Cited in sermons
John Gill
1,025 sermons · All people cited
Live Stream - September 25, 2022
Ephesians 2:14–18 presents Christ as the one who is our peace, who makes peace, and who preaches peace — accomplishing the reconciliation of both Jews and Gentiles to God through the blood of his cross. The abolition of the ceremonial law removes the middle wall of separation between the two peoples, creating one new man in Christ without distinction of privilege or standing before God. Access to the Father through the Son by one Spirit is inherently trinitarian, and the corporate assembly of God's people is the apex of that New Covenant blessing — making unexplained absence from gathered worship a forfeiture of the very Redemptive benefits Christ secured.
The Laws Concerning Homicide & Bodily Injury (Part I)
Exodus 21:12–21 applies the Sixth and Fifth Commandments through the judicial law of Israel, treating the capital offenses of murder, parental assault, cursing of parents, and kidnapping, then moving to laws governing non-fatal bodily injury and the discipline of servants. The sermon draws on the Noahic Covenant (Genesis 9:6), the abiding authority of civil government to bear the sword (Romans 13), and the general equity principle to argue that these case laws carry enduring moral weight even outside the Mosaic theocracy. Listeners are called to pray for civil governments to discharge their God-ordained duty of punishing criminal offenders, and to take seriously the fifth commandment's demand that parental authority be honored and enforced in the home.
The Law Concerning Servants
Exodus 21:1–11 opens what is commonly called the Book of the Covenant, the concrete judicial application of the Ten Commandments to Israel's civil life. The sermon situates this passage within the threefold division of the law — moral, ceremonial, and judicial — explaining why the judicial law expired with the Israelite commonwealth while its general equity retains moral use, and why the theonomic demand that modern civil magistrates enforce the Mosaic penal code lacks New Testament warrant. Working through three features of the law concerning servants — the limitation on service, the acquisition of a family during service, and the protection of female servants — the sermon argues that far from being barbaric, these laws reveal God's wisdom and kindness in restraining exploitation and protecting the vulnerable in a post-fall world.
Epilogue to the Decalogue
Deuteronomy 5:22 supplies a concise epilogue to the Decalogue, highlighting the divine origin, absolute authority, comprehensive character, and finality of God's moral law — a law that is trans-covenantal and binding on all men everywhere. Working through Exodus 20:18–26, this exposition examines Israel's terrified response to Sinai's theophany, Moses's distinction between slavish fear and filial fear of God, and the protocols for the altar that bridge the giving of the law to the detailed judicial legislation of chapters 21–23. The threefold division of the law — moral, ceremonial, and judicial — is defended against dispensationalist revision, with the 1689 LBCF chapter 19 paragraph 5 cited as the correct Reformed statement of the moral law's perpetuity. The sermon closes by calling believers to a filial fear of God as the most fundamental restraint against sin, and to gratitude that Christ, as the true Israel, perfectly kept the law his people swore and failed to keep.
The Blessings of the Resurrected Christ
Luke 24:36–53 presents the resurrected Christ bestowing concrete blessings upon his disciples before his ascension: peace, bodily proof of his resurrection, exposition of the Old Testament Scriptures, enabling grace for comprehension, and the promise of the Spirit. The physical demonstration Christ offers refutes both ancient Docetism and its modern heirs — if Christ did not truly assume humanity, the unassumed is the unhealed, and salvation itself is a phantom. The sermon calls believers to rest their religious affections upon the crucified, risen, and ascended Christ as the sum and substance of all biblical revelation, finding in him both the ground of present comfort and the power for gospel proclamation.
2LCF Chapter 16 - Of Good Works, Part 2
The 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, chapter 16, teaches that good works neither merit pardon of sin nor eternal life, yet are genuinely accepted by God — not on the ground of their own quality, but solely through the believer's union with Christ the Mediator. This session completes the chapter by examining first why good works are accepted in Christ (the Mediator's priestly office presenting both persons and works acceptable to God), and then the sixfold purpose of good works: expressing gratitude, strengthening assurance, edifying the brethren, adorning the doctrine of Christ, stopping the mouths of adversaries, and glorifying the triune God. The controlling application is that a right understanding of good works drives the believer away from every meritorious scheme and toward Christ alone, in whom both persons and performances are accepted.
