Cited in sermons
John Calvin
990 sermons · All people cited
The Second Commandment
The second commandment (Deuteronomy 5:8–10) distinguishes the object of worship, addressed by the first commandment, from the manner of worship — forbidding both the making and the worship of images as representations of God, including images of the Lord Jesus Christ. The sermon works through three considerations: the positive demand for regulated worship according to the regulative principle, the twofold prohibition against idol-making and idol-worship, and the reasons grounded in the jealousy of God and the covenant curse and blessing. The great need of the hour is not merely moral reform but the proclamation of the gospel so that sinners are turned from their idols to worship the living God in the way He has prescribed.
The Instruction on Celibacy and Children
Matthew 19:10–15 presents two closely linked teachings: Christ's instruction on celibacy and His reception of little children. Against Rome's doctrine of clerical celibacy and any Protestant tendency to exalt singleness above marriage, the sermon argues that celibacy is a sovereign gift of God given to some, not a spiritual superior state to be mandated or celebrated above the married estate. The blessing of the children exposes the disciples' failure to understand that Christ receives the weak and dependent, and the passage calls fathers to the concrete duty of bringing their children to Christ through prayer, Scripture, and faithful church attendance.
2LCF Chapter 16 - Of Good Works, Part 2
The second half of a two-part study on 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 16 (Of Good Works) examines paragraphs four through seven, working through the doctrines of supererogation, the nature of merit, the acceptance of believers' works before God, and the status of works performed by the unregenerate. Supererogation — the Roman Catholic teaching that the saints perform meritorious works beyond what God requires, which the church then dispenses as indulgences — is refuted from Romans 3 as incompatible with the universal sinfulness of mankind and the nature of divine law. The study then distinguishes between condign merit (which belongs to Christ alone) and any informal divine reward, while grounding the acceptance of believers' imperfect works solely in their union with Christ and God's free grace. The works of unregenerate men, however outwardly decent, are shown to be spiritually dead, incapable of pleasing God, though greater external wickedness remains more displeasing to him than lesser.
The Instruction on Divorce, Part 2
Sexual immorality and willful desertion are the two lawful grounds for divorce recognized in Scripture, and this exposition of 1 Corinthians 7:10–16 establishes both the prohibition against divorce and the Pauline exception. Paul's instruction divides into two sections: the command to believing spouses not to separate, and the rule governing mixed marriages in which one partner is converted after the wedding. The sermon argues that when an unbeliever departs and dissolves the marriage, the believing spouse is released from bondage and may remarry, grounding that conclusion in the absence of a prohibition in verse 15, the consistent biblical assumption that lawful divorce permits remarriage, and the analogy with Matthew 19:9. Throughout, the original intent of marriage as a lifelong, one-flesh covenant is upheld as the governing norm, with the exceptions confirming rather than undermining that norm.
The Instruction on Divorce, Part 1
Matthew 19:7–9 presents a Pharisaic challenge to Jesus on the Mosaic permission for divorce, and this sermon works through that challenge under two heads: the Pharisees' objection and Christ's response. The exposition moves through Deuteronomy 24:1–4, demonstrating that its protasis (verses 1–3) assumes the legitimacy of divorce and remarriage, while its apodosis (verse 4) prohibits only return to a first husband — not remarriage as such. Drawing on Leviticus 21, Ezra, Jeremiah 3, and the Westminster Confession 24.5, the sermon argues that porneia (sexual immorality broadly construed) constitutes a lawful ground for divorce and remarriage, and that to forbid what God's law permits is both antinomian and a burden God never intended to lay on innocent parties.
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 Instruction on Marriage
Titus 1:1–9 provides Paul's instructions to Titus for establishing gospel order on the island of Crete, centering on the appointment of qualified elders. The sermon works through the twofold purpose of Titus's ministry — setting things in order and appointing elders in every city — before examining the elder's domestic faithfulness (blamelessness, sexual fidelity, faithful children) and personal faithfulness (five vices to avoid, six virtues to exemplify). The exposition closes with the elder's indispensable giftedness: holding fast sound doctrine so as to both exhort the people of God and silence those who contradict. The whole is applied to the congregation as a call to pray for qualified men, to know the qualifications, and to insist that the church install only those who demonstrably meet them.
