Cited in sermons
John Newton
106 sermons · All people cited
The Conversion of the Apostle Paul
Paul's gratitude in 1 Timothy 1:12–14 is inseparable from the radicalism of his own conversion. Working through these three verses, this exposition traces the apostle's pre-conversion state — blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent man — as deliberately set up to magnify the sovereign mercy that overthrew him on the road to Damascus. The sermon gives careful attention to the nature of Paul's ignorance in unbelief, distinguishing it from the willful, light-rejecting sin of those who witnessed Christ's signs and wonders firsthand, and shows how effectual calling brought not only forgiveness but a hermeneutical key that unlocked the entire Old Testament. The governing application is that every believer, like Paul, stands before God not on the ground of moral reformation or law-keeping but solely on received mercy and exceedingly abundant grace — and that this reality is the wellspring of genuine Christian gratitude.
The Morning Prayer of the Messiah
Psalm 5 is the morning prayer of the Messiah — not merely a psalm David wrote, but a prophetic window into the prayer life of the incarnate Son of God as he faced bloodthirsty and deceitful enemies throughout his earthly ministry. The sermon works through four movements: Christ's appeal to the hearing God, his comfort in the divine perfections of holiness, justice, and mercy, his petitions for the guidance of the godly and the condemnation of the godless, and his confidence in the protecting God. Because the righteousness that qualifies the pray-er is Christ's own imputed righteousness received by faith alone, Psalm 5 becomes the possession of every believer in the new covenant, a daily call to pray dependently, joyfully, and with full confidence in the God who hears.
The Conclusion of the Decalogue
Deuteronomy 5:22–33 records Moses rehearsing the original giving of the law at Sinai, and this exposition draws out the divine origin, authority, comprehensiveness, finality, and permanence of the Decalogue as the trans-covenantal moral law of God binding on all men in every age. The threefold use of the law — civil, pedagogical, and normative — is traced through the New Covenant, with the imputed righteousness of Christ received by faith as the only ground of justification. The people's terror at the theophany on Sinai is commended as the proper response to God's majesty, and the sermon presses the distinction between slavish fear that flees from God and filial fear that flees to Him, urging the congregation to recover a robust doctrine of divine transcendence in their worship.
The Tenth Commandment
The Tenth Commandment's prohibition against coveting addresses not the external act but the internal disposition of the heart, making it the capstone over all the other commandments. Covetousness — the inordinate desire for anything belonging to one's neighbor — is at root an act of discontentedness with God's sovereign allotment and a form of idolatry, placing the creature above the Creator. The sermon works through the threefold use of the moral law: its civil function, its pedagogical role in driving sinners to the cross, and its normative function in calling the redeemed to diligent watchfulness over heart and soul.
The Darkness of Depression
Proverbs 15:13 identifies the broken spirit as a genuine human affliction, and the broader witness of Scripture — from Elijah under the broom tree to the weeping prophet Jeremiah to the Saviour himself as a man of sorrows — confirms that depression and melancholy are realities in the lives of God's people, not marks of spiritual failure. This sermon works through the reality of depression, its manifold causes (physical, psychological, circumstantial, spiritual, and diabolical), and practical strategies for those who suffer and those who come alongside sufferers. The controlling remedy throughout is the means of grace: rest, diet, exercise, prayer, Scripture, and the gathered worship of God's people — with the warning that singing songs to a heavy heart, after the manner of Job's friends, is a pastoral failure Scripture explicitly condemns.
2LCF Chapter 12 - Of Adoption
The twelfth chapter of the 1689 London Baptist Confession treats adoption as a distinct benefit of the gospel, flowing necessarily from justification and grounded solely in God's sovereign grace through the Lord Jesus Christ. This study traces the basis of adoption — its recipients (the justified), its source (God's free vouchsafing), and its ground (the merit of Christ alone) — before working through the four categories of benefit the confession enumerates: inclusion in the family of God, reception of privileges (the divine name, the Spirit of adoption, bold access to the throne of grace), fatherly treatment (pity, protection, provision, and chastening), and the inheritance of everlasting salvation. A sustained contrast between Paul's juridical language of adoption and John's language of new birth demonstrates that both apostles teach the same doctrine from different vantage points, while an extended excursus on Hebrews 9–10 applies the Old Covenant / New Covenant contrast to rebut the paedobaptist argument for an internal-external continuity between the covenants. The children of God are called to live out their adoption by walking in love, light, and wisdom as Ephesians 5 commands.
The Christian Life of the Apostle Paul
Between justification and glorification lies the life of sanctification, and in Philippians 3:12–16 the Apostle Paul names that interim existence perseverance. Paul's honest self-assessment — 'not that I have already attained or am already perfected' — anchors both the doctrine and the practice: the believer presses on, forgets what is behind, and strains toward glory not to secure justification but as a necessary consequence of having been freely justified by God's grace. The sermon grounds perseverance in the immutability of the divine decree, the intercession of Christ, and the empowering work of the Spirit, before calling the congregation to single-minded use of the ordained means of grace.
