Topic
Anthropology
10 sermons · All topics
2LBC Chapter 25, Of Marriage
What does Scripture authorize regarding marriage, divorce, and remarriage? Working through Chapter 25 of the 1689 London Baptist Confession alongside Westminster Confession Chapter 24, paragraphs 5–6, this lesson establishes that marriage is a monogamous, heterosexual covenant ordained by God for companionship, procreation, and the lawful expression of sexuality. The confession's teaching is set against contemporary assaults on the definition of marriage, and extended exegesis of Deuteronomy 24, Matthew 5 and 19, and 1 Corinthians 7 demonstrates that Scripture authorizes divorce and subsequent remarriage for the innocent party in cases of porneia and willful desertion.
2LBC Chapter 24 - Of the Civil Magistrate
What authority does civil government possess, and what are its limits? Working through 2nd London Baptist Confession Chapter 24, this study argues that God alone is the ultimate sovereign who ordains civil magistrates for two ends: his own glory and the public good of man, expressed concretely in the maintenance of justice and peace. The confession deliberately repudiates the Anabaptist rejection of Christian participation in civil office, affirming that believers may lawfully serve as magistrates, soldiers, and executioners of justice. Christians are called to submit to civil authority in all lawful things for conscience's sake and to pray persistently for governing authorities, so that the church may worship freely and fulfil her gospel mission without hindrance.
The Resurrection-Hope of the Righteous One
Psalm 16 is read through a christological lens, with the Apostle Peter (Acts 2) and the Apostle Paul (Acts 13) as the interpretive guides: David speaks here concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. The sermon traces the earnest petition of verse 1, the joyful contentment of verses 2–6, and the steadfast confidence to be treated in verses 7–11, showing how Christ's human dependence on the Father, his delight in the saints, his repudiation of idolatry, and his sufficiency in divine providence together constitute the resurrection-hope of the righteous one. The imputed righteousness of Christ, received by faith alone, is the ground on which David, and every believer in saving union with Christ, can share in that same hope. Hearers are called to imitate the Savior in prayer, meditation on Scripture, and a rightly ordered love that prizes God above every earthly portion.
2LBC Chapter 24 - Of the Civil Magistrate
Chapter 24 of the 1689 London Baptist Confession addresses the divine origin, scope, and limits of civil government, the lawfulness of Christian participation in that government, and the Christian's duty of submission and prayer toward governing authorities. The confession roots civil magistracy in God's sovereign ordination, limits its authority to the maintenance of justice and peace, and explicitly rejects the Anabaptist position that Christians may not hold civil office or bear arms. Listeners are called to think carefully about voting, praying for rulers, and obeying governing authorities in all lawful commands — while refusing compliance whenever the state commands what God forbids.
The Lament of the Psalmist
Psalm 13 is a lament psalm in which David — and, by virtue of his identity as the greater Son of David, the Lord Jesus Christ — cries out to God under the perceived forgetfulness of divine providence, the daily sorrows of the soul, and the threatening triumph of the enemy. Lament is distinguished from whining precisely in that it is directed toward God in faith, not away from Him; it is the transitional space between present pain and future promise, driven by covenant confidence in God's hesed. The sermon traces the structure of the psalm in two movements — the lament of verses 1–4 and the refuge of verses 5–6 — and applies it to the believer's life through the sympathizing high priesthood of Christ in Hebrews 4:14–16, calling Christians to bring their sorrows boldly to the throne of grace.
The Psalmist's Cry in an Age of Deceit
Psalm 12 confronts the believer with a world of flattering lips, double hearts, and lying tongues — both outside and inside the professing church — and asks how the righteous can persevere when the foundations are being destroyed. The sermon argues that the psalm is preeminently the prayer of Christ in his earthly ministry, who faced this same godless opposition and who, as the incarnate covenant head, is the definitive fulfilment of verse 5's divine promise to arise and set the oppressed in safety. The contrast between the corrupt words of the wicked (verses 1–4) and the pure, tried word of God (verses 5–8) teaches that theology, prayer, and dependence upon Scripture are the appointed means by which the pilgrim church endures in a present evil age. Unbelievers are warned that the autonomy expressed in verse 4 — 'our lips are our own, who is Lord over us?' — leads to the judgment of God, and are called to kiss the Son before his wrath is kindled.
CTF 2026 - Session 1: God's Decree in the Puritan Confessions
The doctrine of God's eternal decree, far from being confined to a single chapter, runs as a unifying thread through the entire fabric of the three major Puritan confessions — the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Savoy Declaration, and the Second London Baptist Confession of 1677/1689. Drawing on Isaiah 46:8–11, this lecture traces how the divine decree undergirds Scripture's authority, creation, providence, the fall, the covenant of grace, the person and work of Christ, the ordo salutis, and the final judgment. Because the decree is simply God decreeing — an expression of His eternal, immutable, and holy will — the doctrine is inseparable from the classical Christian doctrine of God in His simplicity, sovereignty, and self-sufficiency. Believers are called to receive this doctrine humbly, to resist both the error of making God the author of sin and the error of bare permission, and to respond with worship as they watch the eternal decree unfold in history.
CTF 2026 - Session 3: Is God the Author of Sin?
The comprehensive decree of God—that he has ordained whatsoever comes to pass—immediately raises two pressing questions: Is God therefore the author of sin, and do a believer's own sins somehow work for their good? Drawing on 1689 LBCF 3.1, Acts 2:23, Acts 17:28, and Romans 8:28, this session argues that God cannot be the author of sin because sin is a privation of good rather than a positive entity, and God, being essentially and immutably good, cannot be the deformed agent that authoring sin would require. The doctrine of concurrence—God acting as the divine first cause while creaturely second causes act according to their own natures—resolves how God upholds sinners in their sinning without being morally implicated in that sin. Believers are called to receive even their falls as instruments in the hand of a sovereign God who overrules the effects of sin to produce humility, dependence, and ultimately a glorified state exceeding even Adam's original condition.
The Authority of Christ Over the Demons
Christ's authority over the demonic kingdom is the central demonstration Matthew presents in chapter 8, where two men reduced to a subhuman, tomb-dwelling existence are liberated by a single word from the Son of God. The passage exposes both the wretchedness of Satanic bondage — no glamour, only madness, nakedness, and self-destruction — and the sufficiency of Christ's power to deliver the most apparently irredeemable sinners. The sermon draws a direct line from the Gadarene demoniacs to Paul's confession in 1 Timothy 1:15, arguing that the same sovereign grace that rescues the most visibly ruined also reaches the self-righteous religious man who trusts in his own standing before God. Parents, youth, and all hearers are urged to flee the occult, resist the devil through gospel proclamation, and rest in the one whose word alone — 'Go' — dismantles the kingdom of darkness.
The Exhortation to Perseverance and Unity
Philippians 4:1–3 presents two interconnected apostolic exhortations: the call to stand fast in the Lord and the call to pursue unity among the saints. The sermon examines the apostle's affection for the Philippians as his joy and crown, the meaning and manner of steadfast perseverance, and the concrete dispute between Euodia and Syntyche as a vehicle for a thorough exposition of biblical conflict resolution from Proverbs 18, Matthew 5, and Matthew 18. The practical burden is that both perseverance and unity demand disciplined, long-haul commitment — fastening one's grip on Christ, the doctrines of the gospel, and the one-another obligations of church life.