Cited in sermons
Francis Schaeffer
8 sermons · All people cited
CTF 2024 Session 3: A Robust Defense of the Scriptures
Creeds and confessions are not supplements to Scripture but summaries of its central propositional content, necessary for intelligent faith, faithful evangelism, and the defense of orthodoxy. Drawing on Romans 12:1-2, James Renihan argues that right living always flows from right believing, and that the theological, ethical, and redemptive-historical dimensions of Scripture all demand that Christians be able to articulate the facts of the faith. Confessions function positively to state the contents of the faith and connect believers across time and place, and negatively to identify error and mark the boundaries of true Christianity. The session closes with a survey of confessional language embedded in the New Testament itself — from the Shema to the apostolic christological summaries — demonstrating that creeds are not a human invention imposed on Scripture but a distillation of what Scripture already teaches.
Judges 7
Judges 7 recounts God's reduction of Gideon's army from 32,000 to 300 men before Israel's victory over 120,000 Midianites — a disparity that is not incidental but theologically deliberate. The controlling principle of the entire chapter is verse 2: God whittled down Israel's forces so that the nation would not claim glory for itself, demonstrating that divine strength is perfected through human weakness. The lappers and kneelers are not to be distinguished by vigilance or virtue; the selection is simply a sovereign means to reduce the army to a number that makes self-congratulation impossible. God's patient encouragement of the fearful Gideon along the way reveals not only His sovereignty but His kindness, and the judges as a whole point typologically to the Lord Jesus Christ, the final deliverer who saves His people from sin rather than merely from earthly oppressors.
The Murder of the Preborn, Part 1
Exodus 21:22–25 provides the case-law context for examining what Scripture teaches about the sanctity of human life, the personhood of the preborn, and the biblical prohibition against abortion. The sermon grounds the argument against abortion in the imago Dei — man is not merely made in God's image but is the image of God, a dignity that extends from conception through old age and that no civil court or medical consensus can override. The preborn child is demonstrated to be a full human person through the consistent testimony of Genesis, the Psalms, the Prophets, and the New Testament, while the Lex Talionis of Exodus 21 establishes that taking the life of a child in the womb carries the full capital sanction reserved for murder. Hearers are called to understand, articulate, and act upon this biblical truth — in their prayer closets, at the ballot box, and in their own personal holiness.
A Biblical View of Abortion
Exodus 21:22–25 presents a case of accidental premature birth caused by fighting men, and the lex talionis applied to any resulting harm — including harm to the child — establishes that the pre-born bear full legal and moral standing under the law of God. This sermon argues that abortion is first and foremost a theological issue, an assault on the imago Dei, and that the church is without excuse in its silence or ambiguity on this question. Drawing on texts from Genesis through the New Testament, the preacher demonstrates that the pre-born are persons from conception, that the civil use of God's law restrains even unregenerate society, and that the church must respond with weeping, prayer, witness, and gospel proclamation.
The Sanctity of Life
The sanctity of human life is grounded not in sentiment but in the biblical doctrine that God created man in his own image — a dignity that persists after the fall and extends to every category of person, including the preborn. Exodus 21:22–25 is examined as a text that directly addresses the legal standing of the unborn: the lex talionis applied to a premature birth demonstrates that God's law protects prenatal life with the same weight it protects any other. The sermon then takes up the wickedness of murder across its biblical dimensions — divine prohibition, divine hatred, divine observation, and divine punishment, including eternal judgment — while insisting that the church's primary instrument against these evils is the preaching of the gospel and the doctrine of justification by faith alone, under which even those guilty of abortion may find forgiveness in Christ.
The Purpose of Proverbs
Proverbs 1:1–7 sets out both the purposes of the book and the indispensable prerequisite for benefiting from it. The sermon traces five interlocking purposes — general, judicial, formative for the young, moral, and intellectual — showing that the Proverbs are not a self-help manual but a comprehensive word-and-life guide for those already justified by grace and now pressing on in sanctification. The ruling principle that unlocks the entire book is the fear of the Lord, which is not a slavish terror but a covenant grace implanted in the regenerate heart — 'twas grace that taught my heart to fear. The sermon closes with an urgent call to believe the gospel first, and then to take up Proverbs daily, chapter by chapter, as the God-given instrument for growing in practical wisdom.
A Word for Fathers
Ephesians 6:1–4 addresses fathers and the entire domestic order within which fatherhood functions — husbands as servant-leaders of their wives, wives submitting and rendering respect, and children obeying and honoring their parents. The sermon argues that God invests fathers with real, God-given authority, and that this authority carries commensurate responsibility: to lead sacrificially, to disciple, to nourish, and to discipline without provoking to wrath. Throughout, the gospel grounds the whole: no husband, wife, or child meets these standards perfectly, and the righteousness required is found only in Christ's active and passive obedience imputed to the believer by faith.
A Christian View of Abortion
Abortion is not a political question but a theological and ethical one, answered definitively by Scripture. This sermon works through the biblical case for the sanctity of human life from creation to law, grounds the personhood of the pre-born in texts from Genesis through Luke, and then expounds Exodus 21:22–25 to show that God's law affords full legal protection — including the lex talionis — to the unborn child and the mother alike. Christians are called to weep over this ongoing atrocity, to arm themselves with Scripture, to pray and witness faithfully, and to proclaim both the law that condemns and the gospel that saves to all who have participated in it.