Cited in sermons
C. H. Spurgeon
239 sermons · All people cited
The Neglect of Weighty Matters
Jesus condemns the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23:23–24 not for tithing mint, anise, and cumin, but for doing so while neglecting the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faith. The Pharisaic imbalance is neither ancient nor extinct — the same tendency to obsess over religious minutiae while bypassing the moral and covenantal substance of God's law persists in the church today. Drawing on Micah 6:8, Hosea 6:6, and the broader prophetic tradition, this exposition argues that genuine obedience to God is universal and balanced, not selective and performative.
2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689) - Sunday School Study - July 18, 2021
The self-authenticating authority of Scripture cannot be separated from sound principles for reading it. This 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith Sunday school study works through chapter one, paragraphs five through ten, drawing out the hermeneutical principles the divines embedded there: the scope of Scripture (all glory to God through Christ), the sufficiency of Scripture (confined to God's glory, man's salvation, faith, and life), the perspicuity of Scripture (salvation truths are plain even to the unlearned), and the availability of Scripture in translation. The session also addresses textual criticism, the transmission history of the biblical manuscripts, and the distinction between necessary inference and explicit statement as sources of scriptural authority. Hearers are called to come to the biblical text with humility, the illumination of the Spirit, and a due use of ordinary means rather than intellectual pride or lazy avoidance.
The Ministry of the Word
What is the basis and method of God's ordained means for saving sinners? This sermon on 2 Timothy 4:2 argues that the preaching of the Word stands as the primary instrument through which God saves the lost and builds his church, grounding that claim in the logical chain of Romans 10, the divine pleasure announced in 1 Corinthians 1, and the final apostolic charge of Paul to Timothy. The sermon challenges the contemporary drift toward audience-driven church strategies, calling both preachers and hearers to fidelity to the proclaimed Word as the irreplaceable means of grace.
The Incarnation of the Word, Part 2
John 1:15–17 presents the preeminence of the incarnate Word and the fullness of grace and truth that flows from Him to needy sinners. The testimony of John the Baptist — that Christ ranks before him because He was before him — is an affirmation of Christ's co-eternity, distinctness, and consubstantiality with the Father, in accord with the Nicene Creed. Verse 17 is not a sharp antithesis between Moses and Jesus but a contrast in the mode of divine revelation: the law was mediated through Moses, while grace and truth came through the mediator Himself, who is the very embodiment of God's glory. The sermon calls hearers to stand in awe of the preeminent Redeemer, to find every spiritual need met in His inexhaustible fullness, and to close with Christ without delay.
The Trial Before Pilate, Part 3
Matthew 27:24–26 records the sentencing of Jesus by Pontius Pilate — the culmination of a trial in which the governor thrice declared the accused innocent yet delivered him to crucifixion anyway. The sermon examines Pilate's hypocritical self-absolution by the washing of hands, the crowd's willing acceptance of blood-guilt and its ominous extension to their children, and the formal scourging and condemnation of Christ. Throughout, the exposition presses the double benefit of the gospel: the forgiveness of sins and the imputation of Christ's righteousness received by faith alone, both grounded in the penal substitutionary atonement symbolised by Barabbas going free while the just one goes to the cross.
The Call to Faithfulness in Perilous Times
Paul's warning in 2 Timothy 3:1–9 concerns not pagan opposition but a more dangerous internal threat: professing Christians within the local church who bear the outward form of godliness while denying its power. The sermon works through the passage in four movements — recognising the danger of 'the last days,' identifying the vice list under categories of pride, lovelessness, disobedience, slander, and treachery, heeding the exhortation to withdraw from such persons, and receiving encouragement that their folly will be publicly exposed. The congregation is called to maintain vigilant, doctrinally grounded churchmanship, to agonise over the church's internal corruptions as Ezekiel's faithful remnant did, and to resist both despair and naivety, trusting Christ's promise that the gates of Hades shall not prevail against his church.
