Cited in sermons
John Calvin
990 sermons · All people cited
Redemption Accomplished
The sixth word from the cross — 'It is finished' (John 19:30) — is a single Greek verb carrying the full weight of accomplished redemption. This sermon works through the explanation and then the application of that cry, showing that Christ's tetelestai declares the fulfillment of messianic Scripture, the termination of Old Covenant types and shadows, the completion of the Father's redemptive plan, and the full accomplishment of redemption: active righteousness secured, divine wrath exhausted, the devil defeated, sin finished, every spiritual blessing purchased, and death itself marked for destruction. The application presses the church to rest her comfort and security not in her own performance but in the finished work of Christ alone, the only ground of justification by faith.
The Crucifixion of Jesus, Part 3
Matthew 27:45–46 records the darkest three hours of history and the lone saying of Christ that Matthew preserves from the cross: 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' This sermon works through the cry of dereliction with careful attention to what the text does and does not teach, ruling out any ontological division within the Trinity, any dissolution of the hypostatic union, and any notion that all three persons suffered at Calvary. The forsakenness Christ voiced was real — a qualified withdrawal of the Father's consolatory smile and favour, not an abandonment of love — because Christ stood as the covenant surety of his people, bearing the punishment of loss that sinners deserve. The gospel comfort that follows is decisive: because Christ cried 'Why have you forsaken me?' those united to him by faith will never have to.
Free Grace Baptist Church - October 22, 2017 PM
First John 2:3–6 confronts a perennial problem: people who claim to know Christ while living in blatant disregard of his law. The sermon works through two tests John gives for genuine knowledge of God — keeping Christ's commandments as an evidence of salvation (not its ground), and walking as Christ walked as a fruit of union with him. Obedience is not the condition for knowing God but the necessary mark and assurance of it, grounded not in human effort but in the imputed righteousness of Christ and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit.
The Crucifixion of Jesus, Part 2
Matthew 27:39–44 records three distinct groups — passing bystanders, the chief priests and elders, and the two crucified robbers — each heaping mockery and blasphemy upon the Son of God while he hangs on the cross. The preacher demonstrates that in every taunt, the mockers unwittingly speak truth: he is the temple builder, the Savior of others, the King of Israel, and the Son of God — and it is precisely because he is all of these things that he must stay on the cross to satisfy divine justice for his people's sins. The irony Matthew constructs reaches its apex in the dying thief, who looks past the gore of the crucifixion and confesses Christ as Lord, while the religious leaders who possessed the very scriptures that prophesied this scene remain utterly blind to it. The sermon calls both unbelievers and believers to look to the crucified Christ by faith, to receive salvation as a gift rather than bargaining with God, and to find in this scene the unsurpassed measure of the Savior's love.
Free Grace Baptist Church - October 22, 2017 AM
Matthew 27 records the layered mockery poured upon Christ at Calvary — by the chief priests, scribes, and elders, and even by the revolutionaries crucified alongside him. The sermon exposes three lines of their reproach: his supposed inability to save, the illegitimacy of his kingship, and the apparent abandonment by his Father. Throughout, the mockers speak more truth than they know, for it is precisely because Christ will not come down from the cross that sinners are saved, and the dying thief stands as the living proof of that saving power exercised in the midst of agony and derision.
Free Grace Baptist Church - October 15, 2017 AM
Matthew 27:32–38 presents the crucifixion of Jesus Christ as the central event in redemptive history, the long-anticipated fulfillment of Old Testament promise from Genesis 3:15 through Isaiah 53. The sermon traces two movements: the way to the cross — bearing, location, and the bitter drink — and the act of crucifixion itself, attending to the division of garments, the watching guards, the charge above his head, and the company of criminals. Throughout, the visible shame of the Son of God is shown to be the appointed means by which he crushes the serpent's head, satisfies divine justice, and secures justification for all whom the Father gave him. Hearers are called to abandon every notion of contributing to their own salvation and to look in faith to the crucified Christ alone.
