Theological term
Holy War
53 sermons · All terms
The Laws of the Unsolved Murder, Family Matters, and Dead Criminals
Deuteronomy 21 addresses five distinct legal ordinances governing the covenant community of old covenant Israel: the unsolved homicide, female captives taken in war, the firstborn son in a polygamous household, the stubborn and rebellious son, and the hanged criminal. Running beneath all five is a single theological concern — the prevention of blood guiltiness defiling the land God has given his people as an inheritance. The passage is read typologically: the heifer sacrificed for the unsolved murder foreshadows penal substitutionary atonement, the charge of 'glutton and drunkard' leveled at Jesus in Matthew 11 echoes the indictment for the rebellious son in Deuteronomy 21, and Paul's citation of Deuteronomy 21:23 in Galatians 3:13 makes explicit that Christ became a curse for his people by hanging on a tree. The session closes with a Q&A discussion of polygamy, slavery, and the relationship between creation ordinances and post-fall civil legislation.
The King's Exaltation and Future Triumph, Part 2
Psalm 21:8–13 presents the church's confident expectation of Christ's return in final triumph over all who hate God. The sermon expounds two movements: the certainty and finality of the judgment of the wicked (vv. 8–12), grounded in the sovereign righteousness of God and fulfilled in the mediatorial office of the enthroned Christ, and the church's doxological response in verse 13. The sermon traces verse 10's destruction of the enemies' seed back to the protoevangelium of Genesis 3:15, arguing that Christ's second advent is the consummation of the skull-crushing conquest promised there. Believers are called to know the terror of the Lord, to persuade the unconverted, and to praise God for the justice that the cross has satisfied on their behalf.
The Regulation of Priests and Prophets
Deuteronomy 18 governs the two offices through which God communicated with Old Covenant Israel: the Levitical priesthood and the prophetic ministry. The chapter moves from the material provision owed to priests and Levites, through a comprehensive prohibition of pagan divination, to the promise of a succession of prophets culminating in one greater than Moses — the Lord Jesus Christ, identified explicitly in Matthew 17 and Acts 3. The sermon draws out the typological and redemptive-historical unity of the chapter, showing that what Israel sought illegitimately through witchcraft and necromancy, God supplied legitimately through his Word-bearing offices, and that the old covenant's pattern of 'do this and live' finds its fulfillment in Christ who kept the covenant perfectly on behalf of his people.
The Central Sanctuary
Deuteronomy 12 establishes the principle that Israel's worship must be conducted where and how God commands — not where or how the surrounding nations worship their gods. Working through four sections of the chapter, this exposition traces the logic from the destruction of Canaanite shrines and the centralization of sacrificial worship, through the legislation governing ordinary and sacrificial eating, to the climactic prohibition of verse 32: 'You shall not add to it nor take away from it.' The regulative principle of worship is not an Old Covenant curiosity but a transcovenantal demand, grounded in the first and second commandments and confirmed in the New Covenant by 1 Timothy 3:15 and Hebrews 12:28-29. The sermon calls hearers to resist the perennial temptation to import pagan practices and autonomous creativity into the worship of the living and true God, and to find in prescribed worship the very joy and blessing God promises his obedient people.
The Blessings of Obedience
Deuteronomy 7:12–26 sets before the second generation of Israel the blessings that follow covenant obedience — material prosperity, physical health, and military victory over Canaan — and the antidote to the fear that would tempt them to doubt God's promises. The passage is read within a covenant-theological framework in which the Mosaic covenant functions as a covenant of works for the nation, distinct from the covenant of grace that runs through the promise of Genesis 3:15 to its fulfillment in Christ, the true Israel of God. The sermon draws the New Covenant application that the God who did not spare His own Son will certainly sustain His people in every present trial, and calls hearers to destroy idolatry publicly, conquer it in the heart, and keep it out of the home.
The Command for the Conquest
Deuteronomy 7:1–11 sets out the divine policy for Israel's conquest of Canaan, commanding total destruction of the seven Canaanite nations and prohibiting political, social, and religious alliances with them. The passage answers the modern objection that God commanded genocide of innocent peoples by demonstrating from Leviticus 18 that the Canaanites were under divine judgment for extreme wickedness, and that God applied the same standard of judgment to Israel when Israel imitated their conduct. The distinction between Israel and Canaan rests entirely on sovereign, unconditional election — not Israel's numbers or righteousness — and finds its New Covenant fulfillment in the church as the true people of God united to Christ. The passage's prohibitions carry direct application to contemporary alliances: believers are to marry only in the Lord, avoid religious compromise on cardinal doctrines, and understand civil government's proper and limited role.
