Cited in sermons
John Bunyan
62 sermons · All people cited
The Call to Repentance
Acts 2:37–40 records the crowd's response to Peter's Pentecost sermon and his command to repent and be baptized. This exposition examines the nature of genuine conviction of sin, the inseparable relationship between repentance and faith, the proper place of baptism as an outward sign of inward grace rather than a means of salvation, and the comprehensive scope of God's electing call that reaches Jerusalem sinners, their children, and Gentiles afar off. The sermon presses the hearer to embrace conviction of sin as a mercy, to understand that repentance and faith are two sides of the same coin, and to respond by believing the gospel and submitting to baptism without delay.
The Preaching of Peter on Pentecost
Acts 2:37–42 records the first gospel sermon of the apostolic church and the conversion of three thousand souls on the day of Pentecost. This exposition works through Peter's proclamation — centering the gospel in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ — and his call to repentance and baptism, showing that sin must be named plainly before the Savior can be received gladly. The sermon draws on John Bunyan's 'The Jerusalem Sinner Saved' to press the point that Christ's mercy is offered most conspicuously to the vilest of sinners, and closes with a direct call to believe, repent, and be baptized.
2LCF Chapter 18 - Of the Assurance of Grace and Salvation
The doctrine of assurance of grace and salvation is grounded not in subjective experience or extraordinary revelation, but in the blood and righteousness of Christ revealed in the gospel, confirmed by the inward witness of the Holy Spirit and the objective evidences of saving grace. Working through chapter 18 of the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, this study distinguishes genuine assurance from carnal presumption, refutes the Roman Catholic and Arminian denials of assurance, and addresses why true believers may wait long before attaining it. Assurance is not of the essence of faith — a believer may possess saving faith without yet possessing settled assurance — yet the ordinary means of grace are the appointed path by which the Spirit revives it. The study closes with the sobering reality that assurance may be shaken by negligence, special sin, or vehement temptation, while insisting that the seed of God in the elect ensures they are never left in utter despair.
The Truth Concealed and Revealed
Matthew 11:25–30 presents three interlocking realities that together form the foundation of gospel rest: the sovereign will of the Father in concealing and revealing gospel truth, the exclusive mediatorial office of the Son as the only means of access to the Father, and the gracious invitation of Christ to sinners burdened by sin. The sermon argues that a right understanding of divine sovereignty — including both election and reprobation — should produce not polemical pride but the thankfulness and praise modeled by Christ himself in verse 25. Sinners are called to come to Christ by faith alone, receiving rest from the burden of sin, and to take up his yoke in discipleship, which the Savior himself declares easy and light.
The Privilege of Adoption
Galatians 3:26–29 brings the history of redemption into focus on the individual believer's standing before God: all who are in Christ by faith are sons of God, adopted into the divine family through the finished work of the one who became a curse for them. The sermon expounds three features of the believer's new identity — filial adoption by faith, redemptive unity across every human distinction, and covenantal solidarity as the seed of Abraham — while insisting that redemptive unity does not collapse the role distinctions God ordained in creation and confirmed in the apostolic letters. Theological, ethical, doxological, and eschatological implications of adoption are drawn out in the conclusion, calling believers to gratitude, godly conduct, and eschatological hope as blood-bought children of God Most High.
The Whole Armor of God
Ephesians 6:10–18 calls believers to put on the whole armor of God — not for ceremonial display but for genuine hand-to-hand combat against principalities, powers, and the spiritual hosts of wickedness. The armor is not native to the believer but is provided entirely through union with Christ: truth, imputed righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, and salvation constitute the defensive elements, while the Word of God is the offensive sword. The sermon argues that the Christian life is a lifelong fight requiring daily, persevering diligence — not passive rest — and closes by urging both believers and unbelievers to recognize that lasting victory over sin is possible only through the blood of atonement and the grace of the triune God.
