Cited in sermons
Jay Adams
16 sermons · All people cited
What Is Faith? When Should I Be Baptized? & more| Ask FGBC Batch 6
This Q&A episode from a confessional Reformed Baptist church addresses twelve questions spanning baptism, faith, church membership, Scripture interpretation, seminary training, and the heresies of Federal Vision and Baxterianism. Particular attention is given to the definition of saving faith — distinguishing the objective content of the faith from the act of believing, warning against loading faith with feelings, faithfulness, or love as its ground, and insisting that faith is the empty instrument through which God-given grace lays hold of Christ alone. The episode closes with treatments of conviction of sin, catechetical instruction of children, and the importance of an educated ministry.
The Husband and Wife Relationship, Part 1
Ephesians 5:22–24 presents the duty, reason, and practice of a wife's submission to her husband within the covenant of marriage. The passage is expounded within the broader Pauline household code of Ephesians 5:21–6:9, which itself flows from the Spirit-filled life commanded in verse 18. The sermon grounds wifely submission in both the created order (the husband as head by divine indicative, not negotiation) and in the analogical relationship of Christ and the church. Husbands and wives are called to embrace their respective obligations — loving leadership and willing, comprehensive submission — as an act of obedience to God, knowing that the grace enabling this obedience flows from the gospel of Jesus Christ alone.
The Wisdom of Little Things
Proverbs 30:24–28 presents four creatures — ants, conies, locusts, and a spider or lizard — each marked by inherent weakness yet possessing a compensatory wisdom that enables them to thrive. Expounding Agur's numerical proverb, this sermon draws out four corresponding virtues for the people of God: industry in preparation, caution before danger, unity in cooperation, and persistence under adversity. Both temporal and spiritual dimensions of each lesson are developed — from Sabbatarian labor ethics and self-defense to readiness for the day of judgment and the endurance of the Christian race. The whole is gathered under a call to honest self-awareness: to know one's limitations, refuse indolence and complaint, and by grace overcome through wisdom.
The Seventh Commandment
The seventh commandment, 'You shall not commit adultery' (Deuteronomy 5:18), governs not merely the act of adultery but the full range of sexual conduct God defines in Scripture. Preached against the backdrop of Canada's Bill C-4, this sermon grounds sexual ethics in the creation order of Genesis 2, expounds twelve prohibited acts — from adultery and fornication through homosexuality, transgenderism, and pornography — and confronts the state's attempt to criminalise biblical teaching on sexuality. The law is preached so that sinners will see their need for Christ, whose blood alone washes, sanctifies, and justifies those who come to Him in faith.
The Manifestation of God's Grace
Titus 2:11–15 presents God's grace not merely as the ground of salvation but as the very teacher of holy living. This exposition traces four aspects of grace in the passage: its appearance in the incarnation and atoning work of Christ, its instruction toward denial of ungodliness and worldly lusts and pursuit of sober, righteous, and godly life, its demonstration in the deity of the returning Christ and the definite redemption he accomplished, and its proclamation through authoritative gospel ministry. The controlling hermeneutical key is the grammatical and theological priority of the indicative over the imperative: believers obey not in order to be saved but because they have been saved, and inverting that order collapses the gospel into moralism.
The Duties of Christian Women
Titus 2:3–5 sets forth concrete duties for older and younger women within the covenant community, grounded not in cultural expectation but in the doctrine of grace. This exposition works through the instructions Paul gives to older women — reverence in conduct, guarded speech, sobriety, and the charge to teach younger women — before examining the cluster of virtues prescribed for younger women: love for husband and children, discretion, chastity, homemaking, goodness, and submission to their own husbands. The complementarian order is defended exegetically from 1 Timothy 2, 1 Corinthians 11 and 14, and 1 Peter 3, with creation and fall established as the theological foundation rather than cultural accommodation. The gospel itself is the undergirding motive: women are not saved by fulfilling these duties, but those redeemed by the grace that appeared in Christ are equipped by that same grace to adorn the doctrine of God their Savior in every sphere of life.
The Conversion of the Ethiopian Eunuch
Acts 8:26–40 records the Spirit-orchestrated conversion of an Ethiopian eunuch through Philip's proclamation of Christ from Isaiah 53. The passage is set within the fulfillment of Isaiah 56's promise that eunuchs and Gentiles would be brought near to God in the messianic age — a promise Luke deliberately highlights as the risen and exalted Christ builds his kingdom to the uttermost parts of the earth. The sermon expounds the substitutionary suffering of the servant of Yahweh as the content of Philip's evangelism, the great exchange of 2 Corinthians 5:21 as the ground of justification, and the proper order of faith then baptism as the pattern of apostolic practice. Hearers are pressed to ask whether they understand the gospel, to believe it without delay, and — if already believing — to submit to baptism as an act of obedience and a means of grace.
