Cited in sermons
James Durham
16 sermons · All people cited
The Fourth Commandment, Part 3
Hebrews 4:9's use of the word 'Sabbatismos' — Sabbath-keeping as a practice to be observed — anchors the argument that a weekly Sabbath rest remains binding on the New Covenant people of God. The sermon traces the theological rationale for the day-change from Saturday to Sunday through the resurrection of Christ, arguing that the Son's rest from the work of new creation mirrors the Father's rest from the work of creation. Three alleged anti-Sabbatarian texts — Romans 14, Galatians 4, and Colossians 2 — are examined in turn and shown to address Jewish ceremonial calendar observances, not the moral fourth commandment. The burden of proof, the speaker argues, lies with those who would remove one commandment from the Decalogue, not with those who keep all ten intact.
The First Commandment
Deuteronomy 5:7 — 'You shall have no other gods before me' — is the foundation of covenant loyalty, defining not only who the one true God is but what response He demands from His people. This study works through the prohibition against other gods (atheism, polytheism, syncretism, sorcery, heresy, and creature-worship) before turning to the positive duties the commandment requires: knowing God, loving Him, fearing Him, obeying Him, trusting Him, and worshipping Him on His own terms. The first commandment is not merely theological orthodoxy but a call to total, exclusive, and practical devotion to Yahweh — a devotion made possible only by the grace that plants His fear in the heart.
CTF 2025 - Session 2 - Divine Simplicity
Divine simplicity — the doctrine that God is without parts of any kind, physical or metaphysical — is the necessary precondition for God to be the absolute first cause of all things confessed in Romans 11:36. This lecture, drawn from 2LCF Chapter 2 Paragraph 1, works through the logic of composition and dependence to show that any being composed of parts is doubly dependent: upon those parts and upon whatever unifies them, and is therefore disqualified from being the uncreated Creator. Divine infinity is then treated as a corollary of simplicity: because God has no compositional structure of finitude, his being is actual, unbounded, and without lack, which is the only reliable ground for absolute trust and worship.
2LCF Chapter 17 - Of the Perseverance of the Saints, Part 1
The 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 17 on the perseverance of the saints is examined through its first two paragraphs, grounding the doctrine in the preserving power of the triune God rather than in the free will of the believer. The Confession is shown to be both rigorously doctrinal and remarkably practical, acknowledging the storms, unbelief, and apparent withdrawal of God that saints genuinely experience while insisting that these cannot sever the elect from grace. The foundation of perseverance is traced through the immutability of the decree of election, the merit and intercession of Christ, the abiding of the Spirit, and the nature of the covenant of grace — directly opposing both Roman Catholic and Arminian accounts that make final salvation contingent on human cooperation. Believers are exhorted to feed their souls on the promises of the covenant of grace precisely because perseverance is secured by God's unchangeable love, not by their performance.
2LCF Chapter 19 - Of the Law of God, Part II
The moral law of God — given to Adam at creation, codified at Sinai in the Ten Commandments, and written on the hearts of New Covenant believers — perpetually binds all people everywhere, justified and unjustified alike, by virtue of God's authority as Creator. This study of 2LCF Chapter 19, paragraphs 5–7, works through 1 Timothy 1:8–10 to distinguish the three uses of the law (civil, pedagogical, and normative) and expounds Jeremiah 31, Matthew 5, Romans 3, Romans 6, Galatians 3, Romans 13, and Ephesians 6 to demonstrate that Christ and the gospel do not dissolve but rather strengthen the law's obligation. The session exposes the errors of dispensationalism and antinomianism, showing that the Spirit of Christ enables believers to obey freely and cheerfully the very law that condemns the unbeliever. The application presses Christians to declare God's law publicly — to believers for sanctification and to unbelievers for conviction — never separating law from gospel in proclamation.
The 4th Commandment (Part 3)
The Christian Sabbath is grounded in both creation and redemption, and the New Testament establishes Sunday — the Lord's Day — as the day of corporate worship by precedent and pattern rather than by bare precept. This third installment in a study of the Fourth Commandment examines three apostolic texts (Acts 20:7, 1 Corinthians 16:1–2, Revelation 1:10) that demonstrate the early church's practice of gathering on the first day of the week, then turns to two alleged anti-Sabbatarian passages (Romans 14 and Galatians 5) to show that neither addresses the weekly Sabbath but rather deals with Jewish calendar observances and the question of justification by works. The moral principle of one day in seven set apart for God remains binding on New Covenant believers, while the positive law has lawfully shifted the day from Saturday to Sunday in light of Christ's resurrection.
December 1, 2021 - Wednesday Night Bible Study - Exodus 20:1-3 (1st Commandment)
Exodus 20:3 — 'You shall have no other gods before me' — is expounded through both its prohibitions and its positive demands. The first commandment condemns atheism, polytheism, syncretism, idolatry, sorcery, and heresy, while positively requiring the knowledge, love, fear, obedience, trust, and worship of the one true and living God alone. The sermon draws on Romans 1:18-32 to show that ungodliness — disordered thinking about God — is the root from which all societal unrighteousness springs. The sermon closes with a call to repentance, to flee to Christ as the remedy for every violation of this commandment, and to cultivate the knowledge of God as the chief guard against idolatry in its ancient and modern forms.
The Fourth Commandment, Part 2
The fourth commandment's perpetual moral obligation is examined through the lens of Christ's ministry, his resurrection, and apostolic teaching, demonstrating that the Saturday Sabbath of the old covenant has been transformed into the Lord's Day — Sunday — under the new covenant. Hebrews 4:9 is treated as the theological linchpin: 'there remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God' is not an eschatological footnote but a present weekly obligation, with the change of day grounded in Christ's resurrection as the completion of new-creation work. The sermon distinguishes the positive-law element of the fourth commandment (which day) from its abiding moral-law element (one day in seven devoted to God), before closing with practical qualifications against both legalism and antinomianism in Sabbath observance.
