2,067 sermons · All speakers
The New Birth
John 3:1–10 presents Jesus' declaration to Nicodemus that no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again — a sovereign work of the Holy Spirit, not a human decision or cooperative effort. This sermon traces the dialogue between Christ and Nicodemus through three movements: Nicodemus's implicit question, Christ's response, and Christ's indictment of Nicodemus's ignorance of what the Old Testament — particularly Ezekiel 36:25–27 — had already taught about new-covenant regeneration. The doctrine of the new birth is expounded as thoroughly monergistic: God alone acts, man is passive, and faith and repentance are fruits of regeneration rather than its cause. Believers are called to examine the evidences of genuine new birth — faith in Christ, love of the brethren, and overcoming the world — while the unconverted are directed to look to Christ and believe the gospel.
Of God's Decree (2LCF 3.1-7)
The eternal decree of God — whereby He freely and unchangeably foreordains whatsoever comes to pass — is the subject of 2LCF Chapter 3. This study works through all seven paragraphs of the chapter, examining the definition, agency, character, and freedom of God's decree, before turning to the decree's specific application to predestination and reprobation. The doctrine is grounded in the divine perfections established in Chapter 2: God's simplicity, absoluteness, and independence. Hearers are called to hold this high mystery with prudence and care, drawing from it not vain curiosity but praise, humility, and abundant consolation.
The Incarnation and the Victory of Christ
Revelation 12 presents three symbolic figures — the woman (the messianic community and church), the dragon (the devil), and the male child (Christ) — to narrate the decisive victory won at Christ's first advent. The chapter demonstrates that the incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of the Son of God accomplish what was promised in Genesis 3:15: the crushing of the serpent's head. Against prosperity-gospel distortions, the sermon insists that Christ's enthronement does not remove the church's trials but rather explains them, calling believers to resist the devil through the blood of the Lamb and to identify themselves as those who keep the commandments of God.
The Riches and the Poverty of Christ
Second Corinthians 8:9 presents the incarnation of the eternal Son as the supreme theological ground for Christian generosity: though he was rich in essential deity, Christ became poor by addition — taking on humanity — that his people through his poverty might become rich. The sermon exposits the riches of Christ in his divine nature and the poverty of Christ in his state of humiliation, drawing on the Chalcedonian definition of the hypostatic union as articulated in the 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 8. Doctrinal appropriation of Christology is shown to be the indispensable spring of practical Christian living, including sacrificial giving, mortification of sin, and love within the home.
The Prohibition Against Judgmentalism
Matthew 7:1–5 contains not a universal ban on discernment but a precise prohibition against the censorious, fault-finding spirit that delights in the shortcomings of others. Working through three movements — the prohibition itself, Christ's explanation of its consequence, and the plank-and-speck illustration — the sermon establishes that judgmentalism is a serious sin condemned by Christ on the Mount, one attended by self-righteousness, a lack of charity, and a practical denial of remaining corruption in oneself. The application calls believers to seek the Spirit's influence, apply biblical law evenhandedly, pursue humility, and let the cross be the death knell of self-righteousness.
1 Kings 3
Solomon's opening of his reign in 1 Kings 3 presents two defining realities: the prayer in which a young king, conscious of his own inadequacy, asks God not for riches or long life but for wisdom to govern God's people justly, and the verdict over the two harlots that publicly demonstrates the divine wisdom God poured out upon him. The structure of Solomon's prayer — beginning with praise for God's covenant faithfulness to David and Abraham before petitioning — is held up as a pattern for Christian prayer, in which rehearsing God's past faithfulness becomes the basis of present confidence. Solomon's request is set in deliberate contrast to the self-serving instincts of ordinary rulers, pointing forward typologically to the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden, and who is the greater Solomon the text anticipates.
The Hope of OT Believers
What did Old Testament believers actually know about the coming Redeemer? This sermon works through six lines of biblical evidence — from the protoevangelium of Genesis 3:15 through the prophets and Psalms — to demonstrate that the messianic hope of Israel was not vague or mystical but concrete, objective, and increasingly specific across the covenant history of redemption. Old Testament saints knew that the Deliverer would be a man born of a woman, would accomplish victory through substitutionary death, would be of Davidic lineage, would be both God and man, and that faith in him was the appointed way of salvation. The sermon closes at the Lord's Supper, grounding the ordinance in the fulfillment of all these promises in the person and work of Christ.