2LCF Chapter 13 - Of Sanctification
Sanctification belongs to the unbreakable chain of redemption: all whom God effectually calls and regenerates will be sanctified and glorified. This study of 1689 LBCF Chapter 13 traces both a divine and a human chronology of sanctification, distinguishing definitive sanctification — the once-for-all decisive break with sin's dominion accomplished in Christ's crosswork — from progressive sanctification, the ongoing renewal of the whole man by the indwelling Spirit through the Word, prayer, and the sacraments. The sermon insists that conflating sanctification with justification corrupts the gospel no less than denying sanctification's necessity, and calls believers to pursue holiness through joyful, evangelical obedience to the law of Christ.
The Pharisee and the Publican
How can a sinful person be accepted before a holy God? Jesus answers that question directly in Luke 18:9–14, where two men pray in the temple and only one goes home justified. The parable exposes the bankruptcy of self-righteousness — trusting in one's own moral record before God — and vindicates the tax collector who, acknowledging himself as 'the sinner,' casts himself wholly on divine mercy. Justification belongs to those who bring nothing but their sin and receive by faith alone the righteousness of Christ, whose personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience is imputed to all who trust in him.
The Conduct of God's Servant
Second Timothy 2:20–26 confronts the reality that the visible church always contains both honorable and dishonorable vessels, and calls God's servant to respond not with contentious disputation but with flight from youthful lusts, pursuit of righteousness, and gentle correction of those in error. Paul's metaphor of vessels in a great house is applied to Timothy's pastoral conduct: cleansing oneself from the influence of false teachers issues in sanctification and fitness for the Master's use. The closing verses ground the servant's patient, humble engagement in the doctrine of repentance as a sovereign gift of God — not merely a failure of argument or evidence, but a work of divine grace that alone restores men from the devil's snare to rational, truth-knowing life.
The Herald and His Proclamation, Part 2
Peter's Pentecost sermon in Acts 2:22–36 rests on two pillars the preacher draws out in this evening exposition: a voracious history and a marvelous yet sobering Christology. The resurrection of Christ is not mythology but attested fact — confirmed by Lukan preambles, apostolic eyewitness statements, post-resurrection narratives, and Paul's logical argument in 1 Corinthians 15. From that historical foundation, four Christological truths press upon every hearer: Christ has been raised, exalted to God's right hand, has poured out the Holy Spirit, and has been given all authority as both Lord and Christ — each truth a marvel for the believer and a sober warning to all who remain in unbelief.
The Vainglory, the Virtue, and the Verity (Part 2)
Jeremiah 9:23–24 sets a prohibitive warning against glorying in wisdom, strength, and riches, and answers it with a positive prescription: glory exclusively in the understanding and knowledge of God. This sermon (Part 2) works through the 'virtue' and the 'verity' of that text — the virtue being the necessity of knowing God (as the source of all true wisdom, everlasting life, and proper humility), and the verity being the three attendant truths God announces about himself: he alone is the Lord, he exercises loving-kindness, and he governs in judgment and righteousness. The sermon closes with a direct call to those outside of Christ to abandon vainglorious boasting and close with the one in whom true wisdom, strength, and riches are found.
The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant
Peter's question about the limits of forgiveness — 'up to seven times?' — draws from Christ the parable of a servant forgiven an astronomically unpayable debt who then seizes a fellow servant over a trifling sum. This sermon works through Matthew 18:21–35 in three movements: the setting of Peter's question, the three scenes of the parable itself, and the concluding verdict of verse 35. The central argument is that the forgiven community must be a forgiving community — not by counting to 490, but by forgiving without counting — and that a professing Christian who withholds forgiveness from a repentant brother thereby gives evidence that he himself has never truly received the grace of God.
