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The Deliberation of the Council
Acts 4:13–22 records the Sanhedrin's deliberation over Peter and John following the healing of a lame man and the apostolic proclamation of Christ's resurrection. The council faces an insoluble dilemma: the miracle is undeniable and publicly known, yet to leave the apostles unchallenged is to permit the gospel to spread unchecked. This sermon traces two broad movements — the deliberation of the council (vv. 13–17) and the attempt to silence the apostles (vv. 18–22) — and draws out the benefits of being with Jesus as seen in the apostles' boldness and wisdom, alongside the liabilities that attend any attempt to suppress the word of God. The application presses believers to pray for men of gospel courage and to resist every pressure, civil or ecclesiastical, to silence the name of Christ.
Genesis 7:1-24
Genesis 7 records the command to enter the ark and the arrival of the floodwaters — a worldwide, catastrophic judgment of God upon all flesh outside the ark, and a sovereign act of divine preservation for Noah and his household. The flood is not myth or moral fable but datable history, rooted in the protoevangelium of Genesis 3:15: God preserves the seed of the woman so that Messiah may come. Noah's righteousness did not merit God's grace; rather, grace preceded and produced the faith that issued in obedience, with justification preceding sanctification — a pattern consistent throughout both Testaments. The ark stands as a type of Christ, the refuge for all of God's Noahs, and the passage calls believers to the same costly, faithful obedience Noah displayed in a faithless world.
The Wisdom of Little Things
Proverbs 30:24–28 presents four creatures — the ant, the rock badger, the locust, and the spider — each marked by a specific weakness yet compensating for it with exceeding wisdom. The sermon argues that God instructs his people through the created order, calling them to self-awareness of their own limitations and to the cultivation of corresponding wisdom: industry, caution, unity, and persistence. These virtues apply both to temporal life and to the eternal — preparing for judgment, fleeing temptation by hiding in Christ the Rock, advancing together under his kingship, and persisting in grace after failure. The unconverted are pressed to prepare for the coming day of God's judgment while the summer of opportunity remains.
Genesis 6:1-8
Genesis 6:1–8 presents some of the most contested verses in the Pentateuch alongside some of the clearest. The identity of the 'sons of God' in verses 1–4 has generated three major interpretive traditions — angelic beings, tyrannical rulers, and the godly line of Seth intermarrying with the ungodly line of Cain — and the sermon surveys each view while favouring the Sethite interpretation without demanding confessional certainty on it. Verses 5–8 then deliver an unambiguous portrait of universal human depravity and the righteous judgment of God, interpreted through the theological categories of anthropomorphism and anthropopathism to guard the immutability and impassibility of God against misreading. The sermon closes by showing that grace precedes conduct in Noah's case, establishing the pattern that runs through all of Scripture: God's sovereign grace produces the righteousness it requires.
The Diligence of the Ant
Proverbs 6:6–11 and 26:13–16 present the ant as a model of self-directed industry and the sluggard as a figure of moral and practical ruin. The sermon traces four marks of the lazy man — excuse-making, love of sleep, inability to complete tasks, and self-congratulating conceit — before turning to the genuine blessings diligence brings: material provision, the dignity of honest labor, and the honor of excellent work. The exposition closes by applying the same categories spiritually: the sinner who makes excuses before Christ and the drowsy saint grown cold in the means of grace are both called to a diligence that flees to the Savior and feeds on the Word.
The Apostolic Address to the Council
Peter's address to the Sanhedrin in Acts 4:5–12 is examined under three headings: the declaration of the name of Jesus Christ as the power behind the healing of the lame man, the prophetic witness drawn from Psalm 118:22, and the exclusive sufficiency of that name for salvation. The sermon argues that Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, does not merely defend himself before the council but effectively places his persecutors on trial, indicting them for rejecting the chief cornerstone while simultaneously holding out the gospel to them. The exclusivity of Christ as the only name under heaven given for salvation is pressed against religious pluralism and any notion that sinners must achieve moral readiness before coming to Christ — the call is simply to hear and believe.