The Olivet Discourse, Part 10
Matthew 24:32–35 presents the parable of the fig tree and Christ's solemn declaration that 'this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place.' This sermon argues the preterist interpretation: the parable is not a prophecy about the 1948 rebirth of Israel but a sign given to first-century disciples that the judgment on Jerusalem in AD 70 was near, confirming that Christ is presently enthroned at the Father's right hand. The phrase 'this generation' carries the same lexical and contextual meaning it holds throughout Matthew's Gospel — the contemporaries of Jesus — and Christ staked His prophetic integrity on the fulfilment of every detail within that generation. Hearers are urged to let the text drive their eschatology, and ultimately to flee not to the mountains of Judea but to Christ, the only refuge from divine judgment.
Hebrews 13:3
Hebrews 13:3 commands believers to 'remember the prisoners as if chained with them' — not merely to recall that persecuted saints exist, but to remember them with a view to action, prayer, and tangible aid. This study traces the command through its immediate context of brotherly love (Hebrews 13:1-3), the Old and New Testament witness to the normalcy of suffering for the cause of Christ, and the reasons why remembering persecuted believers is both a duty and an expression of the church's solidarity in one body. The practical application presses the congregation to move beyond apathy toward the persecuted church through prayer, correspondence, giving, visitation, and the conscious redirecting of attention away from self toward those who suffer for the name of Christ.
The Reformation of the Church
What does it mean for the church to be 'the pillar and ground of the truth'? Expounding 1 Timothy 3:14–16, this sermon examines the identity and confession of the church through three descriptions Paul gives in verse 15 — the house of God, the church of the living God, and the pillar and ground of the truth — before applying the doctrinal legacy of the sixteenth-century Reformation to the contemporary church. The great Christological confession of verse 16 is shown to be the theological center around which all church conduct, worship, and proclamation must orbit. The sermon calls the church to guard sola scriptura, justification by faith alone, the regulative principle of worship, and a proper Christology against the perpetual drift toward pragmatism, experientialism, and Romanizing errors.
The Olivet Discourse, Part 9
Matthew 24:30–31 presents what many regard as the decisive difficulty for a preterist reading of the Olivet Discourse: the Son of Man coming on clouds and the gathering of the elect. This sermon argues that both verses are best understood through the grammar of Old Testament prophetic and apocalyptic language, in which cloud-coming consistently signifies God's judicial intervention against nations rather than a physical, bodily descent. The primary interpretive key is Daniel 7:13–14, read as an ascension text in which the Son of Man comes *to* the Ancient of Days, receives universal dominion, and then sends forth messengers to gather his elect — a movement that corresponds to Christ's post-resurrection enthronement and the subsequent worldwide proclamation of the gospel. Hearers are urged to rest their souls in the present, active reign of Christ at the Father's right hand, and to guard against both false teaching and carnal anxiety by understanding what Scripture actually teaches about the session and kingdom of the ascended Lord.
1 Kings 2
1 Kings 2 narrates the final charge of David to Solomon and the subsequent elimination of the kingdom's enemies as the foundation for stable, God-honoring rule. David's charge binds Solomon's strength and prosperity directly to covenant obedience — walking in the law of Moses — while the Davidic covenant of 2 Samuel 7 stands in the background as the unconditional guarantee that Messiah will come from David's line. The chapter's recurring refrain of the kingdom being 'firmly established' (vv. 12, 24, 45, 46) is the theological engine of the narrative: security is achieved not through political calculation but through sovereign divine purpose, as threats against the kingdom are neutralized one by one. Both David and Solomon function typologically, pointing forward to the Lord Jesus Christ, who shows grace to his people and executes terrible judgment upon his enemies — a reality that ought to produce more holy fear than the sword of Benaiah ever could.
