Theological term
Regulative Principle
449 sermons · All terms
Principles Governing Kings
Deuteronomy 17:14–20 sets out divinely ordered principles for Israelite kingship: the king must be chosen by God, must refrain from multiplying military power, wives, and wealth, and must govern with the written law of God as his supreme and daily authority. The sermon traces how Israel's kings mostly failed these standards, how the judicial system of Deuteronomy 17 anticipates New Testament church discipline and the teaching of Romans 13, and how the entire institution of Israelite monarchy typologically points forward to the Lord Jesus Christ, the ideal and eternal king enthroned at his resurrection and ascension. Hearers are called to receive the gospel plea of Psalm 2 — to kiss the Son, to trust in him, and to pattern their own lives after the king's posture of submission to the Word of God.
The Demand for Discernment
Matthew 7:6 stands in deliberate tension with the prohibition against judgmentalism in verses 1–5: the same Christ who forbids a censorious spirit toward brothers commands his disciples to exercise discernment toward those who are enemies of the gospel. The sermon traces the identity of the 'dogs' and 'swine' — not ordinary unbelievers, but those whose hardened contempt for God makes continued proclamation a cause for further blasphemy and personal danger. Working through the ministries of Jesus and Paul in the Gospels, Acts, and 2 Timothy, the sermon demonstrates that this principle is not theoretical but was applied repeatedly in apostolic practice. The hearer is called to pursue wisdom through prayer, to refuse political correctness as a guide for gospel witness, and to maintain the balance Christ himself models: compassion toward weak brethren, patient witness to ordinary unbelievers, and principled restraint before confirmed enemies of the truth.
The Prohibition Against Judgmentalism
Matthew 7:1–5 contains one of the most abused texts in Scripture — 'judge not' — which is habitually weaponised to silence any Christian voice of discernment, yet just as habitually practiced as censorious fault-finding within the church. This exposition distinguishes the absolute prohibition Jesus does not give from the specific sin he does condemn: the nitpicking, petty, fault-finding spirit toward brothers and sisters in Christ that magnifies their specks while ignoring one's own log. The sermon traces the prohibition, its explanation in terms of divine judgment, and its illustration, showing that censoriousness is simultaneously an arrogant assertion of authority over others, an expression of self-righteousness, and a failure of charity — and that the Sermon on the Mount, rightly interpreted, drives every guilty hearer to the foot of the cross.
The Great Day of God
Malachi 4:1–6 sets before the reader two destinies — the wicked consumed like stubble in the fire of divine judgment, and the righteous flourishing under the Sun of Righteousness. This sermon argues that the prophet's vision of 'the great day of the Lord' finds its near-historical fulfillment in the A.D. 70 destruction of Jerusalem (typified in Revelation 6:12–17), while simultaneously serving as a portrait of the final judgment when Christ returns to judge the living and the dead. Preparation for that day consists in two things Malachi commands: remember the law of Moses by immersing oneself in Scripture, and look to the kingdom announced by the Elijah-figure John the Baptist. The closing exhortation is urgent — flee to Christ now, for on that day there is no third position between the wicked and those who fear the Lord.
The Marriage Relationship
Colossians 3:18–19 calls wives to submit to their own husbands and husbands to love their wives without bitterness — two commands that cut precisely against the natural grain of each. This sermon argues that both duties are grounded not in social utility or natural sentiment but in the gospel itself: the wife's submission images Christ's submission to the Father, and the husband's love images Christ's self-sacrificial love for the church. The sermon draws on Ephesians 5, 1 Peter 3, and 1 Corinthians 11 to show that ontological equality between husband and wife is fully compatible with functional differentiation of role, and closes by pressing both commands back onto the cross as the only sufficient motive and resource for obedience.
Deuteronomy 13
Deuteronomy 13 exposes three escalating threats to covenant fidelity in Israel: the false prophet who performs genuine signs but leads toward idolatry, the family member or close friend who privately solicits apostasy, and the urban revolutionary movement that corrupts an entire city. The chapter shows that God tests his people through such enticements to reveal whether their love for him is genuine, and that the severity of the prescribed penalties is proportionate to the gravity of the crime — which was not merely religious sin but constitutional treason against the covenant Lord. The same principles carry into the new covenant: gospel perverters are anathematized, family loyalty must never outrank loyalty to Christ, and the first and second commandments still demand undivided allegiance.
