Cited in sermons
Carl Trueman
15 sermons · All people cited
Ask FGBC Batch 8: Church Planting, Creation, Imprecatory Psalms & More | Reformed Baptist Theology
This Q&A episode addresses ten questions spanning ecclesiology, pneumatology, soteriology, and worship, drawing on confessional Reformed Baptist commitments throughout. Topics range from church planting and confessional subscription to the nature of saving faith versus assurance, the love of God for the non-elect, literal six-day creation, the theology of imprecatory psalms, and the regulative principle of worship as it applies to musical instruments and the offering. The consistent thread is that Scripture and the 1689 London Baptist Confession provide the sufficient framework for answering practical and doctrinal questions facing Reformed Baptist churches today.
The Darkness of Depression
Proverbs 15:13 identifies the broken spirit as a genuine human affliction, and the broader witness of Scripture — from Elijah under the broom tree to the weeping prophet Jeremiah to the Saviour himself as a man of sorrows — confirms that depression and melancholy are realities in the lives of God's people, not marks of spiritual failure. This sermon works through the reality of depression, its manifold causes (physical, psychological, circumstantial, spiritual, and diabolical), and practical strategies for those who suffer and those who come alongside sufferers. The controlling remedy throughout is the means of grace: rest, diet, exercise, prayer, Scripture, and the gathered worship of God's people — with the warning that singing songs to a heavy heart, after the manner of Job's friends, is a pastoral failure Scripture explicitly condemns.
2LCF Introduction and Preface to the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession
The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689) did not arise in a vacuum — it was forged under persecution, shaped by theological antiquity, and published to correct misrepresentations of Particular Baptist doctrine. This study introduces the Confession through its original preface, examining the necessity and utility of creeds and confessions, the historical context of 17th-century England, and the specific additions, changes, and deletions the Particular Baptists made to the Westminster Confession and Savoy Declaration. The Confession stands as a faithful summary of biblical doctrine and a demonstration that Particular Baptists stood firmly within the stream of historic Protestant orthodoxy, differing from their Presbyterian and Congregationalist brethren only on baptism, church polity, and certain covenant theology distinctions.
The Intercessory Prayer of the Apostle
Paul's intercessory prayer in Philippians 1:9–11 reveals what the apostle most deeply desires for the church: not comfort or relief from suffering, but abounding love anchored in knowledge and discernment, sincere and blameless conduct persevering to the day of Christ, and good fruit borne entirely by the agency of Jesus Christ to the glory of God. The sermon works through two main petitions — the disposition of the heart (vv. 9–10a) and the actions of the life (vv. 10b–11) — showing that love divorced from sound theology produces sentimentalism, while theology divorced from discernment produces loveless pride. The whole is framed by the Pauline conviction that from justification by faith alone flows the life of sanctification, and that every fruit of righteousness is not the cause but the consequence of God's grace, rendered ultimately to the glory and praise of God.
The Regulation of the Church's Worship, Part 2
What right does a congregation have to alter, add to, or subtract from the worship God has ordained for His house? Expounding 1 Timothy 3:14–16, this sermon establishes that Paul's instructions carry divine necessity — the church is the house of God, the pillar and ground of the truth, governed by Christ its head — and that the church's common confession centres on the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ: His incarnation, vindication, proclamation, and the faith He sovereignly produces in the world. The regulative principle of worship follows directly: only what God commands in Holy Scripture is acceptable worship, a principle demonstrated from the Decalogue, Deuteronomy 12:32, Leviticus 10, 1 Samuel 13, and Hebrews 12, and confessionally formulated in chapter 22 of the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith.
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.
Free Grace Baptist Church - October 14, 2018 PM
Depression — what Scripture calls a broken spirit or heavy heart — is a real affliction that has touched the lives of Elijah, Jeremiah, the Apostle Paul, and the Lord Jesus himself. Drawing from repeated passages in the book of Proverbs, alongside First Kings 19, Psalm 88, and Psalm 102, this exposition surveys both the presence of melancholy among the people of God and a range of strategies — physical, psychological, and spiritual — for those who suffer and for those who walk alongside them. The central application is that the sorrowful saint must not abandon the corporate means of grace — the Word, prayer, and the gathered church — which are God's appointed instruments for sustaining the broken spirit.
The Deity of Christ
Who is Jesus Christ, and what does Scripture mean when it confesses that He is God? This Bible study on John 1:14–18 opens a series on Christology by examining the deity of Christ from three angles: its precise meaning, the breadth of its biblical testimony, and the doctrinal affirmations necessary for confessing it rightly. The study moves from definitional clarity—ruling out Arian, adoptionist, and Mormon distortions—through exegetical survey of Christ's self-identification, apostolic statements, Old Testament Yahweh texts applied to Christ, and divine attributes predicated of Him, before concluding with four essential affirmations: His essential identity with the Father, His personal eternal distinction as the eternally begotten Son, His unchanging post-incarnation deity, and the specific role His divine nature plays in assuming, personalizing, and sustaining His human nature.
