Topic
Biblical Theology
1,075 sermons · All topics
Free Grace Baptist Church - November 4, 2018 AM
Acts 5:17–26 records the arrest, miraculous release, and re-arrest of the apostles by the Sanhedrin — a body conspicuously heavy with Sadducees who denied the existence of angels, yet found their prisoners freed by an angel of the Lord. The sermon argues that the opposition of governing powers, religious authorities, and persecutors throughout history has never been able to suppress the advance of the gospel, because Christ himself is building his church. Hearers are called to remember the globally persecuted church, to preach the 'words of this life' with apostolic boldness, and to trust that the same gospel that turned the ancient world upside down is still the power of God unto salvation.
Genesis 9:8-28
Genesis 9:8–28 divides into two sections: God's establishment of the Noahic Covenant with its sign of the rainbow, and the sin of Ham with the subsequent prophetic curse upon Canaan and blessing upon Shem and Japheth. The Noahic Covenant is identified as a common grace covenant securing the stability of the created order so that the covenant of grace may be proclaimed. Noah's prophetic pronouncement in verses 25–27 is treated as programmatic for redemptive history, tracing the two seeds of Genesis 3:15 through the flood into the post-diluvian world, culminating in the Gentile inclusion foreshadowed by 'Japheth dwelling in the tents of Shem' and confirmed at the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15.
The Continuing Growth of the Church
Acts 5:12–16 presents the continuing growth of the early church through signs and wonders performed by the apostles, the addition of believers to the Lord, and the healing of multitudes from Jerusalem and surrounding cities. The passage raises a sharp question about the nature and purpose of miraculous signs: were they a permanent feature of church life, or did they serve the specific redemptive-historical function of authenticating the apostolic word? This sermon argues that signs and wonders accompanied Moses, the prophets, Jesus, and the apostles precisely to confirm that God was speaking through them, and that the completed canon renders such confirming signs unnecessary — while the power of God continues in the gospel through the Spirit-wrought conversion of sinners. Believers are called to trust the sufficiency of Scripture, gather in unified worship, fear God genuinely, and rest their hope for salvation in faith in Christ alone.
Genesis 9:1-17
The Noahic covenant establishes not only capital punishment but a comprehensive framework for criminal justice that the civil magistrate is bound to apply. Drawing from Genesis 9, Ecclesiastes 8, and the Mosaic civil law, this sermon traces three lesser forms of punishment — restitution, indentured servitude, and corporal punishment — demonstrating that each is governed by due process, proportionality, and a concern for the dignity of the offender as an image-bearer of God. The modern prison system is evaluated against these biblical categories and found to undermine restitution, rehabilitation, and human dignity alike. Hearers are called to think carefully about what Scripture actually teaches concerning crime and punishment rather than dismissing it as barbaric.
Free Grace Baptist Church - October 21, 2018 PM
What does faithful service to God look like when the visible results are devastating and the prophet prays for death? Expounding 1 Kings 19, this sermon argues that Elijah's flight to Horeb and his prayer to die are not evidences of a crisis of faith, self-pity, or ego-driven collapse, but the legitimate grief of a man consumed with jealousy for the glory of Yahweh in a nation that refused to repent even after the most spectacular display of divine power. God's response — rest, food, a theophany, a covenant lawsuit, and the disclosure of seven thousand who had not bowed to Baal — reveals that the backdrop of a servant's depression becomes the showcase for the mercy, sovereignty, and persevering grace of God.
The Prophet Under the Broom Tree
What was Elijah actually doing under the broom tree — fleeing in faithless self-pity, or acting out of zealous grief for the glory of God? Working through 1 Kings 19:1–18, this sermon challenges the dominant commentatorial tradition that reads Elijah's flight and depression as a crisis of faith, arguing instead that his despondency was provoked by legitimate covenantal grief over Israel's continued apostasy after the contest at Carmel. God's response — rest, food, a journey to Horeb, and a formal covenant lawsuit — vindicates the prophet and reveals the divine program of justice and grace through Hazael, Jehu, Elisha, and a reserved remnant of 7,000. The pastoral application is direct: faithful people suffer depression, and those who minister to them must respond with the same patience, kindness, and provision that Yahweh himself showed to Elijah.