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.
The Pattern, Mandate, and Context of Baptism
Believers' baptism by immersion rests not on ecclesiastical tradition but on a conspicuous New Testament pattern, an explicit dominical mandate, and the covenantal logic of Jeremiah 31 as expounded in Hebrews 8. Working through the baptism narratives of Acts, the Great Commission of Matthew 28, and the new covenant promises of Hebrews 8, this sermon argues that the proper subjects of baptism are those who have repented and believed — the new covenant community defined by internalized law, experiential knowledge of God, and the forgiveness of sins. The case for credo-baptism is grounded not in a rejection of covenant theology but in a distinctively Reformed Baptist appropriation of it: the new covenant differs from the old precisely in that all its members know the Lord. Baptism is commended not as optional piety but as a commanded ordinance of positive institution carrying ongoing significance as a means of grace.
The Necessity of Family Religion
Joshua 24:15 — 'As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord' — is not a slogan but a covenant demand that defines the believing household. This sermon expounds the husband's responsibility to lead, love, disciple, and nourish his wife after the pattern of Christ and the church in Ephesians 5, the father's responsibility to train and admonish his children without provoking them to wrath, and the subject matter that must fill family worship: the events of Sinai and, for new-covenant households, the events of Calvary. The governing disposition is sincerity and truth — a whole-soul commitment to Yahweh that is infectious to children precisely because it is genuine.
The Throne Room
Revelation 4–5 presents the throne room of heaven as God's direct answer to the suffering and persecution of His church on earth: the Creator-God sits enthroned in unapproachable majesty, and the slain Lamb alone is worthy to open the scroll of judgment because He has redeemed a people to God by His blood out of every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. The vision calls the church to twin responses of humility and praise, understanding that proximity to the glory of God slays pride and produces worship. Particular redemption is grounded in the new song of Revelation 5:9, which defines the 'world' of John 3:16 not as every sinner without exception but as the elect drawn from all peoples. The sermon closes by setting redemption and damnation side by side, urging unbelievers to flee the wrath of the Lamb by trusting in the cross of the Lamb.
An Overview of Galatians
Galatians 1:1–5 functions not merely as a conventional epistolary greeting but as a programmatic summary of the entire letter, establishing two interlocking themes: the divine origin of Paul's apostleship and the nature of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Against the Judaizing error that faith in Christ must be supplemented by works of the law, this passage declares that Christ gave Himself as a penal substitute for sin, delivering His people from this present evil age according to the sovereign will of the Father. Justification is by faith alone, not by any human contribution, and this gospel of free and sovereign grace issues necessarily in doxology. The sermon calls hearers to recognise that there are only two places to be — in Christ, delivered from this present evil age, or still in sin under the wrath of God — and to believe the gospel without addition or delay.
A Real Savior for Real Sinners
Paul's description of the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 6:9–11 — fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals, thieves, drunkards, revilers — followed by the three-fold declaration 'you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified' — furnishes the text for five observations on the nature of the gospel. The sermon confronts self-deception about standing before God, refutes the claim that sin is genetic or environmentally determined, and sets out the biblical doctrines of regeneration, definitive sanctification, and justification by imputed righteousness as the only remedy for real sinners. The application is threefold: these truths ought to promote worship, drive evangelism, and sustain holiness in the lives of those who have been washed in Christ.
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 Fall of Jerusalem
The fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC is not merely a military defeat but the executed decree of a sovereign God against a covenant people who refused to repent. Working through 2 Kings 23:28–25:21, this sermon traces four movements: the death of Josiah, the rise of Nebuchadnezzar, the four final kings of Judah, and the destruction and captivity of Jerusalem. The theological thread running through every catastrophe is divine sovereignty — Nebuchadnezzar is God's servant, the exile is God's rod, and even the closing note of hope in the survival of Jehoiachin is a witness that no empire can frustrate the Davidic covenant promise that finds its fulfillment in Jesus Christ.
The Prayer of Habakkuk
Habakkuk 3 moves from prophetic complaint to confident worship through prayer and the deliberate rehearsal of God's mighty acts in redemptive history. This expository treatment traces three movements in the chapter: the prophet's prayer (vv. 1–2), his contemplative collage of God's historical deeds (vv. 3–15), and his response of reverential awe and joyful devotion despite impending calamity (vv. 16–19). The sermon presses home that the justified by faith must live by steadfast trust in God — not because He supplies health, wealth, and prosperity, but because He is Lord, and in having Christ the believer has everything.