Theological term
Servile Fear
5 sermons · All terms
The Conclusion of the Decalogue
Deuteronomy 5:22–33 records Moses rehearsing the original giving of the law at Sinai, and this exposition draws out the divine origin, authority, comprehensiveness, finality, and permanence of the Decalogue as the trans-covenantal moral law of God binding on all men in every age. The threefold use of the law — civil, pedagogical, and normative — is traced through the New Covenant, with the imputed righteousness of Christ received by faith as the only ground of justification. The people's terror at the theophany on Sinai is commended as the proper response to God's majesty, and the sermon presses the distinction between slavish fear that flees from God and filial fear that flees to Him, urging the congregation to recover a robust doctrine of divine transcendence in their worship.
The Importance of Spiritual Exercise
Philippians 2:12–13 is not a self-salvation passage but a call to Spirit-enabled perseverance rooted in the sovereign grace of God. The sermon expounds the believer's responsibility to 'work out' a salvation already given — not to attain it, but to live in conscious, fear-driven obedience to the God who both justifies and sanctifies. Against hyper-Calvinist passivity on one side and Arminian self-effort on the other, the text holds together human duty and divine empowerment: God works in believers both to will and to do according to his good pleasure. The practical summons is to pursue sanctification — the whole of it, fear, trembling, cross-contemplation, and dependence on the Spirit — as those destined for glorification.
Our Good God Judges the Wicked
Nahum 1:7–14 sets the goodness of God against the backdrop of his unstoppable vengeance, and the two cannot be separated. The Lord is good precisely because he is a stronghold for his covenant people and because he will make an utter end of the wicked who oppress them — salvation and judgment belong together. Nineveh, the brutal capital of Assyria, stands under a certain death sentence, while Judah, even in a self-inflicted affliction, is promised the breaking of every chain. The passage calls the people of God to flee to Christ as the only refuge from end-time judgment, confident that his mercy endures forever toward those who trust in him.
The First Commandment, Part 2
The First Commandment — 'You shall have no other gods before me' (Deuteronomy 5:7) — carries not only a prohibition but a cluster of positive obligations that define the redeemed creature's relationship to the Creator. This sermon works through five such positive aspects: the love of God, the fear of God, obedience to God, trust in God, and the proper worship of God, showing how each flows necessarily from the sovereign grace by which God conquers the sinner. The sermon concludes with a call to reject idolatry in all its forms — including mental idolatry constructed by false doctrine — and to cultivate a growing, confessional knowledge of the triune God.
Free Grace Baptist Church - October 2, 2019 Bible Study
Genesis 28 records God's sovereign confirmation of the Abrahamic covenant blessing to Jacob at Bethel — a man fleeing for his life after his own deception, yet met by Yahweh in a dream of angels ascending and descending a ladder between heaven and earth. The passage is expounded under three movements: Jacob's relocation to Padanaram, Esau's futile attempt to secure parental blessing through marriage, and Jacob's vow at Bethel. The dream is interpreted on two complementary levels — as a declaration of divine providence over Jacob's solitary journey, and as a messianic anticipation of Christ as the one mediator between heaven and earth, the interpretation Christ himself provides in John 1:51. The chapter marks a turning point in Jacob's life, from grasping deceiver to worshipping covenant-keeper, and sets a paradigm for all Israel of worship, tithing, and trust in Yahweh's faithfulness.