Cited in sermons
Charles Spurgeon
571 sermons · All people cited
The Crucifixion of Jesus, Part 2
Matthew 27:39–44 records three distinct groups — passing bystanders, the chief priests and elders, and the two crucified robbers — each heaping mockery and blasphemy upon the Son of God while he hangs on the cross. The preacher demonstrates that in every taunt, the mockers unwittingly speak truth: he is the temple builder, the Savior of others, the King of Israel, and the Son of God — and it is precisely because he is all of these things that he must stay on the cross to satisfy divine justice for his people's sins. The irony Matthew constructs reaches its apex in the dying thief, who looks past the gore of the crucifixion and confesses Christ as Lord, while the religious leaders who possessed the very scriptures that prophesied this scene remain utterly blind to it. The sermon calls both unbelievers and believers to look to the crucified Christ by faith, to receive salvation as a gift rather than bargaining with God, and to find in this scene the unsurpassed measure of the Savior's love.
The Qualifications for Elders
What qualities must a man possess before a church installs him as an elder? Expounding 1 Timothy 3:1–7, this sermon works through six categories of qualification: the man's desire for the office, his personal holiness, his domestic faithfulness, his spiritual maturity, his testimony among outsiders, and his aptness to teach. The three New Testament terms — elder, overseer, and pastor — are shown to be synonymous, describing one office whose governing instrument is the preached Word. The congregation is pressed to apply these qualifications rigorously, to test aspiring men through faithful churchmanship, and to resist the twin errors of setting the bar so low that unfit men enter and so high that no man can qualify.
Free Grace Baptist Church - October 8, 2017 AM
The mock enthronement of Jesus recorded in Matthew 27:27–31 simultaneously exposes the comprehensive guilt of every human participant — Pilate, the soldiers, the Jewish leaders, and the elect whose sins were heaped upon the Savior — and reveals the ironic glory of the King who would actually bear every emblem the soldiers placed on him in jest. The sermon argues that what the soldiers devised as dishonor — the robe, the crown of thorns, the reed — were unwitting foreshadowings of Christ's true royal majesty as depicted in the book of Revelation, where he reigns with golden crown, glorious robe, and iron scepter. The exposition closes with three applications under the gravity, the glory, and the gratitude of the scene, pressing both unbelievers to flee to the Savior from the coming wrath and believers to exceed the soldiers' inventiveness in devising honor for their King.
Free Grace Baptist Church - October 1, 2017 PM
This Lord's Supper service exposition of 2 Samuel 6 traces three movements in the account of David bringing the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem: the desire for God's presence, the reminder of God's holiness in the death of Uzzah, and the celebration of God's goodness in David's exuberant worship. The Uzzah incident grounds an extended defense of the regulative principle of worship — God demands precise, commanded obedience, not well-intentioned innovation — while David's dancing in a linen ephod demonstrates that such precision does not exclude but rather secures gladness and joy. Each movement is drawn into parallel with the Lord's Supper: believers come seeking the presence of Christ, they are reminded that his body was broken and blood shed because God is holy and just, and they receive the Supper as a means of covenant renewal and joyful commemoration of the once-for-all sacrifice.
2LCF Chapter 21 - Of Christian Liberty and Liberty of Conscience
Christian liberty is grounded not primarily in political or personal freedoms but in the perfect saving work of Christ, who has purchased freedom from the guilt, power, and punishment of sin for all his elect. This study works through 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith chapter 21, paragraphs 1–3, tracing the biblical foundations of liberty of conscience against both Roman Catholic ecclesiastical imposition and antinomian abuse of grace. The New Testament enlarges the freedom already held by Old Testament believers by releasing them from the ceremonial law's yoke, granting bolder access to the throne of grace, and communicating the Spirit more fully. True Christian liberty issues not in licentiousness but in cheerful, childlike obedience to God, freed from slavish fear and self-imposed religious scrupulosity alike.
