Cited in sermons
John Gill
1,025 sermons · All people cited
Free Grace Baptist Church - May 13, 2018 PM
Philippians 1:27–30 calls the church to conduct worthy of the gospel and to receive suffering for Christ as a divine gift. Expounding these verses under two headings — worthy conduct and worthwhile suffering — the sermon argues that the local church, as a colony of heaven, is called to stand fast in unity against adversaries, and that both the initial grant of faith and the grant of suffering are gracious tokens of God's saving presence with his people. Persecution, far from being a mark of divine abandonment, is shown historically and biblically to be an assurance of salvation, a sign of perdition to those who oppose the gospel, and a means by which God strengthens his church.
The Descent of the Spirit
Acts 2:1–13 records the descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, fulfilling Christ's promise and inaugurating the apostolic mission to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth. The sermon argues that the tongues given at Pentecost were intelligible human languages — not ecstatic or private utterances — serving as the revelatory and confirmatory word of God to diaspora Jews assembled from every nation, and simultaneously as a sign of judgment against unbelieving Jerusalem, echoing Deuteronomy 28 and Isaiah 28. The three instances of tongue-speaking in Acts (chapters 2, 8, and 10) correspond precisely to the mission parameters of Acts 1:8 and are unrepeatable redemptive-historical events, not a paradigm for individual Christian experience. Believers today possess the Holy Spirit through regenerating faith in Christ, and the filling of the Spirit is evidenced not by tongue-speaking but by love, submission, and corporate worship.
The Recovery of Wandering Brethren
James 5:19–20 closes the epistle not with a random aside but with a call to mutual accountability rooted in the high stakes of wandering from the truth. The sermon establishes two movements: the problem of professing believers who drift from the truth into the error of their way, and the encouragement given to every member of the local church who pursues their recovery. Drawing on Matthew 18, Galatians 6, Hebrews 2, and Psalm 119, the exposition argues that truth and conduct are inseparably connected, that instrumental means matter in God's sovereign purposes of salvation, and that the antidote to defection from God is a disciplined, resolute, corporate love for the truth.
Genesis 1:26-31
Genesis 1:26–31 presents the creation of man as the deliberate, dignified pinnacle of God's creative work. The plural 'let us make' in verse 26 is examined through three interpretive options — heavenly council, plural of majesty, and the Trinity — with the Trinitarian reading affirmed as the only exegetically and theologically coherent position. The sermon exposits the Imago Dei with reference to Ecclesiastes 7:29, Ephesians 4:23–24, Colossians 3:10, and the 1689 LBCF chapter 4, establishing that the image encompasses rationality, knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness. Hearers are pressed to live as genuine image-bearers — treating fellow humans with dignity, resisting evolutionary reductionism, and exercising responsible dominion over creation for the glory of the triune God.
The Exhortation to Pray, Part 2
James 5:16–18 calls every believer — not a spiritual elite — to confess sins to one another, to intercede for one another, and to pray with the confidence that the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. The 'righteous man' of verse 16 is not a super-saint but any person justified by faith alone in Christ alone, whose imputed righteousness gives boldness at the throne of grace. Elijah is set before the church not as a larger-than-life wonder-worker but as a man of like passions — weak, despondent, yet prevailing in prayer — precisely so that ordinary believers will not despair of their own access to God. The sermon closes with a searching examination: are God's people truly prayerful as individuals, as families, as elders, and as a congregation?
Genesis 1:3-25
Genesis 1:3–25 presents not a bare catalogue of events but a theologically ordered narrative of God's creative work, moving from formlessness to a world formed and filled for man's habitation. The study traces a recurring five-part formula in each day of creation — announcement, command, fulfillment, evaluation, and temporal marker — and then unpacks the structural pattern in which days 1–3 establish realms (light, sky and sea, land) and days 4–6 install their respective rulers (luminaries, fish and birds, land creatures), with man as the image-bearing vice-regent over all. The account is also polemical: Yahweh's creation of sun, moon, stars, and sea creatures directly undercuts the astral worship and mythological cosmologies surrounding Israel. Hearers are called to embrace six-day creationism by faith, to reject the incipient Gnosticism that denigrates the material world, and to read Genesis 1 as Scripture reads it — by faith we understand, not the reverse.
