Cited in sermons
John Rogers
3 sermons · All people cited
2LCF Chapter 14 - Of Saving Faith
What is saving faith, and where does it come from? Working through 2 LCF (1689 LBCF) Chapter 14, paragraphs 1–3, this study traces the origin, object, and nature of saving faith. Saving faith is not a human contribution to salvation but a sovereign gift of the Holy Spirit, ordinarily wrought through the ministry of the Word and increased through the means of grace. The principal acts of saving faith have immediate relation to Christ alone — receiving and resting upon Him for justification, sanctification, and eternal life by virtue of the covenant of grace — and though faith may be weak and assailed, it cannot ultimately be lost, because its author and finisher is Christ himself.
The Olivet Discourse, Part 8
Matthew 24:29 presents one of the most contested verses in the Olivet Discourse: does its cosmic imagery — a darkened sun, a moonless sky, falling stars, and shaken heavens — describe a literal end-of-the-world event, or does it employ a well-established grammar of Old Testament prophetic language? This sermon argues the preterist case that verse 29 deploys figurative apocalyptic language drawn from Isaiah, Ezekiel, Joel, Amos, and others to announce the covenantal destruction of Old Covenant Israel in AD 70, immediately after the tribulation of those days. Five considerations are developed: the two time-markers tethering verse 29 to its context, the figurative meaning of cosmic collapse language, the extensive Old Testament background, the role-reversal of Israel becoming Babylon, and the implications for continuity in the new heavens and new earth. The sermon closes with a direct summons from Amos 5 — that there will be no escape on the final day of judgment, and that faith in Jesus Christ alone is the only refuge.
The Escape from Saul
God's provision for David during his flight from Saul — through bread at Nob, deliverance at Gath, fellowship at Adullam, safety for his parents in Moab, and a prophetic word at the forest of Hereth — is the controlling theological theme of 1 Samuel 21–22:5. The narrative exposes both the reality of severe trial in the life of God's people and the sovereign grace that meets them in and through their own failures. David's response of praise, crystallised in Psalms 34, 56, 57, and 142, rebukes a health-and-wealth theology and models the only fitting reply to affliction. The gathering of the distressed, indebted, and discontented to David in the cave of Adullam functions as a type of Christ, who bids weary sinners come to him as captain and lord.