Cited in sermons
Thomas Aquinas
55 sermons · All people cited
2LCF Introduction and Preface to the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession
The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689) did not arise in a vacuum — it was forged under persecution, shaped by theological antiquity, and published to correct misrepresentations of Particular Baptist doctrine. This study introduces the Confession through its original preface, examining the necessity and utility of creeds and confessions, the historical context of 17th-century England, and the specific additions, changes, and deletions the Particular Baptists made to the Westminster Confession and Savoy Declaration. The Confession stands as a faithful summary of biblical doctrine and a demonstration that Particular Baptists stood firmly within the stream of historic Protestant orthodoxy, differing from their Presbyterian and Congregationalist brethren only on baptism, church polity, and certain covenant theology distinctions.
The Suffering and Glory of Christ
Psalm 22 presents the suffering and glory of Christ with a precision and detail that exceeds even the Passion narratives of the four Gospels. The psalm's first half expounds the dereliction Christ endured on the cross — not as a breach of the Trinity or a dissolution of the hypostatic union, but as the penal withdrawal of the Father's sensible favor while the Son bore the curse due to his people's lawbreaking. The second half moves from that suffering to the exaltation of the Redeemer, the adoption of his brethren, the extension of his kingdom to all nations, and the generational advance of his church — all grounded in the finished work of the cross. The sermon calls believers to make much of the Psalms in both private devotion and corporate worship, hearing in them the very voice of Christ.
The Glory of Christ's Departure, Part 1
John 16:25–28 records the climactic doctrinal statement of the Upper Room Discourse, in which Christ declares His eternal generation from the Father, His incarnation into the world, and His impending ascension back to the Father. The sermon works through three heads: the manner of Christ's instruction in figurative language and the Spirit's coming role in illuminating the disciples; the access believers have to the Father through the Son in prayer; and the doctrinal creed embedded in verse 28, treating eternal generation, incarnation, and ascension in sequence. The unchanging love of the Father for those who are in Christ by grace through faith is held out both as the chief encouragement for disciples going into a world of tribulation and as the ground of the gospel call to sinners to look to Christ for blood and righteousness.
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 World's Greater Liability Before God
Jesus declares in John 15:21–25 that the world's hatred of his disciples flows from a deeper hatred of himself and the Father who sent him, making the rejection of Christ not merely a moral failure but a compounding of guilt before God. Increased revelation brings increased liability: those who witnessed Christ's word and works have no excuse for their unbelief, and their rejection of the Messiah is simultaneously a rejection of the triune God. The sermon argues that right Trinitarian theology is therefore not an academic luxury but a matter of eternal life and death, since to deny the Son is to deny the Father. Believers are called to stand fast in the word of God, rejoice in suffering as those united to Christ the master, and proclaim the exclusive claims of Jesus Christ without apology.
The Blessing of Communion with God, Part 2
What does Jesus mean when he promises that the Father and the Son will come and make their home with the one who loves him and keeps his word (John 14:23)? This sermon works through seven observations on that promise, showing that the indwelling of Christ necessarily entails the indwelling of the entire triune God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — because the divine persons are inseparable in their operations. The sermon traces the biblical pattern of God dwelling with his people from Eden through the tabernacle and temple to the new covenant, and concludes that union with Christ is union with the triune God, which is both the chief blessing of salvation and the ground of the believer's worship.
May 18 Sanders Holy Spirit and the Father
How does the Holy Spirit relate to God the Father, and what does that relationship mean for Christian worship and prayer? Working through a chapter on the Holy Spirit and the Father, this study traces the biblical pattern of 'from the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit' — and its liturgical reverse, 'in the Spirit, through the Son, to the Father' — as the framework for understanding both Trinitarian processions and the nature of true worship. The discussion addresses the Spirit's work in the old and new covenants, the cessation of the revelatory gifts at the completion of the New Testament canon, and the Spirit's role in empowering prayer, drawing particularly on John Owen's treatment of Ephesians 2:18 and Romans 8:26-27.
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 Mission of the Disciples, Part 2
John 14:16–18 presents Christ's promise to send the Holy Spirit as the resource by which the disciples would carry out the greater works of the gospel mission. This sermon works through the foundation of that promise — salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone, the love that flows from justification as the animating power of obedience and mission — before pausing to mount a sustained defense of Trinitarian theology proper. The preacher argues that biblicism without creedal guardrails, anti-intellectualism, and laziness have left the contemporary church vulnerable to the same Trinitarian errors the Nicene and Chalcedonian fathers labored to foreclose, and calls the congregation to pursue the knowledge of the triune God as the very substance of eternal life.
The Revelation of the Father
John 14:7–11 presents Christ's claim that knowledge of the Son is knowledge of the Father, and that the Father dwells in the Son and the Son in the Father — a claim no mere creature could make. The sermon works through three confirmations of this unity: the nature of the Son (his consubstantiality with the Father), the words of the Son (which are the Father's words by virtue of shared essence, not mere instrumentality), and the works of the Son (which the Father performs through the Son as one divine operation). The Trinitarian theology at stake is not speculative — it is the doctrinal ground upon which the disciples, and all believers, stand when the world collapses in on them, because the Son who is God of God, light of light, very God of very God, is the one who came down 'for us and for our salvation.'