The First Commandment, Part 2
The First Commandment — 'You shall have no other gods before me' (Deuteronomy 5:7) — carries not only a prohibition but a cluster of positive obligations that define the redeemed creature's relationship to the Creator. This sermon works through five such positive aspects: the love of God, the fear of God, obedience to God, trust in God, and the proper worship of God, showing how each flows necessarily from the sovereign grace by which God conquers the sinner. The sermon concludes with a call to reject idolatry in all its forms — including mental idolatry constructed by false doctrine — and to cultivate a growing, confessional knowledge of the triune God.
The First Commandment
The First Commandment — 'You shall have no other gods before me' (Deuteronomy 5:7) — demands both the rejection of every rival and the cultivation of genuine knowledge of the true and living God. The sermon works through the specific sins condemned by the commandment (atheism, polytheism, syncretism, idolatry, sorcery, heresy, and creature-worship), grounding each in Old and New Testament texts, before turning to the positive obligations the commandment requires: knowing God as Trinity, knowing His divine perfections, and knowing His external works in creation, providence, and redemption. The commandment functions pedagogically to expose humanity's chronic unfaithfulness and drive sinners to repentance, and normatively to call the redeemed to a rigorous, lifelong growth in the knowledge of who Yahweh is.
Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day, Part 2 (2LCF 22)
The Christian Sabbath is not a Puritan invention but a moral, perpetual commandment binding all men in all ages, now observed on the first day of the week in light of Christ's resurrection. This session of the 1689 London Baptist Confession study works through the ministry of Christ, the resurrection accounts, the apostolic pattern of first-day gathering, and the typology of Hebrews 4 to establish that a weekly Sabbath rest remains for the people of God in the new covenant era. The change of day from the seventh to the first reflects the inauguration of the new creation by the risen Christ, just as the Father rested on the seventh day of the old creation. Hearers are urged to receive the Lord's Day as a gracious gift — a weekly 'market day of the soul' pointing forward to the consummated rest that has not yet fully come.
2LCF Chapter 19 - Of the Law of God
The law of God — moral, ceremonial, and judicial — is the organising subject of 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 19. This session works through all seven paragraphs, tracing the moral law from its inscription on Adam's heart at creation, through its codification at Sinai, to its perpetual obligation upon every human being under the new covenant. The threefold division of the law (moral, ceremonial, judicial) is carefully distinguished: the ceremonial law is abrogated in Christ, the judicial law has expired with the Israelite theocracy though its general equity retains moral usefulness, and the moral law binds all persons forever — not as a covenant of works, but as a rule of life that sweetly complies with the grace of the gospel. Believers are called to embrace the law as a delight, a tutor pointing to Christ, and a pattern for sanctification rather than a means of justification.
The Fourth Commandment
The Fourth Commandment, as confessed in the 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 22, binds all men in all ages to set apart one day in seven for the worship of God. This exposition of Deuteronomy 5:12–15 traces the Sabbath from its creation ordinance grounding in Genesis 2, through its Sinaitic rationale of creation and redemption, into its prophetic anticipation in Isaiah 56 and 58, and finally to its New Covenant fulfillment on the first day of the week as the Lord's Day. The sermon argues that the Sabbath's moral principle — one day in seven devoted to God — is permanent and continuous across the covenants, while the positive element (the particular day) shifts from Saturday to Sunday in light of Christ's resurrection. Hearers are called to receive the Sabbath not as a legalistic burden but as God's gift, and to guard equally against Pharisaic rigidity and antinomian dismissal.
The First Commandment
The First Commandment — 'You shall have no other gods before me' (Deuteronomy 5:7) — demands the exclusive covenantal allegiance of God's people to Yahweh alone. The sermon works through both the prohibition and the positive demands of the commandment, exposing atheism (doctrinal and practical), polytheism, syncretism, idolatry, sorcery, and heresy as violations of the first word, while showing that the commandment positively requires the knowledge, love, fear, trust, obedience, and worship of the one true God. The pedagogical function of the law is also pressed: the commandment, taken seriously, drives the believer to repentance and to Christ, the only law-keeper, who gave himself for the sins of all those the Father had given him.
The Lord's Prayer, Part 4
Matthew 6:10 — 'Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven' — is not a passive resignation but a twofold petition: that God's people would actively obey His revealed, preceptive will as disclosed in Scripture, and that they would submit patiently to His secret, decretive will even when it brings hardship and trial. The study distinguishes the decretive will (God's eternal, all-encompassing decree, which cannot be altered) from the preceptive will (the commandments and precepts God requires of His creatures), drawing on the Westminster Larger Catechism, John Owen, Thomas Watson, and Thomas Manton. Four practical applications follow for the individual — recognizing God's right to command, knowing His revealed will, obeying it, and submitting patiently to His providential ordering — together with applications for the church and for society.
The Best Defense
Colossians 2:8–10 issues a double-edged call: beware of the spiritual kidnapping of godless philosophy, and rest in the sufficiency of Christ in whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily. The sermon exposes the 'Christ plus' logic underlying ancient and modern heresy — circumcision, asceticism, angel-veneration, and their contemporary equivalents — as substitutes for what believers already possess completely in Christ. The best defense against false teaching is not vigilance alone but a thoroughly biblical Christology, grounded in the conviction that those who are in Christ are complete in the head of all principality and power.