Cited in sermons
John Gill
1,025 sermons · All people cited
The Resurrection and Justification
Romans 4:25 is, as Matthew Poole observed, 'an abridgment of the whole gospel' — binding Christ's penal death for specific offenses to His bodily resurrection for the justification of those who believe. The sermon expounds the redemptive purpose of both events: the Father delivered up the Son to satisfy divine justice for the sins of the elect, and raised Him to testify that the sacrifice was accepted, that satisfaction was rendered, and that redemption was accomplished. Against the moral-exemplary reduction of the atonement, the sermon insists on substitution, propitiation, and particular redemption as the irreducible ground of peace with God. Hearers are called to look away from every incapacity of their own — as Abraham did — and to rest entirely on the one who was delivered up for offenses and raised for justification.
1 Kings 14:1-20
1 Kings 14:1–20 records the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite delivered to Jeroboam's wife in disguise — a passage that functions as a programmatic text for the entire Northern Kingdom. The sermon traces three movements: the occasion of the prophecy (the sick child prompting a hypocritical resort to God's prophet), the content of the prophecy (divine provision scorned, royal rebellion catalogued, and sweeping judgment announced on Jeroboam's house and the northern tribes), and the fulfillment of the prophecy in 1 Kings 15 and 2 Kings 17. A recurring application runs throughout: like Jeroboam, men seek God's word only in crisis while rejecting its rule over the whole of life, and no disguise — literal or spiritual — can hide a soul from the searching power of God's word.
The Prohibition Against Partiality
James 2:1–4 issues a direct prohibition against partiality — the sin of showing favoritism based on economic status, ethnicity, or social rank within the gathered assembly of Christ's body. The sermon works through the command of verse 1 and its illustrative example in verses 2–4, while devoting substantial attention to demonstrating that James's soteriology is fully consistent with Paul's: salvation is by sovereign grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, with works serving as the necessary evidence of genuine saving faith rather than its ground. The persistent tendency to judge by externals and to divide the body of Christ into cliques and factions is exposed as a form of sinful judgmentalism that usurps God's own prerogative as judge.
1 Kings 13
1 Kings 13 records the confrontation between an unnamed man of God from Judah and Jeroboam's idolatrous altar at Bethel, followed by that prophet's fatal disobedience when deceived by an old prophet, and Jeroboam's unmoved persistence in sin. The chapter turns on how men respond to the word of the Lord: the man of God obeys it before Jeroboam but abandons it under the old prophet's lying claim of angelic revelation, receiving temporal chastisement rather than condemnation. Jeroboam, by contrast, witnesses message, sign, mercy, and providence in sequence, yet does not turn from his evil way — becoming the negative standard against which subsequent northern kings are measured. The study calls hearers to simple, unreserved obedience to whatever God commands, and to recognize that signs and evidences do not produce faith; the Holy Spirit does.
The Anointing at Bethany
Matthew 26:6–13 records the anointing of Jesus at Bethany by Mary, sister of Lazarus, who poured a flask of costly spikenard worth a year's wages upon his head. Matthew places this account between the conspiracy of the chief priests and the betrayal by Judas for deliberate theological reasons: where the cross is associated with treachery on every side, it must also be associated with wholehearted worship and adoration. The disciples' indignant charge of 'waste' is exposed as both a direct insult to Mary and an indirect slight upon the dignity of Christ himself, while Jesus' fourfold response vindicates her act as a beautiful thing, a prophetic preparation for his burial, and a deed to be proclaimed wherever the gospel is preached. The sermon calls believers to imitate Mary's extravagant, undivided devotion to Christ, resisting the tendency to reduce Christian faithfulness to either social concern or piety alone.
The Privilege of Adoption
Galatians 3:26–29 brings the history of redemption into focus on the individual believer's standing before God: all who are in Christ by faith are sons of God, adopted into the divine family through the finished work of the one who became a curse for them. The sermon expounds three features of the believer's new identity — filial adoption by faith, redemptive unity across every human distinction, and covenantal solidarity as the seed of Abraham — while insisting that redemptive unity does not collapse the role distinctions God ordained in creation and confirmed in the apostolic letters. Theological, ethical, doxological, and eschatological implications of adoption are drawn out in the conclusion, calling believers to gratitude, godly conduct, and eschatological hope as blood-bought children of God Most High.
