Cited in sermons
Gary North
27 sermons · All people cited
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.
8th Commandment: Part 2; Deuteronomy 5:19
The eighth commandment — 'You shall not steal' — carries not only a prohibition but a positive demand: diligent labor, charitable love toward others, and biblical contentment. Drawing from Deuteronomy, Proverbs, and the New Testament epistles, this exposition moves from the reasons grounding the command (God's sovereignty, man's image-bearing dignity, and the indirect assault on human life that theft represents) to its constructive obligations. The sermon closes with an application of the law's three uses — civil, pedagogical, and normative — including a pointed treatment of government taxation in light of 1 Samuel 8, where God warned that unchecked rulers will 'take, take, take.'
2LCF Chapter 32 - Of the Last Judgement
2 London Baptist Confession of Faith Chapter 32 examines the doctrine of the Last Judgment under three heads: the concept of the Day of Judgment (its divine appointment, its agent in Christ, and its comprehensive scope over angels and all humanity), the goal of that day (the manifestation of God's mercy in the eternal salvation of the elect and his justice in the eternal damnation of the reprobate), and its practical relevance (deterring sin, consoling the afflicted people of God, and keeping believers watchful). The session concludes with a survey of the three millennial positions and four interpretive approaches to the book of Revelation, explaining why the Confession deliberately avoids resolving those disputes in order to function as a broad consensus document. The consistent ethical burden throughout is that contemplation of the coming judgment should shape present conduct: purifying the elect, driving evangelism, and giving the suffering saints confidence that divine justice will prevail.
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 Miscellaneous Laws Concerning Society, Part 2
Exodus 22:21–31 sets out miscellaneous civil laws for Old Covenant Israel that bear directly on how God evaluates any society's treatment of its most vulnerable members. The sermon works through two major divisions: the laws prohibiting the abuse of aliens, widows, orphans, and the poor (vv. 21–27), and the laws preserving the honor of Yahweh through respect for authority and consecrated service (vv. 28–31). God's threatened covenant sanctions — enemy invasion, exile, and the widowing of the oppressor's own family — reveal that abuse of the powerless is not a private moral failing but a covenantal crime that invites divine judgment upon an entire nation. Hearers are called to embody "pure and undefiled religion" (James 1:27) by actively rendering aid to the alien, the widow, the orphan, and the poor, while maintaining reverence for lawfully exercised authority in the family, civil, and ecclesiastical spheres.
The Law Concerning Servants
Exodus 21:1–11 opens what is commonly called the Book of the Covenant, the concrete judicial application of the Ten Commandments to Israel's civil life. The sermon situates this passage within the threefold division of the law — moral, ceremonial, and judicial — explaining why the judicial law expired with the Israelite commonwealth while its general equity retains moral use, and why the theonomic demand that modern civil magistrates enforce the Mosaic penal code lacks New Testament warrant. Working through three features of the law concerning servants — the limitation on service, the acquisition of a family during service, and the protection of female servants — the sermon argues that far from being barbaric, these laws reveal God's wisdom and kindness in restraining exploitation and protecting the vulnerable in a post-fall world.
The Need for Gospel Ministers
Matthew 9:35–38 presents Christ surveying the multitudes of Galilee and responding not primarily to their political oppression but to their spiritual destitution — harassed and scattered like sheep without a shepherd because Israel's religious leaders had failed and become predators of the very flock they were charged to keep. The sermon traces the shepherd-and-harvest imagery through Numbers 27, 1 Kings 22, Jeremiah 23, and Micah 5 to demonstrate that God's remedy for faithless shepherds has always been the raising up of faithful men under the Messiah's authority. Christ's compassion, exercised according to his human nature, issues not in mere sympathy but in effective action: commanding his disciples to pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers, then immediately appointing and commissioning the Twelve. The congregation is called to share Christ's own compassion for the spiritually destitute, to believe that the harvest is genuinely plentiful across every tribe and nation, and to pray, give, identify, train, and send qualified men into gospel ministry.
The Tenth Commandment
The tenth commandment's prohibition of covetousness exposes the spirituality of God's law: external compliance is insufficient, for the law reaches the desires and affections of the heart. Covetousness is defined as inordinate desire for what belongs to a neighbor — whether his wife, his goods, or anything that is his — and its connection to the first commandment reveals that misplaced desire is a form of idolatry. The sermon traces covetousness through envy and discontentment, showing how inward sin often becomes the prelude to overt transgression. The positive counterpart calls believers to contentment grounded in God's sovereign ownership, his covenant promise of provision, the surpassing weight of eternal glory, and the cultivation of a genuinely charitable spirit toward others.
