with striking intimacy on three subjects: the glory of the Son secured through the cross, the new commandment to love one another, and the foretelling of Peter's denial. The new commandment does not merely repeat the Levitical call to love one's neighbor as oneself — its newness lies in the standard, the self-sacrificial, constant, sinner-directed love of Christ himself. The passage closes with an irony the sermon drives home: Peter boasts he will lay down his life for the Savior, but the entire point of the hour is that the Savior lays down his life for Peter — a pattern that distinguishes the Christian religion from every other.
The Perfection of Christ as the Prompting of His People
Hebrews 10:19–25 marks the great hinge of the epistle, where doctrinal exposition gives way to exhortation. The perfection of Christ's sacrifice and priesthood — the absolute sufficiency of His once-for-all offering and His unceasing high-priestly office — forms the irreplaceable ground upon which three congregational imperatives rest: draw near to God in full assurance of faith, hold fast the confession of hope without wavering, and consider one another in order to stir up love and good works. Christians are not called to seek experiential novelty or emotional stimulation, but to the settled, corporate, and simple obedience of gathered worship, resting entirely upon the finished work of the One who consecrated a new and living way through His own flesh.
Stephen's Defense, Part 7
The tabernacle and temple of Israel were not ends in themselves but types pointing forward to the Lord Jesus Christ as the true dwelling place of God with his people. Expounding Acts 7:44–45, this sermon traces Stephen's defense against the charge of being anti-Temple by surveying the tabernacle in the wilderness (Exodus 25–40), the Levitical sacrificial system as the God-ordained means of approaching a holy God, and the conquest of Canaan under Joshua as the triumph of Yahweh's strength over Israel's enemies. The central application is that sinful men may dwell with God only through the blood of Jesus Christ — the substance to which every tabernacle, temple, sacrifice, and conquest pointed — and that the same sovereign God who drove out the Canaanites is the God who mortifies sin in his people by his Spirit.
The Three-Fold Exhortation
Hebrews 10:19–25 sets forth a two-fold foundation and a three-fold exhortation for corporate Christian life. The foundation is Christ's blood-purchased boldness of access into the holiest and His abiding high-priestly intercession — both of which make the old-covenant sacrificial system not merely obsolete but inferior in kind, not degree. From that foundation the apostle issues three commands: draw near with a true heart in full assurance, hold fast the confession of hope without wavering, and (deferred to a subsequent sermon) consider one another to stir up love and good works. The sermon presses hearers to root their weekly confidence not in the quality of their obedience but in the dignity of Christ's person and the virtue of His once-for-all sacrifice.
Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day, Part 2 (2LCF 22)
The Christian Sabbath is not a Puritan invention but a moral, perpetual commandment binding all men in all ages, now observed on the first day of the week in light of Christ's resurrection. This session of the 1689 London Baptist Confession study works through the ministry of Christ, the resurrection accounts, the apostolic pattern of first-day gathering, and the typology of Hebrews 4 to establish that a weekly Sabbath rest remains for the people of God in the new covenant era. The change of day from the seventh to the first reflects the inauguration of the new creation by the risen Christ, just as the Father rested on the seventh day of the old creation. Hearers are urged to receive the Lord's Day as a gracious gift — a weekly 'market day of the soul' pointing forward to the consummated rest that has not yet fully come.
Free Grace Baptist Church - July 24, 2016 PM
Matthew 4:1-11 is not primarily a moral example but a substitutionary act: Christ enters the wilderness as the second Adam and the true Israel, undergoing probationary testing in order to render the perfect covenantal obedience that Adam and Israel failed to render. Seven interlocking theological observations — divine sovereignty, the Spirit's ministry in Christ's life, the hypostatic union, the probative nature of the episode, Christ's fulfillment of Old Testament types, the seed-and-serpent motif, and the substitutionary character of his obedience — are drawn from the text to show that this wilderness battle is a prelude to Calvary's victory. The primary application is not moralism but adoration: Christ did all these things for his people, and his imputed obedience is the ground on which sinners may confidently rest.