The Necessity of Brotherly Love
John 13:31–38 presents Jesus addressing his disciples immediately after Judas's departure, speaking with striking intimacy on three subjects: the glory of the Son secured through the cross, the new commandment to love one another, and the foretelling of Peter's denial. The new commandment does not merely repeat the Levitical call to love one's neighbor as oneself — its newness lies in the standard, the self-sacrificial, constant, sinner-directed love of Christ himself. The passage closes with an irony the sermon drives home: Peter boasts he will lay down his life for the Savior, but the entire point of the hour is that the Savior lays down his life for Peter — a pattern that distinguishes the Christian religion from every other.
2LCF Chapter 8 - Of Christ the Mediator, Part 3
The incarnation of the Son of God — that the eternal, divine Son took to himself a true and complete human nature without ceasing to be God — stands at the centre of the Christian religion and is inseparable from the doctrine of salvation. This confession study works through 2LCF Chapter 8, paragraphs 2 and 7, first clearing away eight historical errors about what the incarnation is not (mutation, docetism, a heavenly body, a bodyless appearance, an animal soul without a human soul, a mixing of natures, a divestiture of divine attributes, and a Nestorian conjunction of persons), then positively establishing the language of assumption, union, and incarnation as the church's consistent witness from the apostolic era forward. The Son did not subtract from nor add to himself; he took to himself that which he was not while remaining fully what he eternally is, and the Trinity — Father, Son, and Spirit — acts undividedly in this work, though it terminates on the Son alone.
The Riches and Poverty of Christ
2 Corinthians 8:9 presents the Incarnation as the supreme pattern for Christian charity: the eternal Son of God, rich in every divine perfection, took upon himself genuine human poverty without divesting himself of a single divine attribute. This sermon examines the riches of Christ — his eternal divine nature as Creator, Sustainer, and Son by nature — and the poverty of Christ, meaning his true assumption of human nature with all its essential properties and common infirmities, yet without sin. The hypostatic union is defended against kenotic error: Christ's humiliation consisted not in the emptying of divinity but in the addition of humanity to the one person. These riches secured through Christ's impoverishment — justification, sanctification, and glorification — are received through faith alone and visibly proclaimed in Christian baptism.
2LCF Chapter 2 - Of God and of the Holy Trinity, Part 1
Eternal life consists in knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent (John 17:3), which means the knowledge of God is not optional for Christians but is the very substance of their salvation. This session opens a multi-week confession study of 2LCF Chapter 2 (Of God and of the Holy Trinity) by establishing what theology proper is — the study of the being, attributes, and works of the triune God — and why it is primary: it is grounded in God's creative purpose, commanded in Scripture, promised in the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-34), and urgently needed in the face of false religion and bad theology. Six preliminary interpretive helps are then introduced to prepare the mind for rigorous and reverent engagement with the doctrine of God, including the necessity of recognising the ontological chasm between Creator and creature, God's revelatory condescension, and the joint propriety of affirmations and denials.
The Sanctuary and Ark of the Testimony
Exodus 25:1–22 opens the third major division of Exodus — the dwelling of God among his redeemed people — which the sermon argues is the climax of the entire book. Working through the offerings for the tabernacle, the purpose of the sanctuary, and the construction and function of the ark, the exposition traces how God's intent to dwell with Israel typologically anticipates the new covenant reality secured by Christ, the great high priest and true mercy seat. The regulative principle of worship is grounded exegetically in God's precise prescriptions for the tabernacle and applied to New Covenant church practice. Hearers are called to count corporate worship a privilege and to approach God only in the manner he has commanded in Holy Scripture.
The Witnesses for the Defense
In John 5:31–40, Jesus faces charges of blasphemy and Sabbath-breaking and responds not by deflecting but by calling four corroborating witnesses to establish his consubstantiality with the Father: John the Baptist, his own works, the Father's testimony, and the Scriptures themselves. The sermon traces each witness in turn, showing that Christ's equality with God is not a later theological invention but the central claim of his own ministry, attested by every strand of divine revelation. The passage culminates in a sobering indictment: those who search the Scriptures seeking eternal life while refusing to come to Christ have missed the entire point of revelation, for Christ is the telos of all Scripture. Hearers are called to reckon with the gravity of sin and to come to Christ by grace through faith as the only ground of everlasting life.
2LCF Chapter 2 - Of God and of the Holy Trinity
What does Scripture reveal about God's relationship to his creation, and how does that shape the creature's obligation to the Creator? Working through paragraphs two and three of Chapter 2 of the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, this study expounds three perfections of God in his external relations: his aseity (independence and self-sufficiency), his omniscience, and his holiness. From Acts 17, 1 Kings 8, Psalm 113, Psalm 115, Daniel 4, Ephesians 1, and Romans 9, the instructor demonstrates that God is the sole fountain of all being, exercises most sovereign dominion over all creatures, and is morally pure in all his counsels, works, and commands — and that these perfections ground the creature's comprehensive obligation of worship, service, and obedience to the Creator.