The 8th Commandment, Part 2 & Economic Theory
The Eighth Commandment's prohibition against theft carries positive moral obligations — diligent labor, charitable giving, and biblical contentment — and provides the scriptural framework for evaluating economic and political systems. Drawing on the Mosaic law, the apostolic letters, and historical narrative, the sermon argues that socialism and communism are founded upon institutionalised theft and therefore stand under divine condemnation, while capitalism, for all its imperfections, respects the God-given right to private property. Israel's demand for a king in 1 Samuel 8 and Ahab's seizure of Naboth's vineyard in 1 Kings 21 are presented as biblical case studies in governmental confiscation. Hearers are exhorted to cultivate contentment, labor faithfully, give charitably, and judge all economic theory by the standard of Exodus 20:15.
The 8th Command - You Shall Not Steal
Exodus 20:15 — 'You shall not steal' — encompasses far more than common burglary. This study works through the range of sins prohibited by the Eighth Commandment, from robbery and kidnapping to fraud, extortion, the destruction of property, and the robbing of God through withheld tithes, before examining the inner dispositions — covetousness, discontentment, and idolatry — that drive those external violations. The theological grounding for the command rests on three pillars: God's sovereignty as owner of all things, the position of man as steward and vice-regent, and the recognition that an attack on another's property is an indirect attack on the life that property sustains. The study closes with a direct application to civil government, arguing that unjust taxation, inflation, and redistributive economic systems are themselves violations of 'you shall not steal.'
The Bread of Life Discourse, Part 1
John 6:22–34 records the opening exchange of the bread of life discourse, in which Jesus confronts a crowd whose pursuit of Him is driven entirely by physical appetite rather than spiritual need. The sermon works through three movements: the exposed motive of the people (vv. 22–26), the Savior's exhortation to labor for food that endures to everlasting life (vv. 27–29), and the crowd's demand for a sign to rival Moses (vv. 30–34). Central to the exposition is Jesus' declaration that the 'work of God' is faith in the One the Father has sent — a faith that is itself God's gift — and His identification of Himself as the true bread of God who comes down from heaven to give life to the world, surpassing the manna of the wilderness and extending to every tribe, tongue, people, and nation.
The Third Missionary Journey, Part 7
Acts 20:32–38 concludes Paul's farewell address to the Ephesian elders at Miletus, functioning as a pastoral charge that moves from doctrinal grounding to ethical example to affectionate departure. The sermon treats three movements: Paul's commendation of the elders to God and the Word of His grace as the only sufficient resource for long-term ministry, Paul's example of non-covetousness and manual labor as a rebuke against ministerial greed, and the tearful parting as a model of godly gratitude for the instruments of grace. A sustained excursus defends the biblical warrant for paying pastors from 1 Corinthians 9, 1 Timothy 5, and 2 Timothy 2, establishing that Paul's voluntary self-support was the exercise of a right, not the abolition of one. The sermon closes with a call to pray for faithful ministers and to value the means God ordains for the salvation of sinners.
The Tenth Commandment
The Tenth Commandment's prohibition against covetousness exposes the internal nature of God's law in a way no other commandment does: it is a sin but not a crime, reaching the desires and affections rather than merely outward conduct. Covetousness is shown to be inextricably linked to idolatry (Ephesians 5:5; Colossians 3:5), rooted in discontentment with God's providential allotment, and often the seed from which violations of every other commandment spring. Positively, the commandment calls believers to acknowledge God's sovereign ownership of all things, rest in his promise of temporal provision (Hebrews 13:5), cultivate contentment (1 Timothy 6:6), and displace covetousness with a charitable, generous spirit. The sermon also treats the three classical uses of the law — civil, pedagogical, and normative — showing that the Tenth Commandment functions as a searching pedagogue that drove the Apostle Paul and the rich young ruler alike to confront their need for Christ.
The Eighth Commandment
The eighth commandment — 'You shall not steal' — prohibits not only acts of theft such as burglary, robbery, kidnapping, and fraud, but also the inner dispositions of covetousness, discontentedness, and the idolatry of mammon. The sermon works through the prohibition, its theological rationale in God's sovereignty over property and the dignity of image-bearers, and the positive duties the commandment requires: diligent labor, charitable giving, and biblical contentment. Three uses of the law — civil, pedagogical, and normative — frame the concluding application, pointing sinners to justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, and directing the justified toward a life of honest industry and generosity.