The Exhortation to Pray, Part 1
James 5:13–15 addresses the full range of Christian experience — suffering, cheerfulness, and sickness — and directs each condition toward God in prayer and praise. This exposition works through three aspects of the passage: the individual at prayer in verse 13, the elders and their ministry in verse 14, and the prayer of faith and its outcome in verse 15. The sermon confronts both the health-and-wealth error that denies sickness a place in the redeemed life and the cessationist question raised by the anointing with oil, arguing for a symbolic interpretation of the oil while insisting that prayer — not any physical element — is the means God honors. The governing application is that every condition of life, whether affliction or ease, calls for the same disciplined, God-directed response: pray, praise, and submit to the sovereign will of God.
Free Grace Baptist Church - April 8, 2018 PM
The reception of God's written Word must move the covenant people to thoroughgoing, comprehensive reform—in worship, life, and the observance of the sacraments—regardless of whether such obedience will produce measurable results. Expounding 2 Kings 23, this sermon traces three movements in Josiah's reformation of Judah: a public covenant renewal ceremony, an extensive purge of idolatry from both the southern and northern territories, and the restoration of Passover. The driving lesson is that obedience to God's law is not grounded in pragmatic expectation of blessing but in the simple rightness of what God commands—a faithfulness the speaker calls 'obedience without incentives.'
The Doubter Turned Confessor
Thomas's refusal to believe the disciples' eyewitness testimony of the risen Christ is one of the most emphatic denials of the resurrection in the New Testament — not mere doubt, but obstinate, threefold rejection of Scripture, Christ's own words, and apostolic witness. When Jesus appears and meets Thomas's exact conditions, Thomas confesses 'My Lord and my God,' bookending John's Gospel with the same declaration of Christ's deity found in its opening verse. The sermon expounds John 20:24–31 in two movements: the post-resurrection appearance to Thomas and the stated purpose of John's Gospel — that all who read it might believe and have life in Christ's name. Hearers are urged to stop placing conditions on God, to confess with Thomas that Jesus is Lord and God, and to avail themselves of the church's theological resources to grow beyond a superficial grasp of cardinal doctrines such as the Trinity.
The Liberality of God and the Believer's Security
Romans 8:31–39 confronts the believer with a single overwhelming argument: because the Father did not spare His own Son but delivered Him up for all the elect, He will most certainly freely give them everything else they need. The sermon works through three movements — the declaration of God's liberality in the gift of His Son, the implication that every lesser need is thereby guaranteed, and the application to the believer's unassailable security against accusation, condemnation, and separation. Drawing on the language of propitiation, penal substitution, and the Ordo Salutis, the exposition insists that the believer's confidence rests not on personal virtue or perseverance but on the justifying grace of God and the interceding, unchanging love of Christ.
The Defense of the Faith
Jude 3 issues a universal call—addressed not to clergy alone but to every believer, the 'beloved'—to contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. The sermon works through three movements: the exhortation itself and its five implications, the reason for that exhortation in the apostates of verse 4, and the practical preparedness of the contender outlined in verses 20 and 21. Doctrinal fidelity is not optional maintenance for specialists; it is the privilege and duty of every member of the covenant community, sustained by Scripture reading, prayer, and a constant looking to Christ. The sermon closes with a direct call to the unconverted to flee to the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom alone forgiveness of sins and the imputation of his righteousness are received by faith alone.
Free Grace Baptist Church - March 18, 2018 PM
James 5:7-12 calls the people of God to cultivate patience — toward one another and under affliction — in light of the imminent return of Christ as judge and deliverer. The sermon traces two obstacles that undermine patience: grumbling against fellow believers, which contradicts the love and long-suffering that Scripture everywhere demands, and careless or rash oath-taking, which reflects a failure to let the tongue conform to truth. The prophets and Job stand as biblical examples of endurance through suffering, with Job's trial yielding not merely restored prosperity but experiential knowledge of God — which James presents as the ultimate end the Lord intends. Believers are exhorted to establish their hearts, pursue direct reconciliation rather than complaint, and find fresh resolve in the gospel of Christ, whose blood cleanses all the impatience, grumbling, and falsehood that the passage exposes.