The Warning and Report
Paul closes his final letter by warning Timothy against Alexander the coppersmith, whose opposition was directed not against Paul personally but against the Word of God, and by giving a theologically ordered account of his own imprisonment. The sermon traces how Paul's confidence in God's retributive justice, his experience of the Lord's present strengthening, and his certainty of future heavenly preservation together produce doxology rather than complaint. Seven marks of Paul's apostolic character — vigilance for God's Word, concern for the church, dependence on the Lord, worship, care for friends, hope for glory, and faithful ministry to the end — are set before the congregation as a pattern for gospel ministers and the church alike. The primary application is that faithful proclamation of God's truth, not celebrity or popularity, is what God requires of his ministers.
The Final Charge to Timothy, Part 1
Paul's final formal charge to the church, delivered through Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:1–2, consists of a solemn charge and a specific command: preach the Word. The solemnity of the charge is grounded in the presence of the triune God as divine audience and in the coming judgment of Christ over the living and the dead, which simultaneously weighs on the minister who handles the Word and on the people who will one day stand before God. The command itself, rooted in the image of the herald (Greek kēryx), demands faithful proclamation of the Word — not creative substitutes, not life-coaching, not entertainment — through conviction, rebuke, exhortation, longsuffering, and teaching. The sermon closes with a call for biblical preachers, biblical preaching, and biblical hearers, arguing that the church's abandonment of the pulpit is the root of her contemporary crisis.
2LCF Chapter 22 - Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day, Part 4
The Fourth Commandment's perpetual and universal obligation — rooted in both natural law and the Word of God — binds new covenant believers to Sabbath observance no less than it bound old covenant saints. This session of a consecutive study through the 1689 London Baptist Confession (chapter 22, paragraphs 7–8) examines the twofold testimony to Sabbath necessity (general and special revelation), the positive-moral character of the Fourth Commandment, and the pre-Sinaitic origins of the Sabbath in Genesis 2. The change of the day from the seventh to the first is introduced and will be treated in full in the following session. The governing spirit of Christian Sabbath observance is not legal fear but cheerful compliance, strengthened by the risen Christ and the sweetness of the gospel.
Free Grace Baptist Church - November 29, 2015 PM
Evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, yet the people of God are called not to despair but to persevere in the things they have learned — above all, the Holy Scriptures. Expounding 2 Timothy 3:13–15, this sermon contrasts the downward trajectory of false teachers with the upward call to Timothy: continued faithfulness grounded in the Word of God, which is able to make one wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. The Old Testament is shown to be thoroughly Christ-centred, pointing to one way of salvation in both testaments — by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Parents are charged to bring their children under the Scripture from childhood, and all believers are urged to persevere through faithful use of the means God has ordained.
Dr. Steven Lawson - "How Blessed is the Man" - November 8, 2015 PM
Psalm 1 sets two paths before every person who enters the house of God: the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked. This exposition moves through the psalm's four movements — the pronouncement of blessing, the prerequisites for blessing, the picture of blessing, and the prohibition of blessing — arguing that the blessedness declared in verse 1 belongs exclusively to those who have been sovereignly transplanted by the new birth and who are sustained by the inexhaustible streams of divine grace. All the blessings of Psalm 1 are mediated through Christ alone: his active obedience supplies the righteousness imputed to the believer, and his atoning death reconciles the sinner to God. Hearers are called to examine whether they are on the narrow way of the righteous or the broad way of the wicked, and to sink their roots deeper into the Word of God as the primary means of sanctifying grace.
2LCF Chapter 18 - Of the Assurance of Grace and Salvation
What does it mean to be assured of salvation, and is such assurance available to ordinary believers? Walking through 2LCF Chapter 18 paragraph by paragraph, this exposition of the confession's treatment of assurance of grace and salvation establishes that assurance is real, attainable, and grounded not in subjective feeling but in the blood and righteousness of Christ, the inward evidences of the Spirit's graces, and the Spirit's own testimony that we are children of God. The sermon addresses the false assurance of the unregenerate, the foundation and marks of true assurance drawn especially from 1 John, the place of the ordinary means of grace in attaining assurance, and the causes by which assurance may be shaken — including God's sovereign withdrawal of the light of his countenance. Believers are called to diligently pursue assurance through Word, prayer, and preaching, knowing that true assurance produces not looseness but humility, holiness, and cheerfulness in obedience.
