Theological term
Cessationism
196 sermons · All terms
The Mercy of God in the Ministry of Elisha
Four miracles in 2 Kings 4 — multiplied oil, a resurrected son, purified stew, and bread multiplied for a hundred men — demonstrate that Yahweh's mercy extends not only to kings and nations but to nameless, destitute individuals in the most ordinary circumstances of life. The prophet Elisha functions typologically throughout: his inadequacy, importunate prayer, and restorative acts all point forward to the Lord Jesus Christ, the true miracle-worker who alone can save sinners from their sins. Where Elisha can relieve physical need and point Israel to God, only Christ forgives sin through his life, death, and resurrection. The sermon closes with a call to gratitude, trust in God's sovereign provision over everyday anxieties, and faith in Christ alone for salvation.
The Crucifixion of Jesus, Part 5
Matthew 27:51–56 records a cluster of supernatural signs accompanying the death of Christ — the rending of the temple veil, the earthquake, the splitting of rocks, and the resurrection of saints — each of which publicly attests the efficacy of Christ's atoning work. The torn veil simultaneously signals the judgment of God upon apostate Israel and the opening of access to the Father through Christ's blood, marking the covenantal transition from the old order of sacrifice to the new covenant inaugurated at Calvary. The centurion's confession, 'Truly this was the Son of God,' demonstrates that the cross reaches sinners from every tribe and tongue, while the faithful women at a distance stand as witnesses to Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. The sermon calls every hearer to receive the torn veil as God's own invitation to draw near through the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Free Grace Baptist Church - October 15, 2017 AM
Matthew 27:32–38 presents the crucifixion of Jesus Christ as the central event in redemptive history, the long-anticipated fulfillment of Old Testament promise from Genesis 3:15 through Isaiah 53. The sermon traces two movements: the way to the cross — bearing, location, and the bitter drink — and the act of crucifixion itself, attending to the division of garments, the watching guards, the charge above his head, and the company of criminals. Throughout, the visible shame of the Son of God is shown to be the appointed means by which he crushes the serpent's head, satisfies divine justice, and secures justification for all whom the Father gave him. Hearers are called to abandon every notion of contributing to their own salvation and to look in faith to the crucified Christ alone.
2LCF Chapter 20 - Of the Gospel and of the Extent of the Grace Thereof
The gospel is necessary, revealed only through special revelation, and made effectual solely by the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit — natural law and general revelation are wholly insufficient for salvation. This session expounds 2LCF Chapter 20, tracing why John Owen and the Congregationalists added this chapter to address both the rise of salvation-through-natural-law teaching and the false charge that Reformed and Baptist churches were anti-missional. The sermon argues that the gospel advances to the ends of the earth through preaching, according to God's sovereign will, as the Spirit regenerates the elect who are dead in trespasses and sins. The practical burden is confidence and perseverance in gospel proclamation, grounded not in human ability or ecclesial authority but in the sovereignty of God.
Free Grace Baptist Church - September 13, 2017 Bible Study
Second Kings 6 presents God's sovereign care over both the minute and the massive: a borrowed iron axe head recovered from the Jordan, and an entire Syrian army blinded and marched into captivity at Samaria. The sermon works through three distinct episodes — the floating axe head (vv. 1–7), God's protection of Elisha from Syrian intelligence (vv. 8–17), and the miraculous capture of the Syrian force (vv. 18–23) — to establish that the Lord's providential rule extends without diminution from the trivial losses of a poor prophet to the geopolitical crises of a nation. The controlling application is that verse 16 ('those who are with us are more than those who are with them') is the permanent, unwavering ground of the believer's confidence, whether or not God grants the extraordinary vision of verse 17, and that knowing Scripture deeply is the instrument of the spiritual discernment required to rest in that reality.
The Translation of Elijah
2 Kings 2 presents the translation of Elijah into heaven and the subsequent manifestation of Elisha as his divinely appointed successor. The sermon works through the chapter in two main sections — the ascension of Elijah and the confirmed ministry of Elisha — arguing that every element, including the healing of Jericho's waters and the cursing of the youths at Bethel, serves to authenticate Elisha as the legitimate prophetic voice of Yahweh in Israel. The two she-bears are not a moral embarrassment but the execution of the covenant curse of Leviticus 26, consistent with the same God who sends sweet water to the previously cursed city of Jericho and who ultimately sends His Son to deal in mercy with sinners.
1 Kings 22:1-28
Ahab's final years reveal a pattern common to every age: the suppression of God's Word in favour of voices that confirm what one already wishes to hear. Expounding 1 Kings 22:1–28, this study traces the collision between Micaiah — the one true prophet who binds himself to speak whatever Yahweh says — and the 400 court prophets whose ambiguous encouragement serves the king rather than God. Two contrasting throne scenes frame the passage: Ahab and Jehoshaphat enthroned before compliant prophets, and Micaiah's vision of Yahweh enthroned in sovereign council over all that is about to unfold. The study closes with direct application: the rejection of faithful preaching and the integrity required of anyone who stands in the prophetic-pastoral office.