1 Kings 12:25-33
Jeroboam's religious innovations in 1 Kings 12:25–33 are not a misunderstood accommodation but institutionalized idolatry driven by fear, insecurity, and a refusal to trust the God who gave him his throne. The passage exposes six specific violations: rejection of the first and second commandments, the central sanctuary law of Deuteronomy 12, Solomon's temple, the Levitical priesthood, the appointed feast calendar, and the canonical rule of Deuteronomy 12:32 against adding to or taking from God's commands. The sermon draws a direct line from Jeroboam's heart-driven worship innovations to the regulative principle of worship, arguing that acceptable worship is defined solely by divine prescription, not human preference or political convenience.
The Necessity of Pure and Undefiled Religion
James 1:27 presents a 'succinct threefold characterization of authentic religion': measured speech, care for the needy, and separation from the world. This sermon expounds the final two marks — visiting orphans and widows in their distress, and keeping oneself unspotted from the world — grounding both in the Old Testament witness to God as defender of the fatherless and in the New Testament pattern of the apostolic church. True religion is neither merely external social action nor merely internal piety, but both together, flowing as the necessary consequence of justifying faith rather than as a condition of it. Those who have believed the gospel are called to a Godward orientation in every good work, resisting the temptation to perform religion before men rather than before God and the Father.
1 Kings 12:1-24
The division of the united Israelite monarchy under Rehoboam, recorded in 1 Kings 12:1–24, is examined here as an event simultaneously driven by human folly and ordained by divine sovereignty. Rehoboam's rejection of the elders' counsel in favour of his contemporaries' bluster, his dispatch of Adoram, and the northern tribes' revolt under Jeroboam are each shown to be the outworking of God's word spoken through Ahijah the Shilonite in 1 Kings 11. The sermon presses the Reformed conviction that divine sovereignty neither erases human responsibility nor is frustrated by human stupidity, and calls God's people to rest in a sovereign God rather than despair over the folly of human rulers. The restraining word of God through Shemaiah, which alone prevents civil war, stands as a practical illustration of that same sovereignty extending covenant mercy toward a people who cannot undo the consequences of their own sin.
The Bridled Tongue
James 1:26 confronts professing Christians with a concrete test of genuine faith: the bridling of the tongue. The sermon expounds the passage within its context of James's call to be doers of the Word, arguing that an unbridled tongue is not a minor failing but a symptom of self-deception — a religion James pronounces useless. Drawing on the Decalogue, the Proverbs, Romans 1, and James 3–4, the preacher demonstrates that Scripture condemns sins of speech — gossip, slander, backbiting, hypocrisy — with the same severity as the grosser immoralities the church is quick to discipline. The sermon closes by grounding the believer's hope not in perfected speech but in Christ, who alone fulfilled the law of the tongue in his sinless life, and calls hearers to pursue tongue-discipline as a fruit of sovereign grace and dependence on God.
The Olivet Discourse, Part 16
Matthew 25:41–46 presents the judgment of the unrighteous as the precise structural mirror of the judgment of the righteous: those who depart into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels are distinguished from those who inherit the kingdom not by degree of works but by the presence or absence of saving faith. The sermon defends, through nine arguments drawn from the text and from Galatians 2:21, that this passage does not teach justification by works — the sheep and goats are already determined, the kingdom is inherited not merited, and the good works function as evidence of faith rather than its ground. The 'least of these my brethren' is shown, through Matthew 10 and 12, to refer specifically to Christ's disciples, so that reception or rejection of them constitutes reception or rejection of Christ himself. The passage concludes by calling all hearers to be found in Christ — clothed not in their own righteousness but in the righteousness of God through faith — as the only preparation for the certain judgment to come.
1 Kings 11:14-43
The consequences of Solomon's idolatry unfold in 1 Kings 11:14–43 as God raises up three adversaries — Hadad the Edomite, Rezon of Syria, and Jeroboam — as instruments of divine chastisement against the king who built altars to Ashtoreth, Chemosh, and Milcom. The passage expounds the conditional and unconditional dimensions of the Davidic covenant: Solomon's unfaithfulness triggers judgment, yet God's promise to preserve the line of David remains inviolable, pointing forward to its fulfillment in Jesus Christ. The prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam, including the acted parable of the torn garment, sets the course for the divided kingdom that will dominate the rest of Kings. The study closes with a call to reckon honestly with the ripple effects of sin before committing it, and to find hope in the truth that God's promise may be eclipsed but never eliminated.