The Crucifixion of Christ, Part 3
John 19:28–29 records the fifth of the seven sayings of Christ from the cross: 'I thirst.' This exposition examines Christ's sovereign knowledge that all things were accomplished, the fulfillment of Old Testament Scripture — particularly Psalm 69 — in his cry, and the significance of the sour wine offered on hyssop. The sermon argues that Christ's thirst demonstrates both his true humanity and the completion of his redemptive mission, and calls both believers and unbelievers to come boldly to the throne of the sympathetic Savior who drained the cup of divine wrath on behalf of his people.
The First Commandment
Deuteronomy 5:7 — 'You shall have no other gods before me' — is the foundation of covenant loyalty, defining not only who the one true God is but what response He demands from His people. This study works through the prohibition against other gods (atheism, polytheism, syncretism, sorcery, heresy, and creature-worship) before turning to the positive duties the commandment requires: knowing God, loving Him, fearing Him, obeying Him, trusting Him, and worshipping Him on His own terms. The first commandment is not merely theological orthodoxy but a call to total, exclusive, and practical devotion to Yahweh — a devotion made possible only by the grace that plants His fear in the heart.
The Faithful Christian Mother
Proverbs 31:28–30 grounds this sermon on the faithful Christian mother in four doctrinal categories: her condition before God, her influence over her children, her authority over her children, and her responsibility toward her children. The fear of the Lord that marks the virtuous woman is not a natural disposition but a new-covenant gift of sovereign grace, as Jeremiah 32:40 and Romans 3:18 together demonstrate. Because salvation is by grace alone through faith alone, the mother's instruction, example, discipline, and love flow from a regenerate heart rather than from moralism. Mothers are exhorted to maintain dependence on God, to ground child-rearing in Scripture rather than cultural trends, and to persevere in a calling that is high, demanding, and ultimately accountable to God.
The Power of the Word of God
Isaiah 55:10–11 declares that God's word, like rain and snow sent from heaven, does not return to him void but accomplishes precisely what he purposes. This sermon expounds that promise under two heads: the power of the written word and the glory of the incarnate word. The written word is shown to be efficacious in gospel proclamation — bringing either the aroma of life or of death — while the incarnate word, the eternal Son proceeding from the Father, accomplishes a definite redemption that cannot be frustrated. Both heads converge in a call to sinners to seek the Lord while he may be found and to believers to renew covenant at the Lord's Supper with confidence in the abundance of divine pardon.
CLIP: An Urgent Plea With Unbelievers
Isaiah 55 issues an urgent, time-sensitive call to unbelievers: the window of grace will close, and those who die outside of Christ will face the wrath of a thrice-holy God. The sermon confronts common self-excuses for delaying repentance — including the notion that one's sins are too great — and answers them with the inexhaustible pardoning grace of God. Every sinner is summoned to seek the Lord while he may be found, flee to Christ immediately, and rest in the abundance of his mercy.
The Conversion of Matthew
Matthew 9:9-13 presents the sovereign call of Christ to Matthew, a tax collector despised in first-century Jewish society as a collaborator with Gentile oppressors and a companion of sinners. The sermon traces three movements in the passage: the authoritative call that produced immediate discipleship, the feast Matthew threw to honor Christ and evangelize his former associates, and Christ's threefold response to the Pharisees' complaint — identifying himself as a physician to the sick, appealing to Hosea 6:6 against mere external religion, and declaring his mission to call sinners to repentance. The central application is that no sinner is too notorious to be received by Christ, and Matthew's immediate rising and following is held up as the pattern for genuine repentance and faith.
Ask FGBC #11: What will our days in Heaven look like?
A question about the nature of heavenly existence — whether eternity will feel like endless sameness — draws out a sustained reflection on the creator-creature distinction, the infinity of God, and the progressive unfolding of divine glory to finite creatures. Drawing from Ephesians 2:7's reference to 'the ages to come,' the discussion argues that eternity for creatures will be temporal and successive, not static, because God is inexhaustible and finite creatures can never comprehend the infinite. The corporate dimension of heavenly worship, including Christ's own role in leading his people in the praise of God, is offered as a counterweight to individualistic or tedium-haunted conceptions of the eternal state.
The Apostle Paul, Part 4: His Doctrinal Legacy
The doctrinal legacy of the Apostle Paul is surveyed across seven theological themes: the comprehensive nature of sin and depravity, the incarnation of the divine Son of God, the sovereignty of the triune God in salvation, amazing grace, justification by faith alone, sanctification in union with Christ, and a simple and glorious eschatology. Paul's writings are shown to move consistently from the gravity of man's ruin to the glory of God's redeeming grace in Christ. The sermon closes with a direct call to believers to be built up in the knowledge of the gospel, and to those outside of Christ to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.