2 Kings 23:1-30
Second Kings 23 records the most thoroughgoing religious reformation in Israelite history, as King Josiah responds to the rediscovered book of the law by renewing the covenant, purging both the southern and northern kingdoms of institutionalized idolatry, and reinstating the Passover. The exposition traces Josiah's reforms from their covenantal basis through their comprehensive execution — including the fulfillment of a prophecy spoken 300 years earlier in 1 Kings 13 — before confronting the sobering reality that even this unparalleled reformation could not avert God's covenantal wrath against Judah for the sins of Manasseh. Josiah emerges as a typological figure — a second Moses, a Davidic son — whose faithfulness is held out as the model of obedience that does not depend on incentive or outcome, a pattern the New Covenant people of God are exhorted to follow in their own worship, sacrament, and covenant fidelity.
The Condemnation of Wealthy Oppressors
James 5:1–6 pronounces a severe condemnation upon wealthy oppressors whose possession of riches has, in turn, come to possess them. The sermon identifies four specific offenses — hoarding wealth, defrauding workers, self-indulgent pleasure-seeking, and the oppression and effective murder of the righteous — situating James within the tradition of the Old Testament prophets (Isaiah, Amos, Micah, Zephaniah) who prosecuted the Lord's covenant against such sins within the covenant community. The critical interpretive question — whether the targets are unbelieving oppressors (Calvin) or professing believers within the church (Gill) — is resolved in favour of Gill, with the acknowledgment that professing Christians are not immune to grievous inconsistency. The passage's application presses hearers to examine how their riches are acquired, how they are used, and above all how wealth is affecting the posture of their hearts before God, while firmly rejecting both liberation theology's Marxist distortion and any notion that the mere possession of wealth is condemned by Scripture.
The Great Commission, Part 4
Matthew 28:20 calls the church to a lifelong, comprehensive teaching ministry — the fourth imperative of the Great Commission. The sermon examines this teaching activity under four headings: its simplicity (Scripture alone, not opinion or entertainment), its scope (all Christ's commands, Old and New Testaments, issuing in obedience), its perpetuity (traceable from Acts through the pastoral epistles to the end of the age), and its comprehensiveness (the whole counsel of God applied to individuals, families, churches, and civil society). The closing appeal summons hearers to the cross — the ransom of Matthew 20:28 and the invitation of Matthew 11:28 — as the indispensable foundation for any biblical obedience.
The Great Commission, Part 3
Matthew 28:19 commands that disciples be baptized into the singular name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — a text that stands as one of Scripture's clearest witnesses to the doctrine of the Trinity. This sermon works through the baptismal formula to establish what the one name and three persons require the Christian to confess: one divine essence, three distinct subsistences, free from the errors of tritheism, modalism, and subordinationism. The active obedience of Christ is exposited as the ground of the righteousness imputed to sinners in justification, showing that the gospel itself is inseparable from a right doctrine of God. The congregation is urged to study the confession's chapters on theology proper and Christology, and to hold the doctrine of the Trinity as a white-knuckle conviction worth dying for.
The Glory of the Lamb of God
John 1:29 — 'Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world' — cannot be rightly understood apart from the Prologue that precedes it. The eternal Word who was with God and was God became flesh, was eternally begotten of the Father, and stands as the covenantal head of the new covenant before he is identified as the Lamb whose violent, substitutionary death takes away the sin of the world. The scope of that sin-bearing is not every individual without exception but persons without distinction — Jews and Gentiles alike — as the consistent use of 'world' in John's Gospel and the song of the redeemed in Revelation 5 make clear. The proper response is to place the cross in its full Trinitarian, Christological, and covenantal context and to worship the one who left the eternal life of God to enter our flesh and save us from our sins.
2 Kings 21:1-26
Manasseh's 55-year reign over Judah represents the nadir of covenant unfaithfulness in the southern kingdom, exceeding even the wickedness of the Canaanites whom God had expelled from the land. This expository study of 2 Kings 21 traces Manasseh's systematic religious innovations — reinstituting the high places, introducing Baal and Asherah worship into the temple, practicing child sacrifice and witchcraft, and shedding innocent blood — alongside the divine prophecy of inevitable, terrifying, and just judgment against Jerusalem. The chapter also demonstrates that Judah was not merely victimized by a wicked king but was itself seducible, having provoked God continuously since the exodus. The passage calls covenant people to resist practical atheism, to cherish God's promised blessings rather than forfeit them for the passing pleasures of sin, and to reckon seriously with the connection between idolatry and the collapse of ethical life.