The Dangers and Precautions for Israel
Deuteronomy 6:10–25 addresses the second generation of Old Covenant Israel on the plains of Moab with warnings and precautions before they enter the Promised Land. Three dangers threaten covenant loyalty: forgetting God in prosperity, forsaking God through idolatry, and testing God under hardship. The precautions against these dangers are diligent obedience to the commandments and faithful covenant succession — passing the knowledge of God's redemptive acts to the next generation. These dangers are not merely ancient; they press upon the New Covenant church with equal force, and the remedies remain the same: fear God, keep His word, and rehearse His faithfulness to your children.
Deuteronomy 5:17 - 6th Commandment Part 4
Deuteronomy 5:17 forbids murder, not all killing, and the Westminster Larger Catechism identifies three exceptions: public justice, lawful war, and necessary defense. This sermon, the fourth in a series on the sixth commandment, examines the scriptural warrant for lawful war, moving from Old Testament legislation governing warfare and holy war through New Testament evidence of a consistently favorable view of the military. The argument concludes that Romans 13 authorizes civil government to wield the sword against both criminal offenders and foreign invaders, that this function is wholly consistent with the personal ethic of Matthew 5 and Romans 12, and that criteria derived from Augustine, Aquinas, and Turretin provide a biblical framework for distinguishing just from unjust war.
Wilderness Wanderings
Deuteronomy 2–3 records Moses rehearsing the wilderness wanderings for the second generation of Israel, poised on the plains of Moab before the conquest of Canaan. God's multinational sovereignty is on display as He assigns territorial boundaries to Edom, Moab, and Ammon, then delivers Sihon and Og into Israel's hands — demonstrating that the God of Israel governs all nations, not merely His covenant people. The historical review functions both as a warning against repeating the unbelief of the first generation and as an encouragement to trust the same God who preserved Israel through forty years of wilderness trudging. New Covenant believers are called to the same posture: to dwell on the record of God's faithfulness in redemptive history so as to remain steadfast through present trials.
The Regulations for Life in Canaan
Numbers 32–36 closes the book with regulations governing Israel's entry into Canaan: the Transjordanian tribal allotments, the itinerary of the wilderness journey, the boundaries of the land, Levitical cities, cities of refuge, and the inheritance rights of female heirs. The legislation on cities of refuge anchors a sustained exposition of the distinction between murder and manslaughter, grounded in the Noahic covenant of Genesis 9:6, and carries forward the biblical case for capital punishment as a perpetual civil obligation. The study closes by tracing Christ through Numbers — as the guiding presence, the compassionate shepherd, the greater Joshua, the great high priest, and the brazen serpent lifted up for the life of the world — and applies the wilderness pattern to the new covenant people who must persevere through present affliction toward an eternal Canaan.
The War Against the Midianites
Numbers 31 records God's command to execute vengeance upon the Midianites for their role in seducing Israel into idolatry and apostasy at Baal-peor — a crime instigated by Balaam that caused 24,000 Israelites to perish under divine judgment. The study argues that the severity of Moses' orders upon return from battle is not arbitrary cruelty but the just execution of God's judicial wrath against specific criminal offenders. Three passages from Deuteronomy (chapters 13, 20, and 21) are examined to demonstrate that Israel's normal wartime ethic was governed by humane principles that distinguished her from surrounding nations, underscoring that the Midianite war was a unique act of covenantal vengeance rather than a general template for holy war. The session closes by grounding these difficult texts in the consistency of God's justice, goodness, and faithfulness in bringing his people to the land of promise.
