Cited in sermons
Greg Bahnsen
64 sermons · All people cited
The Solicitation to Apostasy
Deuteronomy 13 confronts Israel with three escalating scenarios of solicitation to apostasy: the false prophet, the intimate family member or friend, and the corrupt city given over to idolatry. In each case the text demands not tolerance but purging, because defection from the living and true God constitutes treason against the theocratic covenant order. The chapter's severity is inseparable from its mercy: faithful execution of justice removes the cause of divine wrath and secures the covenant blessings sworn to the fathers. The passage presses the hearer to examine whether fidelity to God holds firm against both miraculous signs that lead astray and the subtler pull of intimate relationships.
Ask FGBC Batch 7: Anabaptists, Calvinism, Sincere Offer & More | Reformed Baptist Theology
This panel discussion brings together three Reformed Baptist pastors to address questions submitted to Free Grace Baptist Church on confessional identity, soteriology, covenant theology, and Lord's Day worship. The conversation distinguishes Particular Baptists from Anabaptists on historical-documentary grounds, examines the relationship between Calvinism and confessional Reformed Baptist identity, and evaluates the free and sincere offer of the gospel against what the panelists regard as the theological liabilities of well-meant-offer language. The discussion also treats the threefold division of the law, prosopological exegesis, and the scriptural rationale for two Lord's Day services, consistently grounding each answer in the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession and the exegetical tradition of the Particular Baptists.
2LCF Chapter 15 - Of Repentance Unto Life and Salvation
Repentance unto life is not a work that precedes salvation but an evangelical grace sovereignly given by God in the covenant of grace, inseparable from faith as two sides of the same coin. Working through 2LCF Chapter 15, this study examines the nature, necessity, and elements of saving repentance, tracing the confession's teaching that remaining corruption and the prevalency of temptation make ongoing repentance a permanent feature of the Christian life, not merely its entry point. The session also challenges the assumption that a crisis conversion is more credible than a non-crisis one, arguing that the same effectual power of God works in the child catechized from infancy as in the most notorious convert. Hearers are urged to hate sin, apprehend the mercy of God in Christ, and avoid both antinomianism and the error of treating repentance as a meritorious condition for acceptance with God.
The Sixth Commandment, Part 3
The sixth commandment, 'You shall not murder' (Deuteronomy 5:17), prohibits unlawful killing with premeditation and malice, but the Bible distinguishes murder from lawful taking of life in capital punishment, self-defense, and just war. This study works through the Old Testament legal framework for self-defense, particularly Exodus 22:2–3, alongside several narrative examples, to establish that defensive homicide is not forbidden by Scripture. The teaching of Jesus in Matthew 5:38–42 is examined carefully to show that the Sermon on the Mount addresses personal, interpersonal ethics — not a universal prohibition on self-defense — and that Jesus himself assumes people will protect themselves and others. The study concludes with a call to think with biblical clarity on these matters in an age of muddled Christian ethics.
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 Blessing of Gospel Rest
Matthew 11:25–30 grounds the gospel invitation — 'Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden' — in the sovereign will of the Father and the mediatorial office of the Son, so that the call to rest is inseparable from the doctrines of election and definite atonement. Jesus thanks the Father for hiding these things from the self-wise and revealing them to babes, declaring that all sovereign authority over salvation belongs to Him as the God-man and mediator. The 'rest' He offers is not relief from physical toil but deliverance from the crushing burden of sin and the impossible demands of pharisaical religion, received through faith alone. Those who come to Christ in faith are also exhorted to take His yoke — the life of sanctification — which is not oppressive bondage but the glad obedience of those justified freely by grace.
