Theological term
Canon of Scripture
3 sermons · All terms
A Cry from God's Oubliette
Psalm 88 is the most sorrowful psalm in the entire Psalter — a cry from one whom God has placed in what the preacher calls an 'oubliette,' the lowest and most forgotten prison in a medieval dungeon. Heman the Ezraite, whose name means 'faithful,' addresses the covenant LORD from the depths of unrelieved affliction, offering no tidy resolution but only the continued cry of faith in darkness. The sermon argues that this psalm validates the reality of deep suffering among God's faithful people, calls the church to companionship with those who suffer, and ultimately points to the Lord Jesus Christ, who descended into a darker oubliette than any of his people will ever know — and who therefore sympathizes with and intercedes for all who cry out to God in their trouble.
The Infallible Rule of All Saving Knowledge
Second Timothy 3:16–17 grounds the authority and sufficiency of Scripture in its divine origin: God breathed out these words, making them infallible, inerrant, and profitable for every purpose of the Christian life and ministry. The sermon works through the identity of Scripture (the whole Old and New Testament canon), its authority as the God-breathed word that admits no human arbitration, and its fourfold utility — doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness. The specific profitability of verse 17 is shown to fit the man of God for every good work, with the primary work being the preaching of the word commanded in 2 Timothy 4:2. The practical summons is to receive Scripture's reproof and correction without shrinking, and to value sound doctrine as the very means by which God shepherds, sanctifies, and equips his people.
The Ongoing Ministry of Peter
Acts 9:32–43 records two miracles wrought through the Apostle Peter — the healing of the paralyzed Aeneas at Lydda and the raising of Tabitha from the dead at Joppa — and this sermon works through both accounts to establish that the power displayed was Christ's alone, not Peter's. The miraculous signs of the apostolic era served a redemptive, confirmatory purpose: to authenticate the preaching of the apostles and usher hearers into the kingdom of God through the gospel, not to impress or dazzle. On cessationist grounds, the sermon argues that with the close of the apostolic ministry and the completed canon of Scripture, the church's standing commission is to preach the Word — not to seek or perform signs and wonders. The passage also foreshadows Peter's mission to the Gentiles, as Peter's lodging with Simon the tanner at Joppa anticipates the barrier-breaking vision and the conversion of Cornelius in Acts 10.