Free Grace Baptist Church - February 25, 2018 PM
James 4:13-17 levels a charge of carnal presumption against professing believers who plan, buy, sell, and pursue profit as though God has no jurisdiction over Monday through Saturday. The sermon distinguishes between planning itself — which Scripture assumes and commends — and the godless self-sufficiency that excludes divine sovereignty from commerce, household, and daily routine. Three remedies are drawn from the text: recognize your ignorance of tomorrow, recognize the frailty of a life that is 'a vapor,' and recognize your utter dependence on the will of God. The sermon closes by connecting verse 17's sin of omission to the whole passage: those who know God is sovereign over all things and yet live as practical atheists do not merely stumble — they sin against knowledge.
The Great Commission, Part 2
The Great Commission (Matthew 28:19) commands the church to make disciples of all nations — a task grounded not in human ingenuity but in the absolute authority of the risen Christ. This sermon distinguishes the institutional church's primary calling (gospel proclamation, baptism, and teaching) from the broader activities of individual believers, arguing that the church compromises her distinctive mission when she substitutes social amelioration for disciple-making. The command to baptize is examined in its proper order: conversion through gospel preaching precedes baptism, which is itself a sign of union with Christ, remission of sins, and newness of life — not a means of conferring salvation. Drawing on the Abrahamic covenant, the Isaianic servant songs, and the Messianic Psalms, the sermon traces the 'all nations' scope of the commission as the fulfillment of promises running from Genesis 12 through to the risen Lord's own declaration.
2 Kings 20:1-21
Second Kings 20 closes the account of Hezekiah's reign by exposing both the nobility and the inconsistency of one of Judah's best kings. The chapter is examined under three headings: the extension of Hezekiah's life through answered prayer, the folly of his alliance-seeking with Babylon, and the summary of his reign. The central lesson is that even a covenant-faithful king who trusts God in sickness can lapse into walking by sight in prosperity, and this inconsistency of consistency is the common condition of every believer who depends on the grace of Christ rather than on personal perfection.
The Great Commission, Part 1
Matthew 28:16–18 presents the risen Christ meeting His eleven disciples on a Galilean mountain and declaring absolute, universal authority before issuing the Great Commission. This sermon examines both the meeting itself — including the disciples' worshipful yet hesitant response — and the nature of Christ's authority, tracing it through eight observations: its prior demonstrations in Matthew's Gospel, its Old Testament background in Yahweh's sovereign lordship over heaven and earth, its active rather than passive character, its expression of Christ's triumph over earthly and demonic enemies, its grounding in Christ's mediatorial office rather than His eternal divine nature, its fulfilment of Daniel 7:13–14, its place within Matthew's kingship-of-Christ theme, and its role as the necessary foundation for the church's disciple-making mission. The practical thrust is that Christ's all-encompassing authority demands total submission in every sphere of life, and that same authority is the sole ground for the viability and confidence of the Great Commission.
The Denial of the Resurrection
Matthew 28:11–15 records not only the resurrection of Christ but the immediate counter-offensive mounted by the chief priests and elders to suppress the fact of the empty tomb. Against the backdrop of the Great Commission in verses 16–20, these verses expose a counter-mission: a bribed, fabricated narrative designed to replace the truth of the resurrection with the stolen-body theory. The sermon examines the soldiers' report to the chief priests, the wickedness and implausibility of the lie they were paid to spread, and the theological reasons — including divine judicial hardening — that such a falsehood gained traction in first-century Judea. The application presses every believer to be armed to defend the resurrection and to rest the whole of their justification on faith in the risen Christ alone.
The Resurrection and Justification by Faith
Romans 4:25 presents what the commentators Matthew Poole and Charles Hodge each called an abridgment or comprehensive statement of the whole gospel: Christ was delivered up because of our offenses and raised because of our justification. The sermon works through both halves of this verse to show that the death of Christ was a substitutionary, propitiatory sacrifice satisfying divine justice on behalf of the elect, and that his bodily resurrection is the Father's public declaration that the sacrifice was accepted and justification secured. Four theological connections between resurrection and justification are drawn out: the resurrection declares Christ to be the Son of God with power, testifies that his sacrifice was accepted, confirms that satisfaction was rendered, and demonstrates that redemption was fully accomplished. The sermon closes at Romans 5:1 with the fruit of the whole discussion — peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ — applied to those who once stood condemned as ungodly offenders.
