Cited in sermons
Robert Haldane
5 sermons · All people cited
CTF 2026 - Session 3: Is God the Author of Sin?
Two difficult theological questions frame this conference session: Is God the author of sin, and do a believer's sins work together for good? Drawing on 1689 LBCF 3.1, Acts 2:23, Acts 17:28, and Romans 8:28, the session argues that God's comprehensive, eternal decree encompasses all things — including sin — without making God personally culpable for evil, because sin is a privation of good rooted in the creature's deformed nature rather than in God's infinitely good being. The session closes by showing from Romans 8:28, with support from Robert Haldane and Genesis 50:20, that God's overruling providence turns even the believer's own sins toward their ultimate good and his glory — not as license to sin, but as ground for humility, dependence, and hope.
The Sixth Commandment, Part 2
The sixth commandment's prohibition of murder raises pressing questions about the lawfulness of capital punishment — questions this study addresses by examining common objections, both biblical and pragmatic. Working through passages in Genesis 9, Romans 12–13, Matthew 5, and John 8, the study argues that none of these texts undermines the death penalty; rather, each, rightly interpreted, confirms that the civil magistrate is God's ordained avenger, armed with the sword to execute retributive justice. The account of the woman caught in adultery is shown to uphold, not overturn, the law of Moses, since Jesus' appeal to qualified witnesses is itself a requirement of that law. Believers are called to embrace the whole counsel of God on civil justice, including its consistency with — not contradiction of — the free offer of the gospel.
The Bible and Capital Punishment
Capital punishment is examined as a biblical mandate rooted in the sanctity of human life as image-bearers of God, tracing the consistent teaching of Scripture from Genesis 9:6 through Romans 13:1–4. The sermon argues that the Noahic covenant establishes civil government's God-given authority to execute murderers, an authority confirmed rather than overturned in the New Testament. Common objections — from the sixth commandment, the Sermon on the Mount, the woman caught in adultery, and concerns about deterrence and salvation — are answered exegetically. Believers are called to submit to governing authorities as God's ministers of wrath, to pray the imprecatory psalms, and to reject both personal vengeance and the sentimental rejection of God's revealed standard of justice.
The Death Penalty
Romans 13:1–4 grounds the civil magistrate's authority to execute criminal offenders not in political theory but in the creational ordinance of Genesis 9:6 and the delegated wrath of God. The sermon traces a biblical theology of capital punishment from the Noahic covenant through the Mosaic economy into the New Testament, demonstrating that the sword Paul assigns to the magistrate in Romans 13 is no metaphor but a mandate. Common objections — drawn from Exodus 20:13, Matthew 5:38–42, and John 8 — are answered exegetically, and pragmatic objections (racial disparity, deterrence, forgiveness) are answered from Scripture and reason. The hearer is called to submit to governing authorities as God's ordained ministers of justice, to renounce private vengeance, and — if an unbeliever — to flee to Christ before facing the ultimate Judge whose assessment of the heart no magistrate can anticipate.
Crushing the Head
Romans 16:20 contains a striking promise — that the God of peace shall bruise Satan under the feet of his people. This sermon expounds that promise by tracing the crushing of Satan across five dimensions: historically at the cross, judicially in justification, experientially in the believer's security, ecclesiastically in the preservation of the church, and eschatologically at the end of days. The word translated 'shortly' is shown to carry connotations of certainty and sovereignty rather than mere temporal nearness, grounding the church's confidence in God's irreversible triumph over the adversary.