Theological term
Total Inability
55 sermons · All terms
The Only Redeemer of God's Elect
Galatians 3:10–14 sets law and gospel in sharp contrast, demonstrating that justification before God is entirely excluded from the domain of law-keeping. Paul's threefold appeal to Deuteronomy 27, Habakkuk 2:4, and Leviticus 18:5 establishes that the law demands perfect, perpetual, and entire obedience — an impossibility for sinners in Adam. The only hope lies in Christ's substitutionary, curse-bearing work: he bore the imputed sin of his people, exhausted the wrath of God in their place, and secured for them both the blessing of Abraham and the gift of the Holy Spirit. The sermon calls hearers to abandon every form of faith-plus-works supplementation and to rest wholly in the particular redemption accomplished by Christ alone.
The Importance of Keeping the Heart
Proverbs 4:23–27 commands God's people to keep their hearts with all diligence, because the heart is the source from which all conduct flows — mouth, eyes, and feet are merely its outlets. Drawing on the warnings of Jeremiah 17:9, the illustrations of Proverbs 7, and Christ's own teaching in Matthew 15, this exposition argues that total depravity makes diligent heart-keeping not optional but urgent. The sermon closes by pressing that this command can only be obeyed through constant dependence on God's Word and Spirit, and that apart from Christ we can do nothing.
The Purpose of the Proverbs
Proverbs 1:2–7 sets out both the purpose and the prerequisite of the entire book of Proverbs. The purpose is comprehensive — to impart wisdom, instruction, and just judgment to the simple, the young, the wise, and every condition of man — while the prerequisite is singular: the fear of the Lord, which is not a natural attainment but a gracious work of God in the soul. The fear of God is shown to be the epistemological foundation of all true knowledge, the animator of righteous conduct, and the preserver of the soul — available only through repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the one greater than Solomon in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden.
The Bread of Life
John 6:43–51 presents Jesus as the bread of life who alone can satisfy the hunger of the human soul. The sermon works through three headings: the participants of the bread of life are those whom the Father sovereignly draws, not those who seek Christ for temporal benefit; the identity of the bread of life is the eternal Son who has seen the Father and in whom the believer shall never hunger or thirst; and the benefit of the bread of life is everlasting life, contrasted with the manna in the wilderness that could not prevent death. The sermon applies these truths both as a call to unbelievers to look to Christ by faith and as a comfort to believers who presently possess eternal life in him.
Free Grace Baptist Church - October 8, 2017 PM
What happens when a believer sins against a holy God? Expounding 1 John 2:1–2 within the broader context of 1 John 1:5–10, this sermon answers that question under two headings: Christ as advocate and Christ as propitiation. The advocate language draws on the high-priestly intercession of Christ at the Father's right hand — distinct from, yet complementary to, the Spirit's advocacy on earth — while the doctrine of propitiation is traced through the Old Testament sacrificial vocabulary of kippur to show that Christ both turns away divine wrath and removes guilt. The sermon closes with a direct call to unbelievers to flee to Christ, the only one under whose blood the wrath of God is turned away and peace with God secured.
2LCF Chapter 14 - Of Saving Faith
What is saving faith, and where does it come from? Working through 2 LCF (1689 LBCF) Chapter 14, paragraphs 1–3, this study traces the origin, object, and nature of saving faith. Saving faith is not a human contribution to salvation but a sovereign gift of the Holy Spirit, ordinarily wrought through the ministry of the Word and increased through the means of grace. The principal acts of saving faith have immediate relation to Christ alone — receiving and resting upon Him for justification, sanctification, and eternal life by virtue of the covenant of grace — and though faith may be weak and assailed, it cannot ultimately be lost, because its author and finisher is Christ himself.
Of Free Will (2LCF9)
The doctrine of free will, rightly understood, is not denied by Reformed theology but carefully defined according to the fourfold state of man as Scripture and the 1689 London Baptist Confession (chapter 9) set forth. This confession-study exposition works through the four paragraphs of chapter 9 — man's will in innocency (able to sin and not to sin), in sin (unable not to sin), in grace (freed from bondage yet still corrupted), and in glory (perfectly and immutably free to good alone) — showing that each state demands a distinct account of human liberty. The doctrines of total depravity, effectual calling, and remaining corruption are not isolated abstractions but are woven into the covenantal structure of the confession, where chapter 9 stands between the covenant mediator (chapter 8) and the application of redemptive benefits (chapters 10 and following). Believers are urged to pray for dead sinners with urgency, to pursue Spirit-enabled obedience with vigor, and to take honest comfort in the confession's frank acknowledgment of remaining corruption rather than retreating into either perfectionism or despair.