Paul in Athens
Paul's encounter with the philosophers and council of Athens in Acts 17:16–34 exposes the persistent and universal nature of idolatry, the sufficiency of general revelation to render all men without excuse, and the necessity of special revelation for salvation. The sermon traces Paul's Mars Hill address to show how the apostle grounds his proclamation in the doctrines of creation, providence, and divine aseity before pressing the call to repentance and warning of coming judgment. Where idolatry blurs the Creator-creature distinction, the gospel restores it — and the varied responses of the Athenians (mockery, curiosity, and saving faith) remind the church that conversion belongs to the Spirit of God, not to the eloquence of the preacher.
Death Penalty, Part 3
Romans 13:1–7 furnishes the New Testament's clearest warrant for civil government bearing the sword, including capital punishment — yet common objections, both biblical and pragmatic, continue to challenge this teaching. This third installment of a study arising from Leviticus 20 addresses the two most significant biblical objections: the pacifist misreading of Matthew 5:38–42 and the attempt to leverage John 8:1–11 against lawful execution. The sermon argues that Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount is correcting the misapplication of the lex talionis to personal relationships, not dismantling civil jurisprudence, and that his handling of the woman caught in adultery actually upholds Mosaic evidentiary law rather than nullifying capital punishment. Five pragmatic objections — that the death penalty is incompatible with Christian forgiveness, lacks mercy, risks executing the innocent, fails to deter, and forecloses salvation — are each answered from Scripture and reason.
The Identity of the Good Shepherd
John 10:22–30 records the climactic confrontation in Solomon's Porch during the Feast of Dedication, where Jesus answers the persistent demand to declare his identity plainly. He does so not with new information but by pressing what he has already said — through his works, his doctrine, and his relation to the Father — culminating in the declaration 'I and my Father are one,' a statement the unbelieving Jews rightly understood as a claim to full divine essence. The sermon traces five movements in verses 25–30: the declaration, confirmation, rejection, recognition, and affirmation that Jesus is the Christ, with extended treatment of the sovereignty of God in salvation, the security of the sheep grounded in both the Son and the Father, and the ontological unity of Father and Son against both Arian and Sabellian error. Believers are called to rest in the particular, efficacious, and irrevocable redemption accomplished by the Good Shepherd, and those outside Christ are called to hear his voice and believe.
2LCF Chapter 24 - Of the Civil Magistrate, Part 2
The institution of monarchy in Israel, recorded in 1 Samuel 8, exposes the perennial danger of substituting a new form of government for trust in God—a sin Israel had already committed in 1 Samuel 4 and against which God had vindicated himself in chapter 7. The passage illustrates that total depravity applies not only to individuals but to corporate institutions, and that governments possessing legitimate divine sanction can nonetheless exploit those they govern. The sermon concludes with a survey of four historic approaches to the church-state relationship—Erastianism, Roman Catholic theocracy, theonomy, and the two-kingdoms framework—arguing that the two-kingdoms distinction, wherein Christ rules the church by his Word and the civil order by natural law, provides the most scripturally defensible framework for Christian citizenship.
The Future King of Zion
Micah 5:2–5a prophesies a coming king whose identity encompasses both true humanity and eternal divinity — a king born in the obscure village of Bethlehem, yet whose goings forth are 'from of old, from everlasting.' This sermon traces two movements in the passage: first, the identification of the king in verse 2, where the hypostatic union is set forth in prophetic form through the doctrines of incarnation and eternal generation; second, the mission of the king in verses 3–5a, where Christ is shown to be the Shepherd who feeds and protects his remnant people, and himself their peace. The congregation is pressed to nourish perseverance through the ordained means — reading Scripture, prayer, and corporate worship — trusting the covenant faithfulness of the God who announced his Son seven centuries before he arrived.
The Freedom in Receiving the Son
John 8:30–36 sets before the reader a sharp contrast between the blessedness of spiritual liberty and the wretchedness of spiritual slavery. This sermon expounds the theological order of salvation — justification by grace alone through faith alone precedes and produces the disciple's abiding in Christ's word, not the reverse — and then traces what that freedom means: deliverance from the curse of the law, the condemnation of sin, the wrath of God, and the tyranny of the devil. The church's calling to be the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15) demands that she identify, propagate, contend for, and protect that truth in every generation.
