Cited in sermons
Augustine
153 sermons · All people cited
The Role of the Law in Justification
Romans 3:20 stands at the hinge of Paul's argument in Romans 1–3: the universal condemnation of Jew and Gentile is summarized and confirmed, and the ground is cleared for the proclamation of a righteousness that comes apart from the law. This sermon examines both the unlawful use of the law — seeking justification before God through law-keeping, which Paul categorically condemns — and the lawful pedagogical use, by which the law defines sin, demonstrates the gravity of human guilt, and drives the sinner to Christ. The central burden is that no amount of moral effort can secure acceptance with God, because the problem lies not in the law but in the sinner; the law's only saving function is to press men toward the law-keeper, Christ, whose obedience and sacrifice are the sole ground of justification.
The Preface to the Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments are not a path to earned standing before God but the covenant stipulations of a God who has already redeemed his people — the indicative of grace always precedes the imperative of law. Expounding Deuteronomy 5:1–6, this sermon examines the summons to obedience Moses issues to the second generation on the plains of Moab, and then the preface to the Decalogue itself, showing that the identity and activity of the Lawgiver are the indispensable foundation for understanding why God's moral law binds his people. The threefold division of the law — ceremonial, judicial, and moral — is defended from the confessional Reformed tradition, and the abiding validity of the Decalogue in the new covenant is grounded in Jeremiah 31 and 2LCF 19. The sermon closes by tracing the law's three uses — civil, pedagogical, and normative — so that hearers neither abuse the law as a ladder to heaven nor discard it as obsolete, but receive it as the Spirit-given pattern for a life of grateful obedience.
The Procedure for Church Discipline, Part 3
Church discipline in Matthew 18:15–17 follows a divinely ordered three-step procedure: private confrontation, the involvement of witnesses, and finally the public action of the gathered church. This sermon works through the second and third steps, examining the Old Testament warrant for the two-or-three-witness requirement (Deuteronomy 19:15) and the nature of the church's decisive judgment to treat the unrepentant as a heathen and tax collector. The goal at every stage remains the recovery of the sinning brother, and excommunication — a corporate act of the whole congregation, not merely the elders — is understood as an expression of love and a means God may use to bring a rebel to repentance. The sermon closes with an evangelistic warning: the church's earthly excommunication is a pale shadow of the final excommunication pronounced by Christ on the last day.
The Procedure for Church Discipline, Part 1
Matthew 18:15 introduces Christ's binding procedure for church discipline within the local church — a subject that exposes both the authority of the head of the church and the love that drives the restoration of erring brothers. Four introductory matters are addressed before the first step is reached: the definition of formative and corrective discipline, the necessity of discipline as obedience to Christ, key presuppositions (including five biblical arguments for defined church membership), and the practice considered against common misreadings of Matthew 7 and Matthew 13. The purpose of discipline is shown to be threefold: the reconciliation and restoration of the offender, the purity of Christ's church for the glory of God, and the protection of the people of God from the spread of unchecked sin.
The Transfiguration of the Son
The transfiguration of Christ in Matthew 17:1–8 is a controlled revelation of the divine glory that belongs to the eternal Son, displayed before Peter, James, and John on the holy mountain. The Father's voice from the Shekinah cloud — echoing Psalm 2:7 and Isaiah 42:1–4, and repeating his declaration at Christ's baptism — publicly confirms that Jesus is the beloved Messiah who must suffer, die, and rise, vindicating the Christology the disciples had confessed in Matthew 16. Moses and Elijah appear as the law and the prophets bearing witness to the one who fulfills and supersedes them both, while their conversation with Christ about his coming death underscores that the cross and the crown are inseparable. Believers are called to behold the glory of the transfigured Son, to hear him above all other voices, and to press on through suffering in confidence that cross always precedes crown.
The Objection to the Divine Plan
Peter's rebuke of Christ in Matthew 16:22 is not merely a disciple's well-intentioned blunder — it is an alignment with the adversarial agenda that Jesus had already confronted in the wilderness temptation of Matthew 4. This sermon expounds the divine necessity of Christ's suffering and death as grounded in the eternal Covenant of Redemption, and presses the point that to object to a suffering Messiah is to object to the only ground of sinners' salvation. The response to Peter — 'Get behind me, Satan' — exposes the disease-at-the-heart nature of any theology that removes the cross from Christianity's center, and the sermon closes by pressing listeners either to embrace the crucified Christ or to reckon with the inescapable judgment of that same Christ.
