Cited in sermons
John Gill
1,025 sermons · All people cited
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.
The Confidence of the Believer
Micah 7 opens with a prophet's anguished cry — 'Woe is me' — over the collapse of covenant faithfulness in Israel: corrupt leadership, broken families, and the absence of godly community. The sermon works through three movements in the chapter: Micah's lamentation over the state of the covenant people (vv. 1–6), his counsel to the faithful remnant to look to God and trust his promises (vv. 7–13), and his petitions and doxology to the God who pardons iniquity, subdues sin, and casts all transgressions into the depths of the sea (vv. 14–20). The central corrective the prophet offers is the same one the just have always lived by: not optimism, not realism, but faith in the sovereign God of the covenant, whose compassions are new each morning and whose purposes for his remnant cannot be frustrated.
The Refuge for God's People
Psalm 46 sets the people of God in the midst of cosmic and political chaos and calls them to find their sole refuge in the Lord of hosts. This exposition works through four movements in the psalm — the assurance of God's presence, the demonstration of his power over creation and the nations, the invitation to rehearse his past works in redemptive history, and the command to be still and know that he is God. The sermon argues that Reformed Christians who rightly confess God's sovereignty in salvation must equally rest in that sovereignty under tyranny, pandemic, and war. The chief application is that the church must know God — his perfections, his names, his covenant fidelity — because it is the knowledge of God, not practical principles, that steadies the soul and fuels missionary confidence in the darkest of times.
The Wisdom of Little Things
Proverbs 30:24–28 presents four creatures — ants, conies, locusts, and a spider or lizard — each marked by inherent weakness yet possessing a compensatory wisdom that enables them to thrive. Expounding Agur's numerical proverb, this sermon draws out four corresponding virtues for the people of God: industry in preparation, caution before danger, unity in cooperation, and persistence under adversity. Both temporal and spiritual dimensions of each lesson are developed — from Sabbatarian labor ethics and self-defense to readiness for the day of judgment and the endurance of the Christian race. The whole is gathered under a call to honest self-awareness: to know one's limitations, refuse indolence and complaint, and by grace overcome through wisdom.
The Consubstantiality of the Son, Part 1
John 5:16–23 records the Jewish charge that Jesus made himself equal with God — and Christ's unequivocal affirmation of that charge. Working through verses 16–23, this sermon demonstrates that Jesus responds not by correcting a misunderstanding but by confirming, through four lines of argument, that he is consubstantial with the Father: sharing the same works, the same love, the same life-giving power, and the same sovereign rule. The stakes are ultimate — to dishonor the Son is to dishonor the Father, and to lack the Son is to lack God entirely.
The Judgment Throne of Christ
Matthew 25:31–46 presents not a parable but a prophecy: the Son of Man, identified as Daniel's divine king, will sit on the throne of glory and separate all nations into the righteous and the wicked. The passage is examined to show that it does not overturn justification by faith alone, but rather demonstrates that those justified by grace will inevitably produce the good works that serve as fruits and evidences of saving faith. The sermon sets the evidentiary nature of works — care for Christ's brethren — against any works-righteousness reading, drawing on Galatians 5:6, Ephesians 2:8–10, James 2, and the 1689 London Baptist Confession to ground the argument. Hearers are called to confess Christ now, since the same Lord who bids 'come' in his earthly ministry will bid 'come' or 'depart' on the day of judgment.
The Healing of the Nobleman's Son
John 4:43–54 records the second sign Jesus performed in Galilee: the healing of a royal official's son from a distance of sixteen miles. The passage exposes both the deficient faith that demands visible proof before believing and the sufficient power of Christ's spoken word, which heals without physical presence. The nobleman's earnest intercession for his dying son becomes a pointed application for parents to implore God persistently for their children's spiritual wellbeing. The sign itself points beyond physical healing to the life given to all who believe the word of Christ.