The Role of the Law in Justification
Romans 3:20 stands at the hinge of Paul's argument in Romans 1–3: the universal condemnation of Jew and Gentile is summarized and confirmed, and the ground is cleared for the proclamation of a righteousness that comes apart from the law. This sermon examines both the unlawful use of the law — seeking justification before God through law-keeping, which Paul categorically condemns — and the lawful pedagogical use, by which the law defines sin, demonstrates the gravity of human guilt, and drives the sinner to Christ. The central burden is that no amount of moral effort can secure acceptance with God, because the problem lies not in the law but in the sinner; the law's only saving function is to press men toward the law-keeper, Christ, whose obedience and sacrifice are the sole ground of justification.
The Preface to the Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments are not a path to earned standing before God but the covenant stipulations of a God who has already redeemed his people — the indicative of grace always precedes the imperative of law. Expounding Deuteronomy 5:1–6, this sermon examines the summons to obedience Moses issues to the second generation on the plains of Moab, and then the preface to the Decalogue itself, showing that the identity and activity of the Lawgiver are the indispensable foundation for understanding why God's moral law binds his people. The threefold division of the law — ceremonial, judicial, and moral — is defended from the confessional Reformed tradition, and the abiding validity of the Decalogue in the new covenant is grounded in Jeremiah 31 and 2LCF 19. The sermon closes by tracing the law's three uses — civil, pedagogical, and normative — so that hearers neither abuse the law as a ladder to heaven nor discard it as obsolete, but receive it as the Spirit-given pattern for a life of grateful obedience.
The Gracious Declaration of the Gospel
Matthew 11:27–28 sets forth the mediatorial office of Christ and the gracious declaration of the gospel as the second and third grounds upon which sinners come to know God. Christ possesses all authority delivered by the Father, holds exclusive knowledge of the Father, and sovereignly wills to reveal Him — condemning universalism, pluralism, and every works-based religion. The free invitation 'Come to me' presupposes sovereign election and effectual grace, addresses those burdened by sin and Pharisaic religion alike, and promises rest that is grounded in Christ's mediation alone, not in human virtue or effort.
The Cost of Discipleship
Matthew 8:18–22 presents two case studies in discipleship: a scribe who too eagerly volunteers to follow Jesus without counting the cost, and a disciple who hesitates, asking to bury his father first. Working through the first case, this exposition presses the meaning of Christ's self-identification as the Son of Man — drawing on Isaiah 53 and Daniel 7 — to show that discipleship entails not earthly prosperity or ease but rejection, deprivation, and willing loss of temporal goods. The sermon closes by locating the ground of discipleship in the indicative of the gospel: God accepts sinners through Christ, and it is from that acceptance that the costly call to follow flows.
A Call to the Ministry
What qualifies a man for gospel ministry, and how does the local church bear responsibility for ensuring its pulpits are filled with such men? Expounding 1 Timothy 3:1–7, this sermon argues that a biblical call to the ministry involves five distinguishable elements: desire born of right motives, graces indicating genuine Christian experience, gifts indicating divine provision, opportunity indicating providential opening, and recognition by the local church. The qualifications Paul sets forth — personal holiness, domestic faithfulness, maturity in the faith, and a good testimony among outsiders — are not optional preferences but the objective standard by which the church must evaluate candidates, so that the subjective sense of inward call is always tested and regulated by the community of God's people.
