Cited in sermons
Gordon Clark
103 sermons · All people cited
Capital Punishment
Romans 13:1–4 and Genesis 9:6 together establish that capital punishment is not a relic of Mosaic theocracy but a creation-order institution grounded in the doctrine of the image of God. The sermon traces a biblical theology of capital punishment from Noah through the Mosaic economy into the New Testament, demonstrating that Paul's command to 'give place to wrath' in Romans 12 flows directly into his description of the civil magistrate as God's minister and avenger in Romans 13. Common biblical and pragmatic objections are examined and answered in turn, and the sermon closes with a call to hold together the sanctity of life, the duty of civil justice, and the proclamation of justification by faith alone in Christ.
The Exceeding Riches of God's Grace
Ephesians 2:8–10 sets forth the full plan of salvation — its origin in God's grace alone, its recipients as sinners who are spiritually dead and helpless, its instrument of faith as itself a divine gift, and its character as entirely excluding human merit. Preached on Reformation Day 2010, this exposition traces the theological convictions recovered by Luther and Calvin back to their Pauline roots: that salvation is not a cooperative enterprise between God and man but the sovereign, unilateral act of divine grace. The sermon closes by showing that good works are the necessary fruit, not the ground, of justification, and calls the unconverted to believe on Christ without delay.
The Identity of the Church
What is the church, and what is she for? Expounding 1 Timothy 3:14–16, this sermon sets out the identity and confession of the church under three descriptions Paul gives: the house of God, the church of the living God, and the pillar and ground of the truth. The church's unique institutional privilege — distinct from family and state — is to proclaim, defend, and propagate the gospel of Christ crucified and risen. The sermon closes with a call to resist pragmatism, hold fast to sound doctrine, and enter the house of God through Christ alone.
A Faithful Saying
The phrase 'Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners' (1 Timothy 1:15) is not rhetorical decoration but a precise theological claim about the nature and scope of redemption. This exposition works through Paul's self-description as 'chief of sinners' — blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent man — to show that the depth of his depravity magnifies rather than diminishes the glory of sovereign, particular grace. The sermon argues that Calvinistic soteriology reduces to one confession: God saves sinners, doing everything from election to glorification, leaving no share of the decisive act to man. Hearers are called to respond to this grace with informed, exhilarated worship and to press the invitation upon every sinner who imagines himself too wretched to be saved.
A Little Sinner and a Big Savior
Luke 19:1–10 presents the conversion of Zacchaeus as a concentrated display of sovereign, covenant-keeping grace. The sermon works through Zacchaeus's identity as a chief tax collector, a rich man, and above all a lost sinner, before turning to the mission of Christ: he condescends, calls by name, and saves by grace alone through faith alone, with repentance and good works following as inevitable fruit. The closing application presses both the unconverted to make haste to Christ and the converted to receive him joyfully as they come to the Lord's Supper.
The Salvation of an Ethiopian Eunuch
Acts 8:26–40 records the sovereign calling, gospel instruction, and baptism of an Ethiopian eunuch — a Gentile and a eunuch, doubly excluded from full participation in Israel's assembly, yet brought to Christ through the preaching of Philip from Isaiah 53. The sermon exposits three movements in the narrative: the Spirit's sovereign direction of Philip to the eunuch, the necessity of the proclaimed gospel for salvation, and the eunuch's believing response expressed in baptism. The occasion of eight baptisms frames the exposition as a demonstration that God saves sinners of every kind through the hearing of the gospel — the substitutionary death and resurrection of Christ — and that believer's baptism by immersion is the proper public confession of that saving faith.
The Christ-Centered Orientation of the New Man
Colossians 3:15–17 presents the new man not as a moralist who earns standing before God by putting off vice and putting on virtue, but as one whose entire life is oriented around the person and work of Christ. The sermon argues that three Christ-centered realities define the new man: the peace of Christ, which is grounded in justification by faith alone and flows from the blood of Calvary; the word of Christ, which is to dwell richly in the heart both for personal transformation and mutual edification in the body; and the name of Christ, under which every word and deed is performed. The practical summons is to let the gospel — not personal performance — be the governing principle of the Christian life, so that the new man is known above all for making much of Christ crucified.