Free Grace Baptist Church - October 7, 2018 AM
Acts 4:23–31 records the prayer of the apostolic church immediately after Peter and John were threatened by the Sanhedrin and commanded to stop preaching in the name of Jesus Christ. The sermon examines the structure of that prayer — its invocation of God as sovereign Creator, its exposition of Psalm 2 as prophetic warrant for the opposition Christ and his people face, and its petition for boldness in proclamation — showing how the church's confidence rested not on political calculation but on the certainty that God's decree governs even the rage of rulers against his anointed. The congregation is called to pray Scripture back to God, to find stability in the doctrines of creation and divine sovereignty, and to expect and endure opposition to the gospel without retreating from the duty of proclamation.
Genesis 8:1-22
Genesis 8 records the abatement of the flood, the exit of Noah's family from the ark, and God's covenantal promise never again to destroy every living creature by water. The chapter is structured as a mirror image of chapter 7: everything that came upon the earth in judgment now reverses in restoration. Noah's first act upon leaving the ark is not to secure food or shelter but to build an altar and offer burnt offerings — the response of a man who walks with God by grace through faith. God's promise in verses 21–22 establishes what will be developed in chapter 9 as the Noahic Covenant, a common-grace covenant that stabilises the created order so that God's redemptive purposes may unfold until Christ comes to deal definitively with sin.
Genesis 7:1-24
Genesis 7 records the command to enter the ark and the arrival of the floodwaters — a worldwide, catastrophic judgment of God upon all flesh outside the ark, and a sovereign act of divine preservation for Noah and his household. The flood is not myth or moral fable but datable history, rooted in the protoevangelium of Genesis 3:15: God preserves the seed of the woman so that Messiah may come. Noah's righteousness did not merit God's grace; rather, grace preceded and produced the faith that issued in obedience, with justification preceding sanctification — a pattern consistent throughout both Testaments. The ark stands as a type of Christ, the refuge for all of God's Noahs, and the passage calls believers to the same costly, faithful obedience Noah displayed in a faithless world.
Free Grace Baptist Church - September 19, 2018 Bible Study
Genesis 6:8–22 presents the flood narrative not primarily as natural history but as a theological tableau of human depravity, divine justice, and sovereign grace. The passage establishes a foundational biblical pattern: grace precedes and produces righteous conduct, so that Noah is not found righteous because he earned grace, but rather found blameless because God first granted him grace. The sermon traces the stark literary contrast between Noah, a man made just by divine mercy, and an earth filled with corruption and violence ripe for God's wrathful judgment, while drawing typological connections between Noah as a second Adam and the Ark as a figure of Christ, the shelter from divine wrath. Hearers are called to recognise that the same grace operative in Noah is the only distinction between the redeemed and the condemned, and to remain faithful in a faithless generation by looking beyond present trials to the God who sovereignly guides his people through judgment to life.
Livestream - Baptism: Wim Kerkhoff
Acts 8:26–40 records the conversion and baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch, and this exposition sets that account against its Old Testament backdrop in Isaiah 53 and Isaiah 56 to show that what is happening is not merely one man's conversion but the fulfillment of covenant promises: the inclusion of those doubly excluded from the assembly of Israel. The sermon works through three movements — the divine appointment of the contact, the gospel communication beginning from Isaiah 53, and the conversion issuing in immediate baptism upon confession of faith. The central application is that God is characteristically and eagerly a saving God, that believers' baptism follows faith as its ordained external sign, and that no sinner — whether powerful or poor, crisis-converted or quietly brought to faith — is beyond the reach of sovereign grace.
