Cited in sermons
Petrus van Mastricht
14 sermons · All people cited
The Third Commandment
The Third Commandment — 'You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain' (Deuteronomy 5:11) — carries far greater weight than mere avoidance of profanity, because the divine name is not an arbitrary label but a revelation of God's very being, perfections, works, and decree. The sermon examines three aspects: the theological significance of God's name, the breadth of the prohibition (spanning blasphemy, frivolous speech, euphemisms, unlawful oaths, magic and sorcery, misapplication of providence, and maintenance of false doctrine), and the positive duty to use God's name reverently in prayer, praise, theological discourse, and the keeping of solemn oaths. The closing application presses hearers toward an 'answerable conversation' — a profession of faith matched by a life that gives no occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme.
CTF 2025 - Session 2 - Divine Simplicity
Divine simplicity — the doctrine that God is without parts of any kind, physical or metaphysical — is the necessary precondition for God to be the absolute first cause of all things confessed in Romans 11:36. This lecture, drawn from 2LCF Chapter 2 Paragraph 1, works through the logic of composition and dependence to show that any being composed of parts is doubly dependent: upon those parts and upon whatever unifies them, and is therefore disqualified from being the uncreated Creator. Divine infinity is then treated as a corollary of simplicity: because God has no compositional structure of finitude, his being is actual, unbounded, and without lack, which is the only reliable ground for absolute trust and worship.
The Spirit's Ministry to the Apostles
John 16:12–15 presents the Spirit's ministry to the apostles as the continuation and completion of Christ's own self-disclosure to the disciples. The sermon expounds Jesus' promise that the Spirit of Truth will guide the apostles into all truth, situating that promise within the doctrine of the Trinity — specifically the eternal processions of the Son and Spirit and their corresponding temporal missions. The Spirit's 'not speaking on his own authority' is shown to mirror Christ's own language about receiving all things from the Father, testifying not to any inferiority of persons but to the consubstantiality of the three divine persons, each possessing the whole divine essence undivided. The congregation is called to pursue the knowledge of the triune God as the foundation for every other duty of the Christian life.
The Spirit's Conviction of the World
The Holy Spirit's conviction of the world — of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment — is not a promise that every hearer will be saved, but a declaration that the Spirit will confirm the identity and vindication of Jesus Christ through the apostolic proclamation. Drawing on John 16:8–11 alongside Acts 2 and Acts 24, this sermon argues that the Spirit's primary work in the world is to expose unbelief in Christ, to declare the sufficiency of Christ's imputed righteousness, and to announce the judgment already rendered against the ruler of this world at the cross. The church's calling is therefore not to measure success by numerical response but to preach sin, righteousness, and judgment faithfully, trusting the Spirit to do His own sovereign work.
The Testimony Concerning Christ
John 15:26–27 presents the Holy Spirit as both sent by the Son in a temporal mission and as one who eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son — the filioque. This sermon works through the distinction between God's eternal processions (theology proper) and his temporal missions (economy), arguing that the Western church's confession of the Spirit's double procession preserves both the consubstantiality and the personal distinction of the three persons of the Trinity. The apostolic witness of verse 27 is grounded in and empowered by that same Spirit, whose singular purpose in both the sending at Pentecost and the inscripturated Word is to testify of Christ — and that testimony calls sinners to receive eternal life by faith in him alone.
The Gifts Given by Christ
John 14:25–27 presents two gifts Christ gives his disciples on the eve of his departure: the Holy Spirit and his peace. The sermon expounds the procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son, the Spirit's specific work of teaching and bringing Scripture to remembrance in the apostles, and the distinction between Christ's objective, lasting peace and the transient peace the world offers. The practical weight falls on the call to displace carnal fear — which the sermon argues signals bad theology, lack of kingdom priority, and ultimately endangers the soul — with the peace that flows from knowing the triune God.
Ask FGBC #6 - Why is historical confessional Christianity important?
The question of why historical confessional Christianity matters is addressed by examining what Scripture itself says about the gifts Christ gives to his church. Drawing on Ephesians 4 and Matthew 28, the argument is made that creeds and confessions are the accumulated fruit of those gifts — the best doctrinal articulation the church has produced across centuries of theological controversy, from Nicaea and Chalcedon through the Second London Confession. To reject them in favor of a 'no creed but the Bible' posture is not humility but a subtle repudiation of the very ecclesiology the Bible commands, and it leaves individuals without the guardrails that preserve orthodox Christianity.