The Most Important Question for Young People
Psalm 119:9 poses what the sermon calls the most important question for young people: 'How can a young man cleanse his way?' Before answering, the text forces an honest reckoning with the doctrine of total depravity and total inability — the way stands in need of cleansing precisely because every faculty of human nature is corrupted by the fall in Adam, and no sinner can commend himself to God apart from sovereign grace. The answer the psalmist gives, 'by taking heed according to Your Word,' encompasses both initial justification by grace through faith in Christ and ongoing sanctification by the same Word and Spirit. Parents and young people alike are exhorted to engage Scripture with the whole heart — obeying, memorizing, meditating, declaring, and delighting in it — as the only path to a cleansed way.
The Lament Over Jerusalem
Matthew 23:37–39 records Christ's lament over Jerusalem — a cry of sorrow that follows directly upon the severest condemnations he has pronounced against the scribes and Pharisees. The sermon traces Jesus' prophetic lament through its Old Testament antecedents in Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Psalms, arguing that Christ speaks here according to his human nature, expressing genuine grief over a city that has killed the prophets and now rejects the Messiah himself. The declaration 'your house is left to you desolate' marks a decisive redemptive-historical shift: as in Ezekiel 8–11, the withdrawal of God's glory precedes the destruction of the temple, and that withdrawal is enacted when Christ departs to the Mount of Olives. The sermon closes by refuting the Arminian use of 'you were not willing' as a proof text for free will, showing instead that the text confirms total depravity and that the free and genuine offer of Christ to sinners is fully consistent with the Reformed doctrine of sovereign grace.
The Covering of Sin
Proverbs 28:13 presents both the ruin of the one who covers sin and the mercy awaiting the one who confesses and forsakes it. This exposition works through the problem of sin-covering under four heads — the scriptural assumptions behind it, biblical examples of it, the various means sinners employ to conceal transgression, and the cursed result in this age and the age to come. The solution is penitential faith in Christ alone: genuine confession lays the hand on the great sacrifice, and true forsaking proves the sincerity of that confession. Believers and unbelievers alike are called to stop concealing sin and to cast themselves upon the mercy of God, which is the only covering that satisfies divine justice.
The Risen Lord and a Doubting Disciple
Thomas's demand to physically verify Christ's resurrection before believing exposes the human tendency to place conditions upon God — the creature setting terms for the Creator. This sermon works through John 20:24–31, examining Thomas's obstinacy, the patient grace of Christ who meets Thomas on his own stated terms, and the lofty confession that follows: 'My Lord and my God.' The passage closes with John's stated purpose in writing the fourth gospel — that readers would believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and so have life in his name — a purpose the risen Lord underscores in his final beatitude: blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.
2LCF Chapter 9 - Of Free Will
The doctrine of free will, as confessed in chapter 9 of the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, is neither denied nor affirmed without qualification — it is carefully defined in relation to the fourfold state of man. In the state of innocency man possessed genuine freedom to do good, yet was mutable; in the state of sin he retains natural liberty of choice but has wholly lost all ability to will any spiritual good; in the state of grace God monergistically transfers the sinner from bondage into freedom to will and do what is spiritually good, yet remaining corruption sustains a continual warfare within; and in the state of glory the will is made perfectly and immutably free to good alone. The central pastoral application is that a true grasp of total depravity and total inability is the only ground on which amazing grace is truly amazing, and the presence of ongoing battle against sin — not its absence — is the mark of regenerate life.
1 Samuel 8
Israel's demand for a king in 1 Samuel 8 is not condemned because monarchy is inherently sinful, but because the motive behind the request was a rejection of God's sovereign rule in favour of earthly security. The people, having witnessed God's deliverance in chapter 7, nonetheless turned from him to seek a human king who could fight their battles — a pattern that mirrors their recurring idolatry from the Exodus onward. The description of the king's oppressive conduct (vv. 10–18) exposes the total depravity of a people who, even after hearing every consequence, still demand the king. The passage drives the hearer toward Christ, the true and perfect King, who executes his office by subduing, ruling, and defending his people in a manner no earthly monarch can.