The Narrow Way
Matthew 7:13–14 confronts every hearer with a binary reality: there are only two ways, and every person is already on one of them. The broad way is the default condition of fallen humanity — wide, well-populated, and apparently pleasant — but it ends in conscious, eternal destruction from the presence of God. The narrow way, by contrast, is the life of Christian discipleship entered by grace through faith alone, marked by difficulty and tribulation, yet terminating in everlasting life and the immediate presence of Christ. The sermon presses this text as both an ethical directive to professing believers to walk in decisive discipleship and an evangelistic summons to the unconverted to flee to the Savior, while insisting that the Sermon on the Mount rightly read exposes every hearer's need for an alien righteousness found only in Christ.
The Great Day of God
Malachi 4:1–6 sets before the reader two destinies — the wicked consumed like stubble in the fire of divine judgment, and the righteous flourishing under the Sun of Righteousness. This sermon argues that the prophet's vision of 'the great day of the Lord' finds its near-historical fulfillment in the A.D. 70 destruction of Jerusalem (typified in Revelation 6:12–17), while simultaneously serving as a portrait of the final judgment when Christ returns to judge the living and the dead. Preparation for that day consists in two things Malachi commands: remember the law of Moses by immersing oneself in Scripture, and look to the kingdom announced by the Elijah-figure John the Baptist. The closing exhortation is urgent — flee to Christ now, for on that day there is no third position between the wicked and those who fear the Lord.
The Fundamental Necessity of the Resurrection
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is not incidental to the gospel but fundamentally necessary to it — scripturally decreed, soteriologically indispensable, and the ground of every saving benefit the believer receives. Working through Luke 24:36–53, this exposition establishes that the resurrection was part of an unalterable divine mission, a non-negotiable element of gospel definition, the basis for the legitimacy of Christian preaching, and a requirement of saving faith. The sermon then traces the soteriological implications of the resurrection across regeneration, justification, sanctification, and glorification, before closing with Christological implications and an urgent call to those outside of Christ to flee to the crucified and risen Messiah.
The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth
Meekness, as Jesus pronounces it in Matthew 5:5, is not weakness or passivity but power under control — strength governed by the Holy Spirit and expressed in humble, others-centered living. Drawing on the Beatitudes' presupposition of saving grace, the sermon defines meekness through Scripture, Puritan writers, and biblical exemplars including Moses, Christ, Timothy, Epaphroditus, and the apostle Paul. Philippians 2:1–11 serves as the extended doctrinal and practical illustration, showing that esteeming others as better than oneself flows from the gospel logic of Christ's own self-humiliation. The sermon closes with six concrete marks of meekness and a call to unbelievers to seek justification by faith in Christ, from which true meekness flows.
Corporate Spiritual Poverty
The letter to the church in Laodicea (Revelation 3:14–22) indicts a congregation that had grown complacent, self-sufficient, and spiritually blind — convinced of its own wealth while Christ declares it wretched, poor, and naked. The sermon works through Christ's threefold self-identification as the Amen, the faithful and true witness, and the inaugurator of the new creation, before examining the condemnation of lukewarmness and the remedy Christ offers: gold, white garments, and eye salve purchased from him alone. Revelation 3:20 is rescued from its common misuse as an evangelistic appeal and restored to its proper context as Christ's invitation to a wayward covenant community to open the door of corporate worship to his renewed fellowship. The closing application calls the congregation to honest self-assessment, to repudiate pride, self-sufficiency, and spiritual laziness, and to ground every claim to spiritual wealth in the finished work of Christ alone.
Spiritual Poverty and Holy Mourning
The Beatitudes are not imperatives but indicative descriptions of those whom God has transformed by sovereign grace. This exposition of Matthew 5:3–4 argues that poverty of spirit—the recognition of one's utter bankruptcy before a holy God—and holy mourning over sin are not natural human tendencies but the direct fruit of divine grace working in the heart. Drawing on the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, the church at Laodicea, Isaiah 57 and 66, and the lament of Romans 7, the sermon demonstrates that pride is an offense to God while humility and contrition are the marks he blesses. The comfort promised to holy mourners is both present—through justification, the indwelling Spirit, and the Scriptures—and eschatological, when God himself will wipe away every tear in the new Jerusalem.