The People, The Prayer, The Response
Acts 4:23–31 records the response of the early Jerusalem church to persecution: rather than fleeing or retaliating, the believers gathered, prayed, and received divine empowerment to proclaim the gospel with boldness. The sermon expounds three features of that account — the character of the people (steadfast, prayerful, and united around the gospel), the theology embedded in their prayer (addressing God as Creator, Revelator, and Sovereign, and applying Psalm 2 to Christ), and God's answering response in the shaking of the place, the filling of the Spirit, and bold proclamation. Corporate prayer shaped by God's character and promises — not by circumstances — is the pattern the early church models for every subsequent generation of believers.
The Pattern, Mandate, and Context of Baptism
Believers' baptism by immersion rests not on ecclesiastical tradition but on a conspicuous New Testament pattern, an explicit dominical mandate, and the covenantal logic of Jeremiah 31 as expounded in Hebrews 8. Working through the baptism narratives of Acts, the Great Commission of Matthew 28, and the new covenant promises of Hebrews 8, this sermon argues that the proper subjects of baptism are those who have repented and believed — the new covenant community defined by internalized law, experiential knowledge of God, and the forgiveness of sins. The case for credo-baptism is grounded not in a rejection of covenant theology but in a distinctively Reformed Baptist appropriation of it: the new covenant differs from the old precisely in that all its members know the Lord. Baptism is commended not as optional piety but as a commanded ordinance of positive institution carrying ongoing significance as a means of grace.
The Current Session of Christ
Peter's Pentecost sermon in Acts 2 demonstrates that the session of Christ — his present reign at the right hand of the Father — is the convergent fulfillment of the Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic covenants, together with the royal-priestly announcement of Psalm 110. Working from Acts 2:29–36, this sermon traces Christ's universal sovereignty over all creation and then hones in on his specific interest in his church, exercised through his threefold mediatorial office as prophet, priest, and king. The current session is not a distant or past reality but a present comfort: Christ subdues his people to himself, intercedes for them continually, and governs every circumstance of history for the glory of God and the good of his elect. Believers are exhorted to engage Christ in his offices — hearing him as prophet, going to the Father through him as priest, and submitting to him as king — before that submission becomes compulsory at the final judgment.
Paul at Athens
Acts 17:16–34 records Paul's proclamation of the Christian worldview at the Areopagus in Athens — a city saturated with idolatry and home to Epicurean and Stoic philosophy. Paul does not simply offer historical evidences for the resurrection but instead sets forth God as creator, sovereign ruler over the nations, the only legitimate object of worship, and the coming judge — grounding the resurrection and the call to repentance in a comprehensive biblical theology. The sermon draws out the pattern of Paul's method: provoked by idolatry, he reasons in the synagogue and marketplace, addresses his audience on their own terms without compromising the truth, and calls all men everywhere to repent. Believers today are urged to cultivate the same burden for souls, to know the gospel accurately, and to carry it faithfully into a culture that remains, in its own way, given over to idols.
Necessary Precautions for Israel
Deuteronomy 6:10–16 sets three concrete dangers before Israel as they prepare to enter Canaan, and the same dangers confront the covenant community today: forgetting God in prosperity, forsaking God through idolatry, and testing God in difficulty. The passage is read against the backdrop of sovereign, covenantal grace — Israel received cities, houses, wells, and vineyards they did not build or earn, and ingratitude is therefore the root of all three failures. The appointed remedy for each danger is the same: fear God, serve him, and rest in the sufficiency of Christ rather than in material blessing, religious feeling, or favorable circumstance.
