Cited in sermons
Charles Hodge
113 sermons · All people cited
2LCF Chapter 25 - Of Marriage
The 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith chapter 25 offers a concise yet comprehensive definition of marriage as a lifelong covenant between one man and one woman, established by God in creation for companionship, procreation, and the lawful expression of sexual relations. This study works through each paragraph of the confession's chapter on marriage, examining the monogamous nature of marriage, the major purposes for which it was ordained, and the lawful parties who may enter it. The session also draws on Westminster Confession chapters 24, paragraphs 5 and 6, together with Deuteronomy 24, Matthew 5 and 19, and 1 Corinthians 7, to argue that Scripture authorizes divorce on the grounds of porneia and desertion, and that a lawfully divorced innocent party is free to remarry. The Protestant 'permanence view' of marriage is examined and found to be both exegetically deficient and pastorally harmful to innocent parties whom God's own law was designed to protect.
The Sanctifying Benefit of the Gospel
Romans 6:1–4 confronts the objection that justification by faith alone licenses continued sin, and Paul's answer is grounded not in moral resolve but in the gospel itself. The sermon traces the inextricable link between justification and sanctification: those united to Christ by faith have died, been buried, and been raised with him, and Christian baptism is the appointed sign and symbol of that union. Because the Christ who secured justification gives his Spirit to effect sanctification, the two benefits are inseparable — the same gospel that frees believers from the penalty of sin is the power that breaks sin's dominion. The primary application is that believers fight sin first by reckoning themselves dead to it in Christ, not merely by external restraint.
2LCF Chapter 24 - Of the Civil Magistrate
2 London Baptist Confession Chapter 24 examines the divine origin, proper scope, and Christian obligations relating to civil government. Civil magistrates are ordained by God, under his authority, for his glory and the public good, with their power limited to maintaining justice and peace through the sword — encompassing criminal punishment, capital justice, and defense against foreign invasion. The sermon argues that Christians may lawfully serve as magistrates or soldiers, directly contra the Anabaptist tradition, and that the Confession's three paragraphs provide a sufficient framework for navigating contemporary political crises. Believers are called to submit to lawful commands, resist unlawful ones, and pray persistently for governing authorities so that the church may worship freely.
The Apostle's Charge to Timothy
Paul's charge to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1:3–7 commands the silencing of false teachers in Ephesus who taught other doctrine, devoted themselves to fables and endless genealogies, and generated disputes rather than godly edification. The charge is not motivated by power or animosity but by love flowing from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith — the fruit of regeneration. The false teachers compounded their error by combining ignorance of the law with arrogant confidence in their own assertions, a combination the apostle deems disqualifying. Churches today must hold the same line: qualifying teachers rigorously, refusing platforms to the heterodox, and measuring all teaching against the truth as it is in Jesus.
Ask FGBC 67: Are Piper and MacArthur Reformed Baptists?
What separates a confessional Reformed Baptist church from a Calvinistic Baptist church associated with figures like John Piper or John MacArthur? This conversation argues that Calvinism, properly understood, is not reducible to the five points of Dort but entails a whole confessional heritage — covenant theology (including the covenant of works), cessationism, the regulative principle of worship, and adherence to one of the great Protestant confessions. The Second London Baptist Confession of 1689 is presented as the most mature expression of that heritage, providing a theological anchor that protects congregations from pastoral personality-driven ministry and binds them to the cumulative wisdom Christ has given his church through the ages.
The Tenth Commandment
The Tenth Commandment's prohibition against coveting addresses not the external act but the internal disposition of the heart, making it the capstone over all the other commandments. Covetousness — the inordinate desire for anything belonging to one's neighbor — is at root an act of discontentedness with God's sovereign allotment and a form of idolatry, placing the creature above the Creator. The sermon works through the threefold use of the moral law: its civil function, its pedagogical role in driving sinners to the cross, and its normative function in calling the redeemed to diligent watchfulness over heart and soul.