The Judgment Seat of Christ
Matthew 7:21–23 confronts the reader with Christ's own words at the final judgment: 'I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.' The sermon argues that this passage is not a call to more good works but a stark exposition of the doctrine of justification by faith alone — the false professors are condemned not for lack of works but for resting upon their works as the ground of their acceptance with God. Self-righteousness is identified as a species of lawlessness, as damning as any gross immorality. The believer's only refuge is the doing, dying, and rising of Christ, received by faith alone, and it is to Christ — not to personal performance — that all assurance must be anchored.
2LCF Chapter 16 - Of Good Works, Part 1
Good works in the Christian life must be carefully defined, grounded, and distinguished from every meritorious scheme if the glory of Christ is to be preserved. This study of 2nd London Baptist Confession chapter 16 works through the definition of good works (their substance, manner, and definitive character as fruits and evidences of a lively faith), the necessary foundation of good works in the enabling power of the Holy Spirit, and the non-meritorious nature of good works as plainly asserted in Romans 3 and Galatians 2. The central burden is that no work of the creature — however sincere, however commanded — can merit pardon of sin or eternal life before God, because the only works that avail with divine justice are the active and passive obedience of Christ alone imputed to the believer by faith.
The Things God Hates
Proverbs 6:16–19 presents a numerical list of seven things God hates and finds abominable — a proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet swift in running to evil, a false witness who speaks lies, and one who sows discord among brethren. This sermon works through each item in canonical order, grounding the list in its immediate context (the portrait of the son of Belial in vv. 12–15) and in the broader testimony of Proverbs, the Psalms, and the New Testament. The abominable members (pride, lying, murder, the cunning heart, swift feet) and the abominable actions (perjury and discord) are each exposed and applied. The sermon concludes by urging hearers to pursue the opposites of each vice — humility, truth-telling, protection of innocent life, guarding the heart, swift pursuit of good, faithful witness, and peacemaking — and to rest in Christ, whose perfect obedience is the righteousness that covers remaining corruption in the believer.
The Idolatry of Solomon
Solomon's idolatry in 1 Kings 11:1–13 exposes how a man richly blessed by God — with the law, direct divine appearances, a faithful father, and transcendent wisdom — can fall into the grossest sin when he fails to guard his heart. The sermon traces the problem, precedent, and practice of Solomon's idolatry before examining God's just and covenant-shaped response: judgment tempered by the unconditional Davidic covenant that finds its telos in the Lord Jesus Christ. The passage issues sober warnings against the assumption that age, experience, knowledge, or good pedigree secure ongoing faithfulness apart from vigilant dependence on the Holy Spirit.
The Arrest of Peter and John
Acts 4:1–12 presents the arrest of Peter and John by the Sanhedrin and Peter's Spirit-filled defense before the council, in which he declares Jesus of Nazareth — crucified and risen — as the sole name under heaven by which men must be saved. The sermon traces two movements: the sovereign advance of God's word despite the imprisonment of its preachers (the number of believers growing to five thousand), and the christological and soteriological content of Peter's address, which grounds salvation exclusively in Christ's active obedience, atoning death, and resurrection. The stone rejected by the builders has become the chief cornerstone, and those who refuse him will ultimately be crushed by him. The sermon applies these realities to the perpetual persecution of the church, the exclusivity of the gospel, and the urgent call to believe on Christ alone for salvation.
The Commissioning of the Servant of Yahweh
Isaiah 42:1–13 presents the first servant song of Isaiah as Yahweh's formal commissioning of his servant — the Lord Jesus Christ — to bring righteous rule, freedom from spiritual darkness, and universal dominion to the Gentiles. The sermon traces three movements: the presentation of the servant in his humility, compassion, and unfailing determination (vv. 1–4); the mission given to him by Yahweh the Creator, including the gift of an everlasting righteousness and conquest of the kingdom of darkness (vv. 5–9); and the victorious global praise that flows from his completed mission (vv. 10–13). The listener is called either to look to Christ in faith as the one who will not break a bruised reed, or to reckon soberly with the warrior-king who will prevail against every enemy that remains in rebellion.