The Prayer of the Persecuted Church
When the early church faced arrest and official prohibition of gospel preaching, its first instinct was corporate prayer — not political agitation or fearful compliance. This exposition of Acts 4:23–31 traces the structure of that prayer: an invocation of God as sovereign Creator, an exposition of Psalm 2 applied to the conspiracy against Christ and his people, and a pointed supplication not for safety or comfort but for boldness to declare the word. The sermon calls the contemporary church to the same God-centred prayer, understanding persecution as something always beneath the sovereign hand of God, and faithfulness in proclamation as the unchanging vocation of every Christian steward.
The Burial of Jesus
The burial of Jesus in Matthew 27:57–66 is examined across two movements: the burial proper (vv. 57–61) and the security measures taken at the tomb (vv. 62–66). Against both the swoon theory and ancient Jewish counter-testimony that the disciples stole the body, the sermon marshals the apologetic force of the sealed, guarded, newly-hewn tomb to demonstrate that the resurrection overcame every human precaution. The burial also carries weight in four theological categories: it confirms the reality of Christ's death, marks the final act of his humiliation as the last Adam, demonstrates his conquest of death, and strips the grave of its paralyzing power for all who belong to him.
Chapter 7 - Of God's Covenant
1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 7 traces the biblical and theological architecture of God's covenant: from the necessity of divine condescension (paragraph 1), through the gracious character of the covenant of grace (paragraph 2), to the three theological covenants — grace, redemption, and works — and their progressive historical unfolding (paragraph 3). The session contrasts covenant theology with dispensationalism and New Covenant theology as competing hermeneutical frameworks, argues that the Old (Mosaic) Covenant functioned as a republication of the covenant of works rather than an administration of the covenant of grace, and demonstrates from Genesis 3:15 through Jeremiah 31 and Matthew 26 that all historical covenants advance a single promise of redemption finally and fully disclosed in the new covenant inaugurated by Christ. The practical payoff is a robustly confessional case for believers-only baptism: the new covenant community is defined by inward regeneration, universal knowledge of the Lord, and definitive forgiveness — marks that exclude the external-and-internal covenant structure required to justify paedobaptism.
Clip: Flyover of Covenant Theology (2LCF Chapter 7 - Of God's Covenant)
Covenant theology serves as the central hermeneutical architecture of Scripture, and this introductory flyover situates it against competing systems — dispensationalism and New Covenant theology — before tracing its practical consequences for continuity between the Testaments, the role of ethnic Israel, the subjects of baptism, and the law of God in the new covenant. Two key distinctions between the 1689 London Baptist Confession and the Westminster Confession are noted: the particular Baptists' omission of an explicit covenant of works statement in Chapter 7, and their refusal to identify the Old Covenant as an administration of the covenant of grace. The sermon locates covenant theology not merely in academic method but in pastoral comfort, grounding the blood-bought people of God in the assurance that God is in Christ reconciling the world to himself.
The Riches of Christ
How can the eternal, omnipotent Son of God be said to have 'become poor'? Expounding 2 Corinthians 8:9, this sermon traces the riches of Christ to His divine nature and works as the second person of the Trinity, and His poverty to the Incarnation, His lowly life, and His sufferings and death. The hypostatic union — two whole natures inseparably joined in one person — is shown to be not merely a speculative doctrine but the theological ground on which the Apostle Paul appeals to the Corinthians for generous giving. The riches believers receive through Christ's poverty are spiritual: justification, sanctification, glorification, and adoption, purchased by His obedience, suffering, and resurrection.
December 1, 2021 - Wednesday Night Bible Study - Exodus 20:1-3 (1st Commandment)
Exodus 20:3 — 'You shall have no other gods before me' — is expounded through both its prohibitions and its positive demands. The first commandment condemns atheism, polytheism, syncretism, idolatry, sorcery, and heresy, while positively requiring the knowledge, love, fear, obedience, trust, and worship of the one true and living God alone. The sermon draws on Romans 1:18-32 to show that ungodliness — disordered thinking about God — is the root from which all societal unrighteousness springs. The sermon closes with a call to repentance, to flee to Christ as the remedy for every violation of this commandment, and to cultivate the knowledge of God as the chief guard against idolatry in its ancient and modern forms.