The Idolatry of Solomon
Solomon's reign, celebrated across 1 Kings 3–10 as a golden age of wisdom and divine blessing, collapses in chapter 11 under the weight of multiplied foreign wives and the idolatry they drew him into — a direct violation of the Mosaic prohibitions in Deuteronomy 7 and 17. The sermon traces the idolatry itself (vv. 1–8) and the divine response (vv. 9–13), showing that Solomon's sin was aggravated by his knowledge of the law, the good example of his father David, and two personal appearances of God. From this sobering case the sermon draws eight practical warnings: that experience, godly example, knowledge, and wisdom are not in themselves sufficient to secure present faithfulness, and that the believer's only safeguard is constant dependence on the Holy Spirit and a mind rooted in Scripture.
The Wars of the LORD
Numbers 21 traces Israel's journey through military victory over the Canaanites, the punishment and grace of the bronze serpent, and the conquest of the Amorite kings Sihon and Og. The bronze serpent — condemned people bitten by fiery serpents, healed only by looking in faith to the remedy God prescribed — is taken up by Jesus in John 3:14 as a type of his own crucifixion, teaching that salvation comes by divine initiative alone, received through faith, not works. The same recurring sins of complaint, lack of faith in providence, and idolatry that marked the first generation persist in the second, warning the church that these corruptions follow the sin nature across every generation. The chapter closes with God's sovereign hardening of Sihon and the defeat of the giant Og, both down payments on the promised conquest and demonstrations of God's faithfulness, sovereignty, and goodness to his people.
The Intercession of Moses for the People, Judgement by God, and Folly of Israel
Numbers 14 records the aftermath of Israel's refusal to enter Canaan, and this exposition works through three movements in verses 11–45: Moses' intercession before a holy God, God's measured judgment upon the faithless generation, and Israel's final act of presumptuous folly. Moses' prayer is examined as a model of bold, Scripture-grounded intercession — appealing to God's reputation among the nations, His covenant character revealed in Exodus 34, and the precedent of His patient mercy. The chapter ultimately teaches that faithless cowardice is the fruit of rejecting the living God, that covenant-breaking brings assured judgment, and that faith in God's promises is the only ground of genuine courage.
Introduction to the Book of Numbers
The book of Numbers records Israel's wilderness sojourn from Sinai to the plains of Moab, functioning as the narrative of a covenant community learning to live under Yahweh's sovereign guidance. This introductory study surveys the title, authorship, structure, and major themes of Numbers within the framework of the whole Pentateuch, tracing how the glory cloud of Exodus 40 provides the predicate for both Leviticus and Numbers. The overarching argument is that every element of the book — census, legislation, failure, and restoration — testifies not to Israel's faithfulness but to God's faithfulness to his covenant promise to the patriarchs, a promise that finds its ultimate fulfillment in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Renewal of the Covenant, Part II
Exodus 34:10–35 records God's renewal of the Mosaic covenant with Israel following the golden calf apostasy of chapter 32. The passage demonstrates that the divine attributes proclaimed in verses 6–7 — mercy, grace, long-suffering, and abounding goodness — are not merely stated but actively exhibited in God's willingness to restore a covenant his people had shattered. The sermon works through three sections: the covenant renewed (vv. 10–28), with its prohibitions against religious, social, and political alliances with Canaanite nations; and the reflection of God's glory on Moses' face (vv. 29–35), which Paul's argument in 2 Corinthians 3 sets within the larger framework of old covenant and new covenant glory. The central application is that the same perfections God displayed toward covenant-breaking Israel are the perfections believers now experience in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose new covenant ministry of righteousness far exceeds the fading glory of Moses.
The Problem of Israel's Apostasy
Israel's apostasy in Judges 2:7–3:6 follows a pattern rooted not in ignorance but in a failure to know the Lord experientially — a failure that produced syncretism, Baal worship, and divine chastisement. The sermon traces the root, description, and divine response to Israel's apostasy, showing that God's repeated raising up of judges was not provoked by Israel's repentance but by his own covenant faithfulness and mercy. Samson is presented as a type of Christ, each of the twelve judges pointing typologically to the Savior who would definitively deliver his people from their sins. The church is exhorted to keep herself unspotted from the world, resisting the toleration that leads by degrees to full apostasy.