The Qualifications for Elders
What qualities must a man possess before a church installs him as an elder? Expounding 1 Timothy 3:1–7, this sermon works through six categories of qualification: the man's desire for the office, his personal holiness, his domestic faithfulness, his spiritual maturity, his testimony among outsiders, and his aptness to teach. The three New Testament terms — elder, overseer, and pastor — are shown to be synonymous, describing one office whose governing instrument is the preached Word. The congregation is pressed to apply these qualifications rigorously, to test aspiring men through faithful churchmanship, and to resist the twin errors of setting the bar so low that unfit men enter and so high that no man can qualify.
2LCF Chapter 22 - Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day
The Regulative Principle of Worship, grounded in the Second Commandment and confessed in Chapter 22 of the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, holds that God alone determines the acceptable way in which He is to be worshipped — nothing more, nothing less, and nothing else than what He has commanded in Scripture. Working through paragraphs 1 and 2 of the confession, this session distinguishes the first commandment (who is to be worshipped) from the second (how God is to be worshipped), showing from Romans 1, Deuteronomy 12, 1 Timothy 3, Hebrews 12, and the narrative of Saul that innovation in worship — however well-intentioned — constitutes a form of idolatry. The practical application is that the elements of corporate worship must be drawn from Scripture alone: prayer, the reading and preaching of the Word, singing, and the sacraments — with no addition, subtraction, or substitution from the imaginations and devices of men.
Free Grace Baptist Church - October 8, 2017 AM
The mock enthronement of Jesus recorded in Matthew 27:27–31 simultaneously exposes the comprehensive guilt of every human participant — Pilate, the soldiers, the Jewish leaders, and the elect whose sins were heaped upon the Savior — and reveals the ironic glory of the King who would actually bear every emblem the soldiers placed on him in jest. The sermon argues that what the soldiers devised as dishonor — the robe, the crown of thorns, the reed — were unwitting foreshadowings of Christ's true royal majesty as depicted in the book of Revelation, where he reigns with golden crown, glorious robe, and iron scepter. The exposition closes with three applications under the gravity, the glory, and the gratitude of the scene, pressing both unbelievers to flee to the Savior from the coming wrath and believers to exceed the soldiers' inventiveness in devising honor for their King.
Free Grace Baptist Church - October 1, 2017 PM
This Lord's Supper service exposition of 2 Samuel 6 traces three movements in the account of David bringing the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem: the desire for God's presence, the reminder of God's holiness in the death of Uzzah, and the celebration of God's goodness in David's exuberant worship. The Uzzah incident grounds an extended defense of the regulative principle of worship — God demands precise, commanded obedience, not well-intentioned innovation — while David's dancing in a linen ephod demonstrates that such precision does not exclude but rather secures gladness and joy. Each movement is drawn into parallel with the Lord's Supper: believers come seeking the presence of Christ, they are reminded that his body was broken and blood shed because God is holy and just, and they receive the Supper as a means of covenant renewal and joyful commemoration of the once-for-all sacrifice.
The Trial before Pontius Pilate, Part 3
Matthew 27:24–26 records Pontius Pilate's attempt to wash his hands of Christ's blood, the crowd's acceptance of blood-guilt upon themselves and their children, and the formal sentencing of Jesus to scourging and crucifixion. This sermon exposes Pilate's self-absolution as rank hypocrisy — he declares innocence while simultaneously ordering the execution — and traces the crowd's fearful cry ('His blood be on us and on our children') as an omen fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. The passage is set within the larger framework of substitutionary atonement: Christ, the only truly innocent man, willingly bore the penalty owed to guilty sinners, satisfying divine justice on behalf of His people. Hearers are called to see their own culpability in the cross and to repent and be converted, trusting in the sufficiency of Christ's shed blood for the remission of sins.
Free Grace Baptist Church - September 24, 2017 PM
First John 1:5–10 presents three interlocking claims about fellowship with God: the nature of God as absolute moral purity (light), the deceptive professions of those who walk in darkness while claiming communion with God, and the path of true fellowship grounded in the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ. The sermon engages the Gnostic false teachers who denied sin's reality and the law's relevance, and sets their errors against the revealed gospel — that total depravity rightly understood drives sinners to Christ, the light of the world. True assurance of salvation rests not on sinless perfection but on ongoing confession, the atoning work of Christ, and the Spirit's inward fruit, so those who struggle with assurance are directed to the cross while those who live in blatant antinomian rebellion are warned that false doctrine produces false assurance.
