Speaker
Jim Butler
2,239 sermons · All speakers
Ask FGBC 68: Are Reformed Baptists More Baptist or More Reformed?
Ask FGBC #65: Are Reformed Baptists Really Just Anabaptists?
The question of whether Reformed Baptists share roots with the Anabaptists is answered historically and from primary sources: the Particular Baptists arose from English Reformation Congregationalism, not from Anabaptist streams. Scholars such as Matthew Bingham and Jim Renahan have demonstrated from extant 17th-century writings that no traceable literary connection exists between the two movements. The discussion clarifies that surface similarities—believers' membership, rejection of Roman Catholic ecclesiology—do not constitute a common origin, and that the Anabaptists themselves were not a monolithic group. Listeners are encouraged to engage careful historical scholarship rather than repeating unchallenged secondary or tertiary claims.
Ask FGBC 67: Are Piper and MacArthur Reformed Baptists?
Ask FGBC #62: What is Federal Vision?
The Challenge and Confidence of the Psalmist - Psalm 10:1-18
Ask FGBC #61: Conviction of Sin Before or After Regeneration?
Life in the Wilderness and Canaan
The Justice and Mercy of the Lord, Part 2
The Commendation of the Philippian Church
Ask FGBC #60: How Necessary is Seminary for Pastors?
How essential is seminary training for pastoral ministry, and what qualifications truly matter for those called to preach God's Word? While seminary education is not an absolute biblical requirement—as evidenced by Christ's apostles and self-taught giants like Spurgeon—the church's role as "the pillar and ground of the truth" demands pastors who are genuinely "apt to teach" and capable of laboring faithfully in sound doctrine. The central issue is not educational credentials but theological competence, with seminary training serving as valuable preparation for the weighty responsibility of feeding Christ's sheep through faithful exposition of Scripture.
The Believer's Contentment
The Justice and Mercy of the Lord
Ask FGBC #59: What is Faith?
The Blessings of Obedience
The Power of Jesus
The Authority of Christ Over the Demons
Christ's authority over the demonic kingdom is the central demonstration Matthew presents in chapter 8, where two men reduced to a subhuman, tomb-dwelling existence are liberated by a single word from the Son of God. The passage exposes both the wretchedness of Satanic bondage — no glamour, only madness, nakedness, and self-destruction — and the sufficiency of Christ's power to deliver the most apparently irredeemable sinners. The sermon draws a direct line from the Gadarene demoniacs to Paul's confession in 1 Timothy 1:15, arguing that the same sovereign grace that rescues the most visibly ruined also reaches the self-righteous religious man who trusts in his own standing before God. Parents, youth, and all hearers are urged to flee the occult, resist the devil through gospel proclamation, and rest in the one whose word alone — 'Go' — dismantles the kingdom of darkness.