The Thief on the Cross
Luke 23:39–43 presents the conversion of the thief on the cross as one of the most remarkable examples of sovereign grace in all of Scripture. Examined under two broad headings — the conversion of the thief and the response of the Savior — the sermon traces five marks of genuine conversion in the criminal's transformation from blasphemer to confessor, and then turns to Christ as willing, able, and glorious Savior. The passage is shown to demolish both works-righteousness and sacramentalism, grounding salvation entirely in grace through faith in Christ alone. Hearers are urged not to defer repentance, to call upon Christ while He may be found, and to come to the Lord's Table with eyes fixed not on their own obedience but on the excellence of the Savior.
The Solid Foundation of God
The apostle Paul's charge to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:16–19 to shun profane and idle babblings confronts the church with two realities: the devastating spread of doctrinal heresy and the unshakeable solidity of God's foundation. Paul names Hymenaeus and Philetus as concrete examples of men who, by denying the future bodily resurrection, not only increase in ungodliness themselves but overthrow the faith of others — a danger compared to gangrene consuming a body. Against this alarm, verse 19 supplies a double seal of comfort: the doctrine of election (the Lord knows those who are His) and the doctrine of sanctification (those who name Christ depart from iniquity), grounding the confidence that no heretical assault can ultimately destroy what God has established. The sermon applies these truths by calling the church both to vigilant doctrinal discipline and to fearless trust in God's sovereign preservation of His people.
The Possession of the Church's Authority
Christ's declaration in Matthew 18:18 — 'whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven' — establishes that the local church possesses a real, though delegated, authority to exercise the keys of the kingdom through gospel preaching and church discipline. Drawing on the parallel passage in Matthew 16:19 and the Heidelberg Catechism's definition of the keys, the sermon argues that binding and loosing refer to the church's authority to exclude the unrepentant and restore the repentant, always in accordance with God's word and never by arbitrary preference. Verses 19 and 20 ground this authority in the corporate prayer and the promised presence of Christ himself among his people when they faithfully implement these keys. The sermon closes with a summons to love the church, exercise its authority prayerfully, and pursue its three primary duties — preaching, discipline, and the administration of the sacraments — without addition or subtraction.
The Pursuit of Christian Unity
Ephesians 4:1–3 commands believers to walk worthy of their calling by cultivating four virtues — lowliness, gentleness, long-suffering, and forbearing love — as the means by which the church maintains the Spirit-wrought unity already given to it. The sermon distinguishes this genuine, truth-grounded unity from any ecumenicism that achieves togetherness by dissolving doctrinal conviction. Because the Holy Spirit is the author of church unity and the triune God is its ultimate foundation, to abandon the pursuit of it is to dishonor God himself. Hearers are pressed to give diligent, active effort to preserve what the Spirit has produced, and those outside of Christ are reminded that Christian ethics, including the pursuit of unity, can only flow from salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
The Procedure for Church Discipline, Part 3
Church discipline in Matthew 18:15–17 follows a divinely ordered three-step procedure: private confrontation, the involvement of witnesses, and finally the public action of the gathered church. This sermon works through the second and third steps, examining the Old Testament warrant for the two-or-three-witness requirement (Deuteronomy 19:15) and the nature of the church's decisive judgment to treat the unrepentant as a heathen and tax collector. The goal at every stage remains the recovery of the sinning brother, and excommunication — a corporate act of the whole congregation, not merely the elders — is understood as an expression of love and a means God may use to bring a rebel to repentance. The sermon closes with an evangelistic warning: the church's earthly excommunication is a pale shadow of the final excommunication pronounced by Christ on the last day.