2LCF Chapter 4 - Of Creation
The doctrine of creation, as confessed in chapter four of the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, encompasses far more than the sheer scale of the cosmos — it demands precise theological definition on every point from the time and agent of creation to its purpose and result. This study works through three sections of the chapter: the overview of creation (paragraphs on creation ex nihilo, the triune authorship, divine purpose, the full extent of all things visible and invisible, the literal six-day duration, and the verdict 'all very good'), the apex of creation (the constitution, identity, and integrity of man made in God's image in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness), and the fulcrum of creation (the covenant of works in the garden as the hinge upon which God's redemptive purpose to save sinners by Christ Jesus turns). Creation is neither an emanation nor a reshaping of pre-existent matter, but a free act of the triune God out of nothing, ordered ultimately to the manifestation of his glory and the redemption of his elect to the praise of his glorious grace.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Betrayal and Arrest of Jesus
John 18:1–11 records the betrayal and arrest of Jesus, yet John's Gospel frames the scene not primarily as a display of suffering but as a revelation of divine glory. The great I AM steps forward to meet his captors, causes a detachment of soldiers to fall to the ground by the mere utterance of his name, and willingly drinks the cup of God's wrath — not as a victim, but as the covenant mediator and surety who executes the eternal decree of the Father. The sermon calls hearers to resist a narcissistic reading of the passion narratives and instead to bow in worship before the obedient Son of God, whose vicarious, substitutionary death is the sole ground of the sinner's justification.
The Description of Israel's Apostasy
Israel's apostasy in Judges 2:7–3:6 is traced to a second generation that possessed cognitive knowledge of Yahweh but had no experiential, saving faith — a spiritual death that issued inevitably in Baal worship, covenant judgment, and escalating moral degradation. The passage unfolds three movements: the root of apostasy in the failure to know the Lord, the description of that apostasy in the service of Baals and Ashtoreths, and the divine response of covenant judgment followed by sovereign, gracious deliverance through imperfect human judges. Each judge prefigures the one deliverer — Jesus Christ — who alone can break the power of reigning sin where no left-handed savior can. The sermon calls believers to mortify spiritual amnesia through faithful use of the means of grace, and calls the unconverted to believe the gospel of Christ rather than await a full intellectual resolution of divine sovereignty.
The Parable of the Wheat and Tares
Matthew 13:24–30 presents the parable of the wheat and tares, in which Christ teaches that his kingdom advances through a world — and a visible church — where genuine believers co-exist with those sown by the devil. The sermon addresses the theodicy embedded in the parable: God's sovereignty over evil does not mean the immediate expulsion of wickedness, but its certain, final judgment at the eschaton. Hearers are called to grow as wheat, to resist an overly censorious spirit toward apparent tares, and to trust that the Master has the harvest entirely under his control.
The Priestly Office of Christ
Hebrews 2:16–18 introduces the high priestly office of Christ, which the author of Hebrews will develop through chapters 5 to 10. This exposition works through three interlocking truths: Christ's role as covenant mediator — taking on the seed of Abraham rather than the nature of angels — establishes the ground of His representation; His incarnational identification with His brethren qualifies Him to serve as a merciful and faithful High Priest; and His function of propitiation reveals that He exhausted the wrath of God on behalf of a particular people given to Him by the Father, making definite atonement the only coherent conclusion. Believers are called to cry out to their interceding High Priest in every temptation, since He who withstood the full weight of temptation without sin is able to aid those who are tempted.
The Emancipating King
John 8:31–36 confronts two realities simultaneously: the totality of human bondage to sin and the sufficiency of Christ as the sole emancipating King. The sermon expounds five headings — the evidence of true discipleship, its blessing, the false assessment of unbelief, the divine assessment of unbelief, and the divine sovereignty in conquering unbelief — demonstrating that abiding in Christ's word is the evidence, not the cause, of regenerate discipleship. The liberation Christ brings is not social or political but forensic and spiritual: freedom from sin's guilt, power, and condemnation, purchased on Calvary and applied by sovereign grace alone. Hearers are called to know the truth, rejoice in it as the only lasting joy, and rest in the emancipating King rather than in any self-assessed freedom of will.
2LCF Chapter 1 - Of the Holy Scriptures, Part 2
What does it mean to interpret Scripture rightly, and why does it matter? This Bible study exposition of 2 Timothy 3:16–17 (part 2) builds on the prior week's treatment of the doctrine of Scripture to address the discipline of hermeneutics — the principles, laws, and methods of biblical interpretation. Eight basic principles are set forth: Scripture's interpretation is a spiritual exercise requiring Spirit-dependent prayer; the text's meaning is objective, not reader-relative; the grammatical-historical method governs exegesis; context is paramount; Scripture is its own best interpreter; literary genre must be recognized; the relationship between the Old and New Testaments must be understood; and the interpreter is not alone but stands within the community of the church's gifted teachers across the centuries. The governing application is that every believer, not merely the ordained minister, must handle the Word of God accurately rather than twisting it to suit preferred meanings.
