Cited in sermons
John Newton
106 sermons · All people cited
Free Grace Baptist Church - November 19, 2017 AM
Preached at the ordination of a new elder, this exposition of 1 Timothy 4:12–16 sets forth four charges Paul lays upon Timothy as a faithful minister of the gospel: the minister's example in life and conduct, his public ministry of reading, exhortation, and doctrine, his personal growth through devoted meditation on apostolic truth, and his perseverance in both personal holiness and sound doctrine. The sermon insists that ministers are made by God and vetted by the church, not self-appointed, and that the gravity of the office lies in this: faithful gospel ministry is the ordained means by which God saves sinners and sanctifies his people. The congregation is charged to receive the gift of an ordained minister with joy, to prize the public means of grace, and to reject heresy with earnestness alongside their pastor.
The Translation of Elijah
2 Kings 2 presents the translation of Elijah into heaven and the subsequent manifestation of Elisha as his divinely appointed successor. The sermon works through the chapter in two main sections — the ascension of Elijah and the confirmed ministry of Elisha — arguing that every element, including the healing of Jericho's waters and the cursing of the youths at Bethel, serves to authenticate Elisha as the legitimate prophetic voice of Yahweh in Israel. The two she-bears are not a moral embarrassment but the execution of the covenant curse of Leviticus 26, consistent with the same God who sends sweet water to the previously cursed city of Jericho and who ultimately sends His Son to deal in mercy with sinners.
2LCF Chapter 18 - Of the Assurance of Grace and Salvation
The doctrine of assurance of grace and salvation is grounded not in subjective experience or extraordinary revelation, but in the blood and righteousness of Christ revealed in the gospel, confirmed by the inward witness of the Holy Spirit and the objective evidences of saving grace. Working through chapter 18 of the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, this study distinguishes genuine assurance from carnal presumption, refutes the Roman Catholic and Arminian denials of assurance, and addresses why true believers may wait long before attaining it. Assurance is not of the essence of faith — a believer may possess saving faith without yet possessing settled assurance — yet the ordinary means of grace are the appointed path by which the Spirit revives it. The study closes with the sobering reality that assurance may be shaken by negligence, special sin, or vehement temptation, while insisting that the seed of God in the elect ensures they are never left in utter despair.
The Unsurpassed Value of the Gospel
Paul's exhortation to Timothy not to be ashamed of the gospel in 2 Timothy 1:8–10 rests on the unsurpassed worth of the salvation it announces. The sermon works through the divine authorship of salvation, the basis of election in God's eternal purpose and grace rather than human works, and the pre-temporal covenant of redemption executed in the incarnation and atoning work of Christ. Because Christ has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, believers have every reason to suffer for it without shame, and unbelievers are called to look to Christ alone for justification by faith apart from works.
2LCF Chapter 16 - Of Good Works
1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 16, 'Of Good Works,' teaches that good works are defined exclusively by God's revealed word, flow necessarily from justification and sanctification, and are enabled entirely by Christ as the believer's vine. The chapter distinguishes scriptural good works — requiring the right matter, root, manner, and end — from both the meritorious works Rome supposes possible and the common-grace works of the unregenerate, which, lacking a heart purified by faith and the goal of God's glory, cannot please God. Believers are exhorted to pursue good works not as the ground of their acceptance before God, but as the fruit of a living faith, performed in Christ's strength and received by God through Christ despite their imperfection.
The Prediction of Desertion and Denial
Matthew 26:31–35 records three predictions Jesus makes on the night of His betrayal: that all the disciples will desert Him, that Peter in particular will deny Him three times before the rooster crows, and that He will be raised and go before them to Galilee. The passage demonstrates both the sovereignty of Christ, who is not caught unawares but walks toward the cross in accordance with Zechariah 13:7 and the eternal decree of the Father, and the weakness of even the most zealous believers, who prove incapable of standing in their own strength. Peter's brash self-confidence — his flat contradiction of Christ's word and his lofty assessment of himself above his fellow disciples — stands as a warning against pride and self-reliance. The sermon calls believers to kill pride, cultivate dependence upon God, embrace Scripture's honest assessment of indwelling corruption, and rest in the grace of a Savior who, despite foreknowing every act of betrayal, still promises to meet His scattered sheep.
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 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.
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.
The Most Important Question for Young People
Psalm 119:9 poses what the sermon calls the most important question for young people: 'How can a young man cleanse his way?' Before answering, the text forces an honest reckoning with the doctrine of total depravity and total inability — the way stands in need of cleansing precisely because every faculty of human nature is corrupted by the fall in Adam, and no sinner can commend himself to God apart from sovereign grace. The answer the psalmist gives, 'by taking heed according to Your Word,' encompasses both initial justification by grace through faith in Christ and ongoing sanctification by the same Word and Spirit. Parents and young people alike are exhorted to engage Scripture with the whole heart — obeying, memorizing, meditating, declaring, and delighting in it — as the only path to a cleansed way.