The Idolatry of Solomon
Solomon's reign, celebrated across 1 Kings 3–10 for its wisdom, wealth, and temple-building, collapses in 1 Kings 11 under the weight of multiplied foreign wives, hardened idolatry, and a heart turned away from Yahweh. The sermon exposes the problem, precedent, and practice of Solomon's idolatry in verses 1–8, and then traces the divine response — God's righteous anger and covenantal judgment — in verses 9–13. Solomon's sin is shown to be aggravated by his knowledge of the law, his good example in David, and his twice-repeated experience of God's direct appearing. Drawing out seven practical warnings, the sermon calls believers to vigilance in marriage, obedience, and utter dependence on the Holy Spirit, while pointing to Christ — the greater Solomon — as the only secure ground for salvation and perseverance.
1 Kings 11:1-13
Solomon's fall in 1 Kings 11:1–13 confronts the reader with the most disorienting reversal in the narrative of the monarchy: the wisest man who ever lived, a man who built the temple and prayed for God to incline the hearts of his people, ends his reign bowing before Chemosh, Milcom, and Ashtoreth. The study traces how violations of Deuteronomy's prohibitions on foreign marriages and the principles governing kings — compounded by great privilege, faithful example, and divine warning — render Solomon's idolatry inexcusable and God's threatened judgment just. The divine response in verses 9–13 demonstrates both God's righteous anger at covenant-breaking and his covenant faithfulness to David, as the conditional and unconditional elements of the Davidic covenant together shape the coming division of the kingdom. Eight practical warnings are drawn from Solomon's fall, all converging on the believer's utter dependence upon the Holy Spirit as the only safeguard against apostasy.
The High Priest of the New Covenant
Hebrews 7:20–28 presents Christ's high priesthood as superior to the Levitical order in three respects: His appointment was confirmed by divine oath rather than hereditary succession, His priesthood is permanent because He lives forever, and His personal sinlessness qualifies Him as the perfect once-for-all sacrifice. The passage presses toward a practical conclusion: believers must actively avail themselves of this High Priest — confessing sin through their Advocate, crying out for aid in temptation, and resting in the unchangeable intercession of the One who always lives to make intercession for them.
The Olivet Discourse, Part 13
Matthew 25:1–13, the Parable of the Ten Virgins, confronts every professing Christian with a single urgent question: are you genuinely prepared to meet the returning bridegroom, or merely carrying a torch with no oil? The sermon works through the parable's three movements — the expectation, the delay, and the arrival of the bridegroom — arguing that wise and foolish in Matthew's Gospel denote real versus nominal faith, not intellectual capacity. Preparedness for Christ's return cannot be borrowed from another person's faith, transferred through family religion, or deferred to a more convenient season; it is a matter of personal possession of Christ by grace through faith. Hearers are called to examine whether their profession is backed by genuine, persevering possession of the Lord Jesus, and to flee to the bridegroom before the door is shut.
The Fear of God
Proverbs 1:7 declares that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, yet this disposition is widely misunderstood and neglected among professing Christians. This topical survey distinguishes slavish fear from filial fear, demonstrates from Romans 3, Jeremiah 32, and the book of Proverbs that true fear of God is a gracious implantation sovereignly worked in the regenerate soul, and traces its necessary effects on the mind, the conduct, and the perseverance of believers. The sermon closes by calling both individual believers and the corporate assembly to cultivate this fear — in personal holiness, in theological engagement, and in God-directed, regulative-principle worship.
The Wisdom from God
Christ is the wisdom of God made concrete for sinners, and 1 Corinthians 1:30–31 inventories what that wisdom consists of: righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. This exposition argues that these three blessings are not coordinate with wisdom but are its very demonstration — the specific ways God's sovereign, gracious salvation exposes the folly of human wisdom and self-commendation. Justification by faith alone, grounded in the imputed righteousness of Christ, is shown to be the necessary foundation for, not the enemy of, holiness. The design of the whole — election, union with Christ, and the triad of blessings — is that the redeemed glory in the Lord alone, not in themselves.