Genesis 5:1-32
Genesis 5 presents the genealogy of Adam through the godly line of Seth, tracing the covenant community from creation to Noah and ultimately to the Lord Jesus Christ. The relentless refrain 'and he died' across eight patriarchs confirms the execution of the curse pronounced in Genesis 3, while the singular exception of Enoch — who walked with God and was translated without death — serves as a visible foretaste of resurrection and eternal life. Walking with God, as Enoch's life demonstrates, is not reserved for extraordinary vocations but is the calling of every believer in every station of life, actuated by faith in Christ and ordered by the law of God as the rule of life.
The Arrest of Peter and John
The arrest of Peter and John in Acts 4:1–4 is not a setback to the mission of Christ but an instrument of its advance. The religious leaders of Israel — Sadducees especially — are provoked by the apostolic proclamation of resurrection in Jesus, yet even as the preachers are jailed, the Word of God prevails and the number of believers swells to five thousand. The sermon draws out from this episode the sovereignty of Christ over his church, the doctrine of justification by faith alone secured by Christ's active and passive obedience, and the pattern of suffering through which the gospel spreads. The hearer is called to present faithfulness as the only credible preparation for future persecution, and to trust that what is preached in chains cannot itself be chained.
The First Murder
Genesis 4:1–16 records the first fratricide in human history, and this exposition reads that account as a theological document revealing the rapid escalation of sin from the fall in chapter 3. Cain's rejection is traced not to his vocation as a farmer but to his faithlessness — Abel's offering was accepted because it was offered in faith (Hebrews 11:4), while Cain's externalism and lack of genuine faith made his sacrifice an abomination. God's patient, gracious overtures to Cain before the murder underscore divine long-suffering, while Cain's murder of Abel illustrates the antithesis of Genesis 3:15 — the seed of the serpent attacking the seed of the woman — and the sermon closes by setting the blood of Abel, which cries out for condemnation, against the blood of Jesus, which speaks forgiveness.
The Consequences of the Fall
Genesis 3:14–24 records the divine sentences upon the serpent, the woman, and the man after the fall, but within those judgments God announces the first gospel promise. The Proto-Evangelion of verse 15 — that the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent — is the programmatic nucleus of all subsequent redemptive history, finding its fulfilment in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Headship and labor, often misread as punishments of the fall, are shown to be pre-fall ordinances whose distortion, not existence, is the consequence of sin. The sermon closes with the coats of skin as an enacted prophecy of blood atonement and the expulsion from Eden as a mercy that preserves fallen man until the Second Adam secures permanent access to the tree of life.
The Sermon in Solomon's Porch, Part 2
Peter's sermon in Solomon's Porch confronts Jerusalem sinners with the necessity of repentance, pressing three realities upon them: their ignorance was willful, not innocent; God's sovereign providence overruled even their wickedness in crucifying Christ to fulfill all that the prophets foretold; and the call to repent and turn carries with it the promised blessings of sins blotted out, times of refreshing from the Lord's presence, and the indwelling presence of Christ by Spirit and Word until the restoration of all things. The exposition of Acts 3:17–21 drives toward a direct appeal: those burdened with sin must repent and turn to Christ, the only one in whom those blessings are found.
The Fall of Man
Genesis 3:1–13 confronts the reader with the anatomy of humanity's first rebellion against God: the serpent's subtle theological assault on God's word, the creature's willing capitulation, and the sinner's instinctive flight from the Creator. The sermon traces three movements — the temptation to sin (vv. 1–5), the fall into sin (vv. 6–7), and the reckoning with God (vv. 8–13) — showing how Satan's tactics in Eden (insinuating doubt about God's word, denying divine judgment, impugning divine goodness) remain the pattern of every temptation. The doctrines of federal headship, original sin, and divine sovereignty over the fall are drawn out from the text, and the Adam-Christ parallel of Romans 5 frames the only remedy: the skull-crushing seed of the woman who succeeds where Adam failed.