Deuteronomy 5:17 - 6th Commandment Part 4
Deuteronomy 5:17 forbids murder, not all killing, and the Westminster Larger Catechism identifies three exceptions: public justice, lawful war, and necessary defense. This sermon, the fourth in a series on the sixth commandment, examines the scriptural warrant for lawful war, moving from Old Testament legislation governing warfare and holy war through New Testament evidence of a consistently favorable view of the military. The argument concludes that Romans 13 authorizes civil government to wield the sword against both criminal offenders and foreign invaders, that this function is wholly consistent with the personal ethic of Matthew 5 and Romans 12, and that criteria derived from Augustine, Aquinas, and Turretin provide a biblical framework for distinguishing just from unjust war.
The 5th Commandment
The fifth commandment — 'Honor your father and your mother' (Deuteronomy 5:16) — demands far more than a recipe for happy families; it is a covenantal obligation rooted in God's own authority and binding on every generation. This study examines the command under three heads: its explanation (the Hebrew word for 'honor' connoting weightiness and reverence), its scope (extending beyond the family to all superior-inferior relationships in church, workplace, and commonwealth), and its sanction (from the rod of correction in Proverbs to the capital sentence of Deuteronomy 21). The promise appended to the command — long life and general wellbeing — is understood as a principle of divine providence, not an absolute guarantee, and the study closes with the duty of superiors to govern those beneath them in a godly and nurturing way.
The Power and Wisdom of God
How can God justify the ungodly without compromising his justice, and why does the design of salvation leave no room for human boasting? Expounding 1 Corinthians 1:30–31 against the backdrop of Paul's extended contrast between divine and worldly wisdom, this sermon traces the source, content, and goal of every spiritual blessing the believer possesses. Christ is shown to be the believer's righteousness, sanctification, and redemption not as a description of the Christian's progress but as an objective account of what he accomplished as the covenant head of his people. The sermon concludes that because union with Christ is the sole ground of salvation, all glory belongs to God alone — a truth Paul anchors in Jeremiah's call to glory only in the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth.
The Third Commandment
The Third Commandment — 'You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain' (Deuteronomy 5:11) — carries far greater weight than mere avoidance of profanity, because the divine name is not an arbitrary label but a revelation of God's very being, perfections, works, and decree. The sermon examines three aspects: the theological significance of God's name, the breadth of the prohibition (spanning blasphemy, frivolous speech, euphemisms, unlawful oaths, magic and sorcery, misapplication of providence, and maintenance of false doctrine), and the positive duty to use God's name reverently in prayer, praise, theological discourse, and the keeping of solemn oaths. The closing application presses hearers toward an 'answerable conversation' — a profession of faith matched by a life that gives no occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme.
The Importance of Spiritual Exercise
Philippians 2:12–13 is not a self-salvation passage but a call to Spirit-enabled perseverance rooted in the sovereign grace of God. The sermon expounds the believer's responsibility to 'work out' a salvation already given — not to attain it, but to live in conscious, fear-driven obedience to the God who both justifies and sanctifies. Against hyper-Calvinist passivity on one side and Arminian self-effort on the other, the text holds together human duty and divine empowerment: God works in believers both to will and to do according to his good pleasure. The practical summons is to pursue sanctification — the whole of it, fear, trembling, cross-contemplation, and dependence on the Spirit — as those destined for glorification.
The Resurrection and Justification
Romans 4:25 binds the death and resurrection of Christ together as twin pillars of the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Christ was delivered up because of the offenses of his people — bearing the substitutionary curse that divine justice demanded — and was raised because of their justification, the resurrection serving as the Father's public testimony that satisfaction had been rendered and righteousness secured. The sermon works through four reasons why Paul links the resurrection to justification: the resurrection declared Christ to be the Son of God with power, testified that his sacrifice was accepted, confirmed that satisfaction was rendered, and marked the completion of redemption and the inauguration of Christ's present session. Believers are called to rest their entire confidence for standing before God on this finished work, and the unconverted are urged to confess and believe in the risen Lord Jesus.