2LCF Chapter 22 - Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day, Part 2
Prayer as a constituent element of Christian worship is examined through paragraphs three and four of the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith (2LCF 22.3–4). The confession distinguishes natural worship — known by the light of general revelation — from instituted or religious worship regulated by Scripture alone, and locates prayer within both: obligatory for all men by nature, yet acceptable to God only when offered in the name of the Son, by the aid of the Spirit, and according to His revealed will. Seven features of prayer in worship are traced: its constitutional place as a means of grace, its universal obligation, its general tenor of thanksgiving, its Trinitarian form, its attendant posture (understanding, reverence, humility, fervency, faith, love, and perseverance), its linguistic restriction to a known tongue against the Romanist Latin mass, and the lawful scope of its content — including the rejection of prayers for the dead and for those who have sinned the sin unto death.
The Herald and His Proclamation, Part 1
Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2:22–36 is examined as a model of gospel proclamation, with attention to the preacher himself, the content of his message, and the Old Testament foundation he lays. The herald who once denied Christ before a servant girl now stands before a hostile multitude with zeal under control, courage to name his Savior, and a right understanding of the messianic task. The chief proclamation is Christ — his attested life, his determined death, and his vindicating resurrection — the sum and substance of the Christian message. The Old Testament Scriptures, far from being Christless, carry a Christological trajectory that Peter draws from Psalm 16, 2 Samuel 7, and Psalm 110 to prove that this Jesus, crucified and raised, is both Lord and Christ.
2LCF Chapter 8 - Of Christ the Mediator, Part 9
Christ alone holds the threefold mediatorial office of prophet, priest, and king — an exclusivity the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith defends in chapter 8, paragraphs 9 and 10 against any claim, ancient or modern, to share or transfer that role. These two paragraphs, unique to the Baptist confession and absent from both the Westminster and Savoy documents, ground the exclusivity of Christ's mediatorship in 1 Timothy 2:5 and unfold its necessity in the threefold frailty of man: ignorance requiring his prophetic word, alienation requiring his priestly sacrifice, and utter inability requiring his kingly rule. The sermon traces each office through Hebrews, Luke, Acts, John, and Revelation, arguing that the old-covenant pattern of separate prophets, priests, and kings points forward to the one God-man who holds all three perfectly and to their fullness. The practical burden is that believers avail themselves of Christ's mediatorial work through the appointed means of grace — preaching, prayer, baptism, and the Lord's Supper — finding in him alone their acceptance before God.
The Exceeding Riches of God's Grace
Ephesians 2:8–9 presents the doctrine of salvation as originating entirely in the triune God — elected by the Father before the foundation of the world, redeemed through the blood of the Son, and sealed by the Holy Spirit. Preached on Reformation Day, this exposition traces the grace-alone, faith-alone framework of the Five Solas back to their Pauline foundation, demonstrating that the Protestant Reformation was a recovery of plain biblical reading rather than a theological novelty. The sermon confronts the human tendency toward self-credit in salvation by exposing total depravity in Ephesians 2:1–3, so that the 'but God' of verse 4 lands with full force. Hearers are urged to abandon every ground of boasting and to look to Christ alone for salvation.
Hebrews 1
Hebrews 1:3 declares that Christ 'by himself purged our sins' before sitting down at the right hand of the Majesty on high — a compressed statement of the entire work of redemption. This Bible study exposition unpacks that purging under four aspects: it was a thorough cleansing of sin, an expiatory sacrifice removing legal guilt, a propitiatory sacrifice satisfying divine wrath, and a substitutionary act in which Christ bore the curse in the place of his people. The finality of the work is sealed by Christ's session at the Father's right hand — a posture no Levitical priest could assume because their work was never complete — and by his own word from the cross, 'It is finished.'
The Superiority of Christ Over the Angels
Hebrews 1:4–14 opens the epistle's sustained argument for the superiority of Christ over the angels — an argument the apostle grounds not in assertion but in seven quotations from the Old Testament. The passage addresses Jewish Christians tempted to abandon Christ and return to old covenant rites, demonstrating from their own scriptures that the Messiah, as God-man and mediator, possesses a dignity and dominion infinitely exceeding that of the angels. The sermon traces two of four sections in the confirmation passage: Christ's unique filial relationship to the Father (Psalm 2:7; 2 Samuel 7:14), shown to be fulfilled in his resurrection and exaltation, and his relationship to the angels, who worship him and serve as his ministers. Throughout, the recurring motif of 'better' in Hebrews is shown to be the epistle's controlling theme: Christ and the new covenant are not merely different from the old, but surpassingly superior to it in every respect.