2 Samuel 22
Psalm 18's twin text, 2 Samuel 22 presents David not as a great military king but as a theologian of grace, ascribing every victory to Yahweh alone. The sermon examines the deliverance of God's servant (vv. 1–20), then takes up the harder exegetical question of David's assertion of his own righteousness (vv. 21–31), arguing from Psalms 32, 51, and 65 and from Romans 4 that David's righteousness is the imputed righteousness of Christ, received through faith, not a claim to sinless perfection. The sermon closes by grounding David's confidence in the Davidic covenant of 2 Samuel 7 and calling the congregation to the same exuberant, theologically informed praise.
The Confidence of the Believer
Micah 7 presents one of the most concentrated confessions of faith under duress in all of Scripture: a prophet who surveys moral collapse, political corruption, and the breakdown of domestic trust, yet steadfastly declares, 'I will look to the Lord.' This sermon works consecutively through Micah 7 in three movements — the prophet's lamentation over the state of the covenant community, his counsel to the godly remnant, and his closing doxology — to show what it means in practice for the just to live by faith. The doxology of verses 18–20 grounds that faith not in optimism or circumstance but in the revealed character of God: his pardoning of iniquity, his delight in mercy, his subduing of remaining sin, and his unbreakable covenant faithfulness. The sermon closes with a direct exhortation to feed faith on Scripture and sound theology, because faith cannot lay hold of what it does not know.
2 Samuel 12:1-14
Nathan's confrontation of David in 2 Samuel 12:1–14 exposes the anatomy of sin, judgment, and grace in the covenant dealings of God with His king. The parable of the ewe lamb springs the trap of conscience, the indictment rehearses the goodness God had lavished on David before his fall, and the consequences announced — a sword that would not depart from his house — demonstrate that divine forgiveness does not abolish temporal chastisement. The two-word confession 'I have sinned against the Lord' and Nathan's immediate assurance 'the Lord also has put away your sin' together illustrate that atonement is the exclusive work of Christ, not the product of the sinner's anguish or penance.
The Christian Mother
Proverbs 31:28–30 presents the virtuous woman as one whose fear of Yahweh is the foundation and fountainhead of her entire life and household ministry. This sermon examines the Christian mother under four heads — her spiritual condition, her influence, her authority, and her responsibility — grounding each in the covenantal structure of Scripture from Proverbs, the Pentateuch, and the New Testament. The fear of the Lord is not natural to fallen humanity; it is a gracious work of God that produces practical godliness, and the mother who walks in that fear becomes the most powerful human instrument in the formation and potential salvation of her children. Husbands are called to praise such wives, children to rise up and bless such mothers, and every believer to measure the worth of a woman not by charm or beauty but by her reverent trust in God.
The Divine Invitation to Eternal Life
Isaiah 55 is a divine summons addressed to sinners without merit or money, calling them to receive the full salvation accomplished by the servant of Yahweh in Isaiah 53. The chapter divides into two movements: an invitation to come to water, wine, and milk — representing a complete and free salvation — and a call to respond in faith and repentance while the Lord may be found. Three reasons ground the call to believe and repent: the incomparable nature of God whose thoughts and ways exceed ours in mercy, the sovereign efficacy of God's word which never returns void, and the promise of eschatological joy, peace, and the reversal of the curse. Believers are exhorted to examine whether they have displaced God with idols, legitimate or otherwise, and unbelievers are pressed with the urgency that the day of access to God will not last forever.
The Cleansing of the Temple, Part 2
Matthew 21:14–17 presents two responses to Christ's messianic presence in the temple: the blind and the lame receive healing, and the religious leaders respond with indignant fury. The healing of the outcasts carries deliberate Davidic overtones, evoking 2 Samuel 5 and the messianic prophecies of Isaiah 35 and 61, so that Christ's identity as the greater Son of David is confirmed by deed as well as by word. The praise of nursing infants, drawn from Psalm 8, presses the question of Christ's deity — the religious leaders understood the implications and hardened rather than repented. The passage calls unbelievers to abandon the side of Christ's despisers and look to Him as the only ground of mercy, and reminds the church that the threefold office of prophet, priest, and king is the heart of the gospel it is commissioned to preach.