The Appointment of the Seven
Acts 6:1–7 records the Jerusalem church's response to a logistical crisis that threatened to pull the apostles away from prayer and the ministry of the Word. The passage establishes the diaconate in seed form: men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, appointed to serve the practical needs of the congregation so that those charged with preaching and teaching may be undistracted. Expounding 1 Timothy 3:8–13 alongside the Acts text, this sermon examines the qualifications, function, and appointment of deacons, and the connection between a biblically ordered church — with both elders and deacons — and the advance of the gospel.
Introduction to the Decalogue
Exodus 20:1–2, the preface to the Decalogue, reveals God as the sovereign Lawgiver who redeems before He commands — a pattern in which grace precedes obligation that runs from Sinai through the new covenant. The sermon examines three classical uses of the Ten Commandments (civil, pedagogical, and normative) and the threefold division of the law (moral, ceremonial, judicial), demonstrating that the moral law alone abides in its full binding force for all people and all ages. Believers are not justified by the law but are directed by it as the objective standard of sanctification, so that love for God and neighbor is never left undefined or sentimental.
Exodus 19
Exodus 19 records Israel's arrival at Sinai and God's formal entry into covenant with the nation — a covenant that functions as a republication of the covenant of works, in which Israel, like Adam before them, is called to obedience and fails, thereby pointing forward to the last Adam, Jesus Christ. The chapter unfolds in three movements: the exhortation to faithfulness through the covenant terms (vv. 1–8), the consecration of the people for readiness (vv. 9–15), and the theophanic demonstration of divine glory (vv. 16–25). The Sinai theophany, with its thunder, fire, and death-boundary around the mountain, teaches that God's people require a mediator — a lesson that finds its fulfillment in Christ, the Mediator of the New Covenant. The church, as the true Israel of God, inherits the vocation of Exodus 19:6 — a royal priesthood, a holy nation — and is therefore called to proclaim the praises of God with reverence befitting the consuming fire she approaches in worship.
The Crucifixion of Jesus, Part 4
What does it mean that Jesus cried out 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' and then yielded up his spirit with a loud voice? This sermon on Matthew 27:47–50 reviews the cry of dereliction and then expounds the death of Jesus, arguing that Christ died not as a helpless victim but as the willing surety of the covenant of redemption, fulfilling the prophetic Scriptures to the last breath. The mockery of the bystanders — their misidentification of Elijah, their offer of sour wine — is set against the sovereign control of Christ, who lays down his life of himself. The sermon closes by drawing out three responses fitting the crucifixion: sober acknowledgment of human depravity, gratitude grounded in substitutionary atonement, and gospel proclamation that invites sinners to seek the altogether lovely Christ.
The Testimony Concerning Christ's Supremacy
John 3:31–36 contains John the Baptist's climactic testimony concerning the supremacy and authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. The passage presses two inseparable realities: Christ's origin from above establishes his absolute supremacy over every earthly voice, and the Father's gift of all things into the Son's hand grounds his authority to bestow everlasting life on believers and to execute wrath on those who remain in unbelief. The sermon traces how the Baptist's testimony in these verses is of one piece with the prologue of John's Gospel, the high-priestly prayer of John 17, and the whole drift of Scripture concerning the triune God. Hearers are called to look in faith to Christ, the Lamb of God, understanding that regeneration by the Spirit is the necessary precondition for that faith, and that to reject the Son is not neutrality but the tacit accusation that God is a liar.
The Testimony Concerning the Bridegroom
John 3:22–30 presents the final recorded testimony of John the Baptist in the Fourth Gospel, in which John responds to his disciples' anxious complaint that all are coming to Jesus rather than to him. John's response is structured around four declarations: the sovereignty of God governs the origin and success of every ministry; his own role was never to be the Christ but the forerunner sent before him; his joy is that of the friend of the bridegroom who delights simply to stand in the presence of the bridegroom and hear his voice; and therefore Christ must increase while he must decrease. The sermon draws out both the Christological weight of the bridegroom image — rooted in the Old Testament covenant between God and Israel and fulfilled in Christ and his church — and its practical implications for how ministers and all God's people resist pride by being increasingly occupied with Christ rather than with themselves.