The Empty Tomb and the Risen Lord
The empty tomb of Matthew 28:1–10 is not merely an absence but a proclamation: Christ was raised bodily from the dead by the Father, vindicating His atoning work and confirming every prophetic word He spoke. The sermon works through the discovery of the empty tomb by the women and the appearance of the risen Lord, attending carefully to the apologetic weight of the narrative details — the guards' terror, the invitation to examine the tomb, the folded graveclothes, and the physical feet of Jesus grasped in worship. The message closes with 1 Corinthians 15, pressing the stakes of the resurrection: without it, faith is futile and sin remains unatoned; because Christ is risen, justification, sanctification, and glorification are secured for all His brethren.
The Two Kinds of Wisdom
James 3:13–18 sets before the reader two mutually exclusive wisdoms — one descending from above, the other rooted in what is earthly, natural, and demonic. The sermon works through the origin, characteristics, and results of each wisdom, showing that demonic wisdom is marked by bitter envy and selfish ambition, producing confusion and every evil thing in the church, while heavenly wisdom is pure, peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy, impartial, and sincere, producing a harvest of righteousness among peacemakers. The connection between James's account of wisdom and Christ's Beatitudes in Matthew 5 is drawn out at length, grounding the call to meekness and purity in the character of Christ himself. Hearers are exhorted to examine their own hearts, confess the vices James condemns, and ask God — who gives wisdom liberally to all who ask — for the heavenly wisdom that alone produces peace and righteousness in the church.
The Burial of Jesus
Matthew 27:57–66 records the burial of Jesus Christ — a passage easily overlooked between the crucifixion and resurrection accounts, yet one that carries significant theological, apologetic, and pastoral weight. The burial confirms that Jesus truly died, marks the completion of his humiliation as the second Adam, and establishes the historical ground on which the resurrection stands as an undeniable public event. The section also presents a stark contrast between the courageous devotion of Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, and the faithful women, and the cynical scheming of the chief priests and Pharisees — whose very precautions to prevent a 'fake' resurrection unwittingly served to make the genuine resurrection that much more incontrovertible. The tomb of Christ removes the fear of the grave for his people and grounds their certain hope in the resurrection of the dead.
2 Kings 17:1-23
The fall of the northern kingdom of Israel to Assyria in 722 BC is not mere political history but theological history: the exile of the ten tribes was the direct judgment of God upon a nation that had spent over two centuries filling up the measure of its guilt through idolatry, covenant-breaking, and the rejection of every prophet sent to call them back. Working through 2 Kings 17:1–23, this study traces the instrument of God's judgment (Shalmaneser and Sargon of Assyria), the reasons for it (Israel's fear of false gods, imitation of the nations, rejection of the prophets, and repudiation of the Mosaic covenant), and its result (removal from God's sight — a loss not merely of land but of divine fellowship). The passage warns that those who follow worthlessness become worthless, while those who worship the living God are conformed to His image — and it calls every hearer to heed the warnings God has given before the same measure of guilt is filled.
2LCF Chapter 23 - Of Lawful Oaths and Vows
Lawful oaths and vows, treated in 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 23, are grounded in the third and ninth commandments and constitute genuine acts of religious worship — invoking God's omniscience, omnipresence, and vindictive justice as witness and judge. The confession distinguishes oaths (promises made to men before God) from vows (promises directed to God himself), insisting both require solemn care and plain sincerity without equivocation or mental reservation. Against Anabaptist denial and Roman Catholic abuse, the sermon defends the legitimacy of lawful oaths in matters of weight and moment, refutes the reading of Matthew 5 as a suspension of oath-taking, and condemns popish monastical vows — perpetual celibacy, professed poverty, and regular obedience — as superstitious snares without scriptural warrant. Hearers are called to prize truth-telling as a reflection of the character of God and to take every solemn oath with a full awareness of its theological gravity.
The Builder of the Church
Matthew 16:13–18 raises the question Jesus himself poses: 'Who do you say that I am?' This sermon works through three movements in the passage — the question of Christ's identity, Peter's confession and the divine grace that produced it, and the establishment and indestructibility of the church Christ is building. The sermon engages the Roman Catholic and Protestant dispute over the rock on which the church is founded, arguing from John Owen and J.C. Ryle that the rock is the person of Christ whom Peter confessed, not Peter himself. The chief application is that Christ — not human ingenuity, celebrity, or programme — owns, builds, protects, and defines the conduct of his church, and that faithfulness, not fantastical success, is what he requires of his people.