The Lord's Assessment of John the Baptist - Matthew 11:2-15
Matthew 11:2-15 presents Christ's own assessment of John the Baptist, and this exposition works through two movements: the question John sends from prison concerning the Messiah's identity, and the Lord's threefold commendation of John as no mere reed, no court prophet, but the greatest born of women and the anti-typical Elijah. The sermon argues that John's struggle was not with who Jesus was but with the implications of the messianic reign — why the herald of judgment should languish in prison while the Messiah's full justice remained deferred — a tension the church in every age must learn to hold without abandoning confidence in God's sovereign timetable. Listeners are called to pray for and expect ministers who combine the light of sound exegesis with the heat of genuine conviction, men who, like John, neither fear nor flatter any flesh.
The Empty Tomb and the Risen Lord
Matthew 28:1–10 narrates not the resurrection itself but the discovery of the empty tomb and Christ's first post-resurrection appearance — and the distinction matters theologically. This sermon works through the arrival of the women, the descent of the angel, the angelic announcement, and Christ's own greeting, demonstrating that the resurrection is attested historical fact whose denial collapses justification, undermines the prophetic witness, and renders the Christian hope pitiable. The risen Christ's address to the women — calling the disciples 'my brethren' despite their desertion — is shown to be a concentrated display of the grace and advocacy that sustains every believer who has sinned against the Lord he professes to love.
The Utility of Confessions and Introduction to the Second London Baptist Confession
Confessions of faith are not competitors to Scripture but are faithful summaries of biblical doctrine, and the church has historically depended on them for good reason. This address introduces the Second London Baptist Confession of 1689, tracing its historical origins among the Particular Baptists of the 17th century and its relationship to the Westminster Confession and the Savoy Declaration. Five interlocking uses of a confession are then examined: defining church doctrine, defending it against error, discriminating between members and officers on doctrinal grounds, disciplining departures from orthodoxy, and distinguishing confessed doctrine from matters of Christian liberty. The goal is not confessional enslavement but confessional clarity — guardrails that protect the church and free her members to worship and grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ.
The Believer's Gratitude Toward God
Psalm 103 grounds thanksgiving not in vague sentiment but in the specific mercies of a covenant-keeping God toward those He has redeemed. Working through David's threefold structure — the reminder to bless God, the reasons for blessing God, and the reflection on God's kingdom — the sermon traces the chief benefit of divine grace as the forgiveness of sins accomplished in Christ, before moving outward to temporal providences, divine mercy measured against human frailty, and the universal summons of all creation to praise. The sermon draws on Deuteronomy's warnings against forgetting God's benefits and Paul's account of the worthy walk in Colossians 1 to show that detailed, specific thanksgiving is a mark of those who have received grace. The congregation is called to speak to their own souls, directing them away from self-absorption and toward the God whose mercy extends from everlasting to everlasting.
The Gospel and Jerusalem Sinners
Peter's Pentecost sermon in Acts 2:22–42 presents the gospel as an objective message focused on the life, death, resurrection, and exaltation of Jesus Christ — not a feeling or a personal response. This exposition works through Peter's call to repentance and baptism, the nature of imputed righteousness received by faith alone, and the sovereign scope of God's grace that reaches even the murderers of Christ. The sermon closes with the practice of the early church — steadfast continuance in apostolic doctrine, fellowship, the Lord's Supper, and prayer — as the pattern for all who are genuinely saved by grace.
The Third Missionary Journey, Part 5
Acts 20:17–27 records the Apostle Paul's address to the Ephesian elders at Miletus — the only extended speech in Acts directed specifically to Christian leaders. The sermon examines Paul's review of his own apostolic ministry as a model for pastoral faithfulness, tracing his humility and tears, his unflinching proclamation of repentance toward God and faith in Christ, and his resolve to press toward Jerusalem despite the Spirit's testimony of chains and tribulations ahead. Paul's declaration of innocence in verse 27 — grounded in his refusal to shun the whole counsel of God — is pressed as the standard against which every gospel minister will stand accountable before God.
