Cited in sermons
Cyprian
2 sermons · All people cited
The Authority of the Church
Christ's promise in Matthew 16:19 to give 'the keys of the kingdom of heaven' to the church raises two perennial dangers: authoritarian abuse of ecclesiastical power and the outright abdication of it. This sermon expounds the identity of those entrusted with these keys (apostles, elders, and the gathered congregation together), the nature of the authority delegated (binding and loosing through preaching and discipline), and the proper ground of confidence when the church acts — not sacerdotal infallibility, but the assurance that heaven ratifies the church's faithful obedience to Scripture. The practical conclusion is that the keys are exercised through the proclamation of the Word, the admission and exclusion of members, and the administration of the sacraments — never through entertainment, self-help, or moral do-goodery.
The Conversion of the Ethiopian Eunuch
Acts 8:26–40 records the Spirit-directed encounter between the evangelist Philip and an Ethiopian eunuch, a man doubly excluded from Israel's assembly by Deuteronomy 23:1 yet drawn by God's sovereign grace into the new-covenant community. The sermon traces three movements in the narrative — the providential meeting, the expository dialogue from Isaiah 53, and the eunuch's confession and baptism — arguing that the passage is not merely a quotation but a fulfillment of Isaiah 56, in which eunuchs and foreigners are brought near through the blood of Christ. Against any notion of baptism as a converting ordinance, the preacher grounds believers' baptism in the pattern of faith preceding baptism throughout Acts, Calvin's own concession that immersion was the ancient mode, and the 1689 LBCF's definition of baptism as an ordinance primarily for the party baptized. The sermon closes with an indiscriminate call to all sinners to relinquish their own righteousness and rest in the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ.