Cited in sermons
Martin Luther
327 sermons · All people cited
Free Grace Baptist Church - September 30, 2018 PM
Psalm 143 confronts the fundamental problem of human unrighteousness: in God's sight no one living is righteous, and David's only refuge is not his own covenant faithfulness but God's righteousness, faithfulness, and hesed. The sermon traces David's two movements — his appeal to God's righteousness in the face of a crushed soul (vv. 1–6) and his petitions for God's guidance as a troubled servant (vv. 7–12) — showing that both sections keep the focus relentlessly on who God is rather than on the psalmist's circumstances. Luther's description of Psalm 143 as a Pauline psalm is vindicated by Paul's verbal allusion in Romans 3:20, where the same confession that no flesh is justified by works of the law becomes the pivot to the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ. The sermon calls believers to let their prayers be preoccupied with God's character and Christ's imputed righteousness rather than their own merit, and invites the unbeliever to look to Christ for a righteousness entirely outside themselves.
The Deliberation of the Council
Acts 4:13–22 records the Sanhedrin's deliberation over Peter and John following the healing of a lame man and the apostolic proclamation of Christ's resurrection. The council faces an insoluble dilemma: the miracle is undeniable and publicly known, yet to leave the apostles unchallenged is to permit the gospel to spread unchecked. This sermon traces two broad movements — the deliberation of the council (vv. 13–17) and the attempt to silence the apostles (vv. 18–22) — and draws out the benefits of being with Jesus as seen in the apostles' boldness and wisdom, alongside the liabilities that attend any attempt to suppress the word of God. The application presses believers to pray for men of gospel courage and to resist every pressure, civil or ecclesiastical, to silence the name of Christ.
The Woman Who Was a Sinner
Luke 7:36–50 presents three parties — a repentant woman, a judgmental Pharisee, and the Lord Jesus Christ — whose interactions disclose the theology of justification by grace alone through faith alone. The woman's extravagant acts of devotion at Christ's feet are not the ground of her forgiveness but its fruit: she loves much because she has been forgiven much. The Pharisee's self-righteousness exposes the danger of confusing surface morality with saving grace, and of imagining any sinner to be beyond the reach of Christ. The sermon calls believers to examine the warmth of their love for Christ as the chief evidence of genuine justifying faith, and invites the unconverted to come to the Savior whose mercy is wider than any sinner's guilt.
Genesis 3:14-24
Genesis 3:14–24 records the consequences of the fall, and the heart of this study is the protoevangelium of Genesis 3:15 — the first gospel promise in Scripture. God's curse upon the serpent contains within it an announcement of the Messiah: the seed of the woman who would crush the serpent's head, accomplishing total victory through suffering and death. The sermon traces this skull-crushing seed through the biblical narrative — from the typological head-wounds of Judges and David's defeat of Goliath, to New Testament fulfillment in Colossians, Hebrews, 1 John, and Revelation 12 — demonstrating that the cross of Christ is the decisive blow against the devil foreshadowed in Eden. The study closes by examining the consequences for the woman and the man in verses 16–19, situating the tensions of marriage and labor in a post-lapsarian world that Christ's redemptive work is already beginning to address.
2LCF Chapter 30 - Of the Lord's Supper
The Lord's Supper is a divinely instituted ordinance of the new covenant, commanded by Christ and belonging to the gathered church until His return. Walking through 2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith chapter 30, this study examines the purpose, nature, celebration, elements, and recipients of the Supper — contrasting the Reformed understanding with the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. The Supper is neither a sacrifice of atonement nor a reward for obedience, but a means of grace through which God confirms and nourishes the faith of believers, binds them to Christ and to one another, and stirs them toward renewed obedience and praise.
Genesis 2:4-14
Genesis 2:4–14 introduces the man placed in the garden, and this study draws out two interlocking themes: the creation of Adam from the dust as both image-bearer and creature, and the Garden of Eden as the first temple-sanctuary. The garden is shown to be the original holy mountain of God — the unique place of his presence — with Adam functioning not primarily as a gardener but as a priest called to tend, guard, and expand that sacred space. This priestly vocation, forfeited by the first Adam, is traced through the tabernacle, the Solomonic temple, Mount Zion, and ultimately fulfilled by the last Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ, whose work brings the garden-temple theme to its consummation in the new Jerusalem of Revelation 21–22. The study closes with a call to prize corporate worship as the present Mount Zion and to live as faithful priest-servants of the God who has purposed communion with his people from the beginning.