The Greatest Commandments
Matthew 22:34–40 records a Pharisaic lawyer testing Jesus with the question of which commandment is greatest. Jesus answers by citing the Shema from Deuteronomy 6:4–5 and the neighbor-love command from Leviticus 19:18, thereby summarizing the entire Decalogue under two heads: love to God and love to man. This sermon argues that Christ's endorsement of these two commandments confirms the abiding validity of the moral law for New Covenant believers, who are called to keep it not as a means of justification but as the Spirit-wrought response of those already justified by faith alone. The hearer is pressed to recognize that the law's demand — to love God with the whole self and the neighbor as oneself — drives the believer perpetually to Christ, in whom alone that demand has been perfectly met.
The Reaction to the Bread of Life Discourse
John 6:60–71 presents the sharpest crisis of Jesus's Bread of Life discourse: the mass departure of superficial disciples and the steadfast confession of the Twelve. This sermon traces three interrelated truths in Jesus's response — the life-giving Spirit as the sole agent of spiritual understanding, total depravity as the explanation for unbelief, and the sovereign grace of the Father as both the cause of faith and the ground of its perseverance. The application presses the church not to soften biblical truth before a resistant generation, but to press it, trusting that the Spirit alone opens the hearts of the dead to receive the words of eternal life.
The Apostle's Prayer for the Ephesians, Part 2
Ephesians 1:19–23 presents the climax of Paul's apostolic prayer: that believers would know the exceeding greatness of God's power. This sermon expounds three demonstrations of that power in Christ — his resurrection from the dead, his current session at the right hand of the Father, and his dominion over all things for the sake of the church. The doctrines of inseparable operations and appropriations ground the Trinitarian account of these events, while the universal and eternal sovereignty of the enthroned Christ is set forth as the foundation for perseverance, praise, and fearlessness in the face of hostile spiritual and civil powers.
The Ministry of Paul in Corinth
What does faithful gospel ministry look like when met with sustained opposition, rejection, and fear? Expounding Acts 18:1–11 within Paul's second missionary journey, this sermon traces four movements: Paul's strategic arrival in Corinth, his testimony in the synagogue, the fierce Jewish opposition and his response, and the Lord's night vision that commands him to speak because God already has a people in the city. The sermon argues that sovereign election and human culpability stand together — the God who predestines the elect also holds every rejector accountable for his own blood. A closing application presses believers toward faithful gospel proclamation, the planting of churches, and the catechesis of covenant children as genuine instruments of the effectual call.
The 9th Commandment, Part 2
James 1:26 places the ninth commandment's prohibition of false witness directly inside the local church: a professing believer who does not bridle his tongue deceives himself, and his religion is exposed as useless — the same Greek word applied to idolatry. The sermon surveys the tongue's destructive power across James 3–4, Matthew 12 and 15, and a wide range of Proverbs texts, arguing that sins of speech are systematically undertriaged in the church compared to sins of action. Ten practical helps are offered, grounded in the conviction that taming the tongue is a fruit of genuine saving faith and requires the enabling power of the Holy Spirit working through the ordinary means of grace.
The Oppression of Israel by Pharaoh
Exodus 1 records the escalating oppression of Israel in Egypt — from the rise of an ignorant pharaoh, through forced labor, to an explicit policy of infanticide targeting Hebrew male infants. This exposition traces the passage in two movements: the connection between Exodus and the Abrahamic promises of Genesis, and the progressive stages of Pharaoh's tyranny, culminating in a national decree of genocide. The Hebrew midwives Shiphrah and Puah are held up as models of God-fearing civil disobedience, and the whole chapter is read typologically, anticipating the greater deliverance wrought through Moses and ultimately through the seed of Abraham, Jesus Christ. The congregation is called to imitate the courage of the faithful — to obey God rather than men in whatever sphere God has placed them.
The Bread of Life Discourse, Part 4
John 6:48–59 brings the Bread of Life discourse to its conclusion, with Christ pressing upon unbelieving hearers the absolute necessity of eating His flesh and drinking His blood — a sustained metaphor for saving faith in His atoning sacrifice. The sermon demonstrates that this language is not eucharistic or literal but is the equivalent of coming to, receiving, and believing on Christ as the one who gives His flesh for the life of the world. The exposition draws out five doctrines of grace embedded in the discourse — total depravity, unconditional election, particular redemption, irresistible grace, and the preservation of the saints — and closes by tracing the glory of Christ seen in the incarnation, His power to save, His divine origin, and His patient mercy in repeating the same call to faith before a rejecting audience.