Of the Holy Scriptures (2LCF 1.5-10)
The 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, paragraphs 5–10, sets out a comprehensive doctrine of Holy Scripture, and this study draws out the hermeneutical principles embedded in each paragraph. The scope of Scripture is theocentric and Christocentric — all of it tends toward the glory of God through the mission of Christ — and every other interpretive concern flows from that governing conviction. The sufficiency of Scripture encompasses both explicit texts and implicit doctrine derived by good and necessary consequence, while the perspicuity of Scripture assures even the unlearned that the things necessary for salvation are clearly propounded. The analogy of Scripture and the analogy of faith together form the infallible rule by which obscure passages are interpreted through clearer ones and through the theological sense of the whole.
The Olivet Discourse, Part 8
Matthew 24:29 presents one of the most contested verses in the Olivet Discourse: does its cosmic imagery — a darkened sun, a moonless sky, falling stars, and shaken heavens — describe a literal end-of-the-world event, or does it employ a well-established grammar of Old Testament prophetic language? This sermon argues the preterist case that verse 29 deploys figurative apocalyptic language drawn from Isaiah, Ezekiel, Joel, Amos, and others to announce the covenantal destruction of Old Covenant Israel in AD 70, immediately after the tribulation of those days. Five considerations are developed: the two time-markers tethering verse 29 to its context, the figurative meaning of cosmic collapse language, the extensive Old Testament background, the role-reversal of Israel becoming Babylon, and the implications for continuity in the new heavens and new earth. The sermon closes with a direct summons from Amos 5 — that there will be no escape on the final day of judgment, and that faith in Jesus Christ alone is the only refuge.
1 Kings 1:28-53
1 Kings 1:28–53 records Solomon's anointing at Gihon, the collapse of Adonijah's attempted coup, and Solomon's act of clemency toward his defeated rival. The passage is examined under three considerations: the choice of Solomon (David's sworn oath and instructions), the coronation of Solomon (its comprehensive royal, divine, military, and popular approval), and the concern regarding Solomon (the rebels' fear and Adonijah's flight to the altar). Throughout, David is shown as a man animated by zeal for God's kingdom rather than personal ambition, pointing forward to the greater Son of David who rules over the kings of the earth.
The Olivet Discourse, Part 7
Matthew 24:22–28 addresses the days of the great tribulation surrounding the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, and Jesus' warnings against false Christs who would arise during the siege. Taking a preterist hermeneutic, this exposition argues that the shortening of those days (v. 22) reflects God's sovereign limitation of covenant judgment for the elect's sake, and that the lightning metaphor of verse 27 describes not Christ's final physical return but a judgment-coming executed from His enthroned position at the Father's right hand. The carcass-and-eagles image of verse 28 is read against Deuteronomy 28 and Habakkuk 1 as a covenant-curse idiom for the Roman armies as instruments of divine vengeance. Throughout, the passage is applied evangelically: the only refuge from any coming judgment is flight to Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone.
The Works of the Flesh
Galatians 5:19–21 presents a vice list Paul calls 'the works of the flesh,' catalogued here under four headings: sins of the flesh (adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness), sins of religious apostasy (idolatry, sorcery, heresy), sins against personal relationships (hatred, contentions, jealousy, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, envy, murder), and sins of intemperance (drunkenness, revelries). The sermon distinguishes between remaining corruption — the ongoing struggle common to every justified believer — and reigning corruption, the habitual, unrepentant practice that characterises the unregenerate and excludes from the kingdom of God. Drawing on the Westminster Larger Catechism, Calvin, and Perkins, the preacher grounds each vice in the moral law and closes with a double summons: believers who have fallen into these sins are to repent and seek forgiveness through the blood of Christ; unbelievers are to see in the law their need for the Saviour.
1 Kings 1:1-27
Adonijah's brazen self-installation as king over Israel — in defiance of David's sworn oath that Solomon would succeed him — exposes the dangers of undisciplined character, unqualified leadership, and a kingdom whose security rests ultimately not on any human actor but on the sovereign hand of God. Expounding 1 Kings 1:1–27 under three headings — David's declining health, Adonijah's ambitious self-exaltation, and Nathan's faithful intervention — the study draws sharp typological lines back through Absalom and Saul to press a recurring biblical principle: God does not select leaders by outward appearance but by the fear of Yahweh and obedience to His word. The closing application calls hearers to trust that King Jesus steadies His church through every threat, to insist on genuinely qualified leadership, and to take seriously the parental duty of discipline as a form of love.