2LCF Chapter 11 - Of Justification, Part 2
The forensic doctrine of justification — God's one-time legal declaration that the sinner is righteous on the sole ground of Christ's imputed righteousness — faces persistent assault in every era. This session surveys three modern deviations: Arminian evangelicalism (which collapses faith into a meritorious work or relocates righteousness within the believer), the New Perspective on Paul (which reframes Paul's argument as a corrective for ethnic exclusivity rather than a remedy for the condemnation of sin), and the Federal Vision (which renders righteousness relational, conflates Christ's faithfulness with the believer's, and anticipates a future eschatological justification grounded in covenantal obedience). Against all three, Scripture and the confession insist that justification is a completed legal verdict, not a process, and that its ground is exclusively the active and passive obedience of Christ credited to the elect.
1 Samuel 15, Part 2
Divine impassibility — the classical Christian doctrine that God does not undergo emotional changes — stands at the center of a textual tension in 1 Samuel 15: verses 11 and 35 record that God 'greatly regrets' making Saul king, while verse 29 declares that the Strength of Israel 'will not lie nor relent, for he is not a man that he should relent.' This study argues that there is no contradiction, paradox, or problem in the text, but that the apparent tension is resolved by understanding anthropopathism (the ascription of human emotions to God in Scripture as accommodated language), the priority of divine-essence texts in interpretation, and the inseparable relationship between impassibility and immutability. The practical stakes are high: to modify impassibility is to unravel divine simplicity, omniscience, independence, and eternity, and ultimately to rob God of his divine nature and religion of its firm foundation and assured comfort.
The Risen Lord and a Doubting Disciple
Thomas's demand to physically verify Christ's resurrection before believing exposes the human tendency to place conditions upon God — the creature setting terms for the Creator. This sermon works through John 20:24–31, examining Thomas's obstinacy, the patient grace of Christ who meets Thomas on his own stated terms, and the lofty confession that follows: 'My Lord and my God.' The passage closes with John's stated purpose in writing the fourth gospel — that readers would believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and so have life in his name — a purpose the risen Lord underscores in his final beatitude: blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.
The Minister Approved by God
What does God require of a faithful gospel minister when heresy invades the church? Expositing 2 Timothy 2:14–15, this sermon argues that the approved minister is marked by three things: a diligent commitment to reminding the people of God of gospel truth, a pursuit of God's approval rather than human favor, and an accurate, straight-cut handling of the word of truth. The damning danger of false teaching — whether outright denial of the resurrection or the subtler corruption of justification by works — makes these qualifications not merely desirable but necessary for the health of the church.
2LCF Chapter 11 - Of Justification, Part 1
Justification is the cardinal article of the Christian faith — the doctrine on which the church stands or falls. This first of two sessions on 1689 London Baptist Confession Chapter 11 (paragraphs 1–6) surveys the definition of justification through the Confession, the Westminster Shorter Catechism, the Belgic Confession, and the 39 Articles, then examines five reasons why departure from the biblical doctrine is catastrophic: it is a damnable error, it diminishes the holiness and justice of God, it contradicts God's eternal decree, it lessens the severity of sin and robs Christ of his exclusivity as Savior, and it destroys the believer's peace. The session closes by tracing the three historical errors the Confession's negations target — Roman Catholicism, Anabaptism, and Arminianism — and calls the hearer to treasure the precise forensic definition of justification as a bulwark against every corruption of the gospel.
The Incentives for Perseverance, Part 2
Paul's 'faithful saying' in 2 Timothy 2:11–13 supplies three conditional clauses that together form both an encouragement and a warning for the persevering Christian. The sermon exposits the believer's union with Christ in conversion (dying and rising with Him), the present communion that sustains endurance, and the solemn warning that denial of Christ evidences a faithlessness that Christ Himself will not overlook. The means of grace — Scripture, prayer, and corporate worship including the Lord's Supper — are set out as the God-appointed instruments by which believers are kept running the race.