The Ministry of the Holy Spirit, Part 2
Ephesians 1:13–14 presents the Holy Spirit as both the seal and the guarantee of the believer's inheritance, grounding the security of salvation not in human performance but in the inseparable operations of the triune God. The sermon traces the instrumentality of the word of truth — showing that sinners must hear the gospel before they can believe — and then expounds the sealing of the Spirit as authentication, ownership, and security. The guarantee of the Spirit is the first installment of a heavenly inheritance that awaits the full redemption of the purchased possession at the consummation of the age. Believers are therefore urged to rest their assurance in the Father who chose, the Son who redeemed, and the Spirit who seals and guarantees.
The 8th Commandment, Part 2 & Economic Theory
The Eighth Commandment's prohibition against theft carries positive moral obligations — diligent labor, charitable giving, and biblical contentment — and provides the scriptural framework for evaluating economic and political systems. Drawing on the Mosaic law, the apostolic letters, and historical narrative, the sermon argues that socialism and communism are founded upon institutionalised theft and therefore stand under divine condemnation, while capitalism, for all its imperfections, respects the God-given right to private property. Israel's demand for a king in 1 Samuel 8 and Ahab's seizure of Naboth's vineyard in 1 Kings 21 are presented as biblical case studies in governmental confiscation. Hearers are exhorted to cultivate contentment, labor faithfully, give charitably, and judge all economic theory by the standard of Exodus 20:15.
The Redemptive Work of the Son, Part 2
Ephesians 1:8–12 grounds the individual believer's redemption within a cosmic divine purpose: God's wisdom in the plan of salvation maintains all his holy perfections without compromise, the mystery of his will now openly revealed in the gospel calls sinners from every tribe and nation, and all things will be recapitulated — gathered up and set in order — under the lordship of Christ at his return. The inheritance of the elect is secured by predestination, not by human performance, so that the redeemed exist 'to the praise of his glory' — as a trophy case of grace before angels and the entire created order.
The Prophecy Concerning the Resurrection
Peter's Pentecost sermon in Acts 2:24–32 anchors the resurrection of Jesus Christ not in apostolic invention but in the prophetic word of Psalm 16, written by David nearly a millennium before the event. Working through Peter's appeal to and interpretation of that psalm, this exposition traces four aspects of the Messiah's disposition before His death — His focus, joy, confidence, and dependence upon the Father — and demonstrates that David, writing as a prophet under the Davidic covenant of 2 Samuel 7, could not have been describing his own resurrection since his tomb remained occupied. The resurrection is therefore the Father's public vindication that divine justice has been fully satisfied by Christ, the ground of the believer's justification, and the fulfillment of the Davidic covenant promise that one from David's line would build an eternal house for God. The sermon closes by calling sinners — however guilty — to call upon the risen Lord Jesus, the one on the middle cross who alone can grant everlasting life.
The Bread of Life Discourse, Part 2
John 6:35–40 presents Christ as the Bread of Life whose identity, sovereignty, and redemptive mission are inseparable. The sermon expounds three movements in the text: Christ's self-identification as the Bread of Life with its attendant promise that those who come to Him will never hunger or thirst; the declaration of divine sovereignty in verse 37, grounding the certainty of salvation in the Father's eternal gift of a people to the Son; and the revelation of the Father's will in verses 38–40, encompassing the Son's mediatorial mission, the preservation of all given to Him, and the call to every sinner to see the Son in the preaching of the Word and believe. The doctrines of grace — total depravity, unconditional election, definite atonement, irresistible grace, and the perseverance and preservation of the saints — are shown to arise directly from the text, and the sermon closes by pressing the free offer of the gospel against both Arminian uncertainty and hyper-Calvinist paralysis.