Of the Holy Scriptures (2LCF 1.2-4)
What gives the Bible its authority, and how did the church come to recognise which books belong in it? Working through paragraphs 2–4 of the Second London Confession of Faith (1689 LBCF chapter 1), this study examines the canon of Scripture — its 66 books, the exclusion of the Apocrypha, and the ground of scriptural authority. Three factors explain the origins of canon: the eschatological expectations of early Christianity, the covenantal framework that always paired redemptive acts with written covenant documents, and the unique apostolic authority Christ invested in his designated spokesmen. Against both the community-determined and historically-determined models, the confession's self-authenticating model is defended: Scripture's authority rests wholly on God as its author, confirmed inwardly by the testimony of the Holy Spirit, and evidenced by the divine qualities of the text itself, its providential spread across the churches, and its corporate reception among believers of every age.
The Olivet Discourse, Part 6
Matthew 24:21–22 describes a 'great tribulation' and its sovereign limitation — but what event does this language describe? Working through a preterist reading of the Olivet Discourse, this sermon argues that verse 21's unparalleled tribulation language refers to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, not to a future global event. Drawing on parallel idioms in Exodus 11, Ezekiel 5, Ezekiel 7, and Daniel 9, the sermon demonstrates that such hyperbolic judgment language is standard biblical speech for covenantal catastrophe, and that the AD 70 destruction constituted the decisive covenantal transformation by which the kingdom was taken from old covenant Israel and given to the church. The sermon closes with a direct call to sinners to flee to Christ, whose promise in John 6:37 and 1 John 3:23 provides the warrant for faith.
Thanksgiving for the Mercy of God
Psalm 103 calls the redeemed sinner to bless God with the totality of his being, and to resist the ingrained tendency to forget the Lord's benefits. This expository sermon works through the psalm's three movements: David's self-directed reminder to bless God (vv. 1–2), the reasons that fuel that blessing — the gifts received, their recipients, and above all the character of the Giver whose mercy is infinite, thorough, tender, and enduring (vv. 3–18) — and the recognition of God's sovereign kingdom that widens the summons to bless into a universal chorus (vv. 19–22). The sermon closes with five applications showing that thanksgiving is not an annual posture but the daily disposition of every soul that has tasted the mercy of God in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Introduction to 1 & 2 Kings
The books of 1 and 2 Kings constitute the final volume of the Former Prophets and span roughly four centuries of Israel's monarchy, from the death of David to the release of Jehoiachin in Babylon. This introductory study surveys the authorship, date, structure, and major theological themes of these books, demonstrating that their history is fundamentally covenantal history: the kings are measured by the law of Moses, particularly Deuteronomy, and the fall of both kingdoms is God's judicial execution of covenant curses, not merely geopolitical misfortune. The Davidic covenant provides the thread of hope that runs through the narrative's darkest moments and points forward to the Lord Jesus Christ as the true and final king who builds the temple of God and extends the glory of God throughout the cosmos.
The Olivet Discourse, Part 5
Matthew 24:15–20 presents Christ's command to flee Jerusalem when the abomination of desolation appears — a command the preterist interpretation locates in the first-century siege and destruction of the city by Rome in AD 70, not in a distant eschatological future. Working through the prophetic background in Daniel 9 and 12, the parallel account in Luke 21, and the covenant-curse framework of Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 26, this exposition argues that every detail in the passage — the reference to Judea, the architectural urgency, the concern for pregnant women, the prayer about winter and the Sabbath — is intelligible only as instruction addressed to first-century disciples facing a localized, historical judgment. The AD 70 destruction functions typologically, however, pressing every hearer to flee now to Christ, the only refuge when he comes in glory to judge the living and the dead.
Genesis 3:15
Genesis 3:15, the protevangelium, announces a Redeemer who would be born of a woman, accomplish victory through suffering and death, and crush the serpent's head — not a vague, undefined figure but a precisely identified Messiah. This Bible study traces the progressive covenantal narrowing of that promise from the seed of the woman (Genesis 3) through the Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic covenants, the Psalms, and the prophets, demonstrating that Old Testament believers possessed substantial, detailed knowledge of the coming Christ. The study draws on Paul, John Owen, and the 1689 London Baptist Confession to show that salvation has always been by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, with no separate Old Testament economy of law-keeping. The closing application presses hearers toward Simeon-like doxology in response to the Christ who fulfills every promise of the Old Testament.