2LCF Chapter 21 - Of Christian Liberty and Liberty of Conscience
Christian liberty is grounded not primarily in political or personal freedoms but in the perfect saving work of Christ, who has purchased freedom from the guilt, power, and punishment of sin for all his elect. This study works through 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith chapter 21, paragraphs 1–3, tracing the biblical foundations of liberty of conscience against both Roman Catholic ecclesiastical imposition and antinomian abuse of grace. The New Testament enlarges the freedom already held by Old Testament believers by releasing them from the ceremonial law's yoke, granting bolder access to the throne of grace, and communicating the Spirit more fully. True Christian liberty issues not in licentiousness but in cheerful, childlike obedience to God, freed from slavish fear and self-imposed religious scrupulosity alike.
The Trial before Pontius Pilate, Part 2
Matthew 27:15–23 presents Pontius Pilate's attempt to grant amnesty to Jesus through the Passover custom of releasing a prisoner — an attempt that collapses under the pressure of crowd manipulation and Pilate's own moral cowardice. The passage exposes the envy driving the religious leaders, the warning of Pilate's wife confessing Christ's righteousness, and the moral depravity of a multitude persuaded to choose a violent insurrectionist over the sinless Son of God. The repeated declarations of Christ's innocence — by Judas, Pilate's wife, and Pilate himself — are Matthew's design: the just stands for the unjust, and every voice proclaiming 'he has done no evil' opens the door to the gospel of substitutionary atonement. Hearers are called to see their own capacity for the crowd's guilt, to recognize total depravity in themselves, and to flee to the holy, harmless, undefiled Christ for forgiveness and righteousness.
2 Kings 6:24–7:20
The siege and deliverance of Samaria in 2 Kings 6:24–7:20 exposes both the devastating covenantal consequences of Israel's idolatry and the sovereign mercy of Yahweh who refuses to abandon His people. The cannibalism, famine, and political helplessness that afflict Samaria are not arbitrary calamities but the precise covenant curses of Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28, visited upon a nation that had abandoned Yahweh for the gods of Canaan. God's deliverance comes not through royal power or military might but through four leprous outcasts, an unnamed servant, and a supernatural terror sent upon the Syrian army — instruments so unlikely that only God can receive the glory. The passage presses its hearers to trust the prophetic Word of God rather than political power, and to proclaim the good news they have received rather than remain silent.
The Trial before Pontius Pilate, Part 1
Why does Jesus stand silent before Pontius Pilate, refusing to answer a single charge? Matthew 27:11–14 records the interrogation of Christ by the Roman governor, in which Jesus affirms his kingship with a qualified 'it is as you say' and then offers no defense against the accusations of the chief priests and elders. That silence is not weakness but resolute, covenantal determination — the fulfillment of Isaiah 53:7, the refusal to retard the death that alone can save sinners from the wrath of a holy God. The sermon calls both believer and unbeliever to marvel at the silence of Christ, recognizing in it the ground of every sinner's boldness before God on the day of judgment.
2LCF Chapter 20 - Of the Gospel and of the Extent of the Grace Thereof
The gospel is necessary, revealed only through special revelation, and made effectual solely by the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit — natural law and general revelation are wholly insufficient for salvation. This session expounds 2LCF Chapter 20, tracing why John Owen and the Congregationalists added this chapter to address both the rise of salvation-through-natural-law teaching and the false charge that Reformed and Baptist churches were anti-missional. The sermon argues that the gospel advances to the ends of the earth through preaching, according to God's sovereign will, as the Spirit regenerates the elect who are dead in trespasses and sins. The practical burden is confidence and perseverance in gospel proclamation, grounded not in human ability or ecclesial authority but in the sovereignty of God.