The Conversion of Rahab the Harlot
Joshua 2 presents the conversion of Rahab the harlot as a sovereign interruption of divine mercy within the context of holy war and Israelite conquest. Before Israel kills a single Canaanite, the narrative compels the reader to stand in awe of a God who justifies a pagan prostitute by grace through faith alone — faith that is demonstrated by treason against Jericho and the sheltering of two spies. Rahab's confession that Yahweh is God in heaven above and on earth beneath places her alongside the great confessions of Scripture, and her inclusion in the Messianic genealogy of Matthew 1 reveals that the conquest was always inseparable from the redemptive purposes of God. The sermon calls hearers to resist self-righteous judgmentalism, to trust in a Christ who saves to the uttermost, and to marvel that the ancestress of Jesus was the shady lady of Jericho.
Exodus 17
Exodus 17 presents Israel's double failure at Rephidim: a murmuring complaint against Moses for lack of water, and then the subsequent victory over the Amalekites through Moses's upraised rod and Joshua's sword. The murmuring is exposed not merely as weakness but as theological insult — the question 'Is the Lord among us or not?' impugns the faithfulness of a God who has already split the sea, rained bread from heaven, and sworn to bring His people to the land of promise. The sermon draws out two counterbalancing lessons: the unrelenting faithfulness of God despite His people's unbelief, and the Reformed doctrine that divine sovereignty does not eliminate the use of means — Israel must both hold up the rod in dependence on God and swing the sword in disciplined obedience.
The Sixth Commandment
The sixth commandment, 'You shall not murder,' forbids not only the external act of taking innocent life but also the internal dispositions of hatred, unwarranted anger, and character assassination that flow from the same malicious heart. The sermon distinguishes murder from three lawful forms of killing — capital punishment, just war, and self-defense — grounding each in the abiding authority of Scripture from the Noahic Covenant through the New Testament. The image of God in every human being is the theological foundation for the commandment's reach across abortion, euthanasia, and the neglect of capital punishment. Hearers are called to clarity on the law's three uses, to renounce internal murder within the church, and to find in the gospel the only remedy for sinners who have violated this commandment in heart or deed.
Genesis 35
Genesis 35 traces Jacob's return to Bethel, the deaths of Rachel and Isaac, the treachery of Reuben, and the enumeration of Jacob's twelve sons. The chapter centers on God's sovereign renewal of His covenant with Jacob — reiterating the promises of seed and land given to Abraham and Isaac — at precisely the moment Jacob is most fearful and morally compromised. The sermon argues that God's repetition of covenant promises is not for His own memory but for the stabilization of His people's faith, and that the means of grace — Scripture, prayer, corporate worship, and the Lord's Supper — function as God's appointed conduits for fortifying His people to persevere through affliction, loss, and moral failure.
Genesis 34:1-31
Genesis 34 presents one of the more disturbing episodes in the patriarchal narrative: the rape of Dinah, the calculated retaliation by Simeon and Levi, and Jacob's conspicuous failure of leadership. The exposition argues that the sons of Jacob were not acting out of unbridled blood vengeance but engaged in a deliberate, tactical mission to liberate their sister from what amounted to a hostage situation — an argument that reframes the deceit and slaughter as purposive rather than criminal. Jacob's response stands in sharp contrast to his spiritual high points in chapters 32–33, exposing the ebbs and flows of genuine faith and the truth that God's preservation of his people rests entirely on sovereign grace, not the consistency of the saints.
Genesis 18:16-33
Genesis 18:16–33 presents the Lord's evaluation of Sodom and Abraham's intercessory prayer on behalf of any righteous persons within the doomed cities of the plain. The passage establishes two theological axioms: divine omnipotence silences doubt concerning God's promises, and divine justice — 'shall not the judge of all the earth do right?' — silences every charge of divine arbitrariness. Abraham's descent from fifty to ten righteous persons is examined as a model of humble, persistent intercession, set within a wider biblical pattern running from Moses and Samuel through Jeremiah, Daniel, and the New Testament exhortations of 1 Timothy 2. The sermon calls God's people to regular, corporate intercessory prayer for all kinds of men, including civil authorities, grounded not in human merit but in the great mercies of God.
1 Kings 20
1 Kings 20 presents the beginning of the end for Ahab, Israel's most wretched king, as God delivers him twice from Syrian armies he had no right to expect to defeat — not because Ahab sought God, but because God sovereignly extended unsolicited, unmerited grace to a rebel. The chapter's true climax arrives in the closing parable of the prophet (vv. 35–43), which functions as Ahab's 'thou art the man' moment: having freed Ben-Hadad, whom God had appointed to utter destruction, Ahab pronounces his own condemnation. The study presses the application that defective theology — whether Syrian paganism that compartmentalizes God by geography, or modern versions that shrink His sovereignty — carries serious consequences, and that God's patience with wretches like Ahab must not be mistaken for indifference to rebellion.