Introduction to the Book of Exodus
The book of Exodus, whose Hebrew title derives from its opening words ('these are the names'), sets forth the foundational redemptive act of the Old Testament — God's deliverance of Israel from Egyptian bondage in fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant promise of Genesis 15. This session surveys the book's structure, authorship, and theological themes, including the threefold division of the law (moral, judicial, and ceremonial), the typological relationship between Moses and Christ, and the Baptist confessional distinction that identifies the Mosaic covenant as a covenant of works rather than an administration of the covenant of grace. The study closes by tracing how Exodus functions as a foundational template for redemptive history across both Testaments, climaxing in the antitypical work of the Lord Jesus Christ as the true Passover lamb and covenant mediator.
The Divinity of the Word, Part 2
John 1:3–5 teaches that the eternal Word is the creator of all things, establishing Christ unmistakably on the divine side of the creator-creature distinction. The sermon works through the Trinitarian doctrines of inseparable operations and appropriations, showing from Genesis 1, Psalm 33, Job 26, Colossians 1, and Hebrews 1 that creation is the undivided act of the one God, yet scripture distinctively attributes it to the Son. Because Jesus is creator, sustainer, and enthroned Lord, his people need not be paralyzed by circumstance — and the darkness, however violently it resists the light, cannot overcome it.
Sunday School - Sept 6 - Self-Defense, Part 1/2
What does Scripture teach about the right of individuals to use lethal force in self-defense? Working through Exodus 22:2–3, a range of Old Testament illustrations, and the teaching of Jesus in the Gospels, this study argues that defensive homicide is not murder and is consistent with the whole counsel of God's law. The session also draws on Francis Turretin's four conditions for lawful self-defense and the Westminster Larger Catechism's treatment of the sixth commandment, situating the biblical case within the broader Reformed and historic Christian tradition. The study closes by distinguishing private revenge — which Scripture forbids — from necessary defense of life, family, and property, which Scripture assumes and authorizes.
The Bible and Capital Punishment
Capital punishment is not a relic of Old Testament severity but a universal, creation-order ordinance grounded in the image of God and confirmed in the New Testament — and therefore not in tension with a pro-life ethic but demanded by it. Expositing Genesis 9:6 and Romans 13:1-4, this sermon argues that God commissioned the civil magistrate to wield the sword as His appointed agent of retributive justice precisely because human life bears divine dignity. Common objections — from the Sixth Commandment's 'thou shalt not kill,' to Christ's handling of the woman caught in adultery, to the fear that execution forecloses repentance — are examined and answered on biblical grounds. Hearers are called to embrace the full counsel of God's Word on civil ethics, to resist the moralizing of secular humanism, and to see in God's hatred of bloodshed the very reason every sinner needs the atoning blood of Jesus Christ.
1 Samuel 15:10-23
Saul's partial obedience to God's command to destroy the Amalekites exposes the anatomy of hypocritical religion: self-congratulation in the face of clear disobedience, blame-shifting, and the use of pious pretexts to cover rebellion. Working through 1 Samuel 15:10–23, the study examines how Samuel's confrontation strips away each layer of Saul's self-justification and arrives at the declaration that to obey is better than sacrifice. The text drives home that partial obedience is not obedience, that rebellion against God's word carries the gravity of witchcraft and idolatry, and that the only honest response is open confession and reliance on the perfect obedience of Christ in the sinner's place.
Divine Simplicity 2 - Of God and the Holy Trinity (2LCF 2.1-3)
What does it mean to say God is 'without parts,' and why does it matter for every other divine attribute? This second session on divine simplicity (2LCF 2.1–3) continues an expository study of the Second London Baptist Confession's opening chapter on God, working through the classical doctrine that God is not composed of physical, metaphysical, or logical parts — a doctrine historically attested from the church fathers through the Reformation and represented in every major Reformed confession. The session focuses especially on God's pure actuality (the denial of act-and-potency composition), the inseparability of God as knower, knowing, and things known, and the impossibility of God being both agent and patient — showing that divine simplicity is the ontological foundation for God's immutability, independence, absoluteness, unity, and infinite love.
Divine Simplicity - Of God and the Holy Trinity (2LCF 2.1-3)
Divine simplicity — the classical doctrine that God has no parts, no composition whatsoever, and that all that is in God is God — is examined through its confessional, definitional, historical, and doctrinal dimensions. The 1689 London Baptist Confession's phrase 'without body, parts, or passions' serves as the entry point, with 'without parts' identified as the direct expression of divine simplicity. The doctrine is shown to be the ontological foundation for God's aseity, infinity, immutability, and the unity of his attributes, and is traced through an unbroken stream of witnesses from Irenaeus and Augustine through Aquinas, the Reformers, and the Reformed scholastics. Hearers are pressed to resist any conception of God as a composite being whose attributes are properties inhering in a subject, and to affirm instead that God is identical with his own essence, being, and every perfection predicated of him.