An Introduction to Christology
What does it mean to study Christ, and why does it matter above every other theological discipline? This introductory Christology study, anchored in John 20:24–31, argues that the doctrine of Christ is not one branch among many but the integrating center of all Christian theology — the terminus of the Old Testament's canonical trajectory, the non-negotiable content of apostolic proclamation, the sole ground of salvation, and the pattern for the believer's practical life. Hearers are called to fill their minds with precise Christological knowledge so that their hearts may be both warmed in worship and guarded against the errors that have always threatened the church's confession of Christ's full deity, full humanity, and undivided person.
The Justifying Grace of God
Zechariah 3 presents a divine courtroom scene in which Joshua the high priest stands before the angel of the Lord clothed in filthy garments — the most vile expression of defilement in the Hebrew language — while Satan stands ready to accuse. God silences the accuser not on the basis of Joshua's merit but on the grounds of sovereign election and justifying grace, stripping away the filthy garments and clothing Joshua in rich robes. This double transaction — the removal of guilt and the imputation of righteousness — is the Old Testament portrait of justification by faith alone, anticipating the work of the Branch, the Lord Jesus Christ, who bears the sin of his people so that they might bear his righteousness. The sermon calls believers to combat accusation, whether from Satan or from their own hearts, not by appealing to their performance but by resting in the finished work of Christ and the electing grace of God.
2LCF Chapter 17 - Of the Perseverance of the Saints
The perseverance of the saints rests not on the believer's free will or moral resilience, but on five immovable pillars: the immutability of God's decree of election, the believer's union with Christ, the oath of God, the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, and the nature of the covenant of grace. This exposition of 2LCF Chapter 17 works through all three paragraphs, distinguishing the genuine saints from temporary believers, refuting both Arminian and Roman Catholic denials of the doctrine, and showing that perseverance is inseparable from divine preservation. The challenges to perseverance — Satanic temptation, the world, and remaining corruption — are honestly confronted, with the vital role of the means of grace pressed upon the hearer as the God-ordained pathway through them.
The Blessing of Spiritual Liberty
John 8:31–36 confronts every person with a diagnosis before offering a cure: whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. This sermon expounds Christ's words under two heads — the reality of spiritual slavery and the blessing of spiritual liberty — drawing on Romans 1–3, Galatians, and Acts 26 to demonstrate that bondage to sin is universal, that it is not political but moral and spiritual, and that freedom is granted by the Son alone through the truth of His Word. The occasion of the Lord's Supper grounds the application: believers examine themselves against the marks of true discipleship (abiding in the Word) and receive the supper as a joyful remembrance of redemption from sin's penalty, the law's curse, God's wrath, Satan's dominion, and sin's reigning power.
2LCF Chapter 8 - Of Christ the Mediator, Part 3
What role did the Holy Spirit play in the earthly ministry of Christ, and why does it matter for the doctrine of salvation? Expounding 2LCF Chapter 8, Paragraph 3, this session traces the Spirit's work across every stage of the Mediator's mission: the virginal conception, the public ministry, the cross, and the resurrection. Because Christ executed his mediatorial office in his human nature — not merely by the immediate operation of his divine nature — the Father's gift of the Spirit without measure to the man Christ Jesus is essential to orthodox Christology and to the assurance that a genuinely human Mediator has met every demand of the covenant on behalf of the elect.
1 Samuel 1:1-18
The opening chapter of 1 Samuel presents the birth of Samuel against the backdrop of a dark era at the close of the judges, when Israel's spiritual and political condition was at its lowest. Through the barrenness of Hannah, her cruel provocation by Peninnah, and her husband's well-meaning but inadequate sympathy, the text teaches that God sovereignly works through human weakness and suffering to accomplish his redemptive purposes. Hannah's prayer — earnest, specific, and covenantally grounded — serves as a model of how God's people are to respond to frowning providences: not with complaint against God's sovereignty, but with bold, heartfelt petition at the throne of grace. The study concludes with three applications: God governs dark seasons in redemptive history by his sovereign will; suffering is normal to the Christian life; and affliction is God's appointed means to drive his people to prayer.
Beware of Forgetting God in the Land
Deuteronomy 8:6–20 presents Israel on the plains of Moab receiving Moses' final warning before entering Canaan: the land of promise will itself become the land of temptation. The abundance of water, food, and mineral wealth that God graciously provides carries within it the seed of self-sufficiency — the prideful declaration of verse 17, 'my power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.' The sermon traces the anatomy of spiritual forgetfulness, showing that disobedience is its inevitable symptom, idolatry its destination, and covenantal destruction its consequence. The appointed remedy is remembrance: to rehearse God's redemptive acts, receive his gifts with thanksgiving, and live by the indicative of grace as the foundation for all obedience.