2LCF Chapter 3 - Of God's Decree
God's decree — his eternal, comprehensive, and unchangeable purpose over all things — is the subject of 1689 London Baptist Confession Chapter 3. The confession affirms that God has foreordained whatsoever comes to pass, including the free and sinful actions of men, without becoming the author of sin or violating the will of the creature. Paragraph 2 refutes the Molinist and Arminian claim that God's decree is grounded in his foreknowledge of human choices, insisting instead that election puts sinners in Christ rather than finding them there. The doctrine is shown to be practically consoling, doxologically oriented, and inseparable from the character of God as defined in Chapter 2.
Exodus 16 - Bread from Heaven
Exodus 16 records Israel's complaint in the wilderness and God's provision of quail and manna, revealing that grumbling against His appointed servants is ultimately grumbling against God Himself. The chapter is expounded under three headings: the promise of bread (vv. 1–12), the presence of bread (vv. 13–31), and the preservation of bread (vv. 32–36). The manna narrative carries a Sabbatarian argument — the double portion on the sixth day presupposes Sabbath observance that predates Sinai, pointing back to Genesis 2 and forward to Exodus 20 and Hebrews 4. The episode also functions typologically, anticipating Christ as the true bread from heaven in John 6, and calls God's people in every covenant administration to daily dependence on their Provider rather than grumbling against His providence.
The Discourse on God's Salvation, Part 2
John 3:16 — Luther called it 'the Bible in miniature,' and this exposition treats it as precisely that: a compressed statement of the whole Christian gospel. The sermon moves through three divisions of the verse — the declaration of God's love, the demonstration of that love in the gift of the only begotten Son, and the description of those who receive God's redemptive love through faith. Central to the argument is the insistence that God's love is the source, not the consequence, of the atonement, and that 'the world' in John's vocabulary denotes persons from every tribe and tongue without ethnic distinction, not every individual without exception — a conclusion that grounds particular redemption in the wider theology of John's writings. The sermon closes with a direct appeal to unbelievers: the one way of salvation is to believe on Jesus Christ alone, whose active obedience supplies the righteousness that sinners need and whose substitutionary death removes the condemnation they deserve.
Exodus 15 - Song of Moses
Exodus 15 records the Song of Moses, a celebration of divine redemption and righteous judgment sung by Israel after the destruction of Pharaoh's army in the Red Sea. The sermon expounds the threefold structure of the song — the triumph of the Lord, the defeat of the Egyptians, and the majesty and incomparability of God — before tracing its prophetic reach into the nations' fear of Yahweh and the ultimate goal of covenant dwelling. The bitter waters of Marah complete the chapter, exposing Israel's reflexive grumbling as a failure to trust the God who had already done the greater work of redemption. Hearers are called to praise God for both his saving mercy and his just judgment, and to pass that doxological heritage to the next generation.
A Practical Example for the Suffering Christian
Psalm 61 presents David at the edge of the wilderness — heart overwhelmed, throne usurped, kingdom collapsing — as a concrete example of what it looks like for a suffering believer to cry out to God, refocus on covenant faithfulness, and be brought from despair to joyful praise. The sermon traces three movements in the psalm: the cry for help from the brink of despair (vv. 1–2), the deliberate refocusing on God's past faithfulness, the Davidic covenant, and the eternal inheritance of the Messiah's kingdom (vv. 3–7), and the resulting resolve of praise (v. 8). David's process is not mystical — it is conscious, disciplined engagement with the means of grace: prayer, meditation on covenant promises, and fixing the mind on the eternal kingship of Christ. Suffering Christians are exhorted to follow that same pattern rather than abandoning the means of grace at the very moment they are most needed.