The Redemptive Work of the Son, Part 1
Ephesians 1:6–7 sets forth the redemptive work of the Son within the triune economy of salvation, moving from the Father's electing purpose in eternity past to Christ's historic accomplishment of redemption in time. The sermon expounds two interlocking realities: the Father's sovereign initiative in bestowing grace upon the elect in the Beloved, and the Son's purchase of redemption through the shedding of his blood. Redemption is shown to be not a mere exercise of divine power but the payment of a ransom price, with the forgiveness of sins as its primary blessing — all flowing from the inexhaustible riches of God's grace. Hearers are called to respond with worship, gratitude, and increasing love for Christ, the Beloved of both the Father and the redeemed.
The Bread of Life Discourse, Part 1
John 6:22–34 records the opening exchange of the bread of life discourse, in which Jesus confronts a crowd whose pursuit of Him is driven entirely by physical appetite rather than spiritual need. The sermon works through three movements: the exposed motive of the people (vv. 22–26), the Savior's exhortation to labor for food that endures to everlasting life (vv. 27–29), and the crowd's demand for a sign to rival Moses (vv. 30–34). Central to the exposition is Jesus' declaration that the 'work of God' is faith in the One the Father has sent — a faith that is itself God's gift — and His identification of Himself as the true bread of God who comes down from heaven to give life to the world, surpassing the manna of the wilderness and extending to every tribe, tongue, people, and nation.
The Lord Who Treads the Waves
John 6:16–21 records the fifth of the seven signs in John's Gospel: Jesus walking on the Sea of Galilee toward his storm-tossed disciples. The sermon works through two movements — the disciples' vulnerability in the storm and the Savior's sovereign approach across the water — to establish that Jesus, by treading the waves, enacts what the Old Testament attributes exclusively to Yahweh (Job 9:8; Psalm 77:19; Isaiah 43:16), thereby demonstrating his consubstantiality with the Father and his lordship over the natural order. The divine self-disclosure 'I am' (ego eimi), voiced both here and at key junctures throughout John's Gospel, is shown to be Jesus' deliberate appropriation of the covenant name revealed to Moses in Exodus 3:14. The sermon closes by pressing the theological remedy for the fear that afflicts God's people: a right knowledge of Christ as the great I AM displaces anxiety about trials, persecutions, and earthly circumstances.
The Gracious Purpose of the Father
Ephesians 1:3–6 opens with what the Apostle Paul calls a 'barakah' — a formal blessing of God followed by specific reasons for that praise. This sermon expounds the Father's role in the covenant of redemption: His sovereign, unconditional election of sinners in Christ before the foundation of the world, and His predestinating purpose that those chosen would be made holy and blameless. Election is the cause, not the consequence, of faith and repentance — sinners dead in trespasses and sins are chosen not because of foreseen merit but according to the good pleasure of God's will alone. The sermon calls believers to respond to the doctrine of election not with defensive polemic but with the doxological posture Paul himself models: praise, blessing, and adoration to God Most High.
2LCF Chapter 9 - Of Free Will
What does it mean that human beings have 'free will'? This confession-study exposition of 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 9 argues that free will is real but always conditioned by the moral state of the heart — whether man is in original innocency, post-lapsarian sin, the state of grace, or the state of glory. The fourfold framework drawn from the Confession exposes the Pelagian and Arminian error of treating free will as unqualified and neutral, while grounding the sinner's inability and the believer's renewal entirely in sovereign, monergistic grace. The study closes with the pastoral application that even the believer's ongoing corruption is no surprise, and that the state of glory — not the present age — is where the will is at last perfectly and immutably free to good alone.
The Witnesses for the Defense
In John 5:31–40, Jesus faces charges of blasphemy and Sabbath-breaking and responds not by deflecting but by calling four corroborating witnesses to establish his consubstantiality with the Father: John the Baptist, his own works, the Father's testimony, and the Scriptures themselves. The sermon traces each witness in turn, showing that Christ's equality with God is not a later theological invention but the central claim of his own ministry, attested by every strand of divine revelation. The passage culminates in a sobering indictment: those who search the Scriptures seeking eternal life while refusing to come to Christ have missed the entire point of revelation, for Christ is the telos of all Scripture. Hearers are called to reckon with the gravity of sin and to come to Christ by grace through faith as the only ground of everlasting life.