The Procedure for Church Discipline, Part 1
Matthew 18:15 introduces Christ's binding procedure for church discipline within the local church — a subject that exposes both the authority of the head of the church and the love that drives the restoration of erring brothers. Four introductory matters are addressed before the first step is reached: the definition of formative and corrective discipline, the necessity of discipline as obedience to Christ, key presuppositions (including five biblical arguments for defined church membership), and the practice considered against common misreadings of Matthew 7 and Matthew 13. The purpose of discipline is shown to be threefold: the reconciliation and restoration of the offender, the purity of Christ's church for the glory of God, and the protection of the people of God from the spread of unchecked sin.
The Incentives for Perseverance, Part 1
Paul's command to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:3 — endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ — is not left without support. This sermon expounds 2 Timothy 2:8–10, identifying two of three incentives Paul provides for perseverance: the contemplation of Christ in his true humanity, Davidic lineage, and resurrection, and the conduct of Paul whose imprisonment and suffering demonstrate that the word of God cannot be chained. The doctrine of election underlies Paul's endurance, for he suffers all things for the sake of the elect, knowing that gospel preaching is the God-ordained means by which they obtain salvation in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. Hearers are called to feed their souls on Christ through Scripture and to measure their own trials against the apostolic pattern of suffering for the gospel.
The Warning Against Despising Believers
Jesus' warning in Matthew 18:10–14 against despising fellow believers is neither a peripheral concern nor a suggestion for pleasant church life — it is a binding command addressed to the very tendency toward pride and contempt that lurks in regenerate hearts. The sermon works through three movements: the prohibition itself with its two supporting reasons (the ministry of angels and the redemptive mission of the Son of Man), the parable of the straying sheep (read in its Matthean context as pastoral recovery rather than evangelistic proclamation), and the Father's stated will that none of these little ones should perish. The congregation is pressed to see that when the Father, the Son, and the angels all esteem the little ones, any contempt shown by one believer toward another is an affront to the entire Trinitarian economy of redemption. The exhortation is concrete: kill pride at the root, receive rather than reject fellow believers, and willingly surrender Christian liberties rather than scandalize a brother for whom Christ died.
The Warning Against Causing Offense
Matthew 18:5–9 confronts the damning danger of causing offense — the Greek scandalon — to Christ's 'little ones,' those who believe in him. The passage divides the threat into two categories: offenses arising from a godless world that inevitably opposes the people of God, and offenses that arise from within the covenant community through moral corruption and intellectual perversion. Jesus' language is extreme by design — a millstone pulled by a donkey hung around one's neck and cast into the depths of the sea is declared preferable to the eternal consequences awaiting those who ensnare a brother or sister in sin. The sermon calls believers to receive one another with genuine humility, to deal radically with whatever personal sin or liberty causes another to stumble, and to take seriously the eternal weight of their influence within the church.
The Minister's Duty to Endure Hardship
Paul's command in 2 Timothy 2:3–7 that Timothy endure hardship is not a gentle suggestion but an apostolic imperative addressed to every minister of the gospel in every age. Working through three interlocking metaphors — the soldier, the athlete, and the farmer — this exposition shows that faithful gospel ministry requires the devoted single-mindedness of a soldier who lives to please his commander, the disciplined self-denial of an athlete training for an imperishable crown, and the diligent hard work of a farmer who knows that cause and effect govern his harvest. A fourth element, drawn from verse 7, calls the minister to be a dedicated disciple who meditates on apostolic doctrine and trusts the Lord to give understanding through that Word alone. The whole passage is set within the larger purpose of the ministry: the glory of God, the edification of the saints, and the salvation of sinners by sovereign grace.
The Greatest in the Kingdom
Matthew 18:1–4 confronts the disciples' dispute over who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven with a child placed in their midst as the model of kingdom greatness. The sermon exposes pride as a systemic spiritual disorder native to fallen humanity — present even among the regenerate — and argues from Christ's own words that the kingdom ethic inverts worldly ambition entirely: the greatest is the most humble. Three means of cultivating genuine humility are set out: knowing oneself rightly through Scripture, knowing the person and work of Christ in his self-humiliation, and knowing the glory of God as revealed in texts such as Isaiah 40.