The Necessity of Faithful Obedience
Deuteronomy 4 closes Moses' historical prologue with an urgent exhortation to the second generation of Israel on the necessity of faithful covenant obedience before crossing the Jordan. The chapter's three movements — the necessity of obedience (vv. 1–8), the dangers of idolatry (vv. 9–31), and the incomparability of Israel's God (vv. 32–40) — are treated as an impassioned speech by a man who lived the history he recounts. Scripture's sufficiency is defended against every form of addition or subtraction, and the regulative principle of worship is grounded in God's self-revelation at Sinai as a consuming fire who receives no image.
Ask FGBC #14: How do we connect modern day Israel to Old & New Covenant Promises?
How should Christians understand the modern state of Israel, the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants, and the land promises in light of the New Testament? This Q&A exchange argues that the church is not a replacement for Israel but is the eschatological Israel of Old Testament prophecy — one people of God, Jew and Gentile together, united in Christ. Dispensationalism's two-peoples-of-God framework is evaluated and rejected on hermeneutical grounds, with Romans 11, the Davidic covenant, and the land promise examined in turn. The conversation broadens into the necessity of reading Scripture canonically and horizontally, the value of confessionalism, and the danger of allowing political rhetoric to distort biblical interpretation.
Ask FGBC #6 - Why is historical confessional Christianity important?
The question of why historical confessional Christianity matters is addressed by examining what Scripture itself says about the gifts Christ gives to his church. Drawing on Ephesians 4 and Matthew 28, the argument is made that creeds and confessions are the accumulated fruit of those gifts — the best doctrinal articulation the church has produced across centuries of theological controversy, from Nicaea and Chalcedon through the Second London Confession. To reject them in favor of a 'no creed but the Bible' posture is not humility but a subtle repudiation of the very ecclesiology the Bible commands, and it leaves individuals without the guardrails that preserve orthodox Christianity.
2LCF Chapter 21 - Of Christian Liberty and Liberty of Conscience
Christian liberty, properly understood, is not primarily about matters of lifestyle preference but about the freedom Christ has purchased for believers: freedom from the guilt, power, and punishment of sin, and freedom for joyful, childlike access to and obedience toward God. The 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 21 unfolds this in three movements — the definition of Christian liberty (paragraph 1), the protection of liberty of conscience (paragraph 2), and the qualification that Christian liberty is never a license to sin (paragraph 3). Central to paragraph 2 is the confession's axiomatic claim that God alone is Lord of the conscience, which means neither civil authority nor ecclesiastical authority may bind the conscience beyond or against the Word of God. The practical application presses believers to distinguish between God's explicit commands and their own preferences, and to resist the near-universal temptation to elevate personal opinion to the status of thus saith the Lord.
The Whole Armor of God, Part 1
Ephesians 6:10–17 calls the believer to armed, active resistance against a spiritual enemy whose power and cunning exceed any merely human opposition. The sermon works through three movements in the passage: the necessity of the armor (vv. 10–11a), the reason for it in the reality of demonic spiritual warfare (vv. 11b–12), and the meaning of each defensive piece — truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, and salvation — drawn from both Old Testament background and Paul's wider corpus. Against the tendency toward either passive Christianity or an obsessive preoccupation with demonic activity, the text calls every believer to stand, hold ground, and advance, doing so entirely in dependence on the power of the risen and ascended Christ who reigns over all principalities and powers.
The Child and Parent Relationship, Part 1
Ephesians 6:1–3 addresses children directly within the gathered congregation, a detail that itself carries ecclesiological weight: Paul assumes children are present under the preaching of the Word, not segregated from it. The sermon works through two movements — the rightness of obedience grounded in the light of nature and created order, and the requirement of God's law grounded in the fifth commandment (Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 5:16), which Paul universalizes from Old Covenant Israel to Gentile children in Ephesus and, by extension, to every generation. The three uses of the law are carefully distinguished: the law cannot justify, but it restrains, reveals sin and the need for Christ, and then normatively patterns the sanctified life of the believer. Children are urged to search their hearts, see their failure to honor and obey, and flee to Christ for the righteousness they lack.