Genesis 6:1-8
Genesis 6:1–8 presents some of the most contested verses in the Pentateuch alongside some of the clearest. The identity of the 'sons of God' in verses 1–4 has generated three major interpretive traditions — angelic beings, tyrannical rulers, and the godly line of Seth intermarrying with the ungodly line of Cain — and the sermon surveys each view while favouring the Sethite interpretation without demanding confessional certainty on it. Verses 5–8 then deliver an unambiguous portrait of universal human depravity and the righteous judgment of God, interpreted through the theological categories of anthropomorphism and anthropopathism to guard the immutability and impassibility of God against misreading. The sermon closes by showing that grace precedes conduct in Noah's case, establishing the pattern that runs through all of Scripture: God's sovereign grace produces the righteousness it requires.
The Apostolic Address to the Council
Peter's address to the Sanhedrin in Acts 4:5–12 is examined under three headings: the declaration of the name of Jesus Christ as the power behind the healing of the lame man, the prophetic witness drawn from Psalm 118:22, and the exclusive sufficiency of that name for salvation. The sermon argues that Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, does not merely defend himself before the council but effectively places his persecutors on trial, indicting them for rejecting the chief cornerstone while simultaneously holding out the gospel to them. The exclusivity of Christ as the only name under heaven given for salvation is pressed against religious pluralism and any notion that sinners must achieve moral readiness before coming to Christ — the call is simply to hear and believe.
Genesis 5:1-32
Genesis 5 presents the genealogy of Adam through the godly line of Seth, tracing the covenant community from creation to Noah and ultimately to the Lord Jesus Christ. The relentless refrain 'and he died' across eight patriarchs confirms the execution of the curse pronounced in Genesis 3, while the singular exception of Enoch — who walked with God and was translated without death — serves as a visible foretaste of resurrection and eternal life. Walking with God, as Enoch's life demonstrates, is not reserved for extraordinary vocations but is the calling of every believer in every station of life, actuated by faith in Christ and ordered by the law of God as the rule of life.
The First Murder
Genesis 4:1–16 records the first fratricide in human history, and this exposition reads that account as a theological document revealing the rapid escalation of sin from the fall in chapter 3. Cain's rejection is traced not to his vocation as a farmer but to his faithlessness — Abel's offering was accepted because it was offered in faith (Hebrews 11:4), while Cain's externalism and lack of genuine faith made his sacrifice an abomination. God's patient, gracious overtures to Cain before the murder underscore divine long-suffering, while Cain's murder of Abel illustrates the antithesis of Genesis 3:15 — the seed of the serpent attacking the seed of the woman — and the sermon closes by setting the blood of Abel, which cries out for condemnation, against the blood of Jesus, which speaks forgiveness.
Free Grace Baptist Church - August 19, 2018 AM
Acts 3:17–21 grounds the call to repentance in three realities: the culpable yet not innocent ignorance of those who crucified the Lord of glory, the sovereign plan of God who overruled their wickedness to fulfill all that the prophets foretold concerning a suffering Messiah, and the rich blessings promised to all who repent and turn to God — the blotting out of sins, times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord, and the ongoing presence of Christ with his church by Word and Spirit until the restoration of all things. The sermon presses the hearer, whether long-churched or unconverted, to cease the willful ignorance that resists the scriptural testimony to Jesus Christ and to come to him as the only one who gives rest to sin-burdened souls.
The Consequences of the Fall
Genesis 3:14–24 records the divine sentences upon the serpent, the woman, and the man after the fall, but within those judgments God announces the first gospel promise. The Proto-Evangelion of verse 15 — that the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent — is the programmatic nucleus of all subsequent redemptive history, finding its fulfilment in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Headship and labor, often misread as punishments of the fall, are shown to be pre-fall ordinances whose distortion, not existence, is the consequence of sin. The sermon closes with the coats of skin as an enacted prophecy of blood atonement and the expulsion from Eden as a mercy that preserves fallen man until the Second Adam secures permanent access to the tree of life.
The Sermon in Solomon's Porch, Part 2
Peter's sermon in Solomon's Porch confronts Jerusalem sinners with the necessity of repentance, pressing three realities upon them: their ignorance was willful, not innocent; God's sovereign providence overruled even their wickedness in crucifying Christ to fulfill all that the prophets foretold; and the call to repent and turn carries with it the promised blessings of sins blotted out, times of refreshing from the Lord's presence, and the indwelling presence of Christ by Spirit and Word until the restoration of all things. The exposition of Acts 3:17–21 drives toward a direct appeal: those burdened with sin must repent and turn to Christ, the only one in whom those blessings are found.