The Sermon in Solomon's Porch, Part 1
Peter's sermon in Solomon's Porch (Acts 3:11–21) opens with a pointed denial: the healing of the congenitally lame man was not accomplished by apostolic power or godliness, but by the name of Jesus Christ, the glorified servant of Yahweh announced throughout the Old Testament prophets. The sermon works through three considerations in verses 11–16 — the God who glorified the servant, the sinners who rejected him, and the servant who healed the lame man — showing that Peter's staccato recitation of Jerusalem's guilt is not cruelty but evangelism: men must know the weight of their sin before the call to repent and be converted carries any urgency. The healing itself illustrates the completeness of Christ's saving work — perfect soundness, public and undeniable — and the authority he exercises from the right hand of the Father is the same authority by which sinners are saved today.
Matthew 8:23-27
Matthew 8:23–27 presents the stilling of the storm on the Sea of Galilee as a window into both the true humanity and the full divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. The passage exposes the disciples' little faith — not absent faith — and rebukes the perennial temptation to treat temporal prosperity as the measure of God's favor. Christ's presence in the boat does not exempt believers from storms, but it does guarantee that he will see them through every trial he ordains for their conformity to himself.
A Psalm of the Cross
Psalm 22 is a prophetic psalm of David that transcends David's own experience to describe with precision the suffering, death, and exaltation of the Messiah. The sermon examines the cry of dereliction ('My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?') with theological care, rejecting the notion that the Father abandoned the Son in any way that ruptured the Trinity or dissolved the hypostatic union, and instead grounding the forsakenness in the Son's substitutionary bearing of the wrath due his people. Three features of Messianic confidence sustain Christ through his ordeal — the holiness of God, the past faithfulness of God, and the invoked presence of God — and the congregation is called to meet their own trials with the same theological ballast that sustained the Savior on the cross.
The Healing of the Lame Man
Acts 3:1–10 records the healing of a man lame from birth at the gate called Beautiful, and this exposition argues that the miracle is not an isolated wonder but a typological and redemptive event that displays the name and power of Jesus Christ while setting the stage for apostolic gospel proclamation. The man's condition — congenital, public, and long-standing — ensures that the miracle is conspicuous and undeniable, functioning to authenticate the apostles as God's spokesmen and to magnify the glory of the enthroned Christ. The church's calling, illustrated by Peter's declaration that he possesses no silver or gold but only the name of Christ, is the proclamation of the gospel and the forgiveness of sins, not the amelioration of every temporal need society presents. Those genuinely conquered by sovereign grace, like the healed man, are marked by worship, praise, and desire for the public means of grace.
Genesis 4:16-26
Genesis 4:16–26 traces two diverging lines from Adam: the ungodly line of Cain, marked by escalating sin, polygamy, and bloodlust, and the godly line of Seth, which ends with men calling on the name of the Lord. The passage raises questions about cultural achievement, common grace, and the preservation of God's people in the midst of rampant wickedness. Eve's naming of Seth reveals genuine covenant faith in the promise of Genesis 3:15, trusting that God would yet raise up the seed of the woman. The sermon calls believers to grow in faith as those who possess not only the promise of the Redeemer but its fulfillment in Christ.
Genesis 4:9-16
Genesis 4:9–16 records the arraignment, indictment, and punishment of Cain following the murder of Abel — the first trial and sentencing in Scripture. The passage exposes the pattern of sin's progression: outright denial before God, arrogant rhetoric, and complaint against righteous punishment rather than repentance. God's response demonstrates that He prizes human life even after death, that undealt-with guilt produces consuming fear, and that sin drives man ever further from the presence of the Lord.
The Woman Who Was a Sinner
Luke 7:36–50 presents three parties — a repentant woman, a judgmental Pharisee, and the Lord Jesus Christ — whose interactions disclose the theology of justification by grace alone through faith alone. The woman's extravagant acts of devotion at Christ's feet are not the ground of her forgiveness but its fruit: she loves much because she has been forgiven much. The Pharisee's self-righteousness exposes the danger of confusing surface morality with saving grace, and of imagining any sinner to be beyond the reach of Christ. The sermon calls believers to examine the warmth of their love for Christ as the chief evidence of genuine justifying faith, and invites the unconverted to come to the Savior whose mercy is wider than any sinner's guilt.
The Believer's Race
Hebrews 12:1 calls the people of God to run the Christian race with endurance, laying aside every weight and entangling sin. This sermon expounds the first of three incentives the author of Hebrews sets before believers: the great cloud of witnesses from Hebrews 11, who function not as spectators watching the runner, but as witnesses testifying to the faithfulness of God through every trial and affliction. Drawing on Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, David, Job, Habakkuk, and the martyrs Polycarp and Thomas Hawkes, the sermon presses believers to receive the unanimous testimony of the saints — that God is faithful, God sustains runners, and God will bring them through to the end — and to run without quitting, because the Christian life is a marathon requiring daily faithfulness, not a glamorous sprint.
Genesis 4:1-8
Genesis 4:1–8 records the first brothers, the first offerings, and the first murder — and the passage exposes the difference between formal religious observance and genuine faith. The divine acceptance of Abel and rejection of Cain is explained not by vocation, bloodshed, or agricultural produce, but by Hebrews 11:4: by faith Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice, bearing witness that he was righteous before God. Cain's anger, falling countenance, and ultimate fratricide demonstrate that heartless, faithless worship produces not repentance but escalating sin. The study closes with the warning that sin is never dormant or manageable — its desire is always to rule over those who refuse to come to God in faith through Christ.
The Response to Peter's Sermon, Part 2
Acts 2:43–47 describes the ordinary but Spirit-wrought practice of the early Jerusalem church, and this exposition presses that description as a prescription for church life today. The sermon examines steadfastness in apostolic doctrine, fellowship, the Lord's Supper, and prayer; the fear of God that attends his presence; the voluntary charity of believers toward one another; and the public and private conduct of a congregation living under sovereign grace. Against both charismatic enthusiasm and worldly accommodation, the sermon argues that faithfulness in ordinary, Word-regulated worship and mutual edification — not signs, programs, or radical individualism — is the enduring mark of a church built by Christ.
The Seven Things God Hates
Proverbs 6:16–19 presents a numerical proverb identifying seven things Yahweh hates and calls an abomination. The sermon works through each item in two groupings — five abominable members (proud eyes, lying tongue, murdering hands, cunning heart, swift feet) and two abominable actions (false witness and sowing discord among brethren) — showing how these vices characterise the man of Belial described in verses 12–15 and how they correspond to sins God condemns throughout the canon. The exposition draws extensively from the wider book of Proverbs to show the cumulative weight of each vice, applies the prohibition against shedding innocent blood to abortion and euthanasia, and closes with a call to pursue the corresponding virtues — humility, truthfulness, the protection of life, a guarded heart, and the pursuit of peace — as evidence of a heart transformed by the gospel of Christ.
Genesis 3:17-24
Genesis 3:17–24 confronts the reader with the full weight of the curse upon Adam and the ground, but the passage is finally a text of hope. The consequences imposed upon Adam — the ground cursed, toil unrelenting, and death certain — do not obliterate God's redemptive purpose announced in verse 15; they preserve the race through which the promised seed will come. Adam's faith-filled naming of Eve, God's provision of animal-skin tunics foreshadowing blood atonement, and the merciful expulsion from the tree of life are all acts of divine grace that anticipate the whole subsequent history of redemption, culminating in the Lord Jesus Christ's decisive conquest of the devil.