A Defense of Self-Defense
Matthew 5:38–42, the fourth antithesis of the Sermon on the Mount, is frequently invoked to condemn self-defense, capital punishment, and military service — yet a careful reading reveals that Jesus is not contradicting the lex talionis of the Mosaic civil code but rather correcting the Pharisaic habit of applying that courtroom principle to personal, day-to-day relationships. The contrast is not Jesus versus Moses but Jesus versus bad hermeneutics: what the civil magistrate is authorized to do with the sword (Romans 13:1–4) stands entirely intact, and Exodus 22:2–3's legitimization of self-defense is nowhere repealed. The sermon works through Jesus' four illustrations — insult, property disputes, conscription, and benevolence — to show that Christ is calling his disciples to a disposition of patience and forbearance in ordinary life, not to a pacifism that would render them incapable of functioning in civil society.
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.
Exodus 20:14, the 7th Commandment, Part 2
Expounding the seventh commandment (Exodus 20:14), this study completes a survey of the sins the commandment prohibits — polygamy, prostitution, pornography, transvestitism, and transgenderism — before turning to the manner in which the commandment is violated: externally through the act, internally through lustful imagination, and verbally through corrupt speech. The Westminster Larger Catechism frames the duties required: chastity in body, mind, affections, words, and behavior. The threefold use of the law (civil, pedagogical, normative) is applied to contemporary sexual ethics, and 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 is held out as the ground of gospel hope: the same sinners who practiced these things were washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus.
The Healing of the Nobleman's Son
John 4:43–54 records the second sign Jesus performed in Galilee: the healing of a royal official's son from a distance of sixteen miles. The passage exposes both the deficient faith that demands visible proof before believing and the sufficient power of Christ's spoken word, which heals without physical presence. The nobleman's earnest intercession for his dying son becomes a pointed application for parents to implore God persistently for their children's spiritual wellbeing. The sign itself points beyond physical healing to the life given to all who believe the word of Christ.
Chapter 7 - Of God's Covenant
1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 7 traces the biblical and theological architecture of God's covenant: from the necessity of divine condescension (paragraph 1), through the gracious character of the covenant of grace (paragraph 2), to the three theological covenants — grace, redemption, and works — and their progressive historical unfolding (paragraph 3). The session contrasts covenant theology with dispensationalism and New Covenant theology as competing hermeneutical frameworks, argues that the Old (Mosaic) Covenant functioned as a republication of the covenant of works rather than an administration of the covenant of grace, and demonstrates from Genesis 3:15 through Jeremiah 31 and Matthew 26 that all historical covenants advance a single promise of redemption finally and fully disclosed in the new covenant inaugurated by Christ. The practical payoff is a robustly confessional case for believers-only baptism: the new covenant community is defined by inward regeneration, universal knowledge of the Lord, and definitive forgiveness — marks that exclude the external-and-internal covenant structure required to justify paedobaptism.
2LCF Chapter 3 - Of God's Decree
God's decree — his eternal, comprehensive, and unchangeable purpose over all things — is the subject of 1689 London Baptist Confession Chapter 3. The confession affirms that God has foreordained whatsoever comes to pass, including the free and sinful actions of men, without becoming the author of sin or violating the will of the creature. Paragraph 2 refutes the Molinist and Arminian claim that God's decree is grounded in his foreknowledge of human choices, insisting instead that election puts sinners in Christ rather than finding them there. The doctrine is shown to be practically consoling, doxologically oriented, and inseparable from the character of God as defined in Chapter 2.