Live Stream - January 14, 2024
Exodus 12 sets forth the institution of the Passover as a type pointing forward to the atoning work of Christ, the true Lamb of God. The sermon works through the preparation for the Passover (vv. 1–11) and its twofold significance in judgment and mercy (vv. 12–13), before drawing out the antitypical fulfillment: the identification, nature, appropriation, and particular benefits of Christ's sacrifice. A closing illustration from D. A. Carson presses the pastoral application that the ground of the believer's assurance before God is not the strength or quality of faith but the blood of the Lamb alone.
The Husband and Wife Relationship, Part 2
What does it mean for a husband to love his wife as Christ loved the church? Expounding Ephesians 5:25–27, this sermon argues that the husband's headship is never a license for domestic tyranny but is always to be exercised as a reign of love, patterned after Christ's self-sacrificing, sanctifying love for his bride. The sermon works through the nature and explanation of the command to love, the characteristics of that love (faithful monogamy, consistent self-sacrifice, joyful commitment to the wife's well-being), and its threefold expression: praying for her, providing for her, and protecting her. The passage then opens into the broader Christological vision of Ephesians 5:26–27 — Christ's definite atonement, his sanctifying and cleansing of the church, and his purpose to present her to himself without spot, wrinkle, or blemish — held up as both the ground and the standard of the husband's love.
The Husband and Wife Relationship, Part 1
Ephesians 5:22–24 presents the duty, reason, and practice of a wife's submission to her husband within the covenant of marriage. The passage is expounded within the broader Pauline household code of Ephesians 5:21–6:9, which itself flows from the Spirit-filled life commanded in verse 18. The sermon grounds wifely submission in both the created order (the husband as head by divine indicative, not negotiation) and in the analogical relationship of Christ and the church. Husbands and wives are called to embrace their respective obligations — loving leadership and willing, comprehensive submission — as an act of obedience to God, knowing that the grace enabling this obedience flows from the gospel of Jesus Christ alone.
Leviticus 20 - the Death Penalty
Leviticus 20 catalogues capital offenses under the Mosaic law — idolatry, witchcraft, adultery, incest, homosexuality, and bestiality — and provides the occasion for a sustained biblical-theological treatment of the death penalty across the covenants. The study traces the authorization of capital punishment from the Noahic Covenant in Genesis 9 through the Mosaic legislation and into the New Covenant via Acts 25 and Romans 13, arguing that the death penalty remains a binding obligation upon civil magistrates. Romans 13 is read as the New Testament's clearest statement that the sword entrusted to the civil magistrate is God's instrument for executing wrath upon evildoers in history, not merely a sign of general authority. Hearers are called to think biblically about the proper and limited role of civil government, to resist the conflation of civil submission with capitulation to tyranny, and to uphold the abiding moral normativity of capital punishment for murder and other heinous crimes.
The Necessity to Walk in Wisdom, Part 3
What does it mean to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and how does that filling express itself in the life of the church? Expounding Ephesians 5:19–21, this sermon argues that the Spirit's presence produces four concrete effects: mutual instruction through song, praise to the Lord Jesus Christ, gratitude to God the Father, and submissive regard for one another — all of which together constitute Trinitarian Christian worship. A sustained lexical, theological, and contextual case is made that the 'psalms and hymns and spiritual songs' of verse 19 refer to the biblical Psalter as the divinely authorized songbook of the church, and the sermon closes by grounding the call to walk in wisdom in the sufficiency of Scripture and the free grace of God in Christ.
The Necessity to Walk in Wisdom, Part 2
Ephesians 5:18–21 sets a prohibition against drunkenness alongside a positive command to be filled with the Spirit, and this sermon works through both in sequence. A biblical theology of alcohol is developed first: Scripture neither condemns moderate use nor condones drunkenness, and the sinner — not the substance — bears the blame. The filling of the Spirit is then interpreted not as a charismatic second work of grace but as the ongoing pursuit of the Spirit's presence and power through prayer, illuminated by the parallel text in Colossians 3:16 where 'being filled with the Spirit' corresponds to 'letting the word of Christ dwell richly.' The congregation is urged to seek more of the Spirit's influence through prayer, knowing that the evidences of that filling are speech, song, thanksgiving, and mutual submission.