The Idolatry of Solomon
Solomon's reign, celebrated across 1 Kings 3–10 for its wisdom, wealth, and temple-building, collapses in 1 Kings 11 under the weight of multiplied foreign wives, hardened idolatry, and a heart turned away from Yahweh. The sermon exposes the problem, precedent, and practice of Solomon's idolatry in verses 1–8, and then traces the divine response — God's righteous anger and covenantal judgment — in verses 9–13. Solomon's sin is shown to be aggravated by his knowledge of the law, his good example in David, and his twice-repeated experience of God's direct appearing. Drawing out seven practical warnings, the sermon calls believers to vigilance in marriage, obedience, and utter dependence on the Holy Spirit, while pointing to Christ — the greater Solomon — as the only secure ground for salvation and perseverance.
1 Kings 11:1-13
Solomon's fall in 1 Kings 11:1–13 confronts the reader with the most disorienting reversal in the narrative of the monarchy: the wisest man who ever lived, a man who built the temple and prayed for God to incline the hearts of his people, ends his reign bowing before Chemosh, Milcom, and Ashtoreth. The study traces how violations of Deuteronomy's prohibitions on foreign marriages and the principles governing kings — compounded by great privilege, faithful example, and divine warning — render Solomon's idolatry inexcusable and God's threatened judgment just. The divine response in verses 9–13 demonstrates both God's righteous anger at covenant-breaking and his covenant faithfulness to David, as the conditional and unconditional elements of the Davidic covenant together shape the coming division of the kingdom. Eight practical warnings are drawn from Solomon's fall, all converging on the believer's utter dependence upon the Holy Spirit as the only safeguard against apostasy.
1 Kings 9
1 Kings 9 functions as a theological hinge in the narrative of Solomon's reign, positioned between the golden era of chapters 5–8 and the decline traced in chapters 10–11. God's second appearance to Solomon confirms his approval of the completed temple while issuing a sobering conditional warning: faithlessness — above all, idolatry — will cost Israel its land, its temple, and its Davidic dynasty, precisely as the covenant curses of Deuteronomy 28 stipulate. The second half of the chapter catalogues Solomon's political pursuits in foreign affairs, defense, worship, and trade, each carrying subtle narrative signals of the decline to come. The sermon closes by tracing how Christ fulfills what Solomon forfeited: the land recovered through the Abrahamic promise, the temple realized in his body, and the throne secured forever in the Davidic covenant.
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.
2 Samuel 22:32-51
Second Samuel 22:32–51 closes David's great psalm of praise — a passage paralleled in Psalm 18 — by celebrating what the speaker calls the invincibility of God's kingdom. The study traces four movements: the incomparable power of Yahweh as the sole ground of David's military victories, the people encompassed by David's expanding dominion (both internal opponents and foreign nations), the praise David ascribes to the living God, and the Davidic covenant promise (2 Samuel 7) that secures the kingdom's advance through David's greater Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. David's assertion of his own righteousness in verse 21 is read through a redemptive-historical lens — the imputed righteousness of Christ — grounding Old Testament soteriology in the same doctrine of justification by faith that Paul expounds in Romans 4 from Psalm 32. The congregation is exhorted to learn from David's example: to praise the living God publicly and to trust Him through every internal and external trial.
The Escape from Saul
God's provision for David during his flight from Saul — through bread at Nob, deliverance at Gath, fellowship at Adullam, safety for his parents in Moab, and a prophetic word at the forest of Hereth — is the controlling theological theme of 1 Samuel 21–22:5. The narrative exposes both the reality of severe trial in the life of God's people and the sovereign grace that meets them in and through their own failures. David's response of praise, crystallised in Psalms 34, 56, 57, and 142, rebukes a health-and-wealth theology and models the only fitting reply to affliction. The gathering of the distressed, indebted, and discontented to David in the cave of Adullam functions as a type of Christ, who bids weary sinners come to him as captain and lord.