Cited in sermons
Charles Bridges
67 sermons · All people cited
Biblical Womanhood in the Book of Proverbs, Part 2
Proverbs 31:10–31 presents the biblical mother not merely as a domestic figure but as a person of God-given influence, authority, and weighty responsibility. This expository treatment draws on the wider Proverbs corpus, the fifth commandment, and the Pauline household codes to argue that a Christian mother shapes her children through instruction, example, discipline, and love — all four of which are expressions of biblical obedience rather than sentiment. The sermon closes with a gospel-grounded application: the mother's standing before God rests on the finished work of Christ, which is precisely what frees her to pursue this calling faithfully and to repent when she falls short.
Biblical Womanhood in the Book of Proverbs
Proverbs 31:10–31 presents the portrait of a virtuous wife, and this sermon works through that portrait to define biblical womanhood against the competing claims of secular feminism and mere cultural Christianity. The preacher identifies five characteristics of the godly wife — that she behaves like a gift, is trustworthy, does her husband good, is submissive, and is respectful — grounding each in the broader witness of Proverbs and the New Testament household codes. Submission and respect are shown to be neither degrading nor negotiable, but ordered on the pattern of Christ's own submission to the Father. The sermon closes by anchoring the entire ethical call in justification by imputed righteousness: the believer will stand before God on the basis of what Christ did, not what she performed as a wife.
The Biblical Husband and Father
What does a man justified by grace alone through faith alone actually look like in the home? This sermon from Proverbs addresses the Christian man as husband and father, drawing on the wisdom literature to define love, provision, protection, leadership, and sexual fidelity in marriage, and instruction, provision, and discipline in fathering. The exposition is set within the framework of the covenant of grace: the law reveals what godly manhood requires, but the ground of the believer's standing before God remains the imputed righteousness of Christ alone. Men are exhorted not toward moralistic self-improvement but toward Spirit-wrought conformity to Scripture, resting on the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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.
The Christian Father
Colossians 3:21 addresses fathers with a single prohibition — do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged — and the sermon expounds that verse alongside its Ephesians 6:4 parallel to give a full account of fatherly duty. The prohibition is explained through its result (discouragement, the breaking of a child's spirit) and its common causes: unrighteous anger, unbiblical discipline, ungodly inconsistency, and imbalance of law without gospel. The positive exhortation of Ephesians 6:4 is then opened through five practical commitments — presence, provision, protection, prayer, and preaching — each grounded in the father's identity as a new man in Christ whose grace-transformed heart drives active, loving involvement in his children's lives.
Salvation in James' Theology
James 1:18 — 'of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth' — is the doctrinal anchor that prevents James 2:24 from being read as a rival scheme of salvation to Paul's. This sermon argues that James teaches the same sovereign, monergistic regeneration and the same grace-alone, faith-alone soteriology as Paul, and that the 'justification by works' of James 2 concerns the outward demonstration of an already-accomplished divine act, not the ground of that act. The practical thrust is that those who claim justification by God's free grace must align their conduct with that claim — bridling the tongue, caring for widows and orphans, and being doers of the word — because true biblical faith inevitably produces works.
A Biblical View of Lying
The ninth commandment — 'You shall not bear false witness' — reaches far beyond the courtroom to govern every form of speech: perjury, slander, backbiting, gossip, tailbearing, and religious hypocrisy. The command is grounded in the character of God as the Lord of truth and in the practical necessity of social order, which collapses when confidence between persons is destroyed. The sermon closes by directing the hearer not to resolve moral reformation but to flee to Christ, whose sinless tongue and atoning death are the only ground on which the tongue-defiled sinner may stand.