1 Kings 19:8-21
Elijah's journey to Horeb in 1 Kings 19:8–21 is not a story of prophetic cowardice or self-pity, but of a faithful covenant prosecutor bringing a formal lawsuit against Israel for her apostasy before the God of the covenant. The divine theophany at Horeb — wind, earthquake, and fire yielding to a still small voice — teaches that God's redemptive purposes advance not through spectacular display but through the prophetic word, historical providence, and sovereign grace. God's answer to Elijah's complaint is both judgment (through Hazael, Jehu, and Elisha) and mercy (a reserved remnant of seven thousand), affirming that God will always preserve a people for Himself. The call of Elisha that follows illustrates the decisive break from natural relations, familiarity, financial security, and self-advancement that marks genuine response to God's call.
1 Kings 17
1 Kings 17 introduces Elijah the Tishbite as God's appointed answer to the apostasy of Ahab's Israel, where Baalism had displaced the worship of Yahweh. The chapter unfolds in three movements: the drought announced as covenantal judgment, the miraculous provision of the prophet through unclean ravens and a Gentile widow in the very heartland of Baal worship, and the resurrection of the widow's son as the definitive demonstration of Yahweh's sovereignty over life and death. Throughout, the chapter functions as theological preparation for the confrontation at Carmel in chapter 18, while pointing typologically forward to the ministry of Christ, who similarly extended grace to Gentiles and preached sovereign election to a generation that rejected him.
1 Kings 13
1 Kings 13 records the confrontation between an unnamed man of God from Judah and Jeroboam's idolatrous altar at Bethel, followed by that prophet's fatal disobedience when deceived by an old prophet, and Jeroboam's unmoved persistence in sin. The chapter turns on how men respond to the word of the Lord: the man of God obeys it before Jeroboam but abandons it under the old prophet's lying claim of angelic revelation, receiving temporal chastisement rather than condemnation. Jeroboam, by contrast, witnesses message, sign, mercy, and providence in sequence, yet does not turn from his evil way — becoming the negative standard against which subsequent northern kings are measured. The study calls hearers to simple, unreserved obedience to whatever God commands, and to recognize that signs and evidences do not produce faith; the Holy Spirit does.
The Privilege of Adoption
Galatians 3:26–29 brings the history of redemption into focus on the individual believer's standing before God: all who are in Christ by faith are sons of God, adopted into the divine family through the finished work of the one who became a curse for them. The sermon expounds three features of the believer's new identity — filial adoption by faith, redemptive unity across every human distinction, and covenantal solidarity as the seed of Abraham — while insisting that redemptive unity does not collapse the role distinctions God ordained in creation and confirmed in the apostolic letters. Theological, ethical, doxological, and eschatological implications of adoption are drawn out in the conclusion, calling believers to gratitude, godly conduct, and eschatological hope as blood-bought children of God Most High.
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.
2LCF Chapter 1 - Of the Holy Scriptures, Part 2
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.
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 Impending Judgment of Israel
Matthew 23:34–36 records Christ's announcement of impending divine judgment upon the generation of Israel that would reject him and murder his sent messengers. The sermon traces three interlocking movements: the rejection of the prophets Christ sends in the new covenant era, the accumulation of blood-guilt from Abel to Zechariah spanning the entire Hebrew canon, and the prophetic assurance — sealed with Christ's own 'amen' — that all these things would fall upon that first-century generation in the destruction of AD 70. The exposition situates Matthew 23 within a consistent covenantal pattern running from the Mosaic curses through the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities to AD 70, and closes with a direct call to flee to the Righteous One whose shed blood is the only escape from the condemnation of hell.
Free Grace Baptist Church - December 27, 2015 PM
What makes the Bible the word of God, and how should that conviction shape the way believers read and live by it? This expository sermon on 2 Timothy 3:16–17 examines three interconnected questions: what Scripture is, where its authority comes from, and why it is indispensable. Working through Paul's claim that 'all Scripture is God-breathed,' the sermon establishes that this includes both Testaments, defends the unique apostolic authority that underwrites the New Testament writings, and argues that the doctrines of inspiration, infallibility, and inerrancy are inseparable. The sermon closes with a call to imitate the psalmist of Psalm 119—hiding the word in the heart, meditating on its precepts, and rejoicing in its testimonies as in great treasure.