1 Samuel 6
First Samuel 6 records the return of the Ark of the Covenant from Philistine territory to Israel, exposing both the sovereignty of God over pagan nations and the terrifying holiness of God that no sinner can approach unaided. The chapter moves through the Philistines' carefully devised test, the miracle of the lowing milk cows, the judgment on the men of Beth Shemesh who looked into the Ark, and the Ark's final lodging at Kirjath-Jearim — each episode demonstrating that God will not be manipulated, conquered, or treated with casual familiarity. The central question the men of Beth Shemesh cry out — 'Who is able to stand before this holy Lord God?' — is the perennial question of every soul that has truly glimpsed the majesty of God, and the sermon answers it directly: Jesus Christ alone, the mediator of the new covenant, who by his obedience, death, and resurrection brings the elect into the presence of a consuming fire.
2LCF Chapter 6 - Of the Fall of Man, of Sin, and of the Punishment Thereof
1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 6, paragraph 1–5, traces the fall of man from its covenantal roots through its universal consequences and the only remedy found in Christ. The covenant of works established a principle of justice in the garden, making Adam's transgression a covenantal violation with representative consequences for all his posterity — every faculty of soul and body wholly defiled, every man by nature a child of wrath. The divine purpose in the fall was not an accident requiring a divine plan B, but was ordered by God according to His wise and holy counsel to manifest both His justice in reprobation and His grace in the redemption of the elect by the second Adam. Believers are freed from the power, guilt, and condemnation of sin by Christ alone, yet remaining corruption persists through this life, driving the regenerate to the means of grace.
The Place of Good Works
Ephesians 2:10 establishes that good works occupy a precise and necessary place in the Christian life — not as a condition of salvation, but as its inevitable consequence. This sermon traces the Reformed doctrine of justification by faith alone through Paul's letters to the Romans and the Galatians, exposing the Roman Catholic error of collapsing justification and sanctification into a faith-plus-works scheme and demonstrating why any such admixture invalidates grace entirely. Drawing on the Westminster Shorter Catechism, the 1689 Confession, and writers from Machen to Gill, the sermon argues that the predestinating grace of God not only secures the salvation of the elect but also sets them on a course of holy living. Believers are exhorted to neither hide behind sola fide as a license for indolence nor to mistake moral performance for the ground of their acceptance before God.
The Tree and Its Fruits
Matthew 12:33–37 confronts every hearer with the inseparable connection between the inner condition of the heart and the words that proceed from it. Working through Christ's fourfold address to the Pharisees — exhortation to repent, condemnation of their wickedness, explanation of the heart's role as the source of speech, and anticipation of the Day of Judgment — the sermon establishes that words are not morally neutral but are the public evidence of what a person truly is before God. The doctrines of total depravity and total inability undergird the exposition: no one can speak good things from an evil heart, and only sovereign regeneration — God removing the heart of stone and giving a heart of flesh — can change the root so that the fruit changes. The only shelter from that coming day of accounting is the Lord Jesus Christ, the one man who never spoke an idle word, whose righteousness alone justifies the ungodly.
The Demonstration of God's Love
Romans 5:8 encapsulates the entire gospel in a single verse: God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. This sermon works through Romans 5:6–11 to establish that the objects of God's redeeming love were helpless, ungodly, sinners, and active enemies of God — leaving no ground for human merit in salvation. The demonstration of that love at Calvary is the sole foundation of justification, reconciliation, and assurance, and it calls the redeemed to a joy that fuels genuine gospel holiness rather than moralistic striving.
The Two Trees
Matthew 7:15–20 records Christ's warning against false prophets who enter the community of disciples disguised as sheep while remaining ravenous wolves within. The sermon works through two broad sections: the nature of false prophets (their deception, intention, and manifestation) and the parable of the two trees, arguing that the 'fruit' by which false prophets are known is primarily their doctrine rather than their outward conduct. Believers are not left helpless — Christ assumes his people, equipped with Scripture and the Spirit, are able to identify and resist false teachers whose ultimate end, along with those who follow them, is eternal destruction.