The Fall of Man
Genesis 3:1–13 confronts the reader with the anatomy of humanity's first rebellion against God: the serpent's subtle theological assault on God's word, the creature's willing capitulation, and the sinner's instinctive flight from the Creator. The sermon traces three movements — the temptation to sin (vv. 1–5), the fall into sin (vv. 6–7), and the reckoning with God (vv. 8–13) — showing how Satan's tactics in Eden (insinuating doubt about God's word, denying divine judgment, impugning divine goodness) remain the pattern of every temptation. The doctrines of federal headship, original sin, and divine sovereignty over the fall are drawn out from the text, and the Adam-Christ parallel of Romans 5 frames the only remedy: the skull-crushing seed of the woman who succeeds where Adam failed.
The Healing of the Lame Man
Acts 3:1–10 records the healing of a man lame from birth at the gate called Beautiful, and this exposition argues that the miracle is not an isolated wonder but a typological and redemptive event that displays the name and power of Jesus Christ while setting the stage for apostolic gospel proclamation. The man's condition — congenital, public, and long-standing — ensures that the miracle is conspicuous and undeniable, functioning to authenticate the apostles as God's spokesmen and to magnify the glory of the enthroned Christ. The church's calling, illustrated by Peter's declaration that he possesses no silver or gold but only the name of Christ, is the proclamation of the gospel and the forgiveness of sins, not the amelioration of every temporal need society presents. Those genuinely conquered by sovereign grace, like the healed man, are marked by worship, praise, and desire for the public means of grace.
A Psalm of the Cross
Psalm 22 is a prophetic psalm of David that transcends David's own experience to describe with precision the suffering, death, and exaltation of the Messiah. The sermon examines the cry of dereliction ('My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?') with theological care, rejecting the notion that the Father abandoned the Son in any way that ruptured the Trinity or dissolved the hypostatic union, and instead grounding the forsakenness in the Son's substitutionary bearing of the wrath due his people. Three features of Messianic confidence sustain Christ through his ordeal — the holiness of God, the past faithfulness of God, and the invoked presence of God — and the congregation is called to meet their own trials with the same theological ballast that sustained the Savior on the cross.
Free Grace Baptist Church - August 5, 2018 AM
Acts 3:1–26 presents the healing of the lame man at the Beautiful Gate as both a sovereign act of grace and a type of spiritual restoration — the same word that restored the man's limbs pierces the soul and raises the spiritually dead to everlasting life. The sermon works through three movements: the setting of the miracle (vv. 1–2), its execution (vv. 3–7), and the response it provoked (vv. 8–10), before drawing out Peter's sermon in the portico of Solomon. Central to the exposition is the claim that the church's primary calling is the proclamation of Christ crucified and risen, not the amelioration of temporal needs — silver and gold the apostles did not have, but what they had they gave. The congregation is exhorted to treasure the public means of grace, to repent and believe, and to expect that those truly conquered by grace will be worshippers, not merely debaters.
Genesis 4:16-26
Genesis 4:16–26 traces two diverging lines from Adam: the ungodly line of Cain, marked by escalating sin, polygamy, and bloodlust, and the godly line of Seth, which ends with men calling on the name of the Lord. The passage raises questions about cultural achievement, common grace, and the preservation of God's people in the midst of rampant wickedness. Eve's naming of Seth reveals genuine covenant faith in the promise of Genesis 3:15, trusting that God would yet raise up the seed of the woman. The sermon calls believers to grow in faith as those who possess not only the promise of the Redeemer but its fulfillment in Christ.
Genesis 4:9-16
Genesis 4:9–16 records the arraignment, indictment, and punishment of Cain following the murder of Abel — the first trial and sentencing in Scripture. The passage exposes the pattern of sin's progression: outright denial before God, arrogant rhetoric, and complaint against righteous punishment rather than repentance. God's response demonstrates that He prizes human life even after death, that undealt-with guilt produces consuming fear, and that sin drives man ever further from the presence of the Lord.