Sunday School Confession Study - 2LCF 2.2
God's external relations to the created order — his independence, omniscience, holiness, and the creature's obligation to him — are the subject of 2LCF Chapter 2, Paragraph 2. The confession's insistence that God is entirely self-sufficient and derives no glory from creatures corrects any notion that God created the world out of need or incompleteness. The omniscience of God is infinite, infallible, and independent of the creature, so that nothing is contingent or uncertain to him. The study closes by grounding the creature's obligation of worship, service, and obedience in what God is — holy in all his counsels, works, and commands.
2LCF Chapter 1 - Of the Holy Scriptures, Part 1
The necessity of Holy Scripture, as confessed in 2LCF Chapter 1, paragraph 1, arises from the insufficiency of general revelation to communicate saving knowledge. While creation and providence manifestly display God's goodness, wisdom, and power — leaving all men without excuse — they do not and cannot reveal blood atonement, the incarnation, or justification by faith alone. It therefore pleased God to commit His will to writing, producing a Scripture that is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience. The session closes with extended discussion of cessationism, the distinction between inerrancy and infallibility, and the hermeneutical principle that Scripture interprets Scripture.
The Conduct of the New Man, Part 3
Ephesians 5:1–2 concludes Paul's extended exhortation on the conduct of the new man (Ephesians 4:17–5:2), calling believers to be imitators of God as dear children and to walk in love. The basis for this imitation is theological: God is definitionally love (1 John 4:8, 16), believers have been adopted into his family by sovereign election and effectual grace, and family membership carries both privilege and responsibility. The motivation for walking in love is the penal substitutionary atonement of Christ, whose self-offering was an acceptable sacrifice to the Father — the antitype of the Old Testament burnt offering — and whose love supplies both the standard and the ground for all Christian love toward God and neighbour.
The Conduct of the New Man, Part 1
Ephesians 4:25–28 grounds the Christian's ethical conduct not in legal compulsion but in the indicative of redemption: the old man has been put off, the mind is being renewed, and the new man has been put on. This sermon works through three prohibited actions — lying, sinful anger, and theft — each examined under its corresponding commandment from the Decalogue (the Ninth, Sixth, and Eighth), with a prohibition, an exhortation, and a motivation for each. The ethical demands of the New Covenant are not a new law but the restoration of the creational law now internalized by the Spirit according to Jeremiah 31:31–34. The hearer is called to put off deceit, guard against nursed anger that gives opportunity to the devil, and replace theft with diligent labor aimed at charitable surplus.
The Resurrection and Justification
Romans 4:25 encapsulates the whole gospel in a single verse: Christ was delivered up because of our offenses and raised because of our justification. This sermon expounds the redemptive purpose behind both the death and the resurrection of Christ, showing that the cross satisfies divine justice through substitutionary atonement while the empty tomb confirms that satisfaction was accepted and justification accomplished. The doctrine of justification by faith alone — the forgiveness of sins and the imputation of Christ's righteousness — rests inseparably on the historical and theological reality of the resurrection. Believers are called to live daily in light of the finished work of the Son, and those without Christ are urged to look to Him in faith for everlasting life.
The Characteristics of the New Man
Ephesians 4:17–24 sets before believers a stark contrast between the darkened, alienated mind of the spiritual Gentile and the renewed mind of the new man in Christ. The sermon argues that verses 22–24 are not imperatives commanding believers to transform themselves, but indicatives declaring what God has already accomplished in regeneration: the old man has been put off, the mind is being renewed, and the new man has been put on. These realities — rooted in the second Adam reversing what the first Adam forfeited — form the doctrinal foundation upon which the ethical commands of Ephesians 4:25–6:24 rest. Believers are therefore called to walk in a manner consistent with what they already are in Christ, using the ordained means of gospel preaching, Scripture, and prayer to pursue sanctification.