The Victory of David over Goliath, Part 1
1 Samuel 17:1–37 presents the backstory of David's confrontation with Goliath, and this exposition insists that the Valley of Elah is not a mirror for personal struggle but a display of the singular glory of Yahweh over his enemies. Three movements structure the passage: the formidable threat the Philistines pose to Judah, the quiet providential orchestration by which God positions his servant David, and the theological confidence that drives David's determination where Israel only cowers. The sermon closes by drawing the typological line from David's unconventional victory to the greater Son of David, who achieves total victory through the blood of his cross, calling unbelievers to trust in Christ alone.
The Third Commandment
The Third Commandment—'You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain' (Deuteronomy 5:11)—encompasses far more than profane speech: it governs every use of God's titles, attributes, and works, whether in word, oath, prayer, or conduct. The sermon works through the richness of the divine name (Yahweh, Elohim, El Shaddai, and the Triune persons) before examining the prohibition's reach across blasphemy, unlawful oaths, magic and manipulation, misapplication of providence, and misinterpretation of Scripture. The positive demand of the commandment calls believers to reverent use of God's name in worship, to integrity in oaths and vows, and to a holy profession of faith whose conduct matches its confession. The law's pedagogical use is pressed upon the hearer: all stand guilty before this commandment and are thereby driven to Christ, who alone kept it perfectly and bore the penalty for those who did not.
The Conversion of Matthew
What does genuine conversion look like? Expounding Matthew 9:9–13, this sermon traces the call of Matthew the tax collector — one of the most notorious sinners in first-century Jewish society — to show that Christ's power to forgive is precisely suited to the wretched. The three movements of the passage — the call to discipleship, the feast at Matthew's house, and Jesus' confrontation with the Pharisees — together establish that Christ came not for the self-righteous but for sinners, and that His summons produces immediate, costly, and joyful obedience. Five marks of genuine discipleship are drawn out: saving faith, repentance as a consequence (not a condition) of grace, kingdom priority, beholding Christ as altogether lovely, and serious pursuit of sanctification — set alongside an honest account of remaining corruption and the struggles that attend the Christian life.
1 Samuel 16
God's sovereign election of David over his brothers in 1 Samuel 16 exposes the fundamental difference between divine and human judgment: man looks at outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. The chapter traces two movements — the private anointing of David at Bethlehem and his providential introduction to Saul's court — demonstrating that God orchestrates every detail of history to advance his kingdom regardless of human failure. The sermon draws three lessons: God's sovereign providence overrules all events; true religion is always internal before it is external; and the coming of the Spirit upon David did not signal the absence of trouble, but the beginning of it — a pattern fulfilled supremely in Christ and inherited by all who are his.
Ruth 1
Ruth 1 sets the stage for the entire book by placing one family's tragedy within the framework of Israel's covenantal unfaithfulness: the famine is not misfortune but divine judgment, consistent with the curses of Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. Naomi's theology rightly acknowledges God's sovereign hand in affliction, yet is deficient in failing to acknowledge either Israel's sin as the cause of that judgment or the concurrent mercies of God evident throughout the narrative. Against this backdrop, Ruth the Moabitess stands as the theological hero of the chapter, making a comprehensive confession of faith — in love, covenant identity, allegiance to Yahweh, persevering commitment, and oath — that surpasses the theology of those born within the covenant community. The chapter points forward to Boaz as a type of Christ, the champion who will redeem and restore what was lost.
The Divine Refuge
Psalm 46 proclaims God as the divine refuge of His covenant people in the midst of cosmic upheaval, national crisis, and personal trial. The sermon works through the psalm's four movements: the declaration of God's presence, the contrast between earthly chaos and divine stability, the invitation to behold God's redemptive works in Scripture, and the command to be still in God's sovereignty. The central comfort is covenantal: because Yahweh, the Lord of hosts, has bound Himself to His people in the covenant of grace, no trial, calamity, or fear can unseat Him from His throne or separate His people from His care. Believers are called to meet their sorrows not with fretting but with a deepening knowledge of God, which is itself the appointed means of comfort and strength.
From Alienation to Reconciliation
Colossians 1:21–22 sets the alienation and enmity of sinners against the sovereign, monergistic reconciliation God effects through the incarnate death of His Son. The sermon moves through three aspects of the Colossian believers' transformation: their previous state as those alienated from God, hostile in mind, and outwardly manifesting wicked works; their present status as those God has reconciled through the physical, substitutionary death of Christ; and their future blessedness as those being presented holy, blameless, and above reproach — a goal that is the consequence of reconciliation, never its cause. Communion is the occasion for this exposition, pressing believers to remember the depth of the grace that drew them out of enmity and into fellowship with God.