The Problem Worse than Paralysis
The healing of the paralytic in Matthew 9:1–8 exposes a problem far deeper than physical disability: the guilt of sin before a holy God. Jesus pronounces forgiveness before He commands the man to rise, revealing that the greater miracle is not restored limbs but a cleansed soul — and that the Son of Man possesses divine authority on earth to forgive sins. The physical healing serves as demonstrable evidence of the greater, invisible reality: that Christ accomplished what His name declared He would do, saving His people from their sins. The right response to such power is not mere wonder but the fear-and-joy that drives genuine worship and sustains the believer's cheer through every temporal affliction.
The Lord's Prayer in Gethsemane
What does the agony of Christ in Gethsemane reveal about who He is and what He accomplishes? Expounding Matthew 26:36–46, this sermon traces the Savior's three prayers against the disciples' repeated failure to watch, showing that Christ's soul-sorrow is perfectly consistent with His true humanity, while His unwavering resolve to drink the cup of divine wrath flows from His eternal commitment as covenant mediator. The cup is not metaphor for mere suffering but the concentrated fury of God upon a sinless substitute — which explains both why martyrs die differently than Christ and why the imputation of His active obedience is as necessary as the forgiveness of sins. Believers are called to marvel at His sufficiency, to watch and pray with sobriety about their own weakness, and to rest entirely on the righteousness of Another.
The Messiah, The Baptist, And The Kingdom
Matthew 11:2–15 presents three interlocking questions: who is Jesus the Messiah, who is John the Baptist, and what is the nature of the kingdom of heaven? The sermon works through John's imprisoned inquiry — not as rank unbelief but as a struggle with the shape of the messianic agenda — and Christ's answer, which grounds assurance in fulfilled Old Testament prophecy rather than in political deliverance. John is then assessed by Christ himself as more than a prophet, the very subject of Malachi's covenant-messenger prophecy, a man of unflinching courage who stands as a model for preachers and all believers. The enigmatic kingdom-violence saying of verse 12 is read as a positive-negative pairing: the kingdom forcefully advances through proclamation and regeneration, but violent men persist in opposing and plundering it until Christ's enemies are made his footstool.
The Prediction of Desertion and Denial
Matthew 26:31–35 records Jesus predicting both the desertion of all His disciples and the specific denial of Peter on the night of His arrest. The passage demonstrates that the salvation accomplished at the cross was entirely the work of Christ alone — His friends fled, leaving no horizontal assistance — and that Scripture, citing Zechariah 13:7, had appointed this scattering from eternity. The sermon draws out the persistent problem of remaining corruption in the regenerate: the pride, self-confidence, and lofty self-assessment that Peter epitomizes are not unique to him but are symptomatic of all God's people. The remedy is not stronger resolution but a biblical self-assessment that drives the believer away from confidence in the flesh and toward continual dependence on the grace and Spirit of God.
The Ministry of Apollos
Acts 18:24–28 introduces Apollos of Alexandria as a case study in what faithful gospel ministry requires. Six marks characterize this man — eloquence grounded in scriptural mastery, accurate instruction in the way of the Lord, fervency of spirit governed by knowledge, precise teaching, bold proclamation, and humble openness to correction — and these same marks should shape the church's prayers for and training of men for public ministry. Luke's phrase 'believed through grace' discloses the ordo salutis: saving faith is itself the gift of God's sovereign grace to dead sinners. The sermon closes by pressing both the need for trained, bold preachers and the equally urgent need for obedient hearers, applying the gospel of justification by faith alone to any who have not yet come to Christ.
The Second Missionary Journey, Part 9
Acts 18:12–28 traces the close of Paul's second missionary journey through three episodes: his trial before the Roman proconsul Gallio, his departure from Corinth back to Antioch, and a preview of the Alexandrian Jewish teacher Apollos. The exposition treats Gallio's dismissal of the Jewish charge against Paul as a model of properly bounded civil authority — punishing wrongdoing, not regulating theology — while also exposing Gallio's failure to protect Sosthenes as a departure from impartial justice. Paul's continued residence in Corinth after the hearing illustrates faith in the sustaining promises of Christ, and the sermon closes with a call to pray for faithful gospel preachers and an obedient people who respond to their ministry.