Exodus 14
Exodus 14 records the crossing of the Red Sea — a chapter whose driving theme is not merely Israel's deliverance but God's self-glorification over Pharaoh and his army. The exposition works through two main movements: the plan of God (vv. 1–14), in which God sovereignly directs Israel's route and hardens Pharaoh's heart so that He may gain honor, and the power of God (vv. 15–31), in which divine promise, protection, and action result in the salvation of Israel and the destruction of Egypt. Israel's fear and complaint throughout the chapter expose a chronic lack of faith, while Moses' brief but confident exhortation — 'Do not be afraid; stand still and see the salvation of the Lord' — models the response that faith in God's promises produces.
The Crucifixion of Jesus, Part 3
Matthew 27:45–46 records the fourth of Christ's seven words from the cross — the cry of dereliction, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' — and its interpretation demands both exegetical precision and doctrinal care. The darkness from the sixth to the ninth hour was not a solar eclipse but a supernatural sign of divine judgment, recapitulating the ninth plague pattern and marking the moment the Passover antitype was slain. The cry itself does not imply any ontological division within the Trinity, any dissolution of the hypostatic union, or the suffering of all three persons; rather, it expresses the withdrawal of divine consolation from the Son according to his true humanity as he bore, in our place as surety, the full weight of penal wrath. Believers are called to ground their assurance not in felt divine presence but in the covenant faithfulness of the God to whom Christ still cried 'my God' even in the depth of his substitutionary suffering.
Exodus 13 - The Consecration of the Firstborn
Exodus 13 grounds the consecration of Israel's firstborn in the redemptive logic of the tenth plague: because God spared Israel's firstborn while striking Egypt's, Israel's firstborn belong to him — to be set apart, sacrificed if clean, or redeemed if human or unclean. The chapter's twin emphases on perpetual remembrance through the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the catechetical instruction of children press the same truth across generations: God's people are defined by what God has done for them, not by their own merit or strength. The typological weight of substitutionary redemption — one life in the place of another — finds its terminus in the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, making these ordinances intelligible only in light of Christ. Practically, the sermon calls the congregation to remember the mighty works of God, to sacrifice freely in gratitude for redemption received, and to pass this theological inheritance faithfully to the next generation.
The Qualifications for Elders
What qualifications does Scripture require of a man before he may serve as an elder in a local church? Expounding 1 Timothy 3:1–7, this sermon establishes that the elder, overseer, and pastor are three terms for one office, and that the qualifications Paul lists are not recommendations but binding mandates. The sermon works through the first qualification — a genuine, rightly-motivated desire for the office — and frames it within four criteria for evaluating a call to ministry: right motives, graces indicating genuine Christian experience, gifts indicating divine provision (especially aptness to teach), and providential opportunity. The congregation is exhorted to apply these standards carefully and not to install any man, however virtuous or personable, who lacks the God-given ability to preach and teach the word.
Exodus 12, Part 2
Exodus 12:29–51 records the execution of the tenth plague, the departure of Israel from Egypt, and the regulations governing who may participate in the Passover. The death of every firstborn in Egypt—from Pharaoh's throne to the dungeon—is presented not as arbitrary cruelty but as the righteous retribution of a holy God against a nation that had enslaved and slaughtered His people, fulfilling the promise made to Abraham in Genesis 15. The Passover ordinance, with its requirements of circumcision for participation and the prohibition against breaking the lamb's bones, functions typologically to point forward to Christ, who is our Passover sacrificed for us, whose bones were not broken at the crucifixion.
The Antitype of the Temple
John 2:18–25 presents Jesus as the antitype of the Old Testament temple — the reality to which the type pointed and in which it finds its fulfillment and realization. The Jews' demand for a sign of his authority after the temple cleansing is answered by the one definitive sign: the death and resurrection of Christ, which the apostle John interprets for the reader in verses 21–22. The sermon also treats the omniscience of Christ as evidence of his divinity, demonstrated in his refusal to entrust himself to those whose belief was superficial and temporary. Hearers are called to flee to Christ in genuine faith and repentance, receiving both forgiveness of sin and the imputed righteousness of Christ that avails before the Father.