The Ascension of Christ
The ascension of Christ in Acts 1:9–11 is no mere epilogue to the resurrection but a theologically freighted event with direct consequences for how believers understand Christ's present reign, the Lord's Supper, intercession, and final glorification. Working through the passage, the sermon establishes that the ascension was visible, local, bodily, and glorious — witnessed by the apostles and interpreted by angelic messengers who announce Christ's return in like manner. The ascension completes Christ's earthly mediatorial work, secures the gift of the Spirit, and grounds the believer's assurance in a high priest who always lives to make intercession — the pledge that those whom He justified He will also glorify.
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.'
Introduction to the Book of Acts
The book of Acts is not merely a record of human achievement but theological history — the continuing acts of the risen and ascended Christ, who builds his church by the Spirit through apostolic agency. This introductory sermon on Acts 1:1–3 examines the authorship, date, purpose, and major themes of Acts, defending the apostolicity of Luke as a non-apostle who nonetheless wrote under apostolic oversight and companionship with Paul. The sermon anchors the entire book in three great themes: the glory of the triune God, the normative practice of the early church, and the unstoppable spread of the gospel — all driven by the necessity of the Christian gospel for sinners under a holy God.
2LCF Chapter 26 - Of the Church, Part 1
The universal church — its invisibility, its visible expression in the lives of professing saints, its perpetuity, and the exclusive headship of Christ — is the doctrinal territory of 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 26, paragraphs 1 to 4. The confession grounds the church's existence not in voluntary human association but in the electing grace of God and the internal work of the Spirit, defining the church's members as those who profess the gospel and live in conformity with that profession. The distinction between the invisible universal church and visible saints is shown to carry a distinctively Baptist ecclesiological weight: church membership flows from credible profession, not covenant birth. Christ's absolute headship over the church — established by the Father as mediator — provides the foundation for the regulative principle of worship and stands in irreconcilable opposition to any papal claim to vicarship.
The Crucifixion of Jesus, Part 5
Matthew 27:51–56 records a cluster of supernatural signs accompanying the death of Christ — the rending of the temple veil, the earthquake, the splitting of rocks, and the resurrection of saints — each of which publicly attests the efficacy of Christ's atoning work. The torn veil simultaneously signals the judgment of God upon apostate Israel and the opening of access to the Father through Christ's blood, marking the covenantal transition from the old order of sacrifice to the new covenant inaugurated at Calvary. The centurion's confession, 'Truly this was the Son of God,' demonstrates that the cross reaches sinners from every tribe and tongue, while the faithful women at a distance stand as witnesses to Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. The sermon calls every hearer to receive the torn veil as God's own invitation to draw near through the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Crucifixion of Jesus, Part 4
Matthew 27:47–50 records the final moments before Christ's death on the cross — the mockery of bystanders who misheard his cry of dereliction as a call for Elijah, the offering of sour wine, and his loud, voluntary yielding of his spirit. The sermon examines what the cry of dereliction does and does not teach: it does not indicate a division within the Trinity, a dissolution of the hypostatic union, or patripassianism, but it does express the qualified, temporary withholding of the Father's favour from the Son as he bore the punishment due to his people. Christ's loud cry at the moment of death demonstrates that he laid down his life sovereignly and willingly, not as a victim overcome by suffering but as a priest offering himself as substitute. The only fitting response to this substitutionary sacrifice is not moral self-improvement but worship, gratitude, and faith in the one who was forsaken so that his people would never be forsaken.
Free Grace Baptist Church - October 15, 2017 AM
Matthew 27:32–38 presents the crucifixion of Jesus Christ as the central event in redemptive history, the long-anticipated fulfillment of Old Testament promise from Genesis 3:15 through Isaiah 53. The sermon traces two movements: the way to the cross — bearing, location, and the bitter drink — and the act of crucifixion itself, attending to the division of garments, the watching guards, the charge above his head, and the company of criminals. Throughout, the visible shame of the Son of God is shown to be the appointed means by which he crushes the serpent's head, satisfies divine justice, and secures justification for all whom the Father gave him. Hearers are called to abandon every notion of contributing to their own salvation and to look in faith to the crucified Christ alone.
2 Kings 8
2 Kings 8 traces three interlocking narrative threads — the restoration of the Shunammite woman's land, the assassination of Syria's king Ben-Hadad by Hazael, and the moral defection of Judah's kings Jehoram and Ahaziah — all set within the larger context of God's prophesied judgment against the house of Omri announced in 1 Kings 19. The chapter demonstrates God's comprehensive, unrivaled sovereignty over individual lives, foreign nations, and royal dynasties alike, as every piece moves toward the purge of Jehu. A recurring application drives the exposition: the knowledge of God must issue in worship and obedience, not mere fascination, and ungodly alliances — whether political or marital — carry devastating consequences across generations.