The Demand for Discernment
Matthew 7:6 stands in deliberate tension with the prohibition against judgmentalism in verses 1–5: the same Christ who forbids a censorious spirit toward brothers commands his disciples to exercise discernment toward those who are enemies of the gospel. The sermon traces the identity of the 'dogs' and 'swine' — not ordinary unbelievers, but those whose hardened contempt for God makes continued proclamation a cause for further blasphemy and personal danger. Working through the ministries of Jesus and Paul in the Gospels, Acts, and 2 Timothy, the sermon demonstrates that this principle is not theoretical but was applied repeatedly in apostolic practice. The hearer is called to pursue wisdom through prayer, to refuse political correctness as a guide for gospel witness, and to maintain the balance Christ himself models: compassion toward weak brethren, patient witness to ordinary unbelievers, and principled restraint before confirmed enemies of the truth.
The Fundamental Necessity of the Resurrection
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is not incidental to the gospel but fundamentally necessary to it — scripturally decreed, soteriologically indispensable, and the ground of every saving benefit the believer receives. Working through Luke 24:36–53, this exposition establishes that the resurrection was part of an unalterable divine mission, a non-negotiable element of gospel definition, the basis for the legitimacy of Christian preaching, and a requirement of saving faith. The sermon then traces the soteriological implications of the resurrection across regeneration, justification, sanctification, and glorification, before closing with Christological implications and an urgent call to those outside of Christ to flee to the crucified and risen Messiah.
The 6th Petition: Protection
Matthew 6:13 presents the sixth and final petition of the Lord's Prayer, a twofold request — 'lead us not into temptation' and 'deliver us from the evil one' — that together constitute a comprehensive prayer for spiritual protection. The sermon distinguishes between God's sanctifying trials and Satan's solicitation to evil, drawing on James 1 to clarify that God tests but never tempts, while remaining corruption in the believer's heart gives every temptation a potential ally within. Four features of the negative petition are unfolded: acknowledgement of divine sovereignty, admission of the believer's weakness, recognition of temptation's power, and humble appeal for divine aid. The doxology closing the prayer grounds every petition in God's kingdom, power, and glory, and the sermon closes with a direct call to unbelievers to seek justification by faith alone in Christ alone as the only basis on which anyone may rightly address God as Father.
The Witness of the Kingdom
Matthew 5:13–16 identifies the disciples of Christ as the salt of the earth and the light of the world, pressing believers into active engagement with a fallen society rather than withdrawal from it. The Beatitudes (vv. 3–12) describe the distinctive character of those saved by grace alone through faith alone; vv. 13–16 describe how those same people function in a world of unbelief as seasoning and preserving agents who radiate the knowledge of Christ. The warning is pointed: salt that loses its savor is good for nothing, and light hidden under a basket defeats its own purpose. The ultimate goal of Christian witness is not social improvement or personal acclaim but the glorifying of the Father in heaven — a witness grounded in and empowered by the one Scripture calls the faithful witness, Jesus Christ himself.
The Pure in Heart
What does it mean to be pure in heart, and how can sinners whose hearts are described in Scripture as deceitful and desperately wicked ever attain it? Expounding the sixth Beatitude in Matthew 5:8, this sermon works through four observations: the description of heart purity as single-minded devotion and internal righteousness (in contrast to the Pharisees' meticulous external compliance); the source of that purity in the sovereign, monergistic grace of the triune God — the Father's electing work, the Son's atoning blood and imputed righteousness, and the Spirit's indwelling power; the cultivation of purity through meditation on the gospel, prayer, and Scripture as God's binding command; and the promise that the pure in heart shall see God, a beatific vision already begun in creation, providence, and redemption, and consummated in the new creation of Revelation 21–22. Hearers are called to rest not in civility or external compliance but to flee to Christ, whose blood alone cleanses the heart, and to pursue purity by dwelling deeply in the gospel.
Christ Our Propitiation
Romans 3:25–26 stands at what Martin Luther called 'the chief point of the whole Bible,' and this sermon expounds why: the cross is not only a display of divine love but a vindication of divine righteousness. Two theological words — redemption and propitiation — carry the weight of the exposition: redemption addresses humanity's bondage; propitiation addresses humanity's liability to the wrath of God, which Christ exhausted in himself on behalf of his people. The sermon argues that God's justice and God's justifying mercy are not in tension but cohere perfectly at Calvary, and calls every hearer to rest that case not on moral performance but on faith alone in Christ alone.