Genesis 14
Genesis 14 presents what appears to be an obscure ancient war narrative, but the chapter is deliberately structured around one controlling question: who is the true King and possessor of heaven and earth? Working through the three movements of battle, bravery, and blessing, this exposition shows how Kedorlaomer's military supremacy, Abram's faith-driven rescue of Lot, and Melchizedek's priestly blessing of Abram together build to a single climax — God Most High, El Elyon, reigns sovereign over every kingdom. Melchizedek emerges as a typological figure whose lack of genealogy and perpetual priesthood, interpreted by Hebrews 7 and Psalm 110, points forward to Christ's eternal high-priestly office after the order of Melchizedek. The proper response to God's sovereign kingship is Abram's own: refusing worldly plunder and glorifying God alone.
The Use of the Blood Money
Matthew 27:6–10 records the chief priests' disposal of the thirty pieces of silver used to betray Jesus — and Matthew's citation of this event as the fulfillment of prophecy attributed to Jeremiah. This sermon examines the rank hypocrisy of the religious leaders who scrupled over depositing blood money into the treasury while simultaneously orchestrating the judicial murder of an innocent man, exposing the self-condemning logic of ceremonial fastidiousness divorced from the weightier demands of the law. The sermon then defends the inerrancy of Matthew's composite citation of Zechariah 11 and Jeremiah 18–19, 32, showing how Matthew functions as a biblical theologian weaving together prophetic themes of rejection, judgment, exile, and restoration to demonstrate that the passion of Christ was the fulfillment of the entire prophetic witness. The application calls hearers to recognize their own guilt before a holy God and to flee to the imputed righteousness and atoning blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Rebellion of Moab
Matthew 27:1–5 exposes two devastating portraits set in immediate sequence: the murderous resolution of the Sanhedrin and the miserable end of Judas Iscariot. The sermon presses a distinction the text itself demands — that remorse, however acute, is not repentance, because genuine repentance moves God-ward and Christ-ward, apprehending the mercy of God in Christ, whereas Judas's guilt drove him only to self-destruction. Listeners are urged to see in Judas the bitter end of undealt-with sin, and to flee instead to the one who is altogether lovely and chief among ten thousand, trusting that saving faith and repentance are themselves gifts granted by sovereign grace.
The Translation of Elijah
2 Kings 2 presents the translation of Elijah into heaven and the subsequent manifestation of Elisha as his divinely appointed successor. The sermon works through the chapter in two main sections — the ascension of Elijah and the confirmed ministry of Elisha — arguing that every element, including the healing of Jericho's waters and the cursing of the youths at Bethel, serves to authenticate Elisha as the legitimate prophetic voice of Yahweh in Israel. The two she-bears are not a moral embarrassment but the execution of the covenant curse of Leviticus 26, consistent with the same God who sends sweet water to the previously cursed city of Jericho and who ultimately sends His Son to deal in mercy with sinners.
United in Worship
Joshua 22:10–34 presents a near-civil-war among the tribes of Israel triggered by the erection of a large altar east of the Jordan, and this exposition works through the text under three headings: the western tribes' perception of apostasy, their perception of disunity, and the concluding perception of God's presence among his people. The sermon grounds the western tribes' alarm in Deuteronomy 12 and 13, showing that their concern for a rival place of worship was a sound application of the regulative principle of worship, and traces the typological significance of Phinehas as a figure pointing to Christ's atoning zeal. The eastern tribes' explanation — that the altar was a witness-monument, not a sacrificial site, built so that future generations would not be excluded from the covenant community — is set against the church's call to maintain unity in worship through lowliness, longsuffering, and mutual confrontation after the pattern of Matthew 5 and 18. The sermon concludes that the object uniting the people of God in every age is not themselves but the Lord, to whom worship is due as Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer in Christ.
The Supreme God
First Samuel 5 narrates a comedic yet deadly serious confrontation between Yahweh and the Philistine god Dagon, exposing the utter powerlessness of idols and the supreme sovereignty of the living God. When the Philistines place the ark of the Lord beside Dagon, Dagon twice falls prostrate before it — losing his head and hands — while Yahweh's hand falls with devastating judgment on city after city across Philistia. The passage teaches both that all false gods are helpless before Yahweh and that idolatry remains the deepest disease of the human heart, whether expressed in carved images or in the good things we elevate above God. The call of the sermon is to turn from every idol — visible or conjured — to the one divine Warrior who conquered sin and death, and in whom alone there is everlasting life.