The Righteousness of David
Romans 4:5–8 announces that God justifies the ungodly, and the Apostle Paul calls David as a witness to that doctrine. This sermon works through the theology of David in 2 Samuel 22, Psalms 2, 18, 32, 51, 110, and 130 to show that David's celebrated righteousness is not his own moral achievement but the imputed righteousness of Christ, received by faith. David's recognition of his own sin, his understanding of atonement, his grasp of the doctrine of imputation, and his personal faith in the coming Messiah together resolve the apparent tension between his notorious moral failures and his claim to cleanness of hands. The sermon calls hearers to approach the Lord's Supper not in mere introspection over sin but in joyful confidence in the righteousness of David's greater Son.
2 Kings 2:1-25
2 Kings 2 presents the translation of Elijah and the public authentication of Elisha as his prophetic successor. The chapter divides into two broad movements: Elijah's assumption into heaven by whirlwind (vv. 1–12) and Elisha's manifestation as the new man of God through miracle-working (vv. 13–25). The parallels to Moses and Joshua, the divided Jordan, the healing of Jericho's water, and the covenant curse executed through two bears all establish that Elisha stands in an unbroken line of authorized prophetic ministry — and that God's Word, not any individual instrument, is the true power sustaining His kingdom. The controlling application is that when God removes an Elijah, a Calvin, or a Spurgeon, His Word and His kingdom march on, calling His people to fix their confidence on the strength of God's arm rather than the charisma of His servants.
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 Active Obedience of Christ
Romans 5:19 grounds the doctrine of Christ's active obedience: as Adam's disobedience constituted many sinners, so Christ's perfect law-keeping constitutes many righteous before God. This sermon surveys the theological structure of that doctrine under three heads — its explanation in covenant terms, the obligation that would fall on sinners apart from it, and its realization in Christ's historical life of obedience. The controlling pastoral burden is that God demands personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience, a demand no sinner can meet, and that the righteousness imputed to believers by faith alone is the only ground on which any creature may ascend the mountain of God and dwell in His presence.
The Nature of Saving Faith, 2
James 2:18–26 presents an apparent conflict with Paul's doctrine of justification by faith alone, a tension that has troubled interpreters from Martin Luther onward. This sermon resolves the tension exegetically by demonstrating that James and Paul use the word 'justification' in different senses: Paul addresses the sinner's standing before God by grace alone through faith alone, while James addresses the public demonstration and evidential confirmation of that faith before men. The controlling principle throughout is that saving faith is never alone — it is ever accompanied with all other saving graces and necessarily produces good works — while a faith that produces no works is the dead, demonic, counterfeit profession James condemns. The sermon calls hearers to examine whether their profession of faith in Christ is accompanied by the fruit that distinguishes genuine saving faith from empty confessionalism.
The Faithful Christian Mother
Proverbs 31:28–30 sets forth a vision of the faithful Christian mother whose defining characteristic is the fear of the Lord — a fear that is itself the fruit of sovereign, effectual grace. Drawing on Proverbs, Titus 2, Leviticus, the fifth commandment, and the testimony of C.H. Spurgeon, this sermon identifies four dimensions of biblical motherhood: her condition before God (saved by grace and walking with the Lord), her God-given influence over her children, her God-given authority over them, and her fourfold responsibility to instruct, example, discipline, and love. The closing application calls mothers to constant dependence on Word and prayer, theological literacy sufficient to catechize their children rightly, faithful perseverance in a demanding and underappreciated calling, and daily recourse to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The Nature of Saving Faith, Part 1
James 2:14–17 has provoked sharp disagreement in the history of the church, with readers perceiving a direct contradiction between James and Paul on the doctrine of justification. This sermon works through five hermeneutical tools for harmonizing the two apostles — the unity of Scripture, the internal consistency of James's own doctrine of salvation, the immediate context, the different audiences and purposes of each writer, and the statement of 1689 LBCF 11.2 — before turning to the question James poses in verses 14–17 concerning the validity of a particular species of faith. The central distinction is not faith versus works or faith plus works, but false faith versus true faith: genuine saving faith is never alone in the person justified, but is always accompanied with all other saving graces, producing the practical Christianity James demands.