2LCF Chapter 17 - Of the Perseverance of the Saints, Part 1
The 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 17 on the perseverance of the saints is examined through its first two paragraphs, grounding the doctrine in the preserving power of the triune God rather than in the free will of the believer. The Confession is shown to be both rigorously doctrinal and remarkably practical, acknowledging the storms, unbelief, and apparent withdrawal of God that saints genuinely experience while insisting that these cannot sever the elect from grace. The foundation of perseverance is traced through the immutability of the decree of election, the merit and intercession of Christ, the abiding of the Spirit, and the nature of the covenant of grace — directly opposing both Roman Catholic and Arminian accounts that make final salvation contingent on human cooperation. Believers are exhorted to feed their souls on the promises of the covenant of grace precisely because perseverance is secured by God's unchangeable love, not by their performance.
2LCF Chapter 18 - Of the Assurance of Grace and Salvation
The 1689 London Baptist Confession Chapter 18 grounds the assurance of salvation not in emotional experience but in the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ as the objective foundation, confirmed by the inward evidences of the Spirit's work in regeneration. The chapter distinguishes between the false presumption of unregenerate men and the genuine, infallible assurance available to true believers through faith in Christ. Assurance does not belong to the essence of faith — a true believer may struggle and doubt without thereby forfeiting salvation — yet the confession calls every believer to diligent pursuit of settled assurance as a duty. The subjective evidences of grace (repentance, love for Christ, good works, the Spirit's testimony of adoption) are consequential to the objective ground, never a replacement for it.
The Depths of Sin and the Riches of Grace
Psalm 130 moves from the depths of spiritual distress to the heights of pardoning grace, and this exposition traces that movement through three divisions: the psalmist's cry of distress (vv. 1–2), his recognition of divine justice and divine forgiveness (vv. 3–4), and his patient exhortation to all Israel (vv. 5–8). The sermon establishes that the believer's remaining corruption should drive him not to silence but to earnest prayer, since the only remedy for sin is the grace of God. The justice of God is never mitigated in the gospel: at the cross, strict justice was satisfied upon Christ as substitute and curse-bearer, so that God is simultaneously just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. The sermon closes with an appeal both to the struggling believer — do not make peace with remaining sin, but cry out to God — and to the unconverted, for whom the same abundant redemption is freely available in Christ.
The Appearance of the Love of God
Though mankind stands condemned under the description of Titus 3:3 — foolish, disobedient, enslaved to lusts and malice — the kindness and love of God the Father appeared supremely in the incarnation of the Son to rescue dead sinners by sovereign mercy alone. This sermon expounds Titus 3:4–8 under three headings: the appearance of the love of God, the application of the grace of God in regeneration and justification, and the affirmation of the gospel as the faithful saying ministers must constantly proclaim. The ordered sequence of the text is decisive: justification by grace through faith is the condition; good works are the consequent fruit, never the ground.
A Psalm of Thanksgiving
Psalm 103 calls God's people to bless the Lord with the whole soul and to forget none of His benefits — a command that presupposes the constant human tendency toward spiritual amnesia and ingratitude. The sermon works through David's threefold structure: a reminder to bless God (vv. 1–2), the reasons to bless God (vv. 3–18), and a reflection on God's universal kingdom (vv. 19–22). The reasons are organized around the gifts God gives (spiritual and physical), the recipients of those gifts (the oppressed and covenant people), and the character of the giver Himself — merciful, gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. Thanksgiving is not a seasonal sentiment but the daily reflex of those who know their guilt before a holy God and have received forgiveness through the blood of Christ.
The Riches of God's Grace
David's fall into adultery and murder in 2 Samuel 11 sets the stage for one of Scripture's most striking displays of divine grace in 2 Samuel 12:1–15. Nathan's parable exposes David's sin through the unstoppable initiative of God, and the prophet's indictment demonstrates that David's wickedness was aggravated, not mitigated, by the abundant grace God had already shown him. David's two-word confession — 'I have sinned against the Lord' — is met immediately with pardon, not because the confession was elaborate, but because forgiveness rests entirely on the atoning work of Christ, to whom David looked in faith through the promises of the Davidic covenant. The sermon calls both believer and unbeliever to receive the same grace: real forgiveness for real sinners, grounded in the righteousness of Christ imputed through faith alone.