The Olivet Discourse, Part 11
Matthew 24:36–44 presents Jesus's declaration that no one — not even the angels, nor the Son according to his human nature — knows the day or hour of the coming judgment, followed by the analogy of Noah's generation and the illustration of the thief in the night. The sermon works through a contested exegetical question: whether 'that day' in verse 36 refers to the AD 70 destruction of Jerusalem or to the final second coming, concluding that the hortatory application holds on either reading. Central to the exposition is a careful defense of the hypostatic union — Christ's genuine ignorance according to his humanity is not a denial of his divinity but a necessary consequence of the incarnation. The controlling exhortation is watchfulness: not withdrawal from ordinary life, but faithfulness, preparedness, and diligence under the conscious reality that God is near and will judge the living and the dead.
The Baptisms of Jesus Christ
Christ's two baptisms in Matthew 3 and Matthew 20 illuminate the two pillars of the gospel: His active obedience, by which He fulfilled all righteousness on behalf of His people, and His passive obedience, by which He endured the cross as a substitutionary ransom for many. The water baptism in Matthew 3 marks the public inauguration of Christ's life of perfect law-keeping, while the 'baptism' He anticipates in Matthew 20 refers to His immersion in suffering and divine wrath at Calvary. Together these two baptisms demonstrate that sinners need not only the forgiveness of sins secured by Christ's death, but also an alien righteousness — His own perfect obedience imputed to them by faith alone. The sermon calls both unbelievers and the baptized congregation to rest in the full sufficiency of what Christ accomplished, rejecting any gospel that offers the crown without the cross.
1 Kings 7: Solomon's Palace, Hiram, and the Temple Furnishings
The construction details of 1 Kings 7 — Solomon's palace complex and the bronze furnishings of the temple — press the reader toward several theological lessons: that the worship of God takes priority over earthly government, that all skilled labour done to God's glory is honoured in Scripture, that the twin pillars Jachin and Boaz are theological sentinels declaring Yahweh's promise and power, and that the preparation and splendour of the temple calls every generation to approach God with reverence rather than casualness. The sermon traces these lessons through the chapter's three main sections — Solomon's palace, the craftsman Hiram, and the temple's furnishings — while drawing on Proverbs, Ephesians, and 1 Thessalonians to ground a doctrine of faithful ordinary vocation. The controlling warning comes from 1 Kings 6:11–13: external religious magnificence means nothing without the obedience of the heart.
The Preeminence of Christ
John 3:22–30 records John the Baptist's final official testimony concerning Christ, and in it the preeminent greatness of a man whose greatness lay entirely in his humility. Confronted by disciples troubled that Jesus was drawing larger crowds, John offers four responses grounded in God's sovereignty: the origin of his ministry was from heaven, its purpose was always to announce the Messiah, his joy was fulfilled precisely when the bridegroom's voice was heard, and Christ must increase while he must decrease. The sermon applies this pattern to every believer, arguing that humility is not directly cultivated but is the byproduct of being increasingly occupied with Christ, and that the cross is the only path to that self-forgetful life.
The Bible and Capital Punishment
Capital punishment is examined as a biblical mandate rooted in the sanctity of human life as image-bearers of God, tracing the consistent teaching of Scripture from Genesis 9:6 through Romans 13:1–4. The sermon argues that the Noahic covenant establishes civil government's God-given authority to execute murderers, an authority confirmed rather than overturned in the New Testament. Common objections — from the sixth commandment, the Sermon on the Mount, the woman caught in adultery, and concerns about deterrence and salvation — are answered exegetically. Believers are called to submit to governing authorities as God's ministers of wrath, to pray the imprecatory psalms, and to reject both personal vengeance and the sentimental rejection of God's revealed standard of justice.
1 Kings 5 - Preparations for the Temple
First Kings 5 records the preparations Solomon made for the temple — securing cedar from Hiram of Tyre, organising a massive labour force, and gathering materials — all in fulfilment of God's promise to David in 2 Samuel 7. The chapter unfolds three lessons: the realization of God's covenantal promise, an anticipation of God's kingdom in the Gentile participation of Hiram and his builders, and the manifestation of God's wisdom in Solomon's political and administrative skill. The temple's true foundation is not stone but the promise of God, and the entire narrative moves along a trajectory from Eden through the tabernacle to the temple, pointing forward to Christ as the ultimate temple-builder. Hearers are called to prepare for gathered worship with the same seriousness that Solomon's preparations reveal, and to seek God's wisdom for every domain of life, not only the explicitly spiritual.