The Qualifications of Elders, Part 2
What does Scripture require of those who lead and teach the church? Expounding 1 Timothy 3:1–7, this sermon works through the apostle Paul's qualifications for the elder-bishop-pastor office, arguing that these standards are not perfectionist ideals but demonstrated graces and virtues that the church must require of any man considered for gospel ministry. The qualifications are examined under four heads: the man's desire and its right motives, his personal conduct, his domestic faithfulness, and his testimony among outsiders, with particular attention given to the distinction between blamelessness and sinlessness, the meaning of 'husband of one wife,' and the danger of a Gnostic misreading of the prohibition on wine. The sermon closes with a call to churches to pursue both the edification of the saints and the evangelistic mission that God ordained through the office of pastor-teacher.
Exodus 11
Exodus 11 announces and describes the tenth plague — the death of the firstborn throughout Egypt — which God executes directly and immediately, without mediation through natural means. The chapter is structured around three movements: the promise of liberty and prosperity to Israel, the announcement of sweeping judgment upon every household in Egypt, and Pharaoh's continued, God-ordained rebellion. The hardening of Pharaoh's heart is treated not as mere divine permission but as a just act of sovereignty, displaying God's power, holiness, and mercy simultaneously — mercy to Israel being inseparable from judgment upon her oppressors.
The Royal Wedding
Psalm 45 presents a royal wedding between the divine-human Messiah and his church, and the sons of Korah compose it as a song of love that the New Testament apostles and the entirety of the Old Testament prophetic witness sustain. The sermon works through the psalm's four sections — the psalmist's intention, the perfections and person of King Messiah, the instruction to the bride, and the closing declaration — demonstrating that a divine Messiah was not a novelty invented by John or Paul but was anticipated in the Hebrew Scriptures. Christ is celebrated as fairer than the sons of men, committed to truth and righteousness, triumphant over his enemies, fully God and fully man in the hypostatic union, and the one who clothes his bride in imputed righteousness received through faith alone. The appropriate response of the church is repentance, exclusive allegiance, worship, and gladness before her great King.
The Good Soldier of Jesus Christ
The qualifications and character of faithful gospel ministry are examined through 2 Timothy 2:1–7, where Paul gives Timothy three interlocking commands: be strong in the grace of Christ, commit sound doctrine to faithful men who can teach others, and endure hardship as a soldier of Jesus Christ. Three metaphors — the devoted soldier, the disciplined athlete, and the diligent farmer — together with the dedication of the disciple, frame what faithfulness in pastoral ministry demands. The sermon presses both pastors and congregations to resist the pressure of cultural and governmental opposition, to identify and train men for ministry, and to understand that the dignity of gospel preaching warrants the highest standards of devotion, discipline, and endurance.
Bible Study - Exodus 8
Exodus 8 records the second, third, and fourth plagues against Egypt — frogs, lice, and flies — each following a recurring pattern: divine command, Pharaoh's refusal, the plague's execution, a show of compliance, and a return to hardness of heart. The plagues are not merely natural disasters but a direct assault upon the gods of Egypt, demonstrating that Yahweh alone is the true and living God in the midst of the land. The hardening of Pharaoh's heart is an act of divine justice against an already guilty sinner, not arbitrary cruelty, and the distinction God draws between Goshen and Egypt anticipates the covenant blessing that separates his people from those under his wrath. The repeated failure of miracles to produce repentance in Pharaoh — even when his own magicians confess 'this is the finger of God' — establishes that new birth, not spectacle, is what makes a believer.
Sunday School - Biblical view of self-defense, part 2
Matthew 5:38–42 is frequently misread as a blanket prohibition against self-defense, capital punishment, and just war — three instances of justifiable homicide that Scripture plainly upholds. This exposition argues that Jesus is not contradicting the lex talionis (the law of retribution found in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy) but is correcting the Pharisaic misapplication of a civil-judicial principle to everyday interpersonal conduct. The passage addresses four specific situations — insult, litigation, conscription, and benevolence — and calls believers to a disposition of forbearance in personal relations, while leaving entirely untouched the legitimacy of lawful self-defense, just war, and capital punishment as administered by the civil magistrate.
