Cited in sermons
Robert Murray McCheyne
9 sermons · All people cited
The Apostle's Charge to Timothy
Paul's charge to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1:3–7 commands the silencing of false teachers in Ephesus who taught other doctrine, devoted themselves to fables and endless genealogies, and generated disputes rather than godly edification. The charge is not motivated by power or animosity but by love flowing from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith — the fruit of regeneration. The false teachers compounded their error by combining ignorance of the law with arrogant confidence in their own assertions, a combination the apostle deems disqualifying. Churches today must hold the same line: qualifying teachers rigorously, refusing platforms to the heterodox, and measuring all teaching against the truth as it is in Jesus.
Bible Study - Exodus 5
Exodus 5 narrates the first confrontation between Moses and Aaron and Pharaoh, ending not in liberation but in intensified oppression and blame directed at the very messengers God had sent. The chapter exposes a recurring pattern in the life of the covenant community: when God's promised deliverance does not come immediately, his people tend to murmur against his instruments rather than wait upon his sovereign hand. Drawing on John Calvin's commentary, the study identifies six reasons God permitted things to grow worse before they grew better — including the demonstration of divine power, the testing of his people's patience, and the inexcusability of Pharaoh's hardness — and calls believers to feed on the promises of God so that faith produces courage rather than cowardice.
The Believer's Gratitude Toward God
Psalm 103 grounds thanksgiving not in vague sentiment but in the specific mercies of a covenant-keeping God toward those He has redeemed. Working through David's threefold structure — the reminder to bless God, the reasons for blessing God, and the reflection on God's kingdom — the sermon traces the chief benefit of divine grace as the forgiveness of sins accomplished in Christ, before moving outward to temporal providences, divine mercy measured against human frailty, and the universal summons of all creation to praise. The sermon draws on Deuteronomy's warnings against forgetting God's benefits and Paul's account of the worthy walk in Colossians 1 to show that detailed, specific thanksgiving is a mark of those who have received grace. The congregation is called to speak to their own souls, directing them away from self-absorption and toward the God whose mercy extends from everlasting to everlasting.
2LCF Chapter 19 - Of the Law of God
God's moral law — first written on Adam's heart in the covenant of works, codified in the Ten Commandments at Sinai, and distinguished from the temporary ceremonial and judicial laws of Moses — remains perpetually binding on all humanity because it perfectly expresses the unchangeable holy character of its divine Author. This study works through chapter 19 of the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, examining the original revelation of the law, its survival after the fall, the threefold distinction of moral, ceremonial, and judicial law, and the abiding obligation of the Decalogue across all covenants. The threefold use of the moral law is treated in sequence: its civil use in restraining sin, its pedagogical use in exposing sin and driving the conscience to Christ, and its normative use in directing the regenerate life of the believer. Believers are called to embrace the moral law not as a covenant of works but in gratitude, enabled by the Spirit through the ordinary means of grace, standing in Christ's righteousness alone before the holy lawgiver.
The Duties Toward Elders: Discipline
First Timothy 5:19–21 establishes a precise, legally grounded process for receiving accusations against elders, publicly rebuking those found guilty, and doing so without partiality or personal prejudice. The passage roots its discipline procedure in the Old Testament two-or-three-witnesses requirement (Deuteronomy 17; 19), which Paul applies through the same logic as Matthew 18, protecting both the accused elder from frivolous charges and the congregation from the corruption of unchecked sin in its leadership. The sermon argues that church discipline is not a pastoral option but a solemn obligation, witnessed by God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels — as binding on Timothy as the charge to preach the word. The controlling application is that congregations must follow biblical due process faithfully, neither shielding sinning elders behind their gifts nor condemning them on the basis of unverified accusation.
The 3rd Petition: God's Will, Part 1
The third petition of the Lord's Prayer — 'Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven' (Matthew 6:10) — requires a prior understanding of the two categories of God's will: the decretive (secret) will, by which God sovereignly ordains all things according to the counsel of his own purpose, and the preceptive (revealed) will, which constitutes the duty God has set before his creatures in Scripture. The sermon argues that Christians are primarily praying for conformity to the revealed will — active obedience to God's commands and passive submission to his providence — rather than seeking to align their lives with the secret things that belong to God alone. Four concrete duties follow: recognizing God's absolute right to command, knowing the revealed will through Scripture, obeying it, and submitting with faith, contentedness, and determination to whatever God inflicts by his providence. Throughout, the active and passive obedience of Christ is held forth as the only perfect fulfillment of this petition and the ground of the believer's confidence before God.
Sinful Kings, Interesting Women, and the Son of David
Matthew's genealogy of Jesus Christ (Matthew 1:2–17) is not a census document but a theological and covenantal argument: the Messiah is the legal heir to David's throne and the fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise that all nations would be blessed through his seed. The sermon examines the genealogy's three structural movements — Abraham to David, David to the exile, exile to Christ — attending closely to the sinful kings of Judah, the five women embedded in the line, and the passive construction 'of whom was born Jesus' that marks the Virgin Birth as the genealogy's climax. God's sovereign faithfulness to the Davidic covenant, not the righteousness of the human instruments, is the thread that binds the entire line and culminates in the one who saves his people from their sins.
The Cleansing of Joshua
Zechariah 3 presents a fourth night vision in which Joshua the high priest stands before God clothed in filth — a vivid picture of human depravity and covenantal guilt — while Satan stands ready to accuse. God rebukes the accuser on the grounds of sovereign election and acts unilaterally to remove the filthy garments and clothe Joshua in festal robes, a scene the Westminster Shorter Catechism's definition of justification precisely captures: God pardons all sin and accepts the sinner as righteous solely for the righteousness of Christ imputed and received by faith alone. The vision then points forward to 'the Branch,' God's servant who would remove the iniquity of the land in a single day — a reference ultimately fulfilled in the death and resurrection of Christ. The passage calls both the unconverted to look to Christ for the removal of their filth and the believer to rest in the intercession of their advocate before the Father.
Paul's Conflict and Concern for the Colossians
Colossians 2:1–5 exposes both the nature of Paul's apostolic struggle and the objectives that drove it: he agonized in prayer for churches he had never visited because the stakes of false teaching are eternal. The sermon traces four objectives of Paul's conflict — that believers be encouraged in heart, united in love, assured in understanding, and consumed with Christ as the sole treasury of wisdom and knowledge — before turning to Paul's concern in verses 4–5, where persuasive words are shown to be the perennial weapon of heresy. The antidote is not rhetorical sophistication but deep, corporate rootedness in the person and sufficiency of Christ, which alone guards the church against the humanistic philosophy, legalism, mysticism, asceticism, and antinomianism Paul will address throughout the epistle.