The Trial before Pontius Pilate, Part 1
Why does Jesus stand silent before Pontius Pilate, refusing to answer a single charge? Matthew 27:11–14 records the interrogation of Christ by the Roman governor, in which Jesus affirms his kingship with a qualified 'it is as you say' and then offers no defense against the accusations of the chief priests and elders. That silence is not weakness but resolute, covenantal determination — the fulfillment of Isaiah 53:7, the refusal to retard the death that alone can save sinners from the wrath of a holy God. The sermon calls both believer and unbeliever to marvel at the silence of Christ, recognizing in it the ground of every sinner's boldness before God on the day of judgment.
The Rebellion of Moab
Matthew 27:1–5 exposes two devastating portraits set in immediate sequence: the murderous resolution of the Sanhedrin and the miserable end of Judas Iscariot. The sermon presses a distinction the text itself demands — that remorse, however acute, is not repentance, because genuine repentance moves God-ward and Christ-ward, apprehending the mercy of God in Christ, whereas Judas's guilt drove him only to self-destruction. Listeners are urged to see in Judas the bitter end of undealt-with sin, and to flee instead to the one who is altogether lovely and chief among ten thousand, trusting that saving faith and repentance are themselves gifts granted by sovereign grace.
The Translation of Elijah
2 Kings 2 presents the translation of Elijah into heaven and the subsequent manifestation of Elisha as his divinely appointed successor. The sermon works through the chapter in two main sections — the ascension of Elijah and the confirmed ministry of Elisha — arguing that every element, including the healing of Jericho's waters and the cursing of the youths at Bethel, serves to authenticate Elisha as the legitimate prophetic voice of Yahweh in Israel. The two she-bears are not a moral embarrassment but the execution of the covenant curse of Leviticus 26, consistent with the same God who sends sweet water to the previously cursed city of Jericho and who ultimately sends His Son to deal in mercy with sinners.
The Denial of Christ by Peter
Peter's threefold denial of Christ in Matthew 26:69–75 exposes both the anatomy of a disciple's fall and the magnitude of divine grace that restores the fallen. The sermon traces Peter's descent from evasive mumbling to sworn denial, showing how self-confidence, prayerlessness, and neglect of the Word prepared him for catastrophic failure before a servant girl. The contrasting thread throughout is the mercy of Christ — his look of 'sorrow, pity, love, and forgiveness' — which, together with the remembered word, brought Peter to godly repentance and eventual restoration. Hearers are exhorted to watch and pray, to hide the Word in their hearts, and to flee to the Christ who does not cast out those who come to him.
The Hearing before the Sanhedrin, Part 3
Matthew 26:65–68 records the formal charge of blasphemy leveled against Christ by the high priest Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin's unanimous verdict that he is deserving of death. This sermon, the third in a series on Christ before the Sanhedrin, examines three movements in the text: the high priest's indictment, the Sanhedrin's verdict, and the physical mistreatment of the Son of Man. The central irony running through the passage is that the one charged with blasphemy is the eternal Son of God, while those bringing the charge are themselves blaspheming — misrepresenting and condemning the Holy One of Israel in fulfillment of the very Scriptures they profess to uphold.
The Unsurpassed Value of the Gospel
Paul's exhortation to Timothy not to be ashamed of the gospel in 2 Timothy 1:8–10 rests on the unsurpassed worth of the salvation it announces. The sermon works through the divine authorship of salvation, the basis of election in God's eternal purpose and grace rather than human works, and the pre-temporal covenant of redemption executed in the incarnation and atoning work of Christ. Because Christ has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, believers have every reason to suffer for it without shame, and unbelievers are called to look to Christ alone for justification by faith apart from works.
2 Kings 1:1-18
2 Kings 1 records the idolatry, judgment, and death of Ahaziah, king of Israel — a man who, when facing death, turned not to Yahweh but to Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron. The chapter exposes the nature of idolatry as a practical confession that the living God is incompetent to meet one's needs, and it establishes the certainty of God's word against any king or army that would silence it. God's protection of Elijah through consuming fire is neither divine caprice nor Old Testament barbarism, but the settled, holy justice of a God who will brook no rival and whose jealousy for his own glory is inseparable from his mercy toward sinners. The passage calls hearers to examine what their instinctive cry in trial reveals about the true object of their allegiance.