The Denial of Christ by Peter
Peter's threefold denial of Christ in Matthew 26:69–75 exposes both the anatomy of a disciple's fall and the magnitude of divine grace that restores the fallen. The sermon traces Peter's descent from evasive mumbling to sworn denial, showing how self-confidence, prayerlessness, and neglect of the Word prepared him for catastrophic failure before a servant girl. The contrasting thread throughout is the mercy of Christ — his look of 'sorrow, pity, love, and forgiveness' — which, together with the remembered word, brought Peter to godly repentance and eventual restoration. Hearers are exhorted to watch and pray, to hide the Word in their hearts, and to flee to the Christ who does not cast out those who come to him.
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 Unsurpassed Value of the Gospel
Paul's exhortation to Timothy not to be ashamed of the gospel in 2 Timothy 1:8–10 rests on the unsurpassed worth of the salvation it announces. The sermon works through the divine authorship of salvation, the basis of election in God's eternal purpose and grace rather than human works, and the pre-temporal covenant of redemption executed in the incarnation and atoning work of Christ. Because Christ has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, believers have every reason to suffer for it without shame, and unbelievers are called to look to Christ alone for justification by faith apart from works.
2 Kings 2:1-25
2 Kings 2 presents the translation of Elijah and the public authentication of Elisha as his prophetic successor. The chapter divides into two broad movements: Elijah's assumption into heaven by whirlwind (vv. 1–12) and Elisha's manifestation as the new man of God through miracle-working (vv. 13–25). The parallels to Moses and Joshua, the divided Jordan, the healing of Jericho's water, and the covenant curse executed through two bears all establish that Elisha stands in an unbroken line of authorized prophetic ministry — and that God's Word, not any individual instrument, is the true power sustaining His kingdom. The controlling application is that when God removes an Elijah, a Calvin, or a Spurgeon, His Word and His kingdom march on, calling His people to fix their confidence on the strength of God's arm rather than the charisma of His servants.
The Hearing before the Sanhedrin, Part 2
At the trial before the Sanhedrin, two false witnesses twist Christ's words about destroying the temple, and the high priest demands to know whether Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. Christ's answer — 'it is as you said' — is an unambiguous messianic confession, immediately amplified by his identification of himself as the Son of Man of Daniel 7 enthroned at the right hand of the Father (Psalm 110:1), a claim that converges multiple streams of Old Testament prophecy. The sermon sets this confession against the backdrop of human sinfulness — visible in the kangaroo court's predetermined verdict and willingness to suborn perjury — and calls hearers to see in Christ the true temple-builder of the Davidic covenant, the substitutionary curse-bearer of Isaiah 53, and the only Savior in whom God and sinners dwell together.
The Hearing before the Sanhedrin, Part 1
Matthew 26:57–61 places Jesus before the Sanhedrin in what the preacher demonstrates was not an impartial criminal trial but a predetermined hearing whose guilty verdict had been settled before any witnesses were called. The sermon maps the political and ecclesiastical machinery of the Sanhedrin — its composition, its lack of authority to execute, its violations of due process, and its need to construct a charge sufficient to deliver Jesus to Pilate — and addresses the charge that the gospel accounts of these events are colored by anti-Semitism. Against that background, the contrast between the faithful witness of Christ and the fearful, distanced discipleship of Peter issues a direct call to close, unashamed allegiance to the Savior, and an invitation to unbelievers to come to the One who restores even those who deny him.
The Lord's Arrest in the Garden
Matthew 26:50-56 records the arrest of Christ in Gethsemane — an event the speaker expounds as the voluntary, scripturally determined surrender of the sinless Son of God, not a defeat. Working through four structural movements (betrayal, defense, assertion, and desertion), the sermon treats Peter's sword-stroke as a case study in zeal without knowledge, unpacks the legitimate and illegitimate uses of the sword in biblical ethics, and shows that Christ's willing submission to arrest was the necessary means by which He bore the wrath of God as the scapegoat for His people. The closing application summons hearers to the Psalm 2:12 command — 'Kiss the Son' — contrasting Judas's kiss of treachery with the saving trust that finds all shame removed in the One who went alone into the wilderness bearing sin.