Judges 2
Judges 2:7–3:6 exposes the root, description, and divine response to Israel's apostasy in a pattern that drives the entire book. The generation that arose after Joshua had only cognitive knowledge of Yahweh — not saving, experiential knowledge — and that deficiency produced the idolatry, covenant-breaking, and moral devolution that follows. Yet the dominant note of the passage is the unmerited grace of God, who raised up deliverers for a people whose groaning was not repentance but merely the pain of consequence. Each earthly judge is a type pointing forward to the one decisive Deliverer, and the church neglects the book of Judges at the cost of losing fresh reasons to sing of amazing grace.
Colossians 1:9-14
Paul's intercessory prayer in Colossians 1:9–14 sets the pattern for how believers ought to pray for one another: not merely for temporal relief, but for a life that walks worthy of the Lord and fully pleases Him. The sermon works through four participles that Paul uses to describe that worthy walk — fruitfulness in good works, growth in the knowledge of God, strength for patient endurance, and thankfulness — showing these as a unified package rather than a menu of options. The closing verses of the passage (vv. 12–14) then ground that thankfulness in three cosmic realities: qualification for the inheritance of the saints, deliverance from the dominion of darkness, and transfer into the kingdom of Christ, all secured by redemption through His blood.
The Servant Song of Matthew
Matthew 12:15–21 records Jesus withdrawing from the murderous rage of the Pharisees while multitudes — including Gentiles — follow Him for healing, and Matthew interprets this through the first Servant Song of Isaiah 42:1–7. The sermon works through six characteristics of the Servant of Yahweh as Matthew presents them: His excellence as the Father's chosen and beloved, His empowerment by the Holy Spirit, His message of justice to the Gentiles, His character and commitment as one who does not quarrel or cry out, His mercy toward bruised reeds and smoking flax, and His worldwide mission culminating in the Great Commission. Throughout, the preacher presses the comfort that weak faith — however small — is true faith, and that Christ as the great Savior of great sinners is the hermeneutical center of all Scripture.
The Truth Concealed and Revealed
Matthew 11:25–26 records Jesus praising the Father for the doctrines of election and reprobation — not defending or debating them, but adoring God for them. This sermon examines the sovereign will of the Father as the first and foundational reason why any sinner receives the gospel: God conceals gospel truth from the self-sufficient wise and prudent by a judicial act of righteous judgment, and reveals it to 'babes' by sovereign grace alone, not by any predisposition in the recipient. The proper response to these doctrines is not polemical ammunition but thanksgiving, worship, and adoration — the very posture Christ models in his prayer to the Father. For the unbeliever, the sovereignty of God in election and reprobation ought to provoke both fear and hope, since God is gracious and has purposed to save a great multitude, and the sovereign foundation of verses 25–26 is precisely what grounds the free gospel call of verses 28–30.
A Rebellious King and the Grace of God
The narrative of 2 Samuel 11–12 exposes the depths of royal sin — adultery, deception, and murder — and the sovereign grace of God that pursues, confronts, and restores the sinner. David's fall is total: nine months of unrepented wickedness in which Israel's king behaves worse than the surrounding nations. Yet God is neither silent nor sightless, and the initiative of grace belongs entirely to Him — He sends Nathan, He indicts, and He pardons. The sermon argues that the measure of grace is calibrated against the measure of sin, and calls both believer and unbeliever to the same conclusion: confess, trust Christ, and find mercy.
The Blessing of Knowing God
Psalm 91:1–2 presents four distinct names for God — El Elyon (Most High), El Shaddai (Almighty), Jehovah (LORD), and Elohim — each disclosing a different facet of the divine character: absolute supremacy, all-sufficiency, covenant faithfulness and redemptive love, and creative power. The sermon argues that knowing God by these names is the believer's chief comfort and greatest need in a world of rival truth-claims, competing gods, and the constant assault of the world, the flesh, and the devil upon intimate fellowship with him. The application presses every hearer — especially those who have grown up in Christian homes without personal faith — to personal repentance and trust in Christ, so that they may say with the psalmist, 'He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in him I will trust.'
The Fear of God
The fear of God is the necessary prerequisite for wisdom, right thinking, and right conduct before a holy God — yet fallen man possesses none of it apart from sovereign grace. Drawing primarily from the book of Proverbs, this sermon traces four observations: the fear of God is wrought by divine grace (not moral effort), it governs the mind, it shapes behavior, and it preserves the soul in perseverance. The sermon closes with practical applications to personal cultivation of the fear of God, corporate worship governed by reverence, and a call to unbelievers to come to Christ — the one through whom God plants his fear in the heart.