The Olivet Discourse, Part 4
Matthew 24:14 declares that 'this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.' Preaching from a preterist perspective, this exposition argues that the gospel proclamation described in verse 14 was fulfilled in the first century prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, and that 'the end' in view is not the final judgment but the termination of the old covenant dispensation and the Jewish temple. The sermon develops a biblical-theological account of the temple — from Eden through the Mosaic tabernacle, Solomon's temple, and into Christ as the antitype who fulfills and renders obsolete the entire sacrificial system — drawing especially on Hebrews 8. The practical conclusion is an unqualified call for the church to maintain its unchanged mission of gospel proclamation regardless of external persecution, internal apostasy, or cultural pressure.
2 Samuel 24:1-25
Second Samuel 24 closes David's reign with a sobering account of a sinful census, divine judgment, and the necessity of atonement — raising difficult questions about divine sovereignty, second causes, and human culpability. The chapter sets David's genuine repentance in sharp contrast to Saul's hardness, and traces the themes of propitiation and substitution that run through all of redemptive history. The threshing floor of Araunah is identified as Mount Moriah — the future site of Solomon's temple — so that the sacrifice David offers becomes a typological pointer to the atoning work of Christ. The sermon calls hearers to maintain short accounts with God through prompt confession, to receive the Spirit's conviction as a mercy rather than an offense, and to offer worship that costs something.
The Olivet Discourse, Part 3
Matthew 24:9–14 presents the church with two realities that precede the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70: the persecution of the church (vv. 9–12) and the proclamation of the gospel (v. 14, deferred to the following week). Working from a preterist interpretation, the sermon argues that external threats from unbelieving Israel and the Roman Empire, internal threats of apostasy, betrayal, false prophecy, and antinomianism, all demonstrably occurred in the first century and are documented throughout the New Testament. The practical weight falls on every generation equally: because Christ reigns at the right hand of the Father, his people are called to endure, to hold the law of God as the concrete expression of love, and to resist the cold that lawlessness produces in the heart.
2 Samuel 23:8-39
2 Samuel 23:8–39 catalogues the mighty men who served David, and this exposition draws out four interlocking themes: the power of Yahweh standing behind every human exploit, the costly sacrifice of unnamed warriors who broke through a Philistine camp for a bowl of water, the particular exploits of Abishai and Benaiah as models of courage and resourcefulness, and the sobering placement of Uriah the Hittite at the list's end as a reminder that David's reign rested entirely on sovereign grace rather than personal virtue. The passage ultimately functions as a pointer toward David's greater Son, who will administer judgment and justice in utter perfection where David fell short, and the congregation is called to be faithful, courageous, and sacrificial in the kingdom of Christ.
Of the Last Judgement (2LCF 32)
The Last Judgment, as confessed in chapter 32 of the Second London Confession of Faith (1689 LBCF), is certain, comprehensive, and purposeful: God the Father has appointed a day on which God the Son will execute righteous judgment over fallen angels and every human being, accounting for thoughts, words, and deeds. The goal of that day is the manifestation of divine mercy in the eternal salvation of the elect and divine justice in the eternal damnation of the reprobate — a theocentric purpose rooted in Romans 9. The secrecy of that day is itself a means of grace, designed to deter sin, sustain the godly through adversity, and cultivate watchful readiness to say, 'Come, Lord Jesus.'
The Olivet Discourse, Part 2
Jesus' Olivet Discourse opens not with a timetable for the end of all things but with two commanding exhortations: 'Take heed that no one deceives you' and 'See that you are not troubled.' Expounding Matthew 24:4–8 within a preterist framework, this sermon argues that Christ's description of false messiahs, wars, famines, pestilences, and earthquakes depicts the conditions preceding the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 — the covenant curses of Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 falling at last upon an apostate people who rejected their Messiah. The practical burden is twofold: guard theological sanity by submitting to the Word rather than to prophecy speculators, and guard emotional stability by resting in God's sovereign governance of history rather than panicking at world events.