The Blessed Invitation
Isaiah 55 presents what the prophet, functioning as an evangelist, calls a blessed invitation: sinners are commanded to come to the Lord on the basis of Christ's atoning work in Isaiah 53, receiving water, wine, and milk — refreshment, exhilaration, and nourishment — freely, without price. The sermon works through three particulars: the universal and gracious invitation to gospel blessings (vv. 1–5), instruction in faith and repentance as the means of coming (vv. 6–7), and information intended to amaze — the sovereign efficacy of God's Word and the contrast between divine and human ways (vv. 8–13). The linchpin of the whole invitation is Jesus Christ, the sure mercies of David, who as prophet, priest, and king carries out the covenant promise made to Abraham and calls sinners to come to him for rest.
Biblical Manhood in the Book of Proverbs, Part 1
Proverbs 3:1–12 and its surrounding chapters frame what it means for a man justified by faith alone to live a life devoted to Christ. This sermon insists that Christian ethics flows from the indicative of justification — not toward it — so that every exhortation to discipline is grounded in Christ's imputed righteousness, not in moralism. Two of four announced characteristics of the Christian man are treated in full: devotion to Christ in worldview, possessions, and acceptance of divine chastening, and discipline in life through the restraint of the tongue, physical passions (alcohol, food, and sex), and the spirit. The congregation is called to own their failures before God, flee to the Redeemer, and pursue sanctification as men who will not go to heaven because they obeyed but because Christ obeyed perfectly in their place.
Conflict in Antioch
Galatians 2:11–14 records the Apostle Paul's public confrontation of Peter at Antioch, where Peter's withdrawal from Gentile table fellowship — motivated by fear of Jewish persecution of the Jerusalem church — functionally communicated a faith-plus gospel to Gentile believers. The sermon expounds three elements of the passage: Paul's action toward Peter, the reason for that action, and the real issue at stake, namely the compromise of justification by faith alone. The central application is that no consideration — social harmony, fear of persecution, or the standing of the one in error — can justify softening the gospel of sovereign grace, and that every Christian, not only pastors, must be able to articulate and defend justification by faith alone.
The Apostle of Christian Liberty
Galatians 2:1–10 presents Paul defending the divine origin of his apostolic gospel against Judaizers who demanded circumcision as a condition of justification. Working through three considerations — Paul's second post-conversion visit to Jerusalem, the case of Titus, and the unity of the apostolic witness — the sermon argues that any addition to the finished work of Christ destroys the gospel rather than completing it. The contrast between Timothy's voluntary circumcision for missional expediency and Paul's refusal to circumcise Titus illustrates the line between cultural accommodation and doctrinal compromise. Hearers are pressed to stand firm against every modern form of the Galatian heresy and to rest their justification on Christ's doing and dying alone, received by faith alone.
The Sovereignty of God in the Salvation of Sinners
Matthew 11:25–30 presents the sovereignty of God in salvation not as a theological puzzle to be argued but as a doxology to be prayed. Jesus praises the Father for hiding gospel truth from the self-sufficient wise and revealing it to those whom the Spirit reduces to babes — an act that is not injustice but divine judgment upon rebels who have no excuse. The passage then sets forth Christ's mediatorial authority as the sole ground upon which any sinner may know the Father, and issues three commands — come, take the yoke, learn — backed by the power of the one who commanded a dead man out of a tomb. The sermon calls hearers to abandon both hyper-Calvinist fatalism and Arminian manipulation, resting instead in the sovereign grace that humbles pride and fuels genuine gospel proclamation.
The Messiah
John 4:26 records Jesus declaring to the Samaritan woman, 'I am he' — the divine name of Exodus 3, applied to himself. This sermon surveys the 'I am' sayings of John's Gospel, beginning with the absolute uses (John 6:20; 8:58; 18:5-6) and then moving through the seven predicate 'I am' statements, in which Jesus identifies himself as the bread of life, the light of the world, the door, the good shepherd, the resurrection and the life, the way and the truth and the life, and the true vine. The covenant name Yahweh — eternal, independent, and gracious to his people — is the interpretive key to every claim. The sermon presses hearers to look from self to Christ in faith, and concludes as the congregation prepares to receive the Lord's Supper.
The Attributes of Scripture
The attributes of Scripture — its extent, character, and usefulness — form the doctrinal foundation the Apostle Paul sets before Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:16–17 as the antidote to the godlessness of the last days. The sermon argues that 'all Scripture' encompasses both Old and New Testaments, that the word 'God-breathed' (theopneustos) denotes divine inspiration rather than human religious sentiment, and that an inspired Bible is necessarily infallible and inerrant. Believers are therefore called to immerse themselves in the whole counsel of Scripture, to develop a consistent systematic theology, and to be ready to proclaim and defend the gospel without hesitation.