Conduct Becoming a New Man
Colossians 3:12–14 calls the new man in Christ not merely to shed sinful habits but to clothe himself with a definite set of Spirit-wrought virtues: tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering, forbearance, forgiveness, and above all, love. The passage grounds these graces in the threefold identity of the elect — chosen, holy, and beloved — an identity that derives from God's sovereign election and not from any prior human worthiness. These virtues are not a program of moral self-improvement but the fruit of union with Christ, whose own character they mirror, and the sermon applies them concretely to marriage, the local church, and the workplace. The closing appeal presses the unconverted to flee to Christ alone, since niceness apart from grace saves no one, while calling the church to celebrate the gospel of free and sovereign grace as the only foundation on which any of this obedience stands.
The Sovereignty of God in the Salvation of Sinners
Matthew 11:25–30 presents the sovereignty of God in salvation not as a theological puzzle to be argued but as a doxology to be prayed. Jesus praises the Father for hiding gospel truth from the self-sufficient wise and revealing it to those whom the Spirit reduces to babes — an act that is not injustice but divine judgment upon rebels who have no excuse. The passage then sets forth Christ's mediatorial authority as the sole ground upon which any sinner may know the Father, and issues three commands — come, take the yoke, learn — backed by the power of the one who commanded a dead man out of a tomb. The sermon calls hearers to abandon both hyper-Calvinist fatalism and Arminian manipulation, resting instead in the sovereign grace that humbles pride and fuels genuine gospel proclamation.
Salvation in James' Theology
James 1:18 — 'of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth' — is the doctrinal anchor that prevents James 2:24 from being read as a rival scheme of salvation to Paul's. This sermon argues that James teaches the same sovereign, monergistic regeneration and the same grace-alone, faith-alone soteriology as Paul, and that the 'justification by works' of James 2 concerns the outward demonstration of an already-accomplished divine act, not the ground of that act. The practical thrust is that those who claim justification by God's free grace must align their conduct with that claim — bridling the tongue, caring for widows and orphans, and being doers of the word — because true biblical faith inevitably produces works.
The Doctrine of Sanctification
Philippians 2:12–13 grounds the doctrine of sanctification in both divine sovereignty and human responsibility: God works in believers both to will and to do for his good pleasure, and on that basis Paul commands the church to work out their salvation with fear and trembling. This sermon expounds those two verses and then surveys the historic Reformed distinction between justification and sanctification, drawing at length from J.C. Ryle's Holiness to show how the two doctrines are alike in origin yet differ in nature, completeness, and progression. The practical thrust is that genuine justification necessarily produces sanctification — growth in conformity to Christ through the Spirit, the Word, and the means of grace — and an absence of any such growth calls one's justification into question.
The Description of the Heresy
Colossians 2:16–23 exposes a syncretistic heresy threatening the church at Colossae — a blend of Jewish legalism, pagan mysticism, and bodily asceticism — and Paul's response is to anchor the believer's complete standing in Christ alone. The sermon works through three facets of this false teaching: the imposition of dietary laws and calendar observances as religious requirements, the pursuit of angelic visions and experiential 'higher planes' above Scripture, and the self-imposed bodily regulations that, despite their appearance of wisdom, fuel rather than subdue the flesh. The governing principle throughout is that Christ plus anything — legalism, mysticism, or asceticism — is heresy; Christ plus nothing is the gospel.
Paul's Stewardship of the Gospel
Colossians 1:25–29 sets before the church the apostolic stewardship and preaching ministry of Paul as a pattern for gospel ministry. The passage unfolds in three movements: Paul's divinely assigned stewardship of the mystery of Christ in the Gentiles, the content and manner of his Christ-centered proclamation, and the Spirit-empowered labor that drove that proclamation toward eschatological completeness. The sermon draws out the implications for both preachers — who must warn, teach, and strive with wisdom in dependence on God — and hearers, who bear responsibility to receive the preached word with attentive, covenant-renewing ears.