Cited in sermons
John Bunyan
62 sermons · All people cited
The Lawful Uses of God's Law
The law of God is good when used lawfully — and Scripture identifies three distinct lawful uses that the church must recover. Drawing from 1 Timothy 1:8–11 and ranging across Romans, Galatians, and the Westminster Larger Catechism, this sermon exposits the threefold use of the law (civil, pedagogical, normative) as the historically Reformed framework for understanding law and gospel. The civil use restrains wickedness in society; the pedagogical use exposes sin and drives sinners to Christ; the normative use provides the regenerate with a pattern of holy conduct that the indwelling Spirit enables them to pursue freely. The central burden of the sermon is that stripping law from gospel preaching produces a generation that wants comfort rather than righteousness, and that a high view of the law is inseparable from a high view of the Redeemer.
The Foundation for Christian Baptism
Baptism is grounded not in the merit or decision of the one being baptized, but in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who was himself 'baptized' — overwhelmed unto death — as a substitute for sinners. The sermon works through Mark 10:32–45 to show that Christ's language of drinking the cup and being baptized with his baptism refers to his substitutionary suffering at Calvary, not his water baptism by John. Baptism is therefore an act of obedience that publicly declares the believer's identification with the triune God and union with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection, while picturing — though not providing — the forgiveness of sins.