Topic
Biblical Theology
17 sermons · All topics
Laws Concerning Debt, Slaves, and Firstborn
Deuteronomy 15 contains three interlocking bodies of legislation governing debt release, indentured servitude, and the sacrifice of the firstborn — all set within the framework of Old Covenant Israel's theocratic obligations under the covenant of works. The sabbatical release of debts and the manumission of Hebrew slaves both press beyond bare external compliance to demand a right internal disposition: generosity flowing from a heart shaped by the memory of God's own redemptive act in the Exodus. The firstborn legislation culminates typologically in Christ, the unblemished firstborn Son of God, whose sacrifice fulfills what the animal sacrifices prefigured. The session closes with an extended Q&A examining how these principles of restitution, due diligence, and ordered benevolence translate into the life of the New Covenant church.
The Resurrection-Hope of the Righteous One
Psalm 16:7–11 opens a window into the mind of Christ according to his human nature, revealing the steadfast confidence that carried him through suffering, death, and into resurrection glory. The passage is not ultimately about David — as Peter and Paul demonstrate in Acts 2 and Acts 13 — but about the resurrection of the Holy One who, having rendered perfect obedience, could not be held by the grave. His secured resurrection grounds the believer's own resurrection hope and calls the unbeliever to repent and receive the forgiveness of sins and the imputed righteousness of Christ by faith alone. The sermon exhorts both believer and unbeliever to fix their gaze on the path of life Christ has opened — pleasures forevermore in the presence of God — as the only sufficient anchor through the dark providences of this present age.
The Freeness of the Priceless Feast, Part 1
Isaiah 55:1–2 opens with a single attention-grabbing word — 'Ho' — that God employs as an imperatival invitation, commanding sinners to come and feast without money and without price upon the abundant provision of the covenant. The freeness of the offer rests on three realities: the goodness of God, the infinite worth of the things offered, and the infinite payment already made by the suffering servant of Isaiah 53. Water, wine, milk, and bread are not bare metaphors but point to Christ himself — the personification of every element of the feast — who alone satisfies the restless soul that the world's marketplace of false substitutes can never fill. Hearers are called to cease the squandering madness of spending wages on what is not bread and to believe on Christ, receiving the feast he secured at infinite cost and now offers entirely free.
The Freeness of the Priceless Feast, Part 2
Isaiah 55:3–13 unfolds in three movements: the ground of the gospel summons, the required response, and the guarantee attached to it. The ground is the covenant of grace itself — the sure mercies of David fulfilled in the person and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the covenant champion who secures abundant pardon for abundant sinners. The response calls for active, whole-souled seeking, calling, forsaking, and returning to the Lord while He may still be found. The passage closes with the guarantee that God's word never returns void and that Christ's saving work reverses the curses of Genesis 3, replacing thorns with cypress, expulsion with joyful leading out, and cosmic groaning with cosmic praise.
The Blood of the Unblemished Lamb
The redemption of sinners cannot be purchased by any corruptible thing — not silver or gold, not the accumulated wealth of the cosmos, not the religious observances of the old covenant. Expounding 1 Peter 1:18–19, this sermon traces Peter's negation-then-assertion structure: material things and old covenant types alike are insufficient to ransom a soul bound under sin and divine wrath, but the precious blood of Christ as an unblemished and spotless Lamb accomplishes what nothing else can. The blood of Christ is precious because of the surpassing excellence of the person who shed it, the definite redemption it secures, the infinite cost it required of the Father, its unrepeatable once-for-all character, its endless efficacy, and its eternal appointment in the counsel of the triune God before the foundation of the world. Hearers are pressed toward the Lord's Supper with minds fixed on the logic of substitution: the Lamb's own unblemishedness is the very ground of his capacity to bear the blemishes of his people.
Christ's Precious Gem Collection
What does it mean that God's elect are described throughout Scripture as precious stones being gathered into a temple? This sermon traces the biblical-theological thread from the Garden of Eden through Solomon's temple, the Babylonian exile, Isaiah's restoration promises, and into Revelation 21, arguing that Christ — the greater Solomon and last Adam — is building his church by gathering his elect from among all the scattered nations. The identity of the precious gems is God's chosen people; their location is every tribe, tongue, and people; and the means of their gathering is the gospel of Christ, who has already bound the strong man and now commissions his people to mine for treasures in the darkness.
Deuteronomy 14:1-29. Laws of Death, Diet, and Tithing
Deuteronomy 14 regulates Israel's mourning practices, dietary laws, and tithing — each regulation grounded in the same theological foundation: Israel is a holy people, chosen by God as his special treasure, and every dimension of life must reflect that covenantal identity. The dietary laws in particular are not arbitrary hygiene codes but ceremonial law designed to separate the covenant community from surrounding pagan practice, laws now abrogated and fulfilled in Christ, the true Israel of God. The tithing legislation calls God's people to acknowledge that prosperity is divine beneficence, to fear the Lord in feasting as much as in prayer, and to provide materially for the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. New covenant believers are not bound by these ceremonial structures, yet the underlying logic — that God governs every dimension of his people's lives and calls them to distinction, generosity, and gratitude — carries forward unchanged into the present age.
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.