True and False Religion: Fasting
True religious fasting is assumed by Christ, not commanded as a merit-earning ritual, and is to be practiced in secret before God alone. Expounding Matthew 6:16–18 within the broader Sermon on the Mount context of exceeding Pharisaic righteousness, this sermon examines fasting under three headings: the assumption that the regenerate will fast, the warning against hypocritical display for human approval, and the corrective of ordinary, unannounced normalcy in one's daily conduct. The controlling application is that the believer's religious observances — almsgiving, prayer, and fasting — flow from justifying grace already received, not toward securing acceptance with God, which rests solely on the active and passive obedience of Christ imputed by faith.
The Preface to the Lord's Prayer
What does it mean to address God as 'Our Father in heaven' before a single petition is spoken? This sermon on Matthew 6:9 argues that the preface to the Lord's Prayer is not a formality but a theological foundation: the invocation shapes the entire posture of prayer. Six truths embedded in the two words 'Our Father' are examined — that God is personal, gracious, hearing, caring, loving, and alone to be addressed — followed by two truths in the phrase 'in heaven': that God is transcendent and omnipotent. The sermon closes with a pointed call to examine whether one can honestly pray 'Our Father' at all, since access to the Father comes only through faith in the Son.
The Necessity of Family Religion
Joshua 24:15 — 'As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord' — is not a slogan but a covenant demand that defines the believing household. This sermon expounds the husband's responsibility to lead, love, disciple, and nourish his wife after the pattern of Christ and the church in Ephesians 5, the father's responsibility to train and admonish his children without provoking them to wrath, and the subject matter that must fill family worship: the events of Sinai and, for new-covenant households, the events of Calvary. The governing disposition is sincerity and truth — a whole-soul commitment to Yahweh that is infectious to children precisely because it is genuine.
Rejoice in Christ! A Gracious Command
Philippians 3:1–3 opens with what Paul calls a gracious command — 'rejoice in the Lord' — issued to a congregation facing false teachers who demanded physical circumcision as a condition of acceptance before God. The sermon works through three movements: the command to rejoice (v. 1), the apostolic warning against the Judaizers (v. 2), and the defining contrast between the false circumcision and the true (v. 3). The true circumcision is identified not by ethnic descent or ritual observance but by three marks: worshipping God in the Spirit, rejoicing in Christ Jesus, and placing no confidence in the flesh — a threefold description that locates salvation solely in the sovereign, gracious work of the triune God from first to last.
The Seventh Commandment, Part 1
Matthew 5:27–30 expounds the seventh commandment, not as new legislation from Christ, but as Christ's faithful exposition of what the law of God has always demanded. Against the Pharisaic reduction of the commandment to its outward, physical expression, Jesus establishes that sinful lust in the heart already constitutes adultery, since God's moral law has always searched the inner man. The sermon traces the eternal and temporal consequences of sexual sin, calls hearers to radical mortification of sin in the manner of verses 29–30, and presses both saint and sinner to seek pardon and righteousness in Christ alone.
The Sixth Commandment
Jesus' exposition of the Sixth Commandment in Matthew 5:21–26 does not elevate Moses' law or introduce a new covenant standard — it clears away the scribal and Pharisaic misinterpretation that reduced 'You shall not murder' to a merely external prohibition. The commandment has always reached the heart: unwarranted anger, slander, and character assassination are violations of the Sixth Word no less than physical killing, because the law of God is, as the Psalmist declared, exceedingly broad. The sermon applies this in two directions: horizontal relationships broken by anger must be reconciled before worship can be acceptable to God, and the law's comprehensive reach exposes every hearer's guilt and drives them to the only one who perfectly kept it — the Lord Jesus Christ, the mighty Mediator who alone can plead not guilty before a holy God.
The Old Testament and Jesus: Specific Warnings
Matthew 5:19–20 presents two specific warnings that frame Christ's exposition of the law in the Sermon on the Mount: a warning against antinomianism and a warning against legalism. Both errors, though apparently opposite, share a common root — a contempt for God's law as he actually gave it, whether by subtracting from it or by supplementing it with human tradition. The sermon argues that the righteousness required for entrance into the kingdom of heaven is not produced by moral effort nor excused by doctrinal sleight of hand, but is found only in Christ, whose imputed righteousness is received through faith alone.