The Nature of the Holy Spirit
How does Jesus comfort his disciples in the upper room by pointing them to the Holy Spirit, and what does that reveal about who God is? Expounding John 14:16–18, this sermon works through four aspects of the Spirit's nature drawn from the text: the distinction of persons in the Godhead, the unity of the Godhead, the world's ignorance of the Spirit, and the believer's knowledge of him. The eternal processions — the Father unbegotten, the Son eternally begotten, the Spirit proceeding from Father and Son — ground the temporal missions in which the Father sends the Son and the Father and Son send the Spirit for the salvation of God's people. The congregation is called to hold fast to the Trinitarian guardrails of the creeds and the 1689 confession, to resist the modalism and Arianism that perennially distort who God is, and to rest in the gospel of free and sovereign grace through faith in the one who declared 'I am.'
Ask FGBC #4: Is Accepting Salvation a Choice? (Hyper-Calvinism)
Is accepting salvation a choice, and does that choice conflict with divine election? This Q&A addresses the relationship between the general call of the gospel and the effectual call of God, arguing that human faith is a real act of the will, but one that presupposes prior regeneration — sinners are dead in trespasses and sins and must be born again before they can believe. The discussion also addresses the pastoral problem of assurance, directing struggling believers away from introspection and personal performance toward the objectivity of Christ's finished work and his ongoing intercession as High Priest and advocate.
The Penalty for Blasphemy
Leviticus 24 addresses both the daily obligations of tabernacle worship and the capital penalty for blasphemy, grounding each in the direct speech of God to Moses. The chapter's narrative pivot — an incident in which a man of mixed Israelite and Egyptian descent blasphemes the name of Yahweh — becomes the occasion for case-law application of the third commandment, surrounded by reminders of the lex talionis and the equal accountability of stranger and native-born alike. The typological furniture of the holy place (lampstand and showbread) points forward to Christ as the true light and bread of life, while the blasphemy legislation, with its witness requirements and retributive principle, reveals a God who guards his own honour and structures justice with both severity and safeguard. The sermon exhorts hearers to put away every profane use of the divine name and to cultivate a reverent, wholehearted employment of it in thought, word, and worship.
The Ratification of the Covenant, Part II
Exodus 24:9–18 concludes the ratification of the Mosaic covenant and introduces Moses' solitary ascent to receive the Decalogue inscribed by God. The passage raises the theological question of how sinful, finite creatures can see the invisible God — answered through the category of theophany, a creaturely manifestation of divine glory that does not expose God's essential being. The covenant meal of verse 11 seals the bond between God and Israel, while Moses' charge to Aaron and Hur underscores the necessity of law and legal structure given the persistent sinfulness of man. The passage closes the 'demand' section of Exodus and opens toward the 'dwelling' section, whose pinnacle is God's desire to tabernacle in the midst of his people.
The Consubstantiality of the Son, Part 3
John 5:27–30 presents the Son of God claiming the divine prerogatives of life-giving and universal judgment as proof of His consubstantiality with the Father — the same divine nature, not a derivative or lesser deity. The sermon works through the distinction between the present spiritual resurrection of verse 25 and the future general resurrection of all mankind in verses 28–29, establishing that the 'good' who rise to life are those justified by faith alone, whose works are the fruit and evidence of that faith rather than its ground. Christ's declaration in verse 30 — 'I can of myself do nothing' — is shown to be not a confession of subordination but an assertion of the unity of the divine will across the three persons. Hearers are called either to take refuge in Christ's blood and righteousness before the day of judgment, or, if already believing, to long with biblical legitimacy for the coming of the just Judge who will vindicate His church and right every wrong.
The Consubstantiality of the Son, Part 2
John 5:24–30 presents Jesus responding to the Jewish charge that he made himself equal with God — not by retreating, but by affirming it through two divine functions: authority over life and authority over judgment. This sermon works through the declaration of that authority in eternal life (vv. 24–25), the rationale grounded in the eternal generation of the Son from the Father (vv. 26–27), and the promise of his authority on the final day of judgment (vv. 28–30, previewed). Central to the argument is the doctrine of consubstantiality — that the Son shares the one simple undivided divine essence with the Father from all eternity — which grounds both his power to effectually call dead sinners to life and his right to preside as judge of all the earth. The sermon calls hearers to receive Christ by faith, since only God himself can save sinners, and it is the voice of the Son of God alone that awakens the spiritually dead.
Live Stream - July 11, 2021
John 1:18 presents two inseparable doctrines: the invisibility and incomprehensibility of God, and the revelation of that invisible God through the incarnate Word. The sermon works through the prologue of John's Gospel to show that while no creature has ever perceived the essential glory of God — not Abraham, not Moses, not Isaiah — the only begotten Son, who exists eternally in the bosom of the Father as a distinct yet consubstantial person of the Trinity, has exegeted the Father to us. The practical burden is that saving knowledge of God is not merely knowledge about the economy of redemption but knowledge of the Redeemer himself — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — and that the chief end of man is to glorify and enjoy this triune God forever.