The Conversion of the Apostle Paul
Paul's gratitude in 1 Timothy 1:12–14 is inseparable from the account of his own conversion — from blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent man to apostle and chief exhibit of sovereign mercy. The passage establishes that Christ himself is the enabler of true gospel ministers, in deliberate contrast to the false teachers in Ephesus who were self-appointed desirers of the law. Paul's ignorance in unbelief before Damascus belongs to a different moral category than the willful, post-enlightenment sin of those who profess Christ and then turn against him. The text drives toward verse 15: the exceedingly abundant grace poured out on the chief of sinners is the pattern and ground of hope for every sinner who comes to Christ.
The Priestly Blessing of the Ascending King
Luke 24:50–53 presents the ascending Christ as the great high priest who, having offered himself as the perfect and unrepeatable sacrifice for sin, lifts his nail-scarred hands to bless his people as he ascends to the right hand of the Father. The typological connection between Aaron's priestly blessing in Leviticus 9 and Christ's blessing at Bethany illuminates the finality and efficacy of his once-for-all sacrifice and the everlasting nature of the blessing he confers. Because Christ ascends while still blessing — not after — the favor, power, and life he bestows upon his people does not cease. Those who receive this blessing respond with continual worship, corporate praise, and the joyful acknowledgement of God's intrinsic and extrinsic glories — the very pattern the Lord's Supper calls every generation of disciples to embody.
The promise of blessing or curse
Deuteronomy 11 sets before Old Covenant Israel a stark choice: obedience leading to blessing in the land, or disobedience leading to curse and exile. The sermon traces three sections of the chapter — the works of God in Israel's history, the requirement of obedience, and the promise of blessing or curse — showing how the covenant of works that Israel repeatedly broke is fulfilled by Christ, the true Israel of God, who bore the covenant curse on the cross. The Apostle Paul's argument in Galatians 3 is brought to bear: all who trust in works of law are under the curse, but Christ has redeemed his people from that curse by becoming a curse for them, so that the blessing of Abraham comes upon the Gentiles through faith alone.
The Apostle's Charge to Timothy
Paul's charge to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1:3–7 exposes a crisis in the Ephesian church: false teachers devoted to fables and endless genealogies were generating disputes rather than the godly edification that flows from sound doctrine. The sermon traces two movements in the passage — the apostolic charge to silence the heterodox and the anatomy of the false teachers' departure from the law — demonstrating that gospel ministry is driven by love from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith. The application presses churches to hold elders to the qualifications of 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, to refuse a pulpit to the unqualified, and to guard the congregation against any teaching that diverts attention from the truth as it is in Jesus.
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.
The Central Demand of the Covenant
Deuteronomy 10 confronts Israel — and every subsequent reader — with the central demand of the covenant: to fear God, love Him, walk in all His ways, and serve Him with undivided heart and soul. The first eleven verses narrate the renewal of the Sinaitic covenant after the golden calf catastrophe of Exodus 32, demonstrating that Israel's continuation rested entirely on divine long-suffering and the intercession of Moses, not on any righteousness of their own. Verses 12–22 then press the covenantal demand that runs from Genesis 18 through Micah 6:8 and into Matthew 23, showing that the people always knew what God required but consistently failed to live accordingly. The passage finally anticipates what only the new covenant can accomplish: the circumcision of the heart wrought by the Spirit through the gospel of the true Israel, Jesus Christ, apart from any merit in the creature.
CTF 2026: Q&A Panel Discussion
A conference Q&A panel explores difficult questions arising from the doctrine of God's exhaustive decree, including federal headship and the fall, the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, the authorship of sin, the infralapsarian and supralapsarian debate, and the legitimacy of the free offer of the gospel. The panelists frankly acknowledge the limits of creaturely knowledge before the secret things of God, grounding their answers in Scripture, the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, and the tradition of Reformed orthodoxy. Practical counsel closes the session: those newly awakened to Reformed theology are urged to slow down, submit to the ordinary means of grace, read widely before entering debates, and avoid unaccountable online discourse.
CTF 2026 - Session 4: Pastoral Sermon
Hebrews 2:10 frames the whole of redemptive history as God bringing many sons to glory through the sufferings of Christ, and this sermon traces that theme from the eternal decree of predestination through the means of grace in the present assembly to the consummation awaiting the saints. Drawing on John Owen's exposition of Hebrews, the 1689 London Baptist Confession's chapters on God and election, and John Calvin's theology of creation as a theater of divine glory, the sermon argues that God's eternal purpose is both ultimate — his own glory — and penultimate — the saints' participation in that glory. The congregation is urged to receive the Word, baptism, and the Lord's Supper as present foretastes of the glory to come, and to read creation itself as a stepping stone toward knowing and enjoying God rather than a terminus for the affections.
CTF 2026 - Session 2: Introducing “Of God’s Decree”
God's decree, as confessed in Chapter Three of the Second London Baptist Confession of 1689, is a revealed mystery demanding both theological precision and creaturely humility. The scope of that decree is comprehensive — God has decreed whatsoever comes to pass — and yet it must be carefully distinguished from God's will of precept, from any necessity of nature, and from any conferral of actual being through the decree itself. Three guiding principles govern the study: the decree is not our moral duty, it remains largely veiled despite scriptural revelation, and any engagement with it requires a robust Creator-creature distinction throughout. The pressing question raised by so radical a scope — whether God is therefore the author of sin — is the burden taken up in the subsequent lecture.