2LCF Chapter 16 - Of Good Works
1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 16, 'Of Good Works,' teaches that good works are defined exclusively by God's revealed word, flow necessarily from justification and sanctification, and are enabled entirely by Christ as the believer's vine. The chapter distinguishes scriptural good works — requiring the right matter, root, manner, and end — from both the meritorious works Rome supposes possible and the common-grace works of the unregenerate, which, lacking a heart purified by faith and the goal of God's glory, cannot please God. Believers are exhorted to pursue good works not as the ground of their acceptance before God, but as the fruit of a living faith, performed in Christ's strength and received by God through Christ despite their imperfection.
The Lord's Arrest in the Garden
Matthew 26:50-56 records the arrest of Christ in Gethsemane — an event the speaker expounds as the voluntary, scripturally determined surrender of the sinless Son of God, not a defeat. Working through four structural movements (betrayal, defense, assertion, and desertion), the sermon treats Peter's sword-stroke as a case study in zeal without knowledge, unpacks the legitimate and illegitimate uses of the sword in biblical ethics, and shows that Christ's willing submission to arrest was the necessary means by which He bore the wrath of God as the scapegoat for His people. The closing application summons hearers to the Psalm 2:12 command — 'Kiss the Son' — contrasting Judas's kiss of treachery with the saving trust that finds all shame removed in the One who went alone into the wilderness bearing sin.
Free Grace Baptist Church - July 2, 2017 AM
This expository sermon on Matthew 26:40–46 examines the sluggishness of the disciples in Gethsemane against the backdrop of Christ's resolute, prayerful obedience to the Father. The disciples' repeated failure to watch and pray — despite explicit warning and their own loud protestations of loyalty — exposes the persistent pride and creaturely weakness of even regenerate believers. Christ's threefold prayer, his endurance of the cup of divine wrath by imputation, and his gracious invitation to the sleeping disciples ('let us be going') together constitute the ground for the sermon's central exhortation: the ordained means of victory over temptation and spiritual lethargy is watchfulness and prayer, practiced in both private devotion and the corporate worship of God.
The Prediction of Desertion and Denial
Matthew 26:31–35 records three predictions Jesus makes on the night of His betrayal: that all the disciples will desert Him, that Peter in particular will deny Him three times before the rooster crows, and that He will be raised and go before them to Galilee. The passage demonstrates both the sovereignty of Christ, who is not caught unawares but walks toward the cross in accordance with Zechariah 13:7 and the eternal decree of the Father, and the weakness of even the most zealous believers, who prove incapable of standing in their own strength. Peter's brash self-confidence — his flat contradiction of Christ's word and his lofty assessment of himself above his fellow disciples — stands as a warning against pride and self-reliance. The sermon calls believers to kill pride, cultivate dependence upon God, embrace Scripture's honest assessment of indwelling corruption, and rest in the grace of a Savior who, despite foreknowing every act of betrayal, still promises to meet His scattered sheep.
The Truth Concealed and Revealed
Matthew 11:25–30 presents three interlocking realities that together form the foundation of gospel rest: the sovereign will of the Father in concealing and revealing gospel truth, the exclusive mediatorial office of the Son as the only means of access to the Father, and the gracious invitation of Christ to sinners burdened by sin. The sermon argues that a right understanding of divine sovereignty — including both election and reprobation — should produce not polemical pride but the thankfulness and praise modeled by Christ himself in verse 25. Sinners are called to come to Christ by faith alone, receiving rest from the burden of sin, and to take up his yoke in discipleship, which the Savior himself declares easy and light.
The Prince of Life and the Penitent Thief
The conversion of the penitent thief on the cross presents what one 19th-century commentator called the finest demonstration of vital theology in all the gospel narratives. Working through Luke 23:38–43, this sermon examines four elements of that occasion: the ironic truth embedded in the inscription 'This is the King of the Jews,' the unrepentant blasphemy of the cursed robber as a mirror of unregenerate depravity, the dying thief's Spirit-wrought confession of God's holiness, Christ's innocence, and Christ's lordship, and the sovereign comfort of Christ's assurance that salvation rests on divine promise rather than human merit. The sermon is delivered in the context of a Lord's Supper service, and each point is drawn toward the ordinance as a call to remember the King, to recall one's former state of enmity, and to rest on the blood and righteousness of Christ alone.