The Cross as the Demonstration of God's Love
John 3:16, which Martin Luther called 'the Bible in miniature,' is examined through four observations concerning the cross: the immeasurable love of God toward an unworthy world, the gracious gift of the only begotten Son delivered up as a sacrifice, the object of saving faith as Christ alone, and the promised blessing of not perishing but having everlasting life. The sermon defends particular redemption by noting that 'world' in John 3:16 denotes men without distinction — Jew and Gentile elect — rather than every individual without exception, and grounds this in the parallel logic of Deuteronomy 7 and Romans 5. Believers are exhorted to contemplate the unchanging love of God displayed at the cross as a weapon in their ongoing warfare against remaining corruption, and those without faith are called to look to Christ alone, in whom the principal acts of saving faith find their immediate object.
The Riches and the Poverty of Christ
Second Corinthians 8:9 presents the incarnation of the eternal Son as the supreme theological ground for Christian generosity: though he was rich in essential deity, Christ became poor by addition — taking on humanity — that his people through his poverty might become rich. The sermon exposits the riches of Christ in his divine nature and the poverty of Christ in his state of humiliation, drawing on the Chalcedonian definition of the hypostatic union as articulated in the 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 8. Doctrinal appropriation of Christology is shown to be the indispensable spring of practical Christian living, including sacrificial giving, mortification of sin, and love within the home.
2LCF Chapter 3 - Of God's Decree
The eternal decree of God — whereby He freely and unchangeably foreordains whatsoever comes to pass — is the subject of 2LCF Chapter 3. This study works through all seven paragraphs of the chapter, examining the definition, agency, character, and freedom of God's decree, before turning to the decree's specific application to predestination and reprobation. The doctrine is grounded in the divine perfections established in Chapter 2: God's simplicity, absoluteness, and independence. Hearers are called to hold this high mystery with prudence and care, drawing from it not vain curiosity but praise, humility, and abundant consolation.
Free Grace Baptist Church - December 18, 2016 AM
Luke 7:36–50 presents three parties whose interaction discloses the nature of saving grace: the notorious sinner whose transformed devotion exposes the bankruptcy of self-righteousness, the Pharisee whose surface-level hospitality masks a judgmental contempt for God's mercy, and the Savior who receives worship, pronounces forgiveness, and vindicates faith as the sole instrument of justification. The parable of the two debtors (vv. 41–43) governs the entire passage: the woman's extravagant love is the effect of prior forgiveness freely granted, not its cause or condition — a point the sermon drives against both Roman Catholic and Protestant moralistic misreadings. Believers are called to examine whether the depth of their love for Christ reflects a genuine reckoning with the magnitude of what has been forgiven.
1 Kings 3
Solomon's opening of his reign in 1 Kings 3 presents two defining realities: the prayer in which a young king, conscious of his own inadequacy, asks God not for riches or long life but for wisdom to govern God's people justly, and the verdict over the two harlots that publicly demonstrates the divine wisdom God poured out upon him. The structure of Solomon's prayer — beginning with praise for God's covenant faithfulness to David and Abraham before petitioning — is held up as a pattern for Christian prayer, in which rehearsing God's past faithfulness becomes the basis of present confidence. Solomon's request is set in deliberate contrast to the self-serving instincts of ordinary rulers, pointing forward typologically to the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden, and who is the greater Solomon the text anticipates.
Free Grace Baptist Church - December 4, 2016 AM
Philippians 2:8–11 presents the obedience of Christ as the crux of the gospel: the Son of God, fully God and fully man, humbled himself unto the cross death in substitutionary obedience to the law of God in the place of all who believe. This sermon works through three movements — the reality, the crux, and the result of Christ's obedience — grounding each in the theology of the two Adams: as Adam's disobedience plunged mankind into sin and condemnation, so Christ's perfect obedience as the second Adam restores and surpasses all that was lost. The obedience of Christ is not merely a doctrinal category but a free gift of righteousness received by faith alone, the very lifeblood of the gospel, received with joy and answered in humble service to others after the pattern of the Lord.