The Response to Peter's Sermon, Part 2
Acts 2:43–47 describes the ordinary but Spirit-wrought practice of the early Jerusalem church, and this exposition presses that description as a prescription for church life today. The sermon examines steadfastness in apostolic doctrine, fellowship, the Lord's Supper, and prayer; the fear of God that attends his presence; the voluntary charity of believers toward one another; and the public and private conduct of a congregation living under sovereign grace. Against both charismatic enthusiasm and worldly accommodation, the sermon argues that faithfulness in ordinary, Word-regulated worship and mutual edification — not signs, programs, or radical individualism — is the enduring mark of a church built by Christ.
The Denial of the Resurrection
Matthew 28:11–15 records not only the resurrection of Christ but the immediate counter-offensive mounted by the chief priests and elders to suppress the fact of the empty tomb. Against the backdrop of the Great Commission in verses 16–20, these verses expose a counter-mission: a bribed, fabricated narrative designed to replace the truth of the resurrection with the stolen-body theory. The sermon examines the soldiers' report to the chief priests, the wickedness and implausibility of the lie they were paid to spread, and the theological reasons — including divine judicial hardening — that such a falsehood gained traction in first-century Judea. The application presses every believer to be armed to defend the resurrection and to rest the whole of their justification on faith in the risen Christ alone.
The Condemnation of the Religious Leaders, Part 3
Matthew 23:23–24 records the fifth of Christ's eight woes against the scribes and Pharisees: they meticulously tithe the smallest garden herbs while neglecting the weightier matters of the law — justice, mercy, and faith. Tracing this indictment through Micah 6:8, Genesis 18, Deuteronomy 10, Hosea 12, and Zechariah 7, the sermon demonstrates that Jesus is functioning as a covenant-lawsuit prophet in a line stretching back to Israel's earliest history, condemning the nation for collapsing piety into external ritual while abandoning love toward God and neighbour. The qualification Christ appends — 'these you ought to have done without leaving the others undone' — forbids both the majoring on minors that marks religious hypocrisy and the neglect of minors by those who camp exclusively on justice and mercy. The sermon closes with a direct gospel summons: neither tithing nor social virtue saves; salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, after which the redeemed are called to obey all of God's law in its proper proportion.
2LCF Chapter 24 - Of the Civil Magistrate
Civil government is not a social convention or mere human compact but a divinely instituted ordinance answerable to God Most High — and that divine origin is simultaneously the source of its authority and the boundary of its competence. This study of 2LCF Chapter 24 works through three paragraphs: the nature, purpose, and power of the magistrate (including the sword and capital punishment); the lawfulness of Christian participation in government against Anabaptist objections; and the Christian's duties of submission and intercession toward civil rulers. The abiding application is that Christians must neither deify the state nor abandon it, but submit to it in all lawful things, resist it when it commands sin, and pray for the conversion and restraint of those who govern.
The Tenth Commandment
The Tenth Commandment forbids not merely external acts of acquisition but the inward disposition of covetousness itself — the inordinate desire for what belongs to a neighbor. The sermon traces three aspects of the commandment: its prohibition (covering a neighbor's spouse, goods, discontentedness, and envy), the reasons underlying it (the spirituality of the moral law and the duty of love for neighbor), and its positive demands (contentment, appreciation for others' blessings, and a charitable spirit). The three classic uses of the law — civil, pedagogical, and normative — are then applied, with the pedagogical use directed especially toward those who, like the rich young ruler or Paul before his conversion, suppose they have kept the commandments outwardly while remaining guilty of covetousness within.
The Eighth Commandment
The eighth commandment, 'You shall not steal,' addresses far more than petty theft — it encompasses burglary, robbery, kidnapping, fraud, extortion, property destruction, and even religious theft in the withholding of tithes. This exposition of Deuteronomy 5:19 works through three structural movements: the prohibition and its associated sins (including sins of the heart such as covetousness and idolatry), the theological reasons grounding the commandment in God's sovereign ownership of all things, and the positive duties it implies — diligent labor, charitable giving, and biblical contentment. The civil implications extend to currency manipulation, unjust taxation, and ideological systems such as socialism and communism, all of which violate the same moral principle. The sermon closes with Christ as the fulfillment of Psalm 15, the one who perfectly honored every obligation the commandment demands, and through whose righteousness covetous sinners are justified.