The Purpose of the Incarnation
Jesus' declaration before Pontius Pilate — 'For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world' (John 18:37) — frames the Incarnation not as a seasonal sentiment but as the entry of the eternal Son into his mediatorial kingship. The sermon expounds Christ's kingdom as non-terrestrial in origin yet universal in scope, advancing not by armed revolt but by the truth he himself embodies and proclaims. Pilate's cynical shrug — 'What is truth?' — is set as a mirror before the hearer: indifference to the truth of Christ is indifference to the only ground of liberation from the wrath of God. The sermon calls every listener to receive the King through faith in the gospel, and every Christian household to press children toward Christ through diligent engagement with Scripture.
2LCF Chapter 22 - Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day, Part 3
What does God require of his people in corporate worship, and by what means does he strengthen them in faith? Working through 2LCF Chapter 22, Paragraph 5, this session examines five constituent elements of religious worship: the Word of God (read, preached, and heard), songs to God, the ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper, the worshipper's disposition, and occasional worship. The regulative principle governs the whole: only what God has prescribed in Scripture may be brought into worship, and every element is to be engaged with understanding, faith, reverence, and godly fear. The practical burden is that corporate Lord's Day worship is not liturgical formality but God's ordained means of grace by which the Spirit strengthens and grows the faith of his people.
2LCF Chapter 22 - Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day, Part 2
Prayer as a constituent element of Christian worship is examined through paragraphs three and four of the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith (2LCF 22.3–4). The confession distinguishes natural worship — known by the light of general revelation — from instituted or religious worship regulated by Scripture alone, and locates prayer within both: obligatory for all men by nature, yet acceptable to God only when offered in the name of the Son, by the aid of the Spirit, and according to His revealed will. Seven features of prayer in worship are traced: its constitutional place as a means of grace, its universal obligation, its general tenor of thanksgiving, its Trinitarian form, its attendant posture (understanding, reverence, humility, fervency, faith, love, and perseverance), its linguistic restriction to a known tongue against the Romanist Latin mass, and the lawful scope of its content — including the rejection of prayers for the dead and for those who have sinned the sin unto death.
The Stephen of Christ
Acts 7:44–60 records the martyrdom of Stephen, the church's first martyr, whose death rather than ending Christianity only advanced it — fulfilling Christ's promise in Matthew 16:18 that the gates of Hades would not prevail against his church. The sermon examines Stephen under three headings: his constitution as a Christian (full of faith and power, possessing spirit-wrought wisdom, and confirmed by divine favor), his characteristics as a preacher (zeal tempered by patient control, thorough knowledge of Scripture, and Christocentric proclamation), and his Christ-likeness as a martyr (exercising wholesome severity, refusing to revile in return, and committing himself to him who judges righteously). The congregation is called to imitate Stephen's faith, scriptural depth, and Christ-like endurance in the face of opposition, and unbelievers are summoned to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins.
The Instruction on Marriage
Titus 1:1–9 provides Paul's instructions to Titus for establishing gospel order on the island of Crete, centering on the appointment of qualified elders. The sermon works through the twofold purpose of Titus's ministry — setting things in order and appointing elders in every city — before examining the elder's domestic faithfulness (blamelessness, sexual fidelity, faithful children) and personal faithfulness (five vices to avoid, six virtues to exemplify). The exposition closes with the elder's indispensable giftedness: holding fast sound doctrine so as to both exhort the people of God and silence those who contradict. The whole is applied to the congregation as a call to pray for qualified men, to know the qualifications, and to insist that the church install only those who demonstrably meet them.
1 Samuel 14:24-52
In 1 Samuel 14:24–52, Saul's rash oath forbidding his army to eat during battle exemplifies the folly of extra-biblical, formulaic attempts to manipulate God's blessing — the same instinct that reduces the ark of the covenant to a lucky charm and multiplies prayer vigils and forty-day fasts beyond any scriptural warrant. Jonathan's wisdom and courage stand in pointed contrast, demonstrating that faithfulness to God's revealed means — word, prayer, the ordinary duties of obedience — is the path of true covenantal service. The passage closes with a glowing summary of Saul's military and political achievements, but that very juxtaposition exposes the decisive verdict: Yahweh is not looking for winners but for disciples, and covenant obedience matters far more than vocational achievement. The sermon calls God's people to rest in the means He has ordained, to abandon extra-religious manipulation, and to measure their lives not by earthly success but by fidelity to what Christ asks in the circumstances He gives.
1 Samuel 14:1-23
Jonathan's courageous assault on the Philistine garrison in 1 Samuel 14:1–23 exposes the sharp contrast between a faithless king who sits under a pomegranate tree and a faithful son who acts in confident reliance on the sovereignty of God. The study traces Jonathan's famous confession — 'nothing restrains the Lord from saving by many or by few' — as an expression of genuine faith that neither doubts God's omnipotence nor presumes to dictate the divine will. Along the way, the passage warns against seeking guidance through signs and fleeces rather than through the completed canon of Scripture, and it closes with the reminder that the Lord's salvation of Israel that day was an act of sovereign, unmerited mercy toward an undeserving people.