The Royal Wedding
Psalm 45 presents a royal wedding between the divine King and his bride, the church, composed centuries before the incarnation as a song of love pointing directly to the Lord Jesus Christ. The sermon moves through four sections: the psalmist's overflowing intention, the perfections and divine-human person of the King, the instruction to the bride concerning faith and repentance, and the declaration of the King's eternal glory. Christ is shown to be fairer than all the sons of men, advancing his kingdom through truth, humility, and righteousness rather than deception, while his priestly office — not only his kingly conquest — is pressed upon the hearer as the only ground of hope for sinners. The bride is clothed not in her own righteousness but in the imputed righteousness of Christ, received by faith alone, to be brought with gladness into the King's palace.
The Righteous Reign of the Son of God
Psalm 2 presents the righteous reign of the Son of God against the backdrop of universal human rebellion. The nations rage, the kings conspire, and the political class unites in mutiny against Yahweh and His anointed — yet God laughs from the heavens, installs His Son on Zion, and promises Him the nations as His inheritance. The decree announced in verses 7–9 is rooted in the covenant of redemption: the Father gives a great multitude to the Son, who accomplishes their salvation through substitutionary obedience, death, and resurrection, and is then exalted to universal messianic kingship. The psalm closes with an evangelistic summons: be wise, serve the Lord with fear, and kiss the Son — for blessed are all those who put their trust in Him.
The Healing of a Blind Man, Part 2
John 9:13–34 records the formal interrogation of a man born blind by the Pharisees following his healing by Jesus. The passage exposes the willful unbelief of Israel's religious leadership — men who suppress plain evidence, commit perjury, and wield coercion against a helpless witness — while simultaneously tracing the healed man's growing confession of Christ, from 'he is a prophet' to 'if this man were not from God, he could do nothing.' The sermon argues that opposition to the Son of God is always opposition to the Father who sent him, and that the courage to confess Christ in the face of exclusion and shame is the mark of genuine discipleship.
The Freedom in Receiving the Son, Part 2
John 8:33–36 sets two irreconcilable conditions before every person: slavery to sin or freedom in the Son. Working through Jesus' response to the objecting Jews — His declaration of spiritual slavery in verse 34, His illustration from the household in verse 35, and His promise of true liberty in verse 36 — this sermon argues that sin's bondage is total, that the sinner is constitutionally blind to his own condition, and that freedom comes exclusively through the only-begotten Son who abides in the Father's house forever. The law of God must be pressed upon the conscience so that sinners know their malady before they can receive the remedy: the Son who makes men free indeed.
The Martyrdom of Stephen
The martyrdom of Stephen in Acts 7:54–60 displays the triune God sustaining, comforting, and ultimately receiving His servant in the moment of violent death. The sermon works through three movements: the blessedness of Stephen as he receives a vision of the glorified Christ standing at the right hand of the Father; the murderous rage of the Sanhedrin who stone him outside the city in lawless contempt of Roman authority; and Stephen's dying words — echoing the Savior's own cross-utterances — as he commends his spirit to Christ and intercedes for his killers. The conversion of Saul of Tarsus is set before the congregation as the answer to that dying prayer, a monument to sovereign grace, and the entire passage is pressed home with the comfort of Heidelberg Catechism Question 1: Christ alone is the believer's comfort in life and in death.
The Freedom in Receiving the Son
John 8:30–36 sets before the reader a sharp contrast between the blessedness of spiritual liberty and the wretchedness of spiritual slavery. This sermon expounds the theological order of salvation — justification by grace alone through faith alone precedes and produces the disciple's abiding in Christ's word, not the reverse — and then traces what that freedom means: deliverance from the curse of the law, the condemnation of sin, the wrath of God, and the tyranny of the devil. The church's calling to be the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15) demands that she identify, propagate, contend for, and protect that truth in every generation.
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 Promise of Eternal Life
Isaiah 55 presents God's universal, gracious, and free invitation for sinners to come to Christ for life eternal — an invitation that has never changed from Genesis to Revelation. The sermon expounds the chapter in two movements: the invitation to come (vv. 1–5), grounded in covenant promise and secured by the Davidic king, and the exhortation to believe and repent (vv. 6–13), which calls sinners to faith and a change of mind toward sin. God's thoughts are not man's thoughts precisely because He pardons abundantly where man would not, and His word goes forth with certain efficacy to accomplish all He purposes in the salvation of sinners from every nation.
2LCF Chapter 15 - Of Repentance Unto Life and Salvation
1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 15 treats repentance not as a meritorious work but as an evangelical grace — a gift sovereignly granted by God through the Holy Spirit, inseparable from saving faith. This study walks through all five paragraphs of the chapter, distinguishing the Greek definition of repentance as a change of mind from its fruits, exposing the danger of collapsing that distinction into a salvation-by-works scheme. The covenant of grace is shown to be the practical ground by which God provides and sustains both faith and repentance for the elect throughout their lives, including ongoing repentance for remaining sin.