The Tenth Commandment
The Tenth Commandment — 'You shall not covet' — reaches past external conduct to regulate the intentions and desires of the heart, exposing sins that civil law cannot punish and that no amount of outward morality can conceal. This exposition of Deuteronomy 5:21 identifies three things the commandment prohibits — inordinate desire, discontentedness, and envy — and then establishes the theological reason for the prohibition: covetousness is idolatry, bringing the Decalogue full circle from the First Commandment back to itself. Nine positive helps for mortifying covetousness are set forth, culminating in the active obedience of Christ imputed to believers — the only ground of hope for those whom this commandment finds out.
The Third Commandment: Oath-Taking
Jesus' instruction in Matthew 5:33–37 is not a universal prohibition against oath-taking but a condemnation of the Pharisaic practice of swearing by created things — heaven, earth, Jerusalem, one's own head — as a device to lend apparent solemnity to speech while evading accountability to God. The sermon exposes this abuse by tracing the Old Testament's positive teaching on oaths, demonstrating from Christ's own submission to adjuration in Matthew 26 and from Paul's sworn affirmations that lawful oath-taking remains valid. The corrective Jesus offers is the kingdom ethic of simple truthfulness: the citizen of Christ's kingdom needs no oath to be believed, because his yes is yes and his no is no, and any compulsion to pad speech beyond this reveals the depraved bent traced ultimately to the father of lies. The Sermon on the Mount, rightly understood, drives the hearer to the cross, where Christ — who honored every commandment and swore to his own hurt — provides the righteousness no oath-keeper can supply for himself.
The Church at Pergamos
Revelation 2:12–17 presents Christ's letter to the church at Pergamos — a congregation dwelling at the seat of the imperial cult, where Caesar demanded worship as Lord and Savior, and where one of their own, Antipas, had already been martyred for the faith. Christ commends their steadfast confession of his name under lethal pressure, yet condemns without concession their tolerance of the doctrine of the Nicolaitans and its Old Testament type, the doctrine of Balaam — an antinomian infiltration that invited participation in idol feasts and sexual immorality as the price of cultural accommodation. The sermon presses the warning that difficult circumstances never justify doctrinal compromise, that Christ's sword-word will execute judgment on an unrepentant church, and that faithful overcomers receive hidden manna, a white stone, and a new name — the provision and identity that no imperial cult can offer or revoke.
The Persecuted Church
Revelation 2:8–11 contains Christ's letter to the persecuted church at Smyrna — a letter with no condemnation, only commendation and solemn warning. Christ describes himself as the one who was dead and came to life, a self-description that speaks directly to a congregation facing imprisonment and death: the cross precedes the crown, and this pattern is not accidental but definitive for all who follow Christ. The sermon works through Christ's commendation of the Smyrnaean church's works, tribulation, and poverty; his warning of intensified suffering; and his exhortation to fearless, faithful endurance with the crown of life as the promised reward. The governing application is that the contemporary Western church, soft and largely untested, must recover the militant, cross-bearing posture that characterized the saints at Smyrna.
A Biblical View of Criminal Punishment Part 2
Ecclesiastes 8:11–13 frames the whole inquiry: when punishment is not swiftly executed, sinners are emboldened. This second installment in a series on biblical criminal justice critiques the modern prison system on five scriptural grounds, expounds the case of the rebellious son in Deuteronomy 21:18–21, and argues that biblical punishment — including corporal punishment, restitution, and capital sanction — preserves the dignity of the image-bearer in ways that humanitarian penology cannot. The sermon closes by grounding the entire discussion in the necessity of fleeing to Christ, since the law's severity exposes human guilt and points to the Saviour.
A Biblical View of Private Property
The eighth commandment — 'You shall not steal' (Exodus 20:15) — grounds a comprehensive biblical ethic of private property that reaches far beyond street crime into fraud, extortion, currency debasement, and even the withholding of tithes. This sermon works through the prohibition in its many forms, then sets out four theological reasons for the command rooted in God's sovereignty, man's dignity as image-bearer, and the positive law of Scripture. The exposition closes by calling hearers to diligent labor, charitable giving, and contentment — and by pointing thieves and extortioners alike to the justifying blood of Christ, under which such sinners have been washed and sanctified.
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.