The Battle Hymn of His Christocracy
Revelation 19:11–16 presents Christ not as the meek figure of popular sentimentality but as the sovereign warrior king who rides in righteousness to judge and conquer his enemies. This sermon traces four aspects of the vision: the grace and general theme of the opening, the five disclosed attributes of the champion (divine omniscience, conquering prowess, exclusive ownership of the messianic office, wholesome severity, and impeccable execution as the Word of God), the identity of his battle company as the saints clothed in Christ's righteousness, and the fourfold greatness of his conquest — the sword of his word, the rod of iron, the treading of the winepress, and the supreme title King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The application presses two questions: whether the church proclaims this full-orbed Christ or a diminished caricature, and whose side the hearer will stand on when that rider comes.
The Witness of the Kingdom
Matthew 5:13–16 identifies the disciples of Christ as the salt of the earth and the light of the world, pressing believers into active engagement with a fallen society rather than withdrawal from it. The Beatitudes (vv. 3–12) describe the distinctive character of those saved by grace alone through faith alone; vv. 13–16 describe how those same people function in a world of unbelief as seasoning and preserving agents who radiate the knowledge of Christ. The warning is pointed: salt that loses its savor is good for nothing, and light hidden under a basket defeats its own purpose. The ultimate goal of Christian witness is not social improvement or personal acclaim but the glorifying of the Father in heaven — a witness grounded in and empowered by the one Scripture calls the faithful witness, Jesus Christ himself.
The Ark of God Captured
Israel's defeat at the hands of the Philistines in 1 Samuel 4–5 exposes a perennial temptation: treating God as a mechanism to be manipulated rather than a sovereign to be obeyed. The elders of Israel asked the right question — 'Why has the Lord defeated us?' — but gave the wrong answer, fetching the Ark of the Covenant as a lucky charm rather than humbling themselves in repentance. God refused to be controlled, fulfilled His word of judgment against the corrupt priests Hophni and Phinehas, and then demonstrated His supremacy over the Philistine god Dagon without any help from Israel. The sermon closes with a call to approach God not by religious technique or formulaic bargaining, but through Christ alone, in humble obedience, trusting Him with outcomes.
The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ
John 19:16–24 records the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in restrained, theologically dense prose. This exposition works through four considerations — the setting at Golgotha, the act of crucifixion itself, the title Pilate affixed to the cross, and the casting of lots for Christ's garments — demonstrating that every detail fulfills prior Scripture and flows from the eternal, sovereign decree of God. The nakedness and dereliction of the cross are shown to illuminate both the nature of hell and the ground of the believer's justification, as Christ is stripped of his garments that sinners might be clothed with his righteousness. The sermon closes with a direct call to faith, pressing John 20:31 upon every hearer: these things are written that you may believe and have life in Christ's name.
The Pursuit of Righteousness
Matthew 5:6 pronounces blessing upon those who hunger and thirst for righteousness — a disposition that no fallen person possesses by nature but that the Holy Spirit produces in every regenerate soul. The sermon works through six observations on the text: the metaphor of hunger and thirst, the nature of the righteousness in view (right conduct and godliness flowing from justification, not justification itself), the means by which the spiritually hungry pursue it, the hindrances to avoid, the meek disposition that accompanies the pursuit, and the eschatological filling God promises. Because justification always precedes sanctification, all pursuit of righteousness rests on Christ's finished obedience imputed to the believer — and those who have never hungered for righteousness are called to believe the gospel and receive the righteousness of another.
Corporate Spiritual Poverty
The letter to the church in Laodicea (Revelation 3:14–22) indicts a congregation that had grown complacent, self-sufficient, and spiritually blind — convinced of its own wealth while Christ declares it wretched, poor, and naked. The sermon works through Christ's threefold self-identification as the Amen, the faithful and true witness, and the inaugurator of the new creation, before examining the condemnation of lukewarmness and the remedy Christ offers: gold, white garments, and eye salve purchased from him alone. Revelation 3:20 is rescued from its common misuse as an evangelistic appeal and restored to its proper context as Christ's invitation to a wayward covenant community to open the door of corporate worship to his renewed fellowship. The closing application calls the congregation to honest self-assessment, to repudiate pride, self-sufficiency, and spiritual laziness, and to ground every claim to spiritual wealth in the finished work of Christ alone.