The Second Missionary Journey, Part 4
Acts 16:35–17:9 records Paul's departure from Philippi and his gospel ministry in Thessalonica on the second missionary journey. The passage presents two interlocking lessons: Paul's principled invocation of his Roman citizenship to protect the integrity of gospel ministry, and his rigorous expository method of reasoning, explaining, and demonstrating from the Old Testament Scriptures that Jesus is the Christ who had to suffer and rise. The sermon draws out three grounds on which a Christian may lawfully invoke civil rights — innocence, governmental accountability, and future precedent — while insisting that the efficient power behind every conversion is the sovereign grace of God through the Holy Spirit, not the eloquence of the preacher. Hearers are called to imitate the relentless faithfulness of Paul, Silas, and Jason, and to proclaim the kingship of Jesus regardless of civil hostility.
The Second Missionary Journey, Part 2
Acts 16:6–15 traces the divine hand behind the second missionary journey's westward turn into Macedonia and the conversion of Lydia in Philippi. The Spirit's successive prohibitions of ministry in Asia and Bithynia are not judgments on those regions but demonstrations that God actively directs the missionary enterprise according to his sovereign purpose. The conversion of Lydia — a woman whose heart was dead in trespasses until God opened it to receive Paul's preaching — illustrates that the efficient cause of every conversion is divine grace, not human ingenuity, while the instrumentality of gospel proclamation and the responsibility of hearers to believe remain fully intact. The sermon calls the church to define missionary work precisely as the Spirit-sent, church-commissioned preaching of Christ crucified, rejecting both Arminian confidence in the sinner's free will and hyper-Calvinist reluctance to call sinners to faith.
The Empty Tomb and the Risen Lord
The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is not a cunningly devised fable but a historically attested and theologically necessary event that vindicates Christ's person and work. Expounding Matthew 28:1–10, this sermon examines the discovery of the empty tomb — the descent of the angel, the commission to the women, and the flight of the guards — and then the appearance of the risen Lord to the women, who held him by the feet and worshipped him. The hypostatic union underlies that act of worship: they touch his human feet while adoring the second person of the Trinity. Because Christ is risen, believers need not fear, have an advocate with the Father when they sin, and possess a hope that is grounded in historical reality and not mere sentiment.
The Ninth Commandment
The Ninth Commandment—'You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor' (Deuteronomy 5:20)—extends far beyond courtroom perjury to govern every word spoken about another person. This sermon works through the prohibition in two directions: first, the specific offenses the commandment forbids (perjury, lying, slander, gossip, and tailbearing, including both their active propagation and their passive reception); second, the positive duties the commandment requires (truth-telling under oath, honest speech in all of life, charitable restraint, and the active discouragement of slanderers). Because no hearer perfectly fulfils Psalm 15's portrait of the righteous man, the sermon closes by directing the conscience to Christ, whose active obedience and atoning death cover the very sins of the tongue that the law condemns.
The Qualifications for Elders (Part 1)
What qualifies a man to serve as an elder in the church of Jesus Christ? Expounding 1 Timothy 3:1–7 as an excursus from a series through Acts, this sermon establishes that the New Testament uses 'elder,' 'overseer,' and 'pastor' as synonymous titles for one office, and then works through five of the six qualifications Paul sets out for that office: the man's desire, his personal holiness, and his domestic faithfulness. The sermon is equally concerned with what these qualifications are not — they are not a standard of sinless perfection, nor a popularity contest, nor a direct transfer of worldly competence — and applies the passage by urging the church to vet candidates by Scripture alone, not by affection or likability.
The Darkness of Depression
Proverbs 15:13 declares that sorrow of heart breaks the spirit, and Scripture is neither silent nor superficial on the darkness of depression. This sermon surveys the presence of depression among the people of God across the canon — from Elijah under the broom tree, to David's lament in the Psalms, to the Man of Sorrows himself — establishing that the condition is real, that it afflicts genuine believers, and that in itself it is not sinful. Practical counsel drawn from both special and general revelation is offered: the physical ABCs of rest, diet, and exercise; the spiritual ABCs of prayer, Scripture, and corporate worship; and careful instruction for those seeking to help the suffering, closing with the reminder that the ground of hope is not gladness of feeling but the imputed righteousness of Christ received by faith alone.