The Minister's Duty to Endure Hardship
Paul's command in 2 Timothy 2:3–7 that Timothy endure hardship is not a gentle suggestion but an apostolic imperative addressed to every minister of the gospel in every age. Working through three interlocking metaphors — the soldier, the athlete, and the farmer — this exposition shows that faithful gospel ministry requires the devoted single-mindedness of a soldier who lives to please his commander, the disciplined self-denial of an athlete training for an imperishable crown, and the diligent hard work of a farmer who knows that cause and effect govern his harvest. A fourth element, drawn from verse 7, calls the minister to be a dedicated disciple who meditates on apostolic doctrine and trusts the Lord to give understanding through that Word alone. The whole passage is set within the larger purpose of the ministry: the glory of God, the edification of the saints, and the salvation of sinners by sovereign grace.
The Ministries of Paul and Timothy
Paul's appointment as preacher, apostle, and teacher of the Gentiles was not self-generated but rooted in the eternal decree of God, who foreordained both the salvation of the elect and every means by which that salvation arrives — including gospel proclamation. Examining 2 Timothy 1:11–14, this sermon traces Paul's God-given role, his suffering in that role, and his unashamed confidence in a sovereign God able to keep what has been committed to Him. Timothy is then charged with two complementary duties: to hold fast the pattern of sound words received from Paul, and to guard that apostolic deposit by the indwelling Holy Spirit — not for his own sake alone, but so that the church across successive generations remains anchored to the truth.
The Pattern for Gospel Ministry
Second Timothy 1:8 calls Timothy — and by extension all ministers and believers — to an unashamed allegiance to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and a readiness to suffer for it. The sermon traces two movements in the verse: a prohibition against shame and a positive exhortation to share in the sufferings of the gospel according to the power of God. Four temptations toward shame are examined — the person of Christ, the work of Christ, the doctrine of Christ, and the cause of Christ — before the message closes with the assurance that the Spirit supplies power, not fear, to those who must persevere under opposition and trial.
The Authority of the Church
Christ's declaration in Matthew 16:19–20 invests the church with delegated authority — expressed through the metaphor of keys — to bind and to loose in the kingdom of heaven. This authority is not absolute and belongs to no single officer; it is entrusted to the church as a whole to be exercised through the faithful preaching of the gospel and the discipline of the membership. The sermon works through three observations: identifying the stewards of this authority, the nature of the authority delegated, and the specific functions of binding and loosing. The congregation is called to prize Christ's church, exercise her God-given authority through the Word alone, and testify freely that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.
The Establishment of the Church
Matthew 16:18 is, as one commentator notes, the most discussed verse in the most discussed paragraph of Matthew's Gospel — and its controversies are anything but settled. This sermon works through four aspects of Christ's declaration concerning His church: its definition as the catholic or universal assembly of the elect, its foundation in the confession that Jesus is the Christ, its triumph over the gates of Hades, and its builder, who is Christ alone and not any man or institution. The Roman Catholic claim that Peter's person is the rock undergirding a papal succession is examined and rejected on exegetical, historical, and biblical-theological grounds, while the legitimate priority of the apostles in the church's foundation is carefully maintained. Believers are called to hold together the church's certain triumph with the reality of persecution, guarding the deposit committed to them and confessing Christ as Lord.
The Final Charge
The final two verses of 1 Timothy close Paul's first letter to Timothy with a charge that is as urgent as it is simple: guard the deposit and avoid the dangers. This sermon works through the nature of that deposit — the gospel of God, owned by God, entrusted to Paul and passed to Timothy and the church as stewards — and the dangers that threaten it: the profane and idle babblings of false teachers whose contradictions are falsely called knowledge. The application presses the church to see that faithful gospel preaching is inseparable from the glory of God, the edification of believers, and the salvation of sinners, and that the only power sufficient to sustain that fidelity is the grace with which Paul both opens and closes the epistle.
The Prayer of the Early Church, Part 2
Acts 4:29–31 presents the early church's prayer as a model for Christian supplication: addressed to the sovereign Creator, Revelator, and Governor of all things, and shaped by three specific requests — the administration of justice against gospel opposition, boldness to proclaim Christ regardless of human threat, and continued confirmation of apostolic preaching through the miraculous. The sermon then traces God's threefold response: an indication of his presence in the shaking of the place, the filling of the Holy Spirit, and the provision of courage that immediately issued in bold gospel proclamation. The chief application is that Christians must follow this pattern — coming to God in humble recognition of who he is, praying for justice, courage, and vindication of the word, and trusting that God gives strength and boldness to his people rather than stirring up those things from within themselves.