Justification
Romans 3:24 stands as the doctrinal heartbeat of the gospel: guilty sinners are declared righteous before a holy God freely, as a gift, on the sole ground of the redemption accomplished by Christ Jesus. The sermon expounds each word of that verse — 'justified,' 'freely,' 'by his grace,' and 'through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus' — to show that justification is a forensic declaration of changed status, not a moral transformation, and that it rests entirely on Christ's atoning blood and imputed righteousness, received through faith alone. A running contrast is drawn between earthly judges who rightly condemn the guilty and the divine Judge who justifies the ungodly without compromising his justice, because the penalty was fully borne by the Son. The sermon closes by tracing the necessary fruit of justification — humility, assurance, and a transformed life bearing the likeness of Christ — while guarding the distinction between justification and sanctification.
To God Be the Glory
Romans 11:33–36 closes Paul's extended treatment of divine sovereignty and the salvation of sinners in chapters 9–11 with a doxology that demands a response of awe and worship. The sermon moves through three movements in the text: an exclamation concerning God's omniscience and unsearchable judgments (v. 33), a confirmation from Isaiah and Job that God is self-sufficient and owes nothing to any creature (vv. 34–35), and an ascription of glory acknowledging God as the source, sustainer, and goal of all things (v. 36). The doctrines of sovereign election and particular redemption are not presented as intellectual trophies but as the only ground on which genuine doxology is possible — a theology that does not culminate in worship has not been properly understood.
Justification, Faith, and the Law
Galatians 2:15–16 drives Paul's sharpest declaration that justification is a forensic act — a legal declaration by God — received through faith alone in Christ alone, entirely apart from works of the law. This sermon expounds that doctrine in four observations: justification is a legal declaration, not by works of law, by faith as instrument not merit, and impossible by law for any flesh. The sermon then addresses the three classic uses of the law — civil, pedagogical, and normative — demonstrating that rejecting the law as a ground of justification does not entail antinomianism. The believer who has been justified by faith is directed back to God's law as a pattern and rule of life, the ground of genuine assurance being the doing, dying, and rising of Christ alone rather than personal obedience or inner experience.
From Persecutor to Preacher, Part 2
Paul's early Christian career in Galatians 1:15–24 demonstrates that his apostolic commission and gospel were received directly from God, not derived from or validated by any human authority. His separation from the womb, effectual calling by grace, and the revelation of Christ in him establish divine sovereignty over his entire ministry — from persecutor to preacher. The sermon engages the 'new perspective on Paul,' arguing that the Reformation reading rightly identifies individual sin and grace as the heart of Paul's theology, not merely the corporate sociological question of Jew-Gentile relations. The hearer is pressed to trust in Christ alone, whose blood atones for great and invincible sins, and to see every human supplement to that atonement as an assault upon the cross itself.
Paul's Departure
What does it look like to face death with settled confidence and undimmed gospel zeal? This exposition of 2 Timothy 4:6–8 examines Paul's final written words — his description of his impending martyrdom as a drink offering poured out, his retrospective claim to have fought, finished, and kept, and his forward-looking anticipation of the crown of righteousness. The sermon presses the point that the composure Paul displays in his prison cell is inseparable from the Christ-centered, gospel-saturated life he lived in every preceding hour, summoning hearers to the same persevering faith and eschatological hope.
The Responsibility of Children
Colossians 3:20 addresses children as responsible members of the covenant community with a specific duty: to obey their parents in all things for the glory of God. This sermon expounds that command under two headings — as a religious commitment rooted in what is well-pleasing to the Lord, and as a requirement of God's moral law grounded in the Fifth Commandment (Exodus 20; Deuteronomy 5; Ephesians 6:1–3). The law's impossible demand is not softened but turned pedagogically toward the cross: children cannot perfectly obey or honor their parents, and that failure is meant to drive them to Christ, whose active obedience fulfilled all righteousness on behalf of sinners. Parents are therefore urged to present the law honestly, presume nothing about their children's regeneration, and cultivate homes where gospel ethics are visibly practiced.
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.