The Believer's Race
Hebrews 12:1 calls the people of God to run the Christian race with endurance, laying aside every weight and entangling sin. This sermon expounds the first of three incentives the author of Hebrews sets before believers: the great cloud of witnesses from Hebrews 11, who function not as spectators watching the runner, but as witnesses testifying to the faithfulness of God through every trial and affliction. Drawing on Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, David, Job, Habakkuk, and the martyrs Polycarp and Thomas Hawkes, the sermon presses believers to receive the unanimous testimony of the saints — that God is faithful, God sustains runners, and God will bring them through to the end — and to run without quitting, because the Christian life is a marathon requiring daily faithfulness, not a glamorous sprint.
Genesis 4:1-8
Genesis 4:1–8 records the first brothers, the first offerings, and the first murder — and the passage exposes the difference between formal religious observance and genuine faith. The divine acceptance of Abel and rejection of Cain is explained not by vocation, bloodshed, or agricultural produce, but by Hebrews 11:4: by faith Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice, bearing witness that he was righteous before God. Cain's anger, falling countenance, and ultimate fratricide demonstrate that heartless, faithless worship produces not repentance but escalating sin. The study closes with the warning that sin is never dormant or manageable — its desire is always to rule over those who refuse to come to God in faith through Christ.
Genesis 3:17-24
Genesis 3:17–24 confronts the reader with the full weight of the curse upon Adam and the ground, but the passage is finally a text of hope. The consequences imposed upon Adam — the ground cursed, toil unrelenting, and death certain — do not obliterate God's redemptive purpose announced in verse 15; they preserve the race through which the promised seed will come. Adam's faith-filled naming of Eve, God's provision of animal-skin tunics foreshadowing blood atonement, and the merciful expulsion from the tree of life are all acts of divine grace that anticipate the whole subsequent history of redemption, culminating in the Lord Jesus Christ's decisive conquest of the devil.
Genesis 3:14-24
Genesis 3:14–24 records the consequences of the fall, and the heart of this study is the protoevangelium of Genesis 3:15 — the first gospel promise in Scripture. God's curse upon the serpent contains within it an announcement of the Messiah: the seed of the woman who would crush the serpent's head, accomplishing total victory through suffering and death. The sermon traces this skull-crushing seed through the biblical narrative — from the typological head-wounds of Judges and David's defeat of Goliath, to New Testament fulfillment in Colossians, Hebrews, 1 John, and Revelation 12 — demonstrating that the cross of Christ is the decisive blow against the devil foreshadowed in Eden. The study closes by examining the consequences for the woman and the man in verses 16–19, situating the tensions of marriage and labor in a post-lapsarian world that Christ's redemptive work is already beginning to address.
Free Grace Baptist Church - June 13, 2018 Bible Study
Genesis 3:1–13 records the temptation and fall of Adam and Eve, events that form the theological foundation for the whole of redemptive history. The sermon traces three movements: the serpent's subtle assault on the veracity, goodness, and security of God in verses 1–5; the fall itself and its immediate consequences in verses 6–7; and God's gracious interrogation of the guilty pair in verses 8–13. The anatomy of temptation displayed in Eden — doubt cast on God's word, denial of divine sanctions, and the lure of autonomous wisdom — is the same pattern by which sin operates in every generation, making a firm grip on Scripture the believer's only sufficient defense.
The Exaltation of Christ
Peter's Pentecost sermon in Acts 2:33–36 reaches its climax in the exaltation of Christ to the right hand of the Father. This exposition works through three movements: the supreme dignity conferred on Christ at his ascension, the fulfillment of Psalm 110:1 as ancient prophecy now openly vindicated, and the unavoidable implication for guilty hearers that this Jesus whom they crucified is both Lord and Christ. The current session of Christ — his ongoing reign, intercession, gathering of the church, and conquest of every enemy — is pressed as the ground of the believer's confidence and the urgent call for the unconverted to repent and call upon the name of the Lord.