The Institution of the Lord's Supper, Part 2
Matthew 26:26–30 records Christ's institution of the Lord's Supper in the context of the Passover, and this expository sermon works through the significance of the cup, the anticipation of the messianic banquet, and the concluding hymn sung before Gethsemane. The cup of the new covenant is unpacked under three headings: the covenantal background rooted in Exodus 24 and Jeremiah 31, the substitutionary and particular atonement it seals (Christ's blood shed for many, not for all without distinction), and the redemptive benefit of the remission of sins. The sermon closes by setting the Lord's Supper within its threefold orientation—backward to the cross, present in the church's communion, and forward to the consummated messianic banquet—and by pressing the gospel invitation upon the unconverted through John 6:40.
The Institution of the Lord's Supper
Matthew 26:26–30 records Christ instituting the Lord's Supper in the context of the Passover meal, and this sermon expounds the theological significance of that institution under three headings: the setting, the institution itself, and its conclusion. The bread and cup are shown to be covenantal signs rather than instances of transubstantiation or consubstantiation — the elements represent Christ's body and blood without any change of substance. The covenantal background of Exodus 24 and Jeremiah 31:31–34 illuminates the cup as the blood of the new covenant, fulfilled by Christ as the true Israel who accomplished what national Israel swore but failed to do at Sinai. Believers are called to receive the supper as God's gift of spiritual nourishment and to trust not in their own performance but in the blood and righteousness of Christ alone.
The Passover with the Disciples
Matthew 26:17–25 presents Jesus as the sovereign master of the Passover, not a hapless victim of events spiraling beyond his control. Working through the preparation for Passover and the announcement of betrayal, this exposition shows how Christ's active obedience to the law, his precise foreknowledge, and his willing submission to the Father's eternal decree together constitute the ground of redemption for his people. The contrast between Judas, whose hardened heart renders him a reprobate despite extraordinary privilege, and the eleven, whose sorrowful self-examination models the disposition of genuine faith, drives home two applications: trust in Christ alone, by grace through faith, for justification; and cultivate a healthy self-suspicion rather than a confident presumption of one's own standing before God.
Of Effectual Calling (2LCF 10)
Effectual calling — the internal, sovereign act by which God draws his elect from death to life by his Word and Spirit — is the focus of 2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith chapter 10. This study works through all four paragraphs of the chapter, tracing the monergistic character of the call: it originates in God's eternal predestination, operates independently of anything foreseen in the creature, and is accomplished by a power no less than that which raised Christ from the dead. The chapter's handling of elect infants, the mentally incapable, the non-elect, and the heathen is examined in turn, with sustained application to evangelical method, the centrality of the cross in preaching, and the believer's dependence upon God in prayer and witness.
Of Free Will (2LCF9)
The doctrine of free will, rightly understood, is not denied by Reformed theology but carefully defined according to the fourfold state of man as Scripture and the 1689 London Baptist Confession (chapter 9) set forth. This confession-study exposition works through the four paragraphs of chapter 9 — man's will in innocency (able to sin and not to sin), in sin (unable not to sin), in grace (freed from bondage yet still corrupted), and in glory (perfectly and immutably free to good alone) — showing that each state demands a distinct account of human liberty. The doctrines of total depravity, effectual calling, and remaining corruption are not isolated abstractions but are woven into the covenantal structure of the confession, where chapter 9 stands between the covenant mediator (chapter 8) and the application of redemptive benefits (chapters 10 and following). Believers are urged to pray for dead sinners with urgency, to pursue Spirit-enabled obedience with vigor, and to take honest comfort in the confession's frank acknowledgment of remaining corruption rather than retreating into either perfectionism or despair.
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.
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 Governing Principle of Kingdom Life
Matthew 6:31–34 contains Christ's governing principle for kingdom life: seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and the necessities of life will be added. The sermon works through the contrast Christ draws between the Gentiles, whose obsessive anxiety over food, drink, and clothing flows from their exclusion of God, and the children of God, whose heavenly Father already knows their needs. Worry is exposed as a sin that betrays the sovereignty of God, divides the believer's attention, and paralyzes kingdom advance. The remedy is not passivity but a reordered priority — the Lord's Prayer models the same sequence — combined with a cultivated contentment grounded in the goodness and providence of God.
1 Kings 8 Part 2
Solomon's prayer at the dedication of the temple in 1 Kings 8 exposes several foundational truths for the people of God: the covenantal faithfulness of God across the Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic covenants; the nature of God's presence among His people, which produces both reverential awe and deep joy; and the theological precision required for rightly ordered prayer, including the doctrines of divine incomparability, transcendence, immanence, and simplicity. The sermon closes by drawing out practical lessons for new covenant believers: the centrality of Scripture, the necessity of heart obedience, the perpetual need for forgiveness, the remedial purpose of afflictions, and the indispensable role of communion with God in the genuine pursuit of holiness.