The Resurrection in the Book of Acts
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is not an isolated miracle but the climactic fulfillment of God's covenantal promises to David and Abraham, the ground of every redemptive blessing the church now enjoys. Working through the Book of Acts, this sermon traces five blessings that flow from the risen and ascended Christ: the revealed Word, the sovereignty of his reign, his active direction of the church, the outpouring of the Spirit, and the remission of sins through his blood. Because Christ sits enthroned at the Father's right hand with all authority in heaven and earth, nothing in the church's history is haphazard — every trial, every addition, every missionary advance is governed by the living Lord. The sermon closes with a direct summons to the unforgiven: the empty tomb is the loudest declaration that sin's power is broken and pardon is available to all who believe.
The Place of Preaching in the Church
What is the place of preaching in God's design for the salvation and maturation of his people? Drawing on 1 Corinthians 1:21–23 and a broad sweep of biblical and confessional texts, this sermon argues that preaching is not merely one spiritual activity among many but the divinely ordained, Spirit-attended means by which God calls the elect and strengthens the faith of believers. The Word of God — and specifically its proclamation — is traced from Romans 1 and Psalm 19 through 2 Timothy 4, showing that faith comes by hearing, and that God is pleased with preaching even when men resist it. Hearers are urged to prize attendance upon the preached Word, to pray for biblically qualified preachers, and — if unconverted — to believe the gospel now proclaimed to them.
The Altar We Have
Hebrews 13:7–17 brings the book's sustained exposition of Christ's priestly office to bear on the concrete obligations of the Christian life. Working through five exhortations, the sermon addresses the remembrance of faithful leaders, the immutability of Christ as the ground of doctrinal stability, the exclusive sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice over against all ritual systems, and the sacrifices that flow from the gospel: praise, good works, and submission to church leadership. The controlling argument is that because Christ suffered outside the gate to sanctify his people with his own blood, believers are called to leave behind every competing religious system, bear reproach, maintain a future orientation, and live as a praising and generous people.
Jesus Christ is the Savior, Not Helper
Galatians 5:1–6 confronts the ancient and persistent error of mingling law-keeping with faith as the ground of acceptance before God. Paul's four movements through the passage — an exhortation to stand fast in gospel liberty, a warning against the futility of circumcision, a declaration of the consequence of law-reliance, and the practical benefits of justification by faith — together establish that there is no admixture in the way of salvation: it is Christ alone, or it is nothing. Jesus Christ is a Savior, not a helper; he does not assist sinners in saving themselves but accomplishes their redemption fully and freely. The sermon calls every hearer to renounce any reliance on personal performance, embrace the imputed righteousness of Christ, and stand fast against every form of gospel addition.
Hearing the Word of God
Nehemiah 8 records the post-exilic assembly of Judah gathered before Ezra at the Water Gate to hear the public reading and exposition of the Law — an occasion that produced expectancy, attentiveness, reverence, and responsive obedience in the people. This sermon draws four corporate lessons from that assembly and applies them to the gathered church's posture toward the preached Word. The congregation is called to come to the Lord's Day service as Cornelius came to Peter: not to be entertained, but to hear all that God has commanded. Biblical preaching, the sermon argues, necessarily produces conviction for sin, thanksgiving, rejoicing, and a desire for more of the Word.
The Necessity of Contending for the Faith
Jude 3 commands every believer — not merely theologians or specialists — to contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. This sermon expounds the command itself, the reason Jude gives (the covert infiltration of ungodly apostates who pervert grace and deny Christ), and the threefold means of defense in verses 20–21: building oneself up in the holy faith through Scripture, praying in the Holy Spirit, and living in hopeful expectation of Christ's return. The sermon closes by urging that contention be conducted with Christian charity, humility, and freedom from pride, in keeping with the pattern of the apostles and the Lord Jesus himself.