The Second Missionary Journey, Part 7
Paul's sermon at the Areopagus (Acts 17:22–34) confronts Athenian idolatry by grounding the Christian worldview in the doctrines of creation, providence, and judgment. He establishes the Creator-creature distinction against both Epicurean deism and Stoic pantheism, exposes the guilt of all men through natural revelation and their own poets, and calls all men everywhere to repentance because God has appointed both a day of judgment and its judge — the resurrected Christ. The sermon closes by applying the abiding prohibition of idolatry from the Decalogue to contemporary life, pressing hearers toward faith in Christ as the only corrective to the idolatry that already invites God's temporal and eternal judgment.
Genesis 50
Genesis 50 closes the book of Genesis with the deaths of Jacob and Joseph, and with Joseph's brothers at last seeking the forgiveness they had long withheld. The sermon traces three movements in the chapter — Jacob's burial in Canaan, the reassurance Joseph gives his fearful brothers, and Joseph's dying charge to carry his bones out of Egypt — and shows how each movement is anchored in the covenant faithfulness of God. Central to the exposition is Genesis 50:20, treated as the Old Testament counterpart to Romans 8:28: God overrules the wickedness of men not despite His goodness and omnipotence but because of them, working all things toward His glory and the good of His people. Hearers are called to confess sin honestly, forgive as they have been forgiven, and rest in the God whose promises — from Genesis 3:15 to the exodus and beyond — never fail.
The Second Missionary Journey, Part 6
Acts 17:16–21 presents the Apostle Paul in Athens, a city saturated with idolatry and celebrated for its philosophical culture. The sermon traces three movements in this brief passage: Paul's provocation of spirit at the sight of rampant idolatry, his deliberate response of preaching Christ in both the synagogue and the public marketplace, and his engagement with Epicurean and Stoic philosophers who summon him to the Areopagus. Paul's example establishes that righteous anger at the transgression of the First and Second Commandments, mingled with grief and compassion, is a mark of God's people — and that the fitting response to such provocation is not silence but the proclamation of Jesus and the resurrection.
The Seventh Commandment
Deuteronomy 5:18, the seventh commandment, prohibits adultery and by extension the full range of sexual sins Scripture condemns throughout both Testaments. This sermon works through the basis of the commandment in God's threefold purposes for marriage, catalogs the specific sexual sins the commandment forbids — adultery, fornication, incest, rape, sodomy, bestiality, unlawful divorce, polygamy, prostitution, and pornography — and then treats the internal disposition of heart lust that Jesus expounds in Matthew 5. The sermon concludes with practical counsel drawn from Proverbs 5 and 6 on the three means of protection against sexual sin, and closes by applying the civil, pedagogical, and normative uses of the law to the contemporary church and culture.
Genesis 31:22-55
Genesis 31:22–55 records the pursuit, confrontation, and covenant between Laban and the departing Jacob. The passage exposes Laban's hypocrisy, his powerlessness before the God of Israel, and his resort to a non-aggression covenant once he recognizes that divine providence has secured Jacob against him. Jacob's theology in verse 42 — confessing God's presence, power, and mercy — serves as the interpretive key to the whole chapter, pointing forward to the same God who will later see the affliction of Israel in Egypt and deliver them.
Genesis 19:1-11
Genesis 19:1–11 confronts readers with the full depravity of Sodom: every inhabitant, old and young, assembles to commit sexual violence against the angelic visitors. The passage demonstrates that God's judgment upon the cities of the plain was just and righteous, because the wickedness was total and unrepentant. The study moves from the narrative to a systematic survey of the Bible's teaching on homosexuality — from the creation order in Genesis 2, through the Levitical prohibitions and Pauline condemnations in Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 6, to the sobering word of Christ in Matthew 11 that rejecting the gospel carries a heavier judgment than Sodom itself bore. The closing application holds out the gospel as the only genuine remedy: homosexuality is a sin like other sins, and where there is sin, there is forgiveness through the Lord Jesus Christ.