The Anointing at Bethany
Sandwiched between the conspiracy of the religious leaders and the betrayal of Judas, the anointing at Bethany (Matthew 26:6–13) presents an act of extravagant devotion that Christ himself defends, interprets, and immortalizes. The sermon works through three movements: the act itself, the disciples' indignant complaint, and Christ's authoritative response, showing that what pragmatic men call a waste Christ calls a good work. Against the tendency toward either-or Christianity, the passage enforces both fervent worship of Christ and genuine care for the poor as inseparable obligations. The abiding lesson is that no expenditure of time, wealth, or devotion directed to the Lord of glory can ever constitute a waste, because he is chief among ten thousand and altogether lovely.
The First Missionary Journey, Part 9
Acts 14:2–7 records the apostolic ministry in Iconium: Jewish opposition, the faithful perseverance of Paul and Barnabas, and the eventual division of the city. The sermon expounds these three movements in the text while devoting extended attention to a doctrinal excursus on the proper relationship between faith and repentance in gospel preaching — arguing that repentance is not a preparatory work the sinner performs before coming to Christ, but the inseparable companion of faith, both being gifts of God in the covenant of grace. The practical conclusion calls the church to faithful, courageous, wise, and Spirit-dependent proclamation regardless of mounting opposition.
The First Missionary Journey, Part 8
Acts 14:1 records that Paul and Barnabas 'so spoke' in Iconium that a great multitude of both Jews and Greeks believed — a phrase that raises the question of the relationship between divine sovereignty and the ordained means of gospel preaching. This sermon works through a biblical theology of preaching drawn from Romans 10:14–17, 1 Corinthians 1:21–25, and 2 Timothy 4:1–8, arguing that God has foreordained not only the elect unto glory but also the means of their calling, supremely the faithful public proclamation of Christ crucified. Against moralistic preaching, life-as-gospel sentimentality, and entertainment-driven church culture, the sermon insists that only the verbal declaration of Christ's atoning work can save souls. Hearers are exhorted to pray for the raising up of qualified preachers, to support gospel church-planting, and to attend to the preached Word with the seriousness that faith coming by hearing demands.
The First Missionary Journey, Part 5
Paul's sermon in Pisidian Antioch moves from historical exposition to urgent exhortation: forgiveness of sins comes not through moral effort, law-keeping, or any human merit, but through this man, the Lord Jesus Christ, and is received by faith alone. Drawing on Psalms 25, 32, 51, 130, Isaiah 43 and 45, Micah 7, and the recurring apostolic pattern in Acts, the sermon traces how the forgiveness of sins is the central remedy for mankind's fundamental problem of transgression against a holy God. Faith itself is a divine gift, grounded in a God who delights in mercy, and the proper response to the gospel is to look to Christ alone — accepting, receiving, and resting upon Him for justification, sanctification, and eternal life.
Genesis 35
Genesis 35 traces Jacob's return to Bethel, the deaths of Rachel and Isaac, the treachery of Reuben, and the enumeration of Jacob's twelve sons. The chapter centers on God's sovereign renewal of His covenant with Jacob — reiterating the promises of seed and land given to Abraham and Isaac — at precisely the moment Jacob is most fearful and morally compromised. The sermon argues that God's repetition of covenant promises is not for His own memory but for the stabilization of His people's faith, and that the means of grace — Scripture, prayer, corporate worship, and the Lord's Supper — function as God's appointed conduits for fortifying His people to persevere through affliction, loss, and moral failure.
The Baptisms of Jesus Christ
What is the theological basis for believers' baptism? This sermon argues that Christians are baptized because of the two baptisms of Jesus Christ: his water baptism in Matthew 3, which inaugurated his life of active obedience by fulfilling all righteousness on behalf of his people, and his metaphorical baptism of suffering in Matthew 20, which points to his passive obedience in drinking the cup of divine wrath on the cross. Sinners possess no righteousness of their own sufficient to stand before a holy God; they are clothed entirely in Christ's alien righteousness, imputed to them through faith. The practical exhortation to those who have believed is to follow Christ in believer's baptism as an act of public obedience, not as a means of salvation but as its public confession.