Paul's "Jesus and the Resurrection"
What does Paul mean when he proclaims 'Jesus and the resurrection,' and why does the denial of bodily resurrection destroy the entire Christian faith? Drawing on 1 Corinthians 15:1–20, this exposition works through four interlocking realities: the gospel is comprehensive for all of Christian life, the events of the gospel are certain on the testimony of Scripture and eyewitnesses, the grace of God is foundational to both the delivery and reception of the gospel, and the resurrection of Christ secures an unconquerable hope for all who believe. The sermon presses toward a pointed application: Christian hope is not wishful thinking but the certain expectation that God's promises in the risen Christ will most surely come to pass.
The King's Wedding
Psalm 45 is a royal wedding psalm that the New Testament applies directly to Christ, identifying the king as God incarnate whose throne is forever. This sermon works through four movements: the psalmist's overflowing intention, the glory and divine-human person of the king, the call for the bride to forsake all competing allegiances, and the declaration of the king's everlasting dominion. The congregation is pressed to enter the Lord's Supper — and every Lord's Day gathering — with the gladness and rejoicing that befits a bride coming into the presence of the one who is fairer than the sons of men.
The Institution of the Lord's Supper, Part 2
Matthew 26:26–30 records Christ's institution of the Lord's Supper in the context of the Passover, and this expository sermon works through the significance of the cup, the anticipation of the messianic banquet, and the concluding hymn sung before Gethsemane. The cup of the new covenant is unpacked under three headings: the covenantal background rooted in Exodus 24 and Jeremiah 31, the substitutionary and particular atonement it seals (Christ's blood shed for many, not for all without distinction), and the redemptive benefit of the remission of sins. The sermon closes by setting the Lord's Supper within its threefold orientation—backward to the cross, present in the church's communion, and forward to the consummated messianic banquet—and by pressing the gospel invitation upon the unconverted through John 6:40.
Of Effectual Calling (2LCF 10)
Effectual calling — the internal, sovereign act by which God draws his elect from death to life by his Word and Spirit — is the focus of 2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith chapter 10. This study works through all four paragraphs of the chapter, tracing the monergistic character of the call: it originates in God's eternal predestination, operates independently of anything foreseen in the creature, and is accomplished by a power no less than that which raised Christ from the dead. The chapter's handling of elect infants, the mentally incapable, the non-elect, and the heathen is examined in turn, with sustained application to evangelical method, the centrality of the cross in preaching, and the believer's dependence upon God in prayer and witness.
The Passover with the Disciples
Matthew 26:17–25 presents Jesus as the sovereign master of the Passover, not a hapless victim of events spiraling beyond his control. Working through the preparation for Passover and the announcement of betrayal, this exposition shows how Christ's active obedience to the law, his precise foreknowledge, and his willing submission to the Father's eternal decree together constitute the ground of redemption for his people. The contrast between Judas, whose hardened heart renders him a reprobate despite extraordinary privilege, and the eleven, whose sorrowful self-examination models the disposition of genuine faith, drives home two applications: trust in Christ alone, by grace through faith, for justification; and cultivate a healthy self-suspicion rather than a confident presumption of one's own standing before God.
The Resurrection and Justification
Romans 4:25 is, as Matthew Poole observed, 'an abridgment of the whole gospel' — binding Christ's penal death for specific offenses to His bodily resurrection for the justification of those who believe. The sermon expounds the redemptive purpose of both events: the Father delivered up the Son to satisfy divine justice for the sins of the elect, and raised Him to testify that the sacrifice was accepted, that satisfaction was rendered, and that redemption was accomplished. Against the moral-exemplary reduction of the atonement, the sermon insists on substitution, propitiation, and particular redemption as the irreducible ground of peace with God. Hearers are called to look away from every incapacity of their own — as Abraham did — and to rest entirely on the one who was delivered up for offenses and raised for justification.
