Theological term
Practical Atheism
17 sermons · All terms
The Psalmist's Description of Depravity
Psalm 14 furnishes a comprehensive doctrine of total depravity, showing that man's rejection of God is not merely intellectual but ethical — a practical atheism that issues in universal corruption and abominable works. The psalmist's two-part structure moves from the description of the ungodly (vv. 1–3) to the deliverance of the godly (vv. 4–7), with Paul amplifying the same argument in Romans 1–3 by citing and structurally imitating the psalm. The only remedy for the corruption of the heart is not behavioral modification but the righteousness of Christ received through faith — the salvation that comes out of Zion — which gives believers both ground for evangelism and comfort in a sin-cursed world.
The Challenge and Confidence of the Psalmist
Psalm 10 presents a twofold movement: the challenge of the psalmist in verses 1–11, and the confidence of the psalmist in verses 12–18. The sermon argues that this psalm is not primarily about David's historical circumstances but about the earthly ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ — his humanity, his experience of apparent divine withdrawal, and his witness to the wickedness of those who conspired against him. The church, as joined to Christ, prays these words as her own, setting the promises of God against the troubled testimony of sense and experience, and resting in the certain reign of the Lord who will one day cause the man of the earth to oppress no more.
The Victory of David Over Goliath, Part 2
David's victory over Goliath in 1 Samuel 17 is fundamentally a theological event, not a heroic self-help narrative. The sermon works through David's preparation, his declaration of faith in the name of the Lord of hosts, the decisive defeat of Goliath, and the rout of the Philistines, arguing that the emphasis falls squarely on who Yahweh is rather than on what David achieves. The fatal headshot dealt to Goliath is then traced through the biblical-theological thread of Genesis 3:15, illustrated in Judges 4 and 9, and shown to culminate in Christ's crushing of the serpent's head through His own suffering, death, and resurrection — the definitive victory to which David's victory is typological.
The Condemnation of Wealthy Oppressors
James 5:1–6 pronounces a severe condemnation upon wealthy oppressors whose possession of riches has, in turn, come to possess them. The sermon identifies four specific offenses — hoarding wealth, defrauding workers, self-indulgent pleasure-seeking, and the oppression and effective murder of the righteous — situating James within the tradition of the Old Testament prophets (Isaiah, Amos, Micah, Zephaniah) who prosecuted the Lord's covenant against such sins within the covenant community. The critical interpretive question — whether the targets are unbelieving oppressors (Calvin) or professing believers within the church (Gill) — is resolved in favour of Gill, with the acknowledgment that professing Christians are not immune to grievous inconsistency. The passage's application presses hearers to examine how their riches are acquired, how they are used, and above all how wealth is affecting the posture of their hearts before God, while firmly rejecting both liberation theology's Marxist distortion and any notion that the mere possession of wealth is condemned by Scripture.
2 Kings 21:1-26
Manasseh's 55-year reign over Judah represents the nadir of covenant unfaithfulness in the southern kingdom, exceeding even the wickedness of the Canaanites whom God had expelled from the land. This expository study of 2 Kings 21 traces Manasseh's systematic religious innovations — reinstituting the high places, introducing Baal and Asherah worship into the temple, practicing child sacrifice and witchcraft, and shedding innocent blood — alongside the divine prophecy of inevitable, terrifying, and just judgment against Jerusalem. The chapter also demonstrates that Judah was not merely victimized by a wicked king but was itself seducible, having provoked God continuously since the exodus. The passage calls covenant people to resist practical atheism, to cherish God's promised blessings rather than forfeit them for the passing pleasures of sin, and to reckon seriously with the connection between idolatry and the collapse of ethical life.
Free Grace Baptist Church - February 25, 2018 PM
James 4:13-17 levels a charge of carnal presumption against professing believers who plan, buy, sell, and pursue profit as though God has no jurisdiction over Monday through Saturday. The sermon distinguishes between planning itself — which Scripture assumes and commends — and the godless self-sufficiency that excludes divine sovereignty from commerce, household, and daily routine. Three remedies are drawn from the text: recognize your ignorance of tomorrow, recognize the frailty of a life that is 'a vapor,' and recognize your utter dependence on the will of God. The sermon closes by connecting verse 17's sin of omission to the whole passage: those who know God is sovereign over all things and yet live as practical atheists do not merely stumble — they sin against knowledge.
2 Kings 1:1-18
2 Kings 1 records the idolatry, judgment, and death of Ahaziah, king of Israel — a man who, when facing death, turned not to Yahweh but to Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron. The chapter exposes the nature of idolatry as a practical confession that the living God is incompetent to meet one's needs, and it establishes the certainty of God's word against any king or army that would silence it. God's protection of Elijah through consuming fire is neither divine caprice nor Old Testament barbarism, but the settled, holy justice of a God who will brook no rival and whose jealousy for his own glory is inseparable from his mercy toward sinners. The passage calls hearers to examine what their instinctive cry in trial reveals about the true object of their allegiance.
The Olivet Discourse, Part 12
Matthew 24:45–51 closes the first section of practical application in the Olivet Discourse with a parable of two servants: one faithful, one wicked. The parable's central question — 'Who then is a faithful and wise servant?' — is designed to arrest the conscience and promote eschatological self-examination. Watchfulness for Christ's return is not idle sky-gazing but active fidelity in one's God-appointed vocation, whether pastoral ministry or ordinary daily labor. The wicked servant's ruin flows directly from his denial of the master's return, a pattern the sermon presses against both unbelievers and professing Christians living as practical atheists.
The First Commandment
The First Commandment — 'You shall have no other gods before me' (Deuteronomy 5:7) — demands the exclusive covenantal allegiance of God's people to Yahweh alone. The sermon works through both the prohibition and the positive demands of the commandment, exposing atheism (doctrinal and practical), polytheism, syncretism, idolatry, sorcery, and heresy as violations of the first word, while showing that the commandment positively requires the knowledge, love, fear, trust, obedience, and worship of the one true God. The pedagogical function of the law is also pressed: the commandment, taken seriously, drives the believer to repentance and to Christ, the only law-keeper, who gave himself for the sins of all those the Father had given him.
The Messenger of the Covenant
Malachi 2:17–3:5 confronts Israel's practical atheism — the posture of those who affirm God doctrinally yet live and speak as though He neither sees nor judges. The prophecy announces a forerunner and a messenger of the covenant who will come to His temple, but whose coming will not be what the self-righteous expect: He comes as refiner's fire and launderer's soap, purging sin and executing judgment. The sermon draws out three applications: guard against practical atheism in the Christian life, recognise that the two tables of the law stand or fall together, and heed the warning of Amos 5 that desiring the day of the Lord without being in Christ is to court inescapable judgment.
Thanksgiving for the Mercy of God
Psalm 103 calls every redeemed soul to deliberate, whole-hearted praise — not as a passive emotion but as a disciplined act of self-address rooted in theological memory. The sermon works through three movements: the reminder to bless God (vv. 1–2), the reasons to bless God both individually and corporately (vv. 3–18), and the universal summons extending that call to angels and all creation (vv. 19–22). Forgiveness of all iniquities stands at the head of the list of benefits, and every temporal and spiritual blessing flows from a God whose mercy is not transient like the grass of the field but everlasting to everlasting. The psalm, rightly applied in the new-covenant believer's life, keeps one near the cross, corrects the tendency toward practical atheism, and transforms ingratitude into genuine thanksgiving.
The Messenger of the Covenant
Malachi 2:17–3:5 exposes what the sermon calls 'practical atheism' — the sin of those who acknowledge God's existence yet, through grumbling and discontentment, functionally deny his justice, goodness, and holiness. The oracle's divine reply is a two-part announcement: a forerunner (John the Baptist) will prepare the way, and then the Messenger of the Covenant (the Lord Jesus Christ, identified with Yahweh himself) will come — not to settle Israel's grievances against the Persians, but to refine, judge, and purify. The sermon presses the most fundamental eschatological question past all speculative curiosity: are you prepared to stand before the God of justice when he appears?
The Potential Dangers Facing Israel
Deuteronomy 6:10–16 sets before Israel three concrete dangers they will face upon entering the promised land, dangers that map directly onto the experience of the new covenant church. Prosperity tempts God's people to forget the giver and embrace practical atheism; the gods of surrounding nations tempt them to forsaking covenant loyalty for idolatry; and hardship tempts them to test God's faithfulness by calling his word into question. The sermon calls believers to respond to God's grace with fear, service, and oath-bound covenant loyalty — and to resist the governing power of emotion, circumstance, and felt experience in favour of the unchanging word.
The Potential Dangers Facing Israel
Deuteronomy 6:10–16 identifies three covenant dangers Moses sets before Israel as they prepare to enter Canaan: the danger of forgetting God in prosperity, the danger of forsaking God through idolatry, and the danger of testing God in hardship. The sermon traces how each danger flows from a failure to reckon rightly with the sovereign grace that underlies every blessing Israel received — cities they did not build, wells they did not dig, vineyards they did not plant. Drawing on the New Testament parallels of 1 Timothy 6 and the temptation narrative in Matthew 4, the study presses the same warnings upon the church: guard against practical atheism in affluence, resist the idol-factory of the heart, and refuse to condition covenant loyalty on favourable circumstances.
The Fallen King and the Grace of God
David's catastrophic fall into adultery and premeditated murder in 2 Samuel 11–12 is the lens through which this sermon examines the nature of sin, its inevitable exposure before a holy God, and the sovereign grace that pursues and pardons even the most heinous transgressor. Working through four observations — the sin itself, the attempted cover-up, the divine verdict, and the Lord's response through Nathan — the exposition magnifies not David but Christ, the only King without blemish, whose finished work is the sole ground of forgiveness. The confession 'I have sinned against the Lord' and Nathan's immediate declaration 'the Lord has put away your sin' together demonstrate that intensity of repentance contributes nothing to atonement; pardon rests wholly on grace. Listeners are called to see themselves in David's cover-up, to abandon every attempt to hide transgression, and to come to Christ whose death is the only reason any sin can be put away.
The Prophet of God's Wrath
Zephaniah 1:14–2:15 portrays the Day of the Lord as an inexorable visitation of divine wrath from which no earthly resource — strength, silver, or gold — can purchase escape. The sermon expounds two realities from verses 14–18 (the wrath of God and the sinfulness of man) before turning to the threefold exhortation of chapter 2 (seek the Lord, seek righteousness, seek humility), showing that the only refuge from the wrath of God is flight to God Himself through faith in Christ. A sustained closing application urges preachers and hearers alike not to strip the Gospel of its necessary foundation in divine wrath, since good news presupposes bad news, and the beauty of justification by grace through faith is inseparable from the terror of the judgment it averts.
God's Hand Stretched Out Against Judah
Zephaniah 1:1–13 announces the coming day of the Lord against the southern kingdom of Judah, cataloguing the sins that provoke divine judgment: idolatry (including Baal worship and astral cults), syncretism, practical atheism, and religious complacency. The text reveals that God's privileged covenant people are held to a stricter standard precisely because they have received more — a pattern the apostle Peter confirms when he writes that judgment begins at the house of God. The sermon presses these ancient indictments as a mirror for the contemporary church, calling believers to repent of the same patterns, to be zealous rather than complacent, and to respond to the prospect of divine wrath not by fleeing God but by seeking Him, seeking righteousness, and seeking humility.