Happiness in Knowing Jesus
Peter's confession in Matthew 16:13–17 — 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God' — stands as the theological heart of Matthew's Gospel and the definitive answer to the question Christ puts to every hearer: who do you say that I am? The sermon traces the progressive disclosure of Christ's identity to the disciples, distinguishes His title of function (Christ, the promised Messiah) from His title of being (Son of the living God, co-eternal within the triune Godhead), and grounds Peter's right answer not in flesh-and-blood reasoning but in the sovereign, revelatory grace of the Father. The central application is that all true happiness belongs to those who know Christ, and that this knowledge — divinely given, not humanly achieved — is the supreme blessing of the Christian life.
The Law of Love
Matthew 5:43–48 contains the sixth and final antithesis of the Sermon on the Mount, in which Christ corrects the Pharisaic addition 'hate your enemy' — a phrase found nowhere in Scripture — and restores the full demand of the moral law: love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who persecute you. Christ is not introducing new legislation but faithfully expounding the eternal righteousness of the Father, whose law always required love even toward enemies, as texts from Exodus, Leviticus, Proverbs, and Job demonstrate. The sermon traces the contrast between true law and scribal distortion, the three positive duties of love, the theological ground of sonship in reflecting the Father's common grace, and the summary call to perfection — which ultimately drives the believer to the cross and to the imputed righteousness of Christ who alone satisfied these demands perfectly. Kingdom citizens are not bare-minimum disciples but are called, by the Spirit's enabling, to embody an ethic that distinguishes them entirely from tax collectors and pagans.
Theology and the Martyrdom of Stephen
Acts 7:51–8:4, the martyrdom of Stephen, yields five distinct theological loci for examination: prophecy, the Trinity, covenant theology, hamartiology, and soteriology. The sermon traces how Jesus's words in Matthew 23, 24, 26, and 16 are precisely fulfilled in Stephen's trial, death, and the church's subsequent scattering, vindicating the veracity of Scripture. The doctrine of total depravity is pressed hard against the stiff-necked resistance of Stephen's murderers, while the conversion of Saul — the consenting bystander who becomes the church's greatest herald — is offered as the premier exhibit of irresistible, effectual grace. The hearer is called to love the Word that predicts and fulfils, to glory in the triune God who sustained Stephen, and — if unconverted — to bend the knee to the same Christ Stephen gazed upon at the moment of his death.
Five Observations on Christ's Doctrine of Salvation (Part 1)
The doctrines of grace are not cold dogmatism but the very substance of the gospel, and Christ himself is their foremost teacher. Working from John 6:35–51 and ranging through the Gospel of John, this sermon opens a five-observation series on Christ's own doctrine of salvation, examining first the comprehensiveness of sin — total inability, bondage to the devil, and the love of darkness — and second, the unmitigated and unsolicited divine prerogative in salvation, by which God alone is the alpha and omega of the rescue of sinners. The third observation treats the precision and impeccability of Christ's crosswork: the Father's will that nothing given to the Son be lost, and the Son's answering cry of victory, 'It is finished,' as the ground of particular redemption. The unconverted are urged to see themselves as the Gadarene maniac — untamed, chained, and in need of the Christ who alone can bring a sinner to be clothed and in his right mind.
The Redemptive Act of God
Colossians 2:13–15 sets out four distinct facets of God's one redemptive act accomplished through Christ: regeneration of the spiritually dead, forgiveness of all trespasses, cancellation of the debt of law-breaking, and disarming of demonic principalities and powers at the cross. The totality of this divine work leaves no room for human supplement — not asceticism, not mysticism, not legalism — because God in Christ has secured the salvation of his elect entirely and irrevocably. The sermon presses believers toward grounding their daily assurance not in personal performance but in these objective acts of God recorded in Scripture.
From Alienation to Reconciliation
Colossians 1:21–23 sets before the reader a stark before-and-after portrait of what redemption accomplishes: sinners who were actively alienated from God and enemies in their minds, now reconciled through the physical death of Christ and destined to stand holy, blameless, and above reproach before the judgment seat. The passage distinguishes sharply between the reason for reconciliation and its purpose — God does not reconcile because we are holy, but in order to present us holy, grounding justification entirely in imputed righteousness rather than moral attainment. The sermon works through four movements in the text — the previous state of alienation, the present condition of reconciliation, the future destiny of vindication at judgment, and the present duty of grounded, steadfast perseverance in the faith — with the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints serving as the practical crown of the exposition.