The Betrayal of Christ by Judas
Judas Iscariot's betrayal of Christ for thirty pieces of silver exposes the deadly convergence of unrepented sin, satanic opportunism, and the utter insufficiency of religious privilege as a ground of salvation. Working through Matthew 26:14–16 in its narrative context, this sermon examines both the identity of the betrayer — his position, character, and the devil's capitalizing on his covetousness — and the mechanics of his conspiracy with the chief priests. The central application is that unconverted hearts, however outwardly privileged, will be seized upon by Satan through their ruling sin; the only remedy is sovereign grace received through faith in Christ alone.
The Olivet Discourse, Part 16
Matthew 25:41–46 presents the judgment of the unrighteous as the precise structural mirror of the judgment of the righteous: those who depart into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels are distinguished from those who inherit the kingdom not by degree of works but by the presence or absence of saving faith. The sermon defends, through nine arguments drawn from the text and from Galatians 2:21, that this passage does not teach justification by works — the sheep and goats are already determined, the kingdom is inherited not merited, and the good works function as evidence of faith rather than its ground. The 'least of these my brethren' is shown, through Matthew 10 and 12, to refer specifically to Christ's disciples, so that reception or rejection of them constitutes reception or rejection of Christ himself. The passage concludes by calling all hearers to be found in Christ — clothed not in their own righteousness but in the righteousness of God through faith — as the only preparation for the certain judgment to come.
The Governing Principle of Kingdom Life
Matthew 6:31–34 contains Christ's governing principle for kingdom life: seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and the necessities of life will be added. The sermon works through the contrast Christ draws between the Gentiles, whose obsessive anxiety over food, drink, and clothing flows from their exclusion of God, and the children of God, whose heavenly Father already knows their needs. Worry is exposed as a sin that betrays the sovereignty of God, divides the believer's attention, and paralyzes kingdom advance. The remedy is not passivity but a reordered priority — the Lord's Prayer models the same sequence — combined with a cultivated contentment grounded in the goodness and providence of God.
1 Kings 8 Part 2
Solomon's prayer at the dedication of the temple in 1 Kings 8 exposes several foundational truths for the people of God: the covenantal faithfulness of God across the Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic covenants; the nature of God's presence among His people, which produces both reverential awe and deep joy; and the theological precision required for rightly ordered prayer, including the doctrines of divine incomparability, transcendence, immanence, and simplicity. The sermon closes by drawing out practical lessons for new covenant believers: the centrality of Scripture, the necessity of heart obedience, the perpetual need for forgiveness, the remedial purpose of afflictions, and the indispensable role of communion with God in the genuine pursuit of holiness.
The Olivet Discourse, Part 11
Matthew 24:36–44 presents Jesus's declaration that no one — not even the angels, nor the Son according to his human nature — knows the day or hour of the coming judgment, followed by the analogy of Noah's generation and the illustration of the thief in the night. The sermon works through a contested exegetical question: whether 'that day' in verse 36 refers to the AD 70 destruction of Jerusalem or to the final second coming, concluding that the hortatory application holds on either reading. Central to the exposition is a careful defense of the hypostatic union — Christ's genuine ignorance according to his humanity is not a denial of his divinity but a necessary consequence of the incarnation. The controlling exhortation is watchfulness: not withdrawal from ordinary life, but faithfulness, preparedness, and diligence under the conscious reality that God is near and will judge the living and the dead.
The Seventh Commandment
The seventh commandment, 'You shall not commit adultery' (Deuteronomy 5:18), is neither a narrow prohibition of one act nor a relic of Mosaic theocracy — it is the summary of God's creational design for sexual integrity, binding on all people in every age because it reflects the law first written on Adam's heart and confirmed throughout both Testaments. This exposition examines the basis of the commandment (God's law, the purposes of marriage, and the severity of its sanctions), then moves through ten specific sins the commandment forbids, from adultery and fornication to pornography and unlawful divorce. The three uses of the law are applied: the civil use demands that governing authorities punish gross sexual sin; the pedagogical use drives sinners to confess their guilt before a holy God; and the normative use calls believers to active mortification of sexual sin, the faithful practice of biblical marriage, and close communion with God as the surest guard against violating the second table.