The Importance of Keeping the Heart
Proverbs 4:23–27 commands God's people to keep their hearts with all diligence, because the heart is the source from which all conduct flows — mouth, eyes, and feet are merely its outlets. Drawing on the warnings of Jeremiah 17:9, the illustrations of Proverbs 7, and Christ's own teaching in Matthew 15, this exposition argues that total depravity makes diligent heart-keeping not optional but urgent. The sermon closes by pressing that this command can only be obeyed through constant dependence on God's Word and Spirit, and that apart from Christ we can do nothing.
The Response to Peter's Sermon
Acts 2:41–47 records the immediate fruit of Peter's Pentecost sermon: three thousand souls baptized and a church marked by steadfast doctrine, fellowship, the Lord's Supper, and prayer. This exposition argues that the passage is both descriptive and prescriptive — what the early church did defines what the church in every age must be. Along the way, believers' baptism is defended against paedo-baptist readings of verse 39, and the growth of the church is traced not to programs or techniques but to the sovereign calling of God through the faithful preaching of Christ crucified.
Genesis 3:14-24
Genesis 3:14–24 records the consequences of the fall, and the heart of this study is the protoevangelium of Genesis 3:15 — the first gospel promise in Scripture. God's curse upon the serpent contains within it an announcement of the Messiah: the seed of the woman who would crush the serpent's head, accomplishing total victory through suffering and death. The sermon traces this skull-crushing seed through the biblical narrative — from the typological head-wounds of Judges and David's defeat of Goliath, to New Testament fulfillment in Colossians, Hebrews, 1 John, and Revelation 12 — demonstrating that the cross of Christ is the decisive blow against the devil foreshadowed in Eden. The study closes by examining the consequences for the woman and the man in verses 16–19, situating the tensions of marriage and labor in a post-lapsarian world that Christ's redemptive work is already beginning to address.
The Call to Repentance
Acts 2:37–40 records the crowd's response to Peter's Pentecost sermon and his command to repent and be baptized. This exposition examines the nature of genuine conviction of sin, the inseparable relationship between repentance and faith, the proper place of baptism as an outward sign of inward grace rather than a means of salvation, and the comprehensive scope of God's electing call that reaches Jerusalem sinners, their children, and Gentiles afar off. The sermon presses the hearer to embrace conviction of sin as a mercy, to understand that repentance and faith are two sides of the same coin, and to respond by believing the gospel and submitting to baptism without delay.
The State of Man after Death and the Resurrection (2LBCF31)
What happens to a person at death, and what does the future hold for both body and soul? This session works through 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith chapter 31, tracing the confession's teaching on the intermediate state, the rejection of Roman Catholic doctrines of purgatory and limbo, and the final bodily resurrection of both the just and the unjust. The soul's immortality, its immediate departure either to paradise or to hell at death, and the inseparability of the body from God's redemptive purpose are shown to rest squarely on Scripture. The session closes with a deliberately simple amillennial eschatology drawn from 1 Corinthians 15:20–28, urging believers to let the hope of bodily resurrection purify present conduct and comfort one another in grief.
The Believer's Commitment to the Lord
Proverbs 3:5–6 commands an entire, exclusive, and exhaustive commitment to Yahweh — a trust that spans salvation and all of ordinary life. The sermon works through three structural elements of the text: the command to trust in the Lord with all the heart, the prohibition against leaning on one's own understanding, and the exhortation to acknowledge God in all one's ways with the promise that He will direct the believer's paths. The doctrine of remaining corruption in the regenerate explains why this command is needed, while the perfections of God — His impassability, immutability, and divine simplicity — ground the assurance that His commitment to His people is equally entire, exclusive, and exhaustive. Hearers are called to search Scripture for explicit texts, implicit applications, and